John woke slowly, feeling disoriented as he stared up at the ceiling of the infirmary. The last thirty hours or so were a bit of a haze but when he tried to concentrate on what had happened, it left him feeling sick to his stomach, and heart-hurt. He vaguely remembered meeting Chaya, and showing her around the city. Talking with her. Kissing her. That last was the most distressing for him because how could that have happened? How was it possible for him to not remember being bonded to Rodney? To have all the feelings for Rodney basically be transferred to Chaya? How could he have hurt the one person who mattered most to him so much? Betray him the way he had? It wasn’t in him to cheat. It rankled him on a level so deep that he wasn’t sure whether he could ever forgive himself for what happened.
Running a hand over his mouth, he thought that it would serve him right if Rodney never forgave him for it. He should have known something was wrong. He should have listened to the man. Hadn’t Rodney tried to tell him again and again that something was amiss? And he had dismissed him, gotten angry with him. God, but he was an idiot. Especially when he decided to chase after the woman even after it had been proven Rodney had been right. Of course, he hadn’t heard all the evidence yet at the time. Yet he clearly recalled Rodney radioing him, pleading with him not to go after her. Not to leave him.
John had no real idea how he had even made it back to Atlantis, truth be told. The last thing he remembered at all was going through the gate and engaging the Wraith. Chaya coming to him in the jumper and telling him to leave. Him landing and searching for her. Finding her in the monastery and then… just bright light enveloping him. The next thing he knew, he’d woken up here. He turned his head, ready to call for Carson or Mac, only to see Rodney sitting by the bed, asleep. John’s heart ached at the sight of the man, his eyes stinging with the remorse he felt. “Rodney?” he called softly, his voice breaking.
Rodney jerked awake, instantly alert. “John! You’re awake. Finally. We were so worried.” He looked as if he wanted to reach out, but wasn’t sure whether he would be welcomed, which only made John feel worse.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Rodney. I never meant-” John’s throat tightened and he couldn’t speak anymore. Instead, he held out his hand, half invitation, half begging. The relief he felt when Rodney climbed into bed with him overwhelmed him. Burrowing his face into the other man’s neck, he clung tight, afraid that if he let go, he would lose him. He kept whispering, “I’m sorry,” over and over again.
Rodney remained quiet, holding him, stroking his back, soothing him like nothing else could. John knew he didn’t deserve it, but he was grateful for it. After several minutes, John calmed down enough to pull away slightly, eyes searching Rodney’s as he murmured, “What happened? Do you know?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Rodney glanced away briefly. This was much harder than he thought it would be. After all, he knew the reason for the bond’s breaking. For John’s return. He knew in his head that none of it had been John’s fault and part of him was overjoyed to have him in his arms again. Yet another part was still reeling. Still afraid that this wouldn’t last, no matter what anyone told him. Part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to or even could forgive the other man for Chaya.
But John didn’t know everything, so he cleared his throat and met John’s gaze. The guilt and pain he saw reflected at him nearly broke Rodney all over again. “Yes, John. I know.” Well, he sort of did. There were still a few spots that weren’t entirely clear.
“Please, Rodney. I need to know. Tell me?” John’s voice was barely audible, and Rodney could tell his mate was afraid of what was coming. That struck him because John was never afraid. Not really. Except now, he was.
Licking his lips, Rodney took John’s hand and entwined their fingers as he began to explain, starting from the beginning. John didn’t speak a word, just lay listening to it all. Anguish, hurt, anger all played across his face. When he got to the part of John leaving the city, he paused, needing to push aside the stab of pain he felt as he relived it.
“I’m so sorry, Rodney,” John started again, but Rodney pressed a fingers against his lips to silence him.
“I know.” Clearing his throat again, he closed his eyes a moment before taking up the story where he had left off. “Carson had just shown me the results of the DNA tests he had retaken. John, I don’t know how she did it, or even really why, but she changed you. She changed your soul bond so it matched hers, breaking ours in the process.”
John shook as if he’d been hit, his eyes wide as they frantically searched his. “Is it-? Did she-?”
Cupping John’s cheek, Rodney tried to smile reassuringly at him, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was. “Shh. Let me finish, please? I’ll get back to that in a minute, okay?”
John frowned, nodding.
Taking a deep breath, Rodney murmured, “Thanks. Okay, so Carson had just shown the results to me and I tried to stop you from going after Chaya but you weren’t listening to me. You just left without a word. We tried opening the gate again to hail you, but there was no reply. Elizabeth had Evan’s team get ready to go after you, retrieve you if possible but before they could gate out, we had an incoming wormhole. There was no IDC, no communication, nothing. There was a bit of a panic because the shield wouldn’t activate, so several of your men scrambled into defensive positions while I tried to get the shield to work again.”
Rodney scowled, still not liking the fact they had been so vulnerable. Radek had already run diagnostics and found nothing wrong with the system, which somehow made it worse.
“So who was it?” John prompted, looking concerned.
“Oh. You, actually. The jumper came through and docked on its own. When we went to meet it, we found you inside, unconscious. Mac and his team got you up here and he and Carson have been running a battery of tests since.”
“Me?” John looked confused. “How could I have flown the ship? The last thing I remember is bright white lights swirling all around me, and then waking up here. I have no clue what happened between me leaving Atlantis and now.”
Rodney looked away briefly. “You didn’t fly the jumper back, John. We did find you in it, but you were laid out in the back compartment. No one flew it.”
John sat up suddenly, eyes wide and mouth agape. “What?! How is that possible?”
Rodney sat up as well and shrugged. “I don’t know, John. We tried to go to Proculus to get some answers, but the gate will no longer lock on the address.”
Pulling up a leg, John rested his elbow on his knee, hand lodged in his hair as he thought. “I really don’t remember anything after leaving here beyond the whole white light thing,” he murmured. Glancing at Rodney, he added in an even quieter voice, “Our bond?”
Rodney thought for a minute. “Carson and Mac have run our DNA again, twice just to make sure. Whatever happened to you on Proculus, it seems to have fixed our bond.”
John watched him carefully. “And what about us?” He looked almost afraid of the answer.
Rodney glanced down at his hands, not quite able to meet his eyes. “I know it wasn’t your fault. I know that. Whatever Chaya did to mess with our bond, she also tampered with your memories. Carson found evidence of it in a brain scan he did, and compared to one you had done a while back after you were injured on a mission.”
“But?” John prodded hesitantly.
Raising his eyes, he half-shrugged. “But it hurt, John. It really, really hurt and… this soul bond thing apparently isn’t the guarantee we were made to believe it to be.” He didn’t know if he would be able to get past it all. He had never had anything like this thing he had with John before in his life, and he had opened himself to the other man like he never had before. He was afraid to let himself be that vulnerable again but at the same time, he ached for what they had had before Chaya.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Dr. Weir,” Evan said, his eyes locked on the ancient, gray-haired woman in the stasis pod. “There’s something down here you need to see. Drs. McKay and Beckett, too.”
“What is it, Major?” Elizabeth asked, sounding distracted.
“Ma’am, I think I found an Ancient,” he said cautiously.
“Beg your pardon?” She sounded more alert now, which made Evan smile a little.
“I said, I think I’ve found an Ancient. I’m looking at a woman in what appears to be a stasis pod. From what I can tell, she’s still alive, but no idea for how much longer. She looks… pretty fragile.”
“Copy that, Major. I’ll have them meet us there.”
While Evan and his team waited for the others to arrive, he studied the woman. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn’t quite place it. He had to admit, he was a little freaked out at finding her here. How had they missed her on any of the scans? He shook his head. Rodney could probably explain that to him, and no doubt would even without prompting.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Carson, she’s awake,” John whispered, nudging his friend to get his attention. He’d been allowed out of bed for now, but he hadn’t been released from the infirmary yet. He had been amazed when Evan’s team had rolled the old woman in and settled her in the back of the room that they could section off.
Carson took her blood pressure and scribbled a few notes on her chart. “How are you feeling, lass?” he asked quietly, shining a light into her eyes before jotting down another note.
“Carson, it’s good to see you.” Her voice was reed thin, but also familiar, John thought. She turned her face and looked right at him, smiling. “And you, John. It’s been so long.”
Wait? What? John and Carson shared a look of shock, but when they turned back to her, she had fallen asleep again. She woke a couple of times, only a few minutes here and there before succumbing to sleep again, never with enough of a chance to find out any real information. Carson had Mac run her DNA, as the only real thing she had managed was a claim that she was Elizabeth Weir.
Crossing his arms, John frowned down at her. “Can’t you do anything about that? It’d be nice to actually have a conversation with the woman.”
Carson huffed. “She’s old, Major. What did you expect? According to the logs Rodney found, she’s been in that pod for over ten thousand years. I’d like to see how coherent you are after being alive for that long.”
“Fair point, but still.”
Mac walked up to them, handing Carson a tablet. “Here, you’ll want to see those for yourself. I even ran the test twice to make sure.” To John, he added, “How are you holding up, by the way? Remember anything yet?”
John’s lips thinned as he shook his head. “No. Nothing. And I don’t like it at all.”
Mac chuckled. “I’d be surprised if you did, John.”
“I don’t believe this,” Carson whispered. He looked up at John. “She really is her. The DNA is a match. No doubt about it at all.”
“Okay, Carson, now you really need to find a way to keep her alert for longer. We need answers while she’s still around to give them to us.”
“Now look here, lad, I can’t just go and give her a stimulant. The shock might kill her! I’m surprised she made it through being woken the way she did.”
Elizabeth – their Elizabeth – put a hand on Carson’s shoulder. None of them had heard her approach. “Carson, it’s okay. I heard what you said about the DNA. If she is me, then she can handle it.” She held up a hand to stop the doctor from protesting. “And I know she would want it.” She gave him a pointed look, daring him to argue her point.
With a sigh, he relented and went to get the stimulant. Once he had administered it to her, he warned them that he didn’t know how well it would take, given her condition. Rodney showed up a couple of minutes later, just in time for Elizabeth-one – that’s what he would call her in his head, John decided – to wake up. Carson fussed over her for a bit, but once he was assured that she was okay, he allowed them to ask her questions.
John smiled fondly as Rodney immediately began spouting questions, his excitement obvious to everyone. “How did you get back there? Tell us everything, from the moment you arrived there to all your interactions with the Ancients. It’d really-”
“Rodney,” Elizabeth said quietly. He paused, blinking at her. She smiled. “Let me talk?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry.” He blushed and stepped back, looking embarrassed.
John stepped closer to him, wanting to hold the man but he settled for grasping his hand instead. He still wasn’t entirely sure where they stood, as Rodney had been called away before they could finish their conversation. Rodney shot him a pleased, if surprised look. John really hoped they could work things out and find their way back to where they had been before this whole mess had started. If there had been any way for him to take back what had happened, to keep Rodney from getting hurt, he would have done it in a heartbeat.
“It was an accident,” Elizabeth-one said, her voice still sounded brittle, but she kept talking, only taking short breaks to catch her breath or take a drink. She explained all about how the first time, the city’s shields had failed and everyone but Radek, John, and herself had drowned. When she mentioned Rodney sacrificing himself to save them, John’s insides turned to ice. Rodney himself seemed shaken by the news, too.
“The ship we were in… it was different from the others. When John tried to take off, something happened. A flash, and then we were under attack. We had no idea who was shooting at us or why. The jumper crashed into the ocean after it got hit and the next thing I remember is waking up here.”
“Now?” Rodney asked, sounding disappointed.
“No, then. A man named Janus saved me, healed me. He explained what had happened. Told me about the Wraith.”
“Yes, yes, we already know about them, in fact-” Rodney started, seemingly unable to help himself.
John leaned in, whispering, “Rodney, not now.”
He looked abashed, mumbling an apology. Elizabeth-one smiled indulgently at him. “I’ve missed you, Rodney,” which caused him to blush.
“Janus tried to talk to their council, to convince them to help me get back to my own time but they refused. They sanctioned him for having disobeyed their orders by making the time travel device in the first place. Janus and I spent a lot of time together. He was intent on helping us any way he could from ten thousand years in my past. He told me what his plan was, explained how everything worked. How he would keep me safe.”
John smiled softly at her. “Looks like he succeeded.”
“Yes, he did. During our many, many conversations, Janus told me about his people. Their culture. Their history. He was as surprised to learn that we didn’t have soulmates as I was to hear the Lanteans did.”
Everyone shifted, curious. John no less so as he listened intently while Elizabeth-one shared everything she had learned. “Janus told me that the soul bond goes above everything. They held it sacred to the point where it was considered the worst of crimes to tamper with a bond, punished most severely as soon as it was found out.”
John cast a pained look at Rodney who was gazing at a point about a foot above Elizabeth-one’s head.
“He said that the soul bond was considered a gift of their lineage, which was why he found it curious that they didn’t exist for us. He said we were their second evolution, and that therefore the soul bonds should exist.”
“But they do, lass,” interrupted Carson. She blinked up at him. He smiled softly at her, patting her arm. “Sorry, lass, I didn’t mean to cut you off. But soul bonds do exist among us, though only those with the ATA gene have them.”
Her face brightened in delight. “So it isn’t lost?”
“No, lass, it’s not. But please, continue,” Carson urged.
John wondered how much of that was due to Elizabeth-one telling Janus about the non-existent soul bonds among her people. He understood enough about time travel to know that while she shared their Elizabeth’s DNA, she was not one of ‘them’ anymore, that her journey back through time had created an alternate universe. He had a sudden mental image of Janus stepping through the gate back to Earth ten thousand years earlier and going on his merry way, planting his seed among Earth’s denizens in order to spread the ATA legacy as far as he could.
Elizabeth-one grasped Elizabeth’s hand, an urgent look in her eyes. “Did you find the note? I had a note and a crystal when I went to sleep, did you find it?”
Rodney nodded. “Yes, we did and I wanted to ask you about that,” he started, but Elizabeth-one talked over him.
“They’re gate addresses of outposts.” She paused. “They should have fully powered ZPMs in them.”
Rodney bounced on the balls of his feet, turning to John and talking rapidly. “John, we’ve been to one of them already! We can go there and-”
John grabbed the man’s arm in an effort to calm him down. “Easy, Rodney. We will, I promise, but let’s hear what else she has to say before we start planning a field trip, okay?”
“Oh, oh! Yes, of course. Sorry.”
Elizabeth-one took a labored breath, her eyes intent on Carson. “The crystal Janus made for you, Carson. He copied all the information on the soul bonds on them. He said he hoped it would prove useful, though at the time I didn’t understand. I think I do, now.” She shot John a knowing glance and he thought that maybe she had had a similar idea as he had about Janus if the hint of mischief was any indication. “The histories, the experiments, the research, everything you’ll need to know about should be on there. He encrypted it. The last line on the note… it isn’t just a gate address, it is the key.”
Rodney apparently couldn’t stop himself and immediately launched theories on what they might find, utterly engrossed by the possibility of new discoveries to be made. New information to be had. A surefire lure for him if ever there was one, John thought fondly. While everyone’s attention had turned briefly to the over-excited scientist, the machine monitoring Elizabeth-one’s heart started beeping in alarm. Carson did his best to revive her, but she was gone.
Elizabeth tenderly took her hand in hers and quietly said goodbye. John placed a hand on her shoulder, murmuring, “I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
She shook her head, smiling sadly. “Don’t be. She did what she intended to do. Now it is up to us to make the best of it.”
John nodded and allowed Rodney to prod him back into his own bed while Mac and Carson prepared Elizabeth-one’s body for cremation. Elizabeth said that was what she would want, so they were going with that. It still seemed a little freaky to John and he couldn’t imagine what she must be going through, but he admired her for how well she was taking it all.
The two men sat in silence for a moment until the infirmary calmed down again and they were basically alone. John wanted to talk to his mate, but the words wouldn’t come. Before John could make up his mind to do anything about it, Rodney spoke softly, his gaze firmly fixed on his clasped hands. “So do you think that the Ancients stepped in? I mean, if what Elizabeth said is true and the Lanteans held a soul bond sacred above all else… I know they have the whole ‘do not interfere with the mortal realms’ thing going on, but I’ve heard of them stopping one of their own before.”
John tilted his head, mulling it over. “Possibly. I mean, they can do pretty much whatever they want, right?” he asked quietly.
Rodney nodded, finally meeting his gaze. His eyes flashed with anger and hurt as he bit out, “I hope they punished her for what she did. I hope they could. She basically stole you from me, John!”
“I know, baby, and I’m sorry.” He held out his hand, hoping Rodney would let him try to comfort him. He let out a slow breath of relief when Rodney climbed into bed with him and wrapped himself around John, with his head on his shoulder. John kissed the top of Rodney’s head, savoring the feel of his mate in his arms again.
Rodney sighed. “I can’t think of a single other explanation for what happened with you. I’ve been going over it again and again in my mind. I’m pretty sure she sensed your gene the minute we arrived on the planet. And I think she began changing you the second she touched you. It was quick, too, and none of us realized. At least not at the time. I don’t ever want to feel that again, John,” he confessed.
John wasn’t sure what to say. It was obvious to him that he couldn’t very well promise it would never happen again because he had had no say whatsoever in it happening this time. If another Ancient decided they wanted to interfere in spite of their rules, there would be nothing John or Rodney could do about it. Still, he hoped it would never happen again, either. “I know,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to, either.” And that was the truth.
“The white lights, the shield malfunctioning when it did, the jumper flying itself back into Atlantis. The address being locked. That has to be their doing. Nothing else makes any sense.”
John silently agreed with him. They lay like that for a while longer until eventually they both dozed off. The last thing through John’s mind was the fleeting thought that maybe, things between them would work out after all.
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