Fic: Blood Union
Mar. 4th, 2009 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
so_jangTitle: Blood Union
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oparu
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Elizabeth/John
Warning(s): smut (non-graphic)
Prompt: Alternative s4 fic - John + Elizabeth were both captured, and must escape the Asuran homeworld together."
Summary: That which was Elizabeth Weir can no more die than live alone.
Beta The fabulouscrayonbreakygal with the last minute save when my beta got busy. ;) Any mistakes remaining are mine.
Disclaimer: SGA does not belong to me.
A/N: Late! *hangs head* (sorry all. Thought I had a beta and it didn't work out) I really have no excuses but hey, someone had to be last.
Considering the vast array of human vices, Doctor Elizabeth Weir was almost disappointed that sadism seemed to be the only one the Asurans indulged. They had a deep-seated greed for more of the Pegasus galaxy. Their pride in their superiority was determined if misguided. They flirted with wrath and hatred, but only their desire to inflict pain was something they had down to an art.
Elizabeth should have been alone facing the Asurans. She could have handled it that way. She was the aberration, barely human anymore, that thing which no longer had right to draw breath. John was meant to be safe back on Atlantis. The jumper had been right there; Rodney and Ronon close enough that they could have dragged John back to the jumper if she’d let them. Ronon’s scream of hatred had cut through the corridor like the bray of a dying beast. Living behind his pupils, Rodney’s pain was a demon possessing him. A creature that would know no satiation because Elizabeth couldn’t allow him to risk himself. Rodney could follow orders and that had saved his life. John was a determined, self-sacrificial idiot and he was dying in her arms for his nobility.
When he’d run towards her, resolved to save her no matter the cost to himself, Elizabeth’s superior, nanite-enhanced senses recorded each nanosecond of his death charge in perfect clarity. When she brought it to mind, she could see the blue disruptor blast move through the air so slowly it looked like it was floating. The delicate ball of energy slammed into John’s chest in slow motion, scorching the cloth of his uniform. When his T-shirt turned to ash, the flesh beneath boiled before it began to char. The muscle of his chest stunk like burned meat before the disruptor sank through to the bone. The cartilage and connecting tissues of his ribcage stunk like burnt leather. Elizabeth’s newly amplified hearing made the hiss of air fleeing his lung an explosion against her eardrums.
When he fell, knees hitting first, arms limp like ropes, he was unable to stop his face from slamming into the deck. The crunch of his nose as the bone broke against the hard metal deck seared into her memory with a force that stung her eyes. Each moment since then, each second of life where his heart foolishly continued to beat, was duly noted and filed into her memory. Flashes of sensation and images that held no meaning, though they would be remembered until the silicon pathways of her nanites turned to dust.
The Asurans had no interest in him. He was simply human and Elizabeth wondered if she should be grateful they were letting him die with her instead of leaving him to die alone. The nanites in her hands, she couldn’t yet bear to think of them as part of her, registered the fluctuations in John’s bioelectric field as a curiosity. She knew he was dying.
Blood had stopped running from his chest and nose. The left side of his chest, the only part with a functioning lung, barely moved. Air slipped sluggishly through his lips, but they were bluish. Her face was wet but tears seemed part of her former life. Her human life was over. She lived only as a tainted thing, no longer allowed the luxuries of emotion. Her tears gleamed silver on his face. The damn nanites, the plague that suffused her being, wouldn’t even allow her the solace of grief.
Reaching out to brush the nanites away, force the vile things off of his skin so he could die in peace, Elizabeth would have missed what she saw if it weren’t for her own enhancements. In the flashes of her perfect vision, a frame by frame computer-like precision that recorded each instant of time, she saw the nanites in her tears sink into his skin. Human eyes would have seen the nanites disappear but Elizabeth was no longer human.
Staring down, Elizabeth watched the part of the bruise disappear. The skin beneath his right eye, skin that had been black with dead blood and dying cells, was pink and healthy again in a radius the size of a fingertip. Licking her fingertip, she watched the nanites sparkle in her saliva before she ran it across the split skin of his lip. Regenerating as she watched, John’s lip became whole.
Bending down over him, Elizabeth, what was human in her still, remembered how it had felt when her body had kissed his before. Through the anger and raging hatred in Phebus, she’d felt John’s lips melt with hers. Even as one of her old, imperfect human memories, it sang in her mind like a heavenly chord. When she kissed him now, the half-robot prince to his dying beauty, each iota of the experience became part of history.
Kissing a sleeping man always had a certain rush of control, Elizabeth remembered. He was vulnerable and his mouth had to be treated as such. The bruised, torn flesh on the insides of his cheeks healed as her tongue found them. His upper lip and the tissue running into the base of his nose were more stubborn. He needed more.
Tearing her hands through her hair, Elizabeth stroked his forehead and wondered if he would rather die than become like her. She was no longer what she had been, but on some level she was alive. Was it better than death? Tracing her fingers down his chest, she held them over the burnt hole. His bioelectric field was failing but his mind was intact. If he were conscious, she could give him the choice, but she had no way to bring him around.
Even the amount of nanites required to heal his broken nose would be an irreparable change. The John Sheppard who sat on her desk and brought her tuna salad sandwiches when she didn’t get out of her office for dinner, was already dead. His human body, her precious, limited perception of life was coming to a slow halt with his head resting in her lap. A residual, human sensation brought warmth into her chest. It was feeling, something as out of place as the tears she’d shed for John.
As a human, she hadn’t understood it. Elizabeth had been afraid of it and trapped herself in the thousands of reasons why she needed to be alone. Now she was a machine, a hybrid of blood and silver and she could live an eternity alone. She could let John’s heart stop and wait for her chance to escape from Oberoth and his minions. They would be persistent but she was eternal now. That which had been Elizabeth Weir could wait for her chance to be free again.
Musing that she’d never appreciated the simplicity of computers, she let her advanced mind calculate how much of her nanites he would need to survive. It was possible, difficult to remove that many from her body, but not beyond the limits of her capabilities. Letting John die was the right thing to do, Elizabeth knew. No one deserved to live this way, to be aware of the beautiful vulgarities of human feeling but doomed to experience them as strings of ones and zeros.
Kissing his forehead sentimentally, she smiled at the way his hair still refused to lie flat. Part of her would miss him, part of her hoped she’d forgive him and the rest was terribly jealous that he could do what she could not. John could die human. Her thumb touched his lip and she felt herself sigh. The motion was unnecessary, she wasn’t even sure she needed to breathe anymore, but it helped calm her.
His lip moved beneath her touch. Elizabeth tried to tell herself it was an involuntary reaction to stimulus and that there was no way, with his injuries, he could be conscious. Writing it off in her mind, she leaned back against the grey wall of her empty chamber and waited for him to die.
His lip moved again and suddenly his hand twitched against her leg. There was only a four percent chance that both of those motions were random side effects of his mental decay. He was trying to come awake. John was going down fighting. Elizabeth smiled as the switch occurred in her mind. John needed to live and he would be with her. She’d made a computational error. She couldn’t exist alone. Elizabeth needed a counterpart to make her whole.
The solution was surprisingly organic. Centering herself she diverted what she needed, fifteen percent of her complement of nanites, and removed them from her body. Wondering if he would appreciate the unique irony of the situation, Elizabeth carefully reached down her throat until she vomited. There was no acid in the fluid of her stomach, eating had become unnecessary, and the liquid was a brilliant silver-white. The nanites she’d expelled were suspended in a viscous mucus that clung to the sides of the wound in his chest. Waiting to retch again, she relished the visceral sensation. The way she was now, even the uncomfortable sensation of reverse peristalsis had new depth.
Vomiting into her hand, Elizabeth gently worked silver fluid into the ravaged skin of his nose. Letting it begin to work, she checked the hole in his chest and watched as the pink membrane of his lung moved through the slowly growing bone of his rib. His nanites would propagate within him, making him more than he had been. His nose was solid now, healthy and functioning again. John’s breathing was calm and steady. Her hand remained over his heart, feeling his bioelectric field change pitch as he became as she was.
He’d been her counterpart in a loosely human sense, now he was machine. John was all that completed her. The opposite that allowed for greater thought. Reaching for her, his hand settled over hers as his bioelectric field fell into harmony with her own.Pulling her down to kiss him, John’s eyes opened as their lips met. Nanites flowed between them, exchanging electric information as their cells traded the sensation of pleasure. John was completion and together they were the beginning.
Tearing off his shirt, Elizabeth bared his chest and ran the still damp palm of his hand down his stomach. Nanites responded as the hairs of his chest stood up. Flipping her up over him, he was more gentle with her tactical vest. Tossing it aside easily with one hand, John stripped her undershirt and watched the nanites shine silver as her body started to sweat. The perspiration would make the connection better and the shared pleasure of that thought made her hum with anticipation.
Their hands worked in tandem on the fastenings of their trousers. John’s came free first and sliding her wet hand into his boxers was like touching a live wire. Working her way down his dick, she teased it harder, using the conductive properties of the nanites to taunt him. Laughing as he pulled her trousers down her hips, John returned her attention. His fingers ran dry over her and slid wet on their way back. Electricity sang between them, heightening the sensations they hadn’t tried together in life.
In the mechanical half-death, sex was more than a blissful trading of bodily fluids, it was connection. Elizabeth brought their hands up together, pressing her chest to his before grinding her hips across his. John's hands were jolts of power along the skin of her back. Her bra felt like a dampening field and he helped her toss it away. His right hand reached down and through. Her body surged in response to the return of his fingers to her clit. Riding that current, Elizabeth brought him inside.
Pressing her tongue into his mouth, she felt the tingling wave of circuits completing between them. Tasting salt and electricity, Elizabeth’s tongue found his neck. The sweet spot at his shoulder momentarily interrupted the communication of his nanites, what passed for a groan, and she could feel the cascade of connections returning to his body. Riding the sensation of her own cleverness, Elizabeth let him take the initiative and lead her.
His hand clutched the blade of her shoulder, fingers moving as if he was typing on a keyboard. The adjustment would be easier for him. Her nanites, the creatures that swam in him and made him less than human, had been in her first and they would always know that. They were united, reciprocal parts of a new whole. The nanites bound them, communicating through the sweat of their skin, and they needed more of the medium.
Pulling apart from John reminded Elizabeth what pain had been like, she stood and stripped her trousers down over her boots. John was more practiced and kicked his boots off before he backed her into the wall. Kissing her knee as he bent to undo her boots, John’s fingers continued to tap out a phantom rhythm on the back of her thigh. Once free of her boots, John lifted her and pinned her between himself and the wall.
Elizabeth buried her head in his neck as she never had while she was alive. The cold Asuran metal made it easier to concentrate on him and the glorious meshing of their bodies. Sex was a human act, a nod to their shared past, but the newness of it made it bittersweet. Breathing was irrelevant, the nanites could supply oxygen for her cells, and the electricity between them was what mattered. Feeling the air shudder from her chest as his fingers continued to play, Elizabeth let the sensation remind her of simpler times.
Orgasm was a human experience, but the skip in the beat of her heart had the desired effect. For the eternity her nanites needed, Elizabeth was dead again, as she was meant to be. John’s return to death came later, but the rebooting was the same. Licking the sweat from the skin of her neck, he held her up to the wall and began to smile. Sinking down to stand barefoot and naked in the Asuran cell, Elizabeth rested her head against his chest and allowed herself the(herself the) superficial pleasure of his hands on her skin.
John nuzzled her hair while he processed the new data. The nanites in his body would need time to reproduce. Leaning against the metal wall behind her, Elizabeth let her nanites start taking it apart an atom at a time. Breaking atomic bonds took energy, altering her chemical structure to provide a gradient did not. John couldn’t do that yet but he would in time. For now, she could feed them both and pass the components through her skin to him. When they were ready, Oberoth wouldn’t know what had hit him.
“They call themselves the Union,” Teyla reported as she took the chair Colonel Sam Carter offered her. “The Niktuares-”
“-The people of M2R-474,” Rodney interrupted as he hovered behind her. The doctor was pacing, fidgeting with his vest and rifle as he completely failed to hide any of the emotion running through him.
“Niktuares,” Ronon corrected him with a nod. “Unless you want me to start calling you Usurpers of the City of Light,” he teased as he slumped into a chair next to Teyla. The Satedan was calm, as he usually appeared to Sam, and she’d found him to be an invaluable part of Teyla’s unusual team.
“According to my contacts,” Teyla continued while Sam waited patiently for her report. “The people of the Union travel in ships and are extremely generous with food and supplies. They ask for nothing in trade and rarely use the system of Stargates.”
Nodding in agreement as he stood politely at attention, Major Lorne supported her, “We were unable to get much information. Apparently the Union ships appeared in orbit nearly a minute after the Niktuares first saw the Wraith darts. When we arrived, all that remained of the hive was a dust cloud.”
Crossing her arms thoughtfully over her chest, Sam shook her head. “Simply calling themselves the Union doesn’t give us much to go on. Do we know anything about their technology or what they want? How long do they stay in contact? Do they just swoop in, destroy the Wraith and leave?”
“They dropped off food,” Ronon added in with a shrug. His feet dangled over the arm of the chair but his expression was polite. “Medical supplies.”
Sam’s face asked her question without her needing to speak and Lorne again concurred with Teyla, “A man and a woman, human-looking in black leather, came through the ‘gate with food and crates of Lantean style medical supplies. They refused payment of any kind.”
Rodney drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and tried to hurry things along. “The man used a cultural reference that confused the people of M-the Niktuares,” he corrected after Teyla met his eyes. “He called it Robin Hooding.”
“The Niktaures were confused by the reference,” Teyla explained. “I believe we were able to clarify it for them. The Union is already being heralded in song on their world.”
Ronon turned his head back towards Sam. “She sings it well,” he added. “You might like it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sam replied. “Thank you,” she nodded to Teyla and Ronon. Rodney was obviously preoccupied but she couldn’t blame him. She’d gone through the death and rebirth of Daniel Jackson and she didn’t even know what Rodney would have to go through if the Union turned out to be whom he hoped. “I appreciate your thoroughness. Please take some time to eat or change clothes. I’ll need you to head out again when you’re ready. The IOA would like us to track down this Union and meet with them if we can. It’s great that they’re blowing up Wraith ships but we need to know why. Where are they getting their supplies? How can they spare them?”
“Yes, Sir,” Lorne answered as he accepted his dismissal. He’d stepped into the very large absence of Colonel Sheppard admirably. It was his suggestion that Teyla be the leader of the team and Sam was pleased she’d followed it even though she had needed to nearly sink to extortion to get the IOA to agree. The major worked in an easy harmony with Teyla and the transition had helped most of the crew. “Did we get any transmissions from Earth, Colonel?”
Feeling her face break into a smile, Sam nodded. “The next episode of Battlestar will be shown tomorrow at twenty-two hundred in the mess hall.”
Lorne beamed and followed Ronon across the catwalk. The larger man followed him lazily.
“I still think it’s Gaeta,” she could hear Ronon insist as they walked away.
Sam could feel Rodney’s eyes on her as she started typing her report. Hoping he’d accept her silence as another dismissal, she sighed when he began to speak. “We need to go after them,” Rodney demanded before she looked up from her computer.
“Doctor,” Sam began as she looked up. “Doctor Weir and Colonel Sheppard were killed in the line of duty. Both of them were, and are remembered with the highest honor because they gave their lives to protect this city.” Pausing and meeting his fevered eyes, she tried to convey her sympathy. “I know what this is like. I know how hard it is to lose a friend.”
“They’re alive!” Rodney insisted as he started to pace in front of her desk. “They’re alive and we can’t just leave them out there. What kind of heartless, irrational, stupid--”
Teyla’s hand closed down on his shoulder with a gentleness that stopped him. “The IOA must make decisions for all of your world,” she explained calmly. “It is not easy and we frequently do not agree with them. Rodney, attacking Colonel Carter will not change their decision or bring John and Elizabeth closer to us. If they are alive, it appears they are living their lives as they always have, as a force of good in this galaxy. They know where Atlantis is. When they are ready, they will find us.”
Closing her eyes for a moment in thanks, Sam shared Teyla’s gaze when she opened them. “Please,” she said. “Rodney, I know what it’s like to lose someone and feel like you’d do anything, go through hell itself to find them.” Standing up and circling her desk, the desk that had so recently belonged to a woman she’d been forced to mourn, Sam bit her lip. “Sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes they’re not in hell, nothing you can do, and no price you can pay will bring them back.”
Rodney’s anger broke like a wave hitting a stone. His eyes crumbled and Sam saw the heart of the man she had grown to care for. “He would save me,” he finished in a whisper.
Reaching for his shoulder, Sam rested her hand there for a moment before he pulled away. “I’m sorry, Rodney.”
Without turning around, he fled her office. “I have work to do,” he excused himself curtly, attempting to cover his grief.
Sam sank onto the edge of her desk with a heavy sigh. “What do you think?” she asked Teyla. She hadn’t been able to put into words how she’d come to rely on the support of the Athosian woman. Teyla was rational and exuded a kind of serenity that could calm Rodney when Sam just wanted to confine him to his lab.
“I think the ballad of Robin Hood is a beautiful song,” Teyla offered as she stood at Sam’s side watching the city through the glass walls of Sam’s office.
Chuckling slightly, Sam stared at the ‘gate that let them explore the galaxy. She didn’t know why exploration always demanded so many good people never came home, but it was that more than anything else that kept her up at night. Jack hadn’t been kidding when he’d said being a leader had made him wonder who he was and where the bastard who made the decisions had come from.
“You’ll have to sing it for me one day,” she mused. “I suppose it is possible that they escaped. We haven’t heard anything of the Asurans since John and Elizabeth disappeared.”
“They have always been reclusive,” Teyla offered in counterpoint. “However, even the settlements closest to them report no interaction with them at all. I am surprised the IOA has not asked the Daedalus to intervene.”
Sam sighed again and stared at her boots. “I’m sure they will,” she answered. “Whenever Earth finishes debating.”
Teyla’s response was concise, as always. “They are remarkably inefficient, considering the multitudes of people they represent.”
Sam felt the weight lifting from her shoulders and brought her eyes up to Teyla’s. “I wish we could get a message to them, if it’s them,” she admitted. “Let them know we wish them well on their journey.”
The ‘gate began to spin, lighting up as Major McFadden’s team started to dial out on their mission. Sam watched the light from the wormhole cast a blue shadow over the other woman’s face. Teyla’s dark eyes were thoughtful and deeper than most Sam had known.
“If it is John and Elizabeth,” Teyla allowed as she uncrossed her arms and touched Sam’s wrist with a gentle hand. “They know our hearts are with them, even if our paths have diverged. My people believe once you have touched the soul of another, they are with you, always.”
“Remind me to listen to more of your people’s stories,” Sam replied as she squeezed Teyla’s hand in gratitude.
Teyla nodded graciously and prepared to leave. Sam returned to her chair, but as she stared at it and thought of the woman who had once sat there, she called after Teyla. “Do you have time for dinner?”
Turning back with a warm smile, the Athosian nodded pleasantly. “I was about to eat. You are welcome to join me.”
Sam let her computer go to sleep as she decided to finish her report after dinner. She’d earned a little time and Jack was always telling her to make friends, get out of her damn office before it started to own her. “I don’t know much about Elizabeth or John,” she explained as she caught up to Teyla on the catwalk. “I met her when she was in charge of the SGC but we didn’t really talk. All I know about John is that his reputation in the Air Force wasn’t very good.”
“I would be honored to share them with you,” Teyla agreed with an elegant nod of her head. “They are both dear to me.”
“They walk with your soul?” Sam asked with a soft smile. Walking with Teyla was almost as good as walking with Teal’c. She brought the same peace to her heart as her old friend.
Teyla’s beamed. “Exactly so, Colonel Carter,” she replied with the same restraint that accompanied so many of her actions.
“Would you call me Sam?” she begged. “No one here does and being Colonel Carter all day gets a little exhausting.”
“Sam,” Teyla repeated as she made the adjustment. “Forgive me for not taking the liberty earlier, I did not wish to interfere with your hierarchy. Elizabeth Weir was a soul of great strength and vision,” Teyla started as they made their way past the spectacular views of the moons over the ocean. “I believe no one else in my life has had her commitment to bringing the best to all people.”
She led both of them to the line in the mess. Sam waited, patiently deciding if she wanted pasta or enchiladas, and hoping there was jello at the end.
“John Sheppard was an honorable man,” Teyla decided as she chose the enchiladas for herself. “He carried a love in his heart that was equal to his devotion to duty. If John and Elizabeth have decided to travel the galaxy together, as it appears they have, they would be a formidable and wonderful team.”
Sam smiled at that, taking a cup of red jello with slight disappointment and wondering what it would be like to be free in the universe with only one other as her companion. Sam knew who she’d choose and that idea sent a shiver down her spine that wasn’t entirely unwelcome. She pointed towards a table by the sea and asked, “You think they’re together?”
Teyla fell into step behind her, tray balanced perfectly in her hands as she walked. “In the song I have learned, the man and the woman of the Union work in perfect harmony. The Niktaures believe they are one. A duet has been written in their honor and it is a piece of great beauty. When Major Lorne has learned it to his satisfaction, we wish to perform it for the city, as a tribute to John and Elizabeth.”
The stinging of her eyes was a surprise, and Sam let it happen for a moment before the sensation drifted away. “I’d like that,” she agreed as she sat and smiled impishly at Teyla. “So, I’ve heard about the kiss when they were possessed, and that they tried to kill each other. What else did they do for fun?”
Author:
oparuRating: R
Pairing(s): Elizabeth/John
Warning(s): smut (non-graphic)
Prompt: Alternative s4 fic - John + Elizabeth were both captured, and must escape the Asuran homeworld together."
Summary: That which was Elizabeth Weir can no more die than live alone.
Beta The fabulous
crayonbreakygal with the last minute save when my beta got busy. ;) Any mistakes remaining are mine.Disclaimer: SGA does not belong to me.
A/N: Late! *hangs head* (sorry all. Thought I had a beta and it didn't work out) I really have no excuses but hey, someone had to be last.
Considering the vast array of human vices, Doctor Elizabeth Weir was almost disappointed that sadism seemed to be the only one the Asurans indulged. They had a deep-seated greed for more of the Pegasus galaxy. Their pride in their superiority was determined if misguided. They flirted with wrath and hatred, but only their desire to inflict pain was something they had down to an art.
Elizabeth should have been alone facing the Asurans. She could have handled it that way. She was the aberration, barely human anymore, that thing which no longer had right to draw breath. John was meant to be safe back on Atlantis. The jumper had been right there; Rodney and Ronon close enough that they could have dragged John back to the jumper if she’d let them. Ronon’s scream of hatred had cut through the corridor like the bray of a dying beast. Living behind his pupils, Rodney’s pain was a demon possessing him. A creature that would know no satiation because Elizabeth couldn’t allow him to risk himself. Rodney could follow orders and that had saved his life. John was a determined, self-sacrificial idiot and he was dying in her arms for his nobility.
When he’d run towards her, resolved to save her no matter the cost to himself, Elizabeth’s superior, nanite-enhanced senses recorded each nanosecond of his death charge in perfect clarity. When she brought it to mind, she could see the blue disruptor blast move through the air so slowly it looked like it was floating. The delicate ball of energy slammed into John’s chest in slow motion, scorching the cloth of his uniform. When his T-shirt turned to ash, the flesh beneath boiled before it began to char. The muscle of his chest stunk like burned meat before the disruptor sank through to the bone. The cartilage and connecting tissues of his ribcage stunk like burnt leather. Elizabeth’s newly amplified hearing made the hiss of air fleeing his lung an explosion against her eardrums.
When he fell, knees hitting first, arms limp like ropes, he was unable to stop his face from slamming into the deck. The crunch of his nose as the bone broke against the hard metal deck seared into her memory with a force that stung her eyes. Each moment since then, each second of life where his heart foolishly continued to beat, was duly noted and filed into her memory. Flashes of sensation and images that held no meaning, though they would be remembered until the silicon pathways of her nanites turned to dust.
The Asurans had no interest in him. He was simply human and Elizabeth wondered if she should be grateful they were letting him die with her instead of leaving him to die alone. The nanites in her hands, she couldn’t yet bear to think of them as part of her, registered the fluctuations in John’s bioelectric field as a curiosity. She knew he was dying.
Blood had stopped running from his chest and nose. The left side of his chest, the only part with a functioning lung, barely moved. Air slipped sluggishly through his lips, but they were bluish. Her face was wet but tears seemed part of her former life. Her human life was over. She lived only as a tainted thing, no longer allowed the luxuries of emotion. Her tears gleamed silver on his face. The damn nanites, the plague that suffused her being, wouldn’t even allow her the solace of grief.
Reaching out to brush the nanites away, force the vile things off of his skin so he could die in peace, Elizabeth would have missed what she saw if it weren’t for her own enhancements. In the flashes of her perfect vision, a frame by frame computer-like precision that recorded each instant of time, she saw the nanites in her tears sink into his skin. Human eyes would have seen the nanites disappear but Elizabeth was no longer human.
Staring down, Elizabeth watched the part of the bruise disappear. The skin beneath his right eye, skin that had been black with dead blood and dying cells, was pink and healthy again in a radius the size of a fingertip. Licking her fingertip, she watched the nanites sparkle in her saliva before she ran it across the split skin of his lip. Regenerating as she watched, John’s lip became whole.
Bending down over him, Elizabeth, what was human in her still, remembered how it had felt when her body had kissed his before. Through the anger and raging hatred in Phebus, she’d felt John’s lips melt with hers. Even as one of her old, imperfect human memories, it sang in her mind like a heavenly chord. When she kissed him now, the half-robot prince to his dying beauty, each iota of the experience became part of history.
Kissing a sleeping man always had a certain rush of control, Elizabeth remembered. He was vulnerable and his mouth had to be treated as such. The bruised, torn flesh on the insides of his cheeks healed as her tongue found them. His upper lip and the tissue running into the base of his nose were more stubborn. He needed more.
Tearing her hands through her hair, Elizabeth stroked his forehead and wondered if he would rather die than become like her. She was no longer what she had been, but on some level she was alive. Was it better than death? Tracing her fingers down his chest, she held them over the burnt hole. His bioelectric field was failing but his mind was intact. If he were conscious, she could give him the choice, but she had no way to bring him around.
Even the amount of nanites required to heal his broken nose would be an irreparable change. The John Sheppard who sat on her desk and brought her tuna salad sandwiches when she didn’t get out of her office for dinner, was already dead. His human body, her precious, limited perception of life was coming to a slow halt with his head resting in her lap. A residual, human sensation brought warmth into her chest. It was feeling, something as out of place as the tears she’d shed for John.
As a human, she hadn’t understood it. Elizabeth had been afraid of it and trapped herself in the thousands of reasons why she needed to be alone. Now she was a machine, a hybrid of blood and silver and she could live an eternity alone. She could let John’s heart stop and wait for her chance to escape from Oberoth and his minions. They would be persistent but she was eternal now. That which had been Elizabeth Weir could wait for her chance to be free again.
Musing that she’d never appreciated the simplicity of computers, she let her advanced mind calculate how much of her nanites he would need to survive. It was possible, difficult to remove that many from her body, but not beyond the limits of her capabilities. Letting John die was the right thing to do, Elizabeth knew. No one deserved to live this way, to be aware of the beautiful vulgarities of human feeling but doomed to experience them as strings of ones and zeros.
Kissing his forehead sentimentally, she smiled at the way his hair still refused to lie flat. Part of her would miss him, part of her hoped she’d forgive him and the rest was terribly jealous that he could do what she could not. John could die human. Her thumb touched his lip and she felt herself sigh. The motion was unnecessary, she wasn’t even sure she needed to breathe anymore, but it helped calm her.
His lip moved beneath her touch. Elizabeth tried to tell herself it was an involuntary reaction to stimulus and that there was no way, with his injuries, he could be conscious. Writing it off in her mind, she leaned back against the grey wall of her empty chamber and waited for him to die.
His lip moved again and suddenly his hand twitched against her leg. There was only a four percent chance that both of those motions were random side effects of his mental decay. He was trying to come awake. John was going down fighting. Elizabeth smiled as the switch occurred in her mind. John needed to live and he would be with her. She’d made a computational error. She couldn’t exist alone. Elizabeth needed a counterpart to make her whole.
The solution was surprisingly organic. Centering herself she diverted what she needed, fifteen percent of her complement of nanites, and removed them from her body. Wondering if he would appreciate the unique irony of the situation, Elizabeth carefully reached down her throat until she vomited. There was no acid in the fluid of her stomach, eating had become unnecessary, and the liquid was a brilliant silver-white. The nanites she’d expelled were suspended in a viscous mucus that clung to the sides of the wound in his chest. Waiting to retch again, she relished the visceral sensation. The way she was now, even the uncomfortable sensation of reverse peristalsis had new depth.
Vomiting into her hand, Elizabeth gently worked silver fluid into the ravaged skin of his nose. Letting it begin to work, she checked the hole in his chest and watched as the pink membrane of his lung moved through the slowly growing bone of his rib. His nanites would propagate within him, making him more than he had been. His nose was solid now, healthy and functioning again. John’s breathing was calm and steady. Her hand remained over his heart, feeling his bioelectric field change pitch as he became as she was.
He’d been her counterpart in a loosely human sense, now he was machine. John was all that completed her. The opposite that allowed for greater thought. Reaching for her, his hand settled over hers as his bioelectric field fell into harmony with her own.Pulling her down to kiss him, John’s eyes opened as their lips met. Nanites flowed between them, exchanging electric information as their cells traded the sensation of pleasure. John was completion and together they were the beginning.
Tearing off his shirt, Elizabeth bared his chest and ran the still damp palm of his hand down his stomach. Nanites responded as the hairs of his chest stood up. Flipping her up over him, he was more gentle with her tactical vest. Tossing it aside easily with one hand, John stripped her undershirt and watched the nanites shine silver as her body started to sweat. The perspiration would make the connection better and the shared pleasure of that thought made her hum with anticipation.
Their hands worked in tandem on the fastenings of their trousers. John’s came free first and sliding her wet hand into his boxers was like touching a live wire. Working her way down his dick, she teased it harder, using the conductive properties of the nanites to taunt him. Laughing as he pulled her trousers down her hips, John returned her attention. His fingers ran dry over her and slid wet on their way back. Electricity sang between them, heightening the sensations they hadn’t tried together in life.
In the mechanical half-death, sex was more than a blissful trading of bodily fluids, it was connection. Elizabeth brought their hands up together, pressing her chest to his before grinding her hips across his. John's hands were jolts of power along the skin of her back. Her bra felt like a dampening field and he helped her toss it away. His right hand reached down and through. Her body surged in response to the return of his fingers to her clit. Riding that current, Elizabeth brought him inside.
Pressing her tongue into his mouth, she felt the tingling wave of circuits completing between them. Tasting salt and electricity, Elizabeth’s tongue found his neck. The sweet spot at his shoulder momentarily interrupted the communication of his nanites, what passed for a groan, and she could feel the cascade of connections returning to his body. Riding the sensation of her own cleverness, Elizabeth let him take the initiative and lead her.
His hand clutched the blade of her shoulder, fingers moving as if he was typing on a keyboard. The adjustment would be easier for him. Her nanites, the creatures that swam in him and made him less than human, had been in her first and they would always know that. They were united, reciprocal parts of a new whole. The nanites bound them, communicating through the sweat of their skin, and they needed more of the medium.
Pulling apart from John reminded Elizabeth what pain had been like, she stood and stripped her trousers down over her boots. John was more practiced and kicked his boots off before he backed her into the wall. Kissing her knee as he bent to undo her boots, John’s fingers continued to tap out a phantom rhythm on the back of her thigh. Once free of her boots, John lifted her and pinned her between himself and the wall.
Elizabeth buried her head in his neck as she never had while she was alive. The cold Asuran metal made it easier to concentrate on him and the glorious meshing of their bodies. Sex was a human act, a nod to their shared past, but the newness of it made it bittersweet. Breathing was irrelevant, the nanites could supply oxygen for her cells, and the electricity between them was what mattered. Feeling the air shudder from her chest as his fingers continued to play, Elizabeth let the sensation remind her of simpler times.
Orgasm was a human experience, but the skip in the beat of her heart had the desired effect. For the eternity her nanites needed, Elizabeth was dead again, as she was meant to be. John’s return to death came later, but the rebooting was the same. Licking the sweat from the skin of her neck, he held her up to the wall and began to smile. Sinking down to stand barefoot and naked in the Asuran cell, Elizabeth rested her head against his chest and allowed herself the(herself the) superficial pleasure of his hands on her skin.
John nuzzled her hair while he processed the new data. The nanites in his body would need time to reproduce. Leaning against the metal wall behind her, Elizabeth let her nanites start taking it apart an atom at a time. Breaking atomic bonds took energy, altering her chemical structure to provide a gradient did not. John couldn’t do that yet but he would in time. For now, she could feed them both and pass the components through her skin to him. When they were ready, Oberoth wouldn’t know what had hit him.
“They call themselves the Union,” Teyla reported as she took the chair Colonel Sam Carter offered her. “The Niktuares-”
“-The people of M2R-474,” Rodney interrupted as he hovered behind her. The doctor was pacing, fidgeting with his vest and rifle as he completely failed to hide any of the emotion running through him.
“Niktuares,” Ronon corrected him with a nod. “Unless you want me to start calling you Usurpers of the City of Light,” he teased as he slumped into a chair next to Teyla. The Satedan was calm, as he usually appeared to Sam, and she’d found him to be an invaluable part of Teyla’s unusual team.
“According to my contacts,” Teyla continued while Sam waited patiently for her report. “The people of the Union travel in ships and are extremely generous with food and supplies. They ask for nothing in trade and rarely use the system of Stargates.”
Nodding in agreement as he stood politely at attention, Major Lorne supported her, “We were unable to get much information. Apparently the Union ships appeared in orbit nearly a minute after the Niktuares first saw the Wraith darts. When we arrived, all that remained of the hive was a dust cloud.”
Crossing her arms thoughtfully over her chest, Sam shook her head. “Simply calling themselves the Union doesn’t give us much to go on. Do we know anything about their technology or what they want? How long do they stay in contact? Do they just swoop in, destroy the Wraith and leave?”
“They dropped off food,” Ronon added in with a shrug. His feet dangled over the arm of the chair but his expression was polite. “Medical supplies.”
Sam’s face asked her question without her needing to speak and Lorne again concurred with Teyla, “A man and a woman, human-looking in black leather, came through the ‘gate with food and crates of Lantean style medical supplies. They refused payment of any kind.”
Rodney drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and tried to hurry things along. “The man used a cultural reference that confused the people of M-the Niktuares,” he corrected after Teyla met his eyes. “He called it Robin Hooding.”
“The Niktaures were confused by the reference,” Teyla explained. “I believe we were able to clarify it for them. The Union is already being heralded in song on their world.”
Ronon turned his head back towards Sam. “She sings it well,” he added. “You might like it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sam replied. “Thank you,” she nodded to Teyla and Ronon. Rodney was obviously preoccupied but she couldn’t blame him. She’d gone through the death and rebirth of Daniel Jackson and she didn’t even know what Rodney would have to go through if the Union turned out to be whom he hoped. “I appreciate your thoroughness. Please take some time to eat or change clothes. I’ll need you to head out again when you’re ready. The IOA would like us to track down this Union and meet with them if we can. It’s great that they’re blowing up Wraith ships but we need to know why. Where are they getting their supplies? How can they spare them?”
“Yes, Sir,” Lorne answered as he accepted his dismissal. He’d stepped into the very large absence of Colonel Sheppard admirably. It was his suggestion that Teyla be the leader of the team and Sam was pleased she’d followed it even though she had needed to nearly sink to extortion to get the IOA to agree. The major worked in an easy harmony with Teyla and the transition had helped most of the crew. “Did we get any transmissions from Earth, Colonel?”
Feeling her face break into a smile, Sam nodded. “The next episode of Battlestar will be shown tomorrow at twenty-two hundred in the mess hall.”
Lorne beamed and followed Ronon across the catwalk. The larger man followed him lazily.
“I still think it’s Gaeta,” she could hear Ronon insist as they walked away.
Sam could feel Rodney’s eyes on her as she started typing her report. Hoping he’d accept her silence as another dismissal, she sighed when he began to speak. “We need to go after them,” Rodney demanded before she looked up from her computer.
“Doctor,” Sam began as she looked up. “Doctor Weir and Colonel Sheppard were killed in the line of duty. Both of them were, and are remembered with the highest honor because they gave their lives to protect this city.” Pausing and meeting his fevered eyes, she tried to convey her sympathy. “I know what this is like. I know how hard it is to lose a friend.”
“They’re alive!” Rodney insisted as he started to pace in front of her desk. “They’re alive and we can’t just leave them out there. What kind of heartless, irrational, stupid--”
Teyla’s hand closed down on his shoulder with a gentleness that stopped him. “The IOA must make decisions for all of your world,” she explained calmly. “It is not easy and we frequently do not agree with them. Rodney, attacking Colonel Carter will not change their decision or bring John and Elizabeth closer to us. If they are alive, it appears they are living their lives as they always have, as a force of good in this galaxy. They know where Atlantis is. When they are ready, they will find us.”
Closing her eyes for a moment in thanks, Sam shared Teyla’s gaze when she opened them. “Please,” she said. “Rodney, I know what it’s like to lose someone and feel like you’d do anything, go through hell itself to find them.” Standing up and circling her desk, the desk that had so recently belonged to a woman she’d been forced to mourn, Sam bit her lip. “Sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes they’re not in hell, nothing you can do, and no price you can pay will bring them back.”
Rodney’s anger broke like a wave hitting a stone. His eyes crumbled and Sam saw the heart of the man she had grown to care for. “He would save me,” he finished in a whisper.
Reaching for his shoulder, Sam rested her hand there for a moment before he pulled away. “I’m sorry, Rodney.”
Without turning around, he fled her office. “I have work to do,” he excused himself curtly, attempting to cover his grief.
Sam sank onto the edge of her desk with a heavy sigh. “What do you think?” she asked Teyla. She hadn’t been able to put into words how she’d come to rely on the support of the Athosian woman. Teyla was rational and exuded a kind of serenity that could calm Rodney when Sam just wanted to confine him to his lab.
“I think the ballad of Robin Hood is a beautiful song,” Teyla offered as she stood at Sam’s side watching the city through the glass walls of Sam’s office.
Chuckling slightly, Sam stared at the ‘gate that let them explore the galaxy. She didn’t know why exploration always demanded so many good people never came home, but it was that more than anything else that kept her up at night. Jack hadn’t been kidding when he’d said being a leader had made him wonder who he was and where the bastard who made the decisions had come from.
“You’ll have to sing it for me one day,” she mused. “I suppose it is possible that they escaped. We haven’t heard anything of the Asurans since John and Elizabeth disappeared.”
“They have always been reclusive,” Teyla offered in counterpoint. “However, even the settlements closest to them report no interaction with them at all. I am surprised the IOA has not asked the Daedalus to intervene.”
Sam sighed again and stared at her boots. “I’m sure they will,” she answered. “Whenever Earth finishes debating.”
Teyla’s response was concise, as always. “They are remarkably inefficient, considering the multitudes of people they represent.”
Sam felt the weight lifting from her shoulders and brought her eyes up to Teyla’s. “I wish we could get a message to them, if it’s them,” she admitted. “Let them know we wish them well on their journey.”
The ‘gate began to spin, lighting up as Major McFadden’s team started to dial out on their mission. Sam watched the light from the wormhole cast a blue shadow over the other woman’s face. Teyla’s dark eyes were thoughtful and deeper than most Sam had known.
“If it is John and Elizabeth,” Teyla allowed as she uncrossed her arms and touched Sam’s wrist with a gentle hand. “They know our hearts are with them, even if our paths have diverged. My people believe once you have touched the soul of another, they are with you, always.”
“Remind me to listen to more of your people’s stories,” Sam replied as she squeezed Teyla’s hand in gratitude.
Teyla nodded graciously and prepared to leave. Sam returned to her chair, but as she stared at it and thought of the woman who had once sat there, she called after Teyla. “Do you have time for dinner?”
Turning back with a warm smile, the Athosian nodded pleasantly. “I was about to eat. You are welcome to join me.”
Sam let her computer go to sleep as she decided to finish her report after dinner. She’d earned a little time and Jack was always telling her to make friends, get out of her damn office before it started to own her. “I don’t know much about Elizabeth or John,” she explained as she caught up to Teyla on the catwalk. “I met her when she was in charge of the SGC but we didn’t really talk. All I know about John is that his reputation in the Air Force wasn’t very good.”
“I would be honored to share them with you,” Teyla agreed with an elegant nod of her head. “They are both dear to me.”
“They walk with your soul?” Sam asked with a soft smile. Walking with Teyla was almost as good as walking with Teal’c. She brought the same peace to her heart as her old friend.
Teyla’s beamed. “Exactly so, Colonel Carter,” she replied with the same restraint that accompanied so many of her actions.
“Would you call me Sam?” she begged. “No one here does and being Colonel Carter all day gets a little exhausting.”
“Sam,” Teyla repeated as she made the adjustment. “Forgive me for not taking the liberty earlier, I did not wish to interfere with your hierarchy. Elizabeth Weir was a soul of great strength and vision,” Teyla started as they made their way past the spectacular views of the moons over the ocean. “I believe no one else in my life has had her commitment to bringing the best to all people.”
She led both of them to the line in the mess. Sam waited, patiently deciding if she wanted pasta or enchiladas, and hoping there was jello at the end.
“John Sheppard was an honorable man,” Teyla decided as she chose the enchiladas for herself. “He carried a love in his heart that was equal to his devotion to duty. If John and Elizabeth have decided to travel the galaxy together, as it appears they have, they would be a formidable and wonderful team.”
Sam smiled at that, taking a cup of red jello with slight disappointment and wondering what it would be like to be free in the universe with only one other as her companion. Sam knew who she’d choose and that idea sent a shiver down her spine that wasn’t entirely unwelcome. She pointed towards a table by the sea and asked, “You think they’re together?”
Teyla fell into step behind her, tray balanced perfectly in her hands as she walked. “In the song I have learned, the man and the woman of the Union work in perfect harmony. The Niktaures believe they are one. A duet has been written in their honor and it is a piece of great beauty. When Major Lorne has learned it to his satisfaction, we wish to perform it for the city, as a tribute to John and Elizabeth.”
The stinging of her eyes was a surprise, and Sam let it happen for a moment before the sensation drifted away. “I’d like that,” she agreed as she sat and smiled impishly at Teyla. “So, I’ve heard about the kiss when they were possessed, and that they tried to kill each other. What else did they do for fun?”
