Time Slips Away

**Title:** Time Slips Away

**Author:** Espiritu

**Rating:** T

**Category:** General, Drama, Angst

**Spoilers:** Anything up to Common Ground.

**Summary:** In these small hours, she realized they might have run out of time. Weir angst over her choices in Common Ground. A shweir story by special request.

**Author Notes:** I promised this story to my good friend and beta reader Carol after Common Ground first aired because she wanted a Sparky tag to that episode. Unfortunately real life fiascos kept me from working on it. It has languished on my computer for a year while writing took a backseat to everything else. Carol, here you go—this one's for you though it's not beta'ed, so I could surprise you by finally posting it. Any typos are my fumbled-fingered own.

**Disclaimer:** All characters and everything Stargate Atlantis is owned by Acme Shark, Sony, MGM, Gekko, and the SciFi Channel. If I owned them, I'd being doing this full time instead of my real job.

**Time Slips Away**

**Chapter 1: These Twists and Turns of Fate**

The minutes passed with precise regularity as evidenced by the steady, rhythmic ticking of the age-worn, silver timepiece before her. The pocket watch had been her father's, a family heirloom passed down to her after his death. She treasured it not only as an object of vintage beauty, but also as a last remaining link to a beloved relative, friend, and mentor. It was one of the few personal items she brought with her three years ago when she had eagerly lead the expedition through the stargate at the start of this adventure. For the past three years, the sound of its hands marking the passage of time soothed her. The feel of it in her hand calmed her. Its smooth casing was mellowed by a warm patina and scored with the faint scratches etched into its surface from years of use. But the sight of these imperfections comforted her and evoked fond memories that lifted her tired spirit and transported her back to the simpler time of her youth.

But today had been different. Today, the watch only served as a cruel reminder of how quickly time slipped away. Seconds turned into minutes, hours into days, days into years. Each one was fleeting and gone in an instant. The moments they had were too few and made the more precious by their rarity. The ticking away of time only emphasized how transient was an individual lifetime. Lost in these thoughts, Elizabeth Weir sat in her office, staring at the watch, and listening to the soft tick-tock as it echoed into the silence around her.

It had been two days since the renegade Genii commander, Acastus Kolya, had snatched Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard as he and his team scouted PJ7-874 and held him hostage. It was only one day since she had been forced to watch via live video transmission while Koyla's captive Wraith first fed on her second-in-command. It had been three hours since the last feeding, one hour past Kolya's deadline with still no further contact from the Genii commander who awaited her response to his ultimatum. Thirty minutes had passed since Sheppard's team had left to mount a rescue. While she waited for their return, the seconds continued to tick away. Time had now become her enemy as much as Kolya and the Wraith who had been the instrument of Sheppard's torture. Its passage forced her resolve to turn to doubt, her hope to fade to worry, and her courage to dissolve into fear. Each agonizing sweep of the watch hands counted down the waning time that John Sheppard had left to live.

She tried to convince herself that the colonel was still alive, against all logic, despite all evidence to the contrary. They had all watched Sheppard being tortured. They had all seen the Wraith take years from the Air Force pilot as it fed numerous times. After each feeding that Sheppard had been forced to endure, he was left progressively older as his life was slowly but surely drained from him. None of them had wanted to admit it, but the chances of his team finding him alive diminished with each passing minute. Even if they managed to rescue him, they knew of no way to reverse the effects of the feeding process. There was no magic cure for restoring the youth and vitality he lost to the Wraith. His teammates would either recover his body or bring home an old and dying man. Neither prospect was something she wanted to accept. If she did so, she would also have to acknowledge her guilt. The first tenet of dealing with a hostage crisis prevented her from negotiating with terrorists, and this mandate had kept her from saving her second-in-command. She was the one who had not given in to Koyla's demands. It was she who sealed Sheppard's fate when she refused to trade Ladon Radim's life for John's. His death would now be forever on her hands.

The air in her office suddenly felt oppressive. The interminable waiting only added to her growing feeling of helplessness. There wasn't anything more she could do, nothing but sit and wait for the team to complete its mission and return Sheppard home one way or another. Needing an outlet for her nervous energy, Elizabeth toyed with the watch chain absent-mindedly, barely registering the feel of the cool metal beneath her fingers. Unable to sit still any longer, she rose from her chair and strode from her office to check with the on-duty gate technician to see if Sheppard's team had called in yet.

Chuck looked up from his console to see the expedition leader striding towards him. The worry lines on Elizabeth's face bespoke of her inner turmoil; the dark circles beneath her eyes told of another sleepless night. He knew before she asked that she wanted to know the team's current status. She slowed down as she approached, as if she were suddenly hesitant to hear any news regarding what might be happening on that distant planet. Her trepidation was apparent in her tightly crossed arms and was mirrored in the grim set of her mouth. The technician looked up at her, shaking his head slightly to tell her that the team had not yet made contact beyond notifying her of their initial arrival at their destination.

Nodding in silent acknowledgement Weir turned away from the console and paced the few steps to the balcony rail. Unfolding her long arms, she used them to brace herself against the rail that separated the control room from the gate room below. She tapped her fingers against the top rung and looked down at the gate as if mentally willing it to activate and admit the returning jumper through. Signing deeply, she spoke without glancing back at the Canadian technician.

"Chuck, let me know if you hear…anything from the rescue team."

"Yes, Dr. Weir. I'll contact you immediately once they radio in." The technician watched her nod briefly in acknowledgment before heading off quietly towards the outside balcony beyond the control room.

A cool, salt-scented breeze greeted her as she stepped out onto the balcony. The small alcove was her haven. It was here she found a moment's peace, a brief hiatus from the burden of command where she could be alone with her thoughts. Her staff never followed her out here for they understood it to be a sanctuary from the interruptions and stresses that were her daily constant. Only Colonel Sheppard dared to disturb her solitude. As her right-hand man and closest friend, he alone was allowed to come into her private sanctum. In fact, he did so with such regularity that the balcony unofficially became their meeting place where they discussed issues concerning the city. Here, they hashed out their occasional disputes, chatted about any number of topics, and sometimes simply shared a companionable silence at the end of a long day.

Usually the ocean vista beyond the balcony rail was always a welcome view. Elizabeth never tired of the sound of the gentle waves, the feel of the fresh air, and the sight of the ever-changing colors as the sun traced its path across the sky. Today, the seascape did little to reassure her. The wide-open expanse of water before her only reminded her that her military commander did not currently enjoy such freedom. While she was at liberty to enjoy the panorama of a seemingly limitless horizon, Sheppard most likely had only the restrictive walls of a dark and claustrophobic prison cell to look at. That is, if he even were still alive. The sobering thought of him suffering and near death chilled her. Not even the warmth of the sun shining overhead could stop the shiver of dread that ran down her spine.

How she wished she could turn back time. If only she could go back to three days ago and not send her flagship team to the planet where Kolya had awaited to ambush them. Even as Elizabeth thought that, she realized it wouldn't have mattered in the long run. If not that particular planet, it would have happened on a different one at another time. As long as Kolya was alive, he would not stop until he had his exacted his revenge on Sheppard for single-handedly thwarting the Genii's attempted takeover of Atlantis. No, in order to prevent this current nightmare from happening, she would have had to go further back in time. Back to before the day more than two years ago when Sheppard's team visited the Genii homeworld and set in motion the chain of events that ultimately lead to today.

Or perhaps she should go back further. Maybe she should go back to that day in Antarctica when a certain brash and curious flyboy decided an Ancient weapons control chair looked like a good place to sit down and put up his feet. If she had had the prescience to know what dangers awaited him in the Pegasus galaxy, would she have been so eager to convince him to join their expedition? The Air Force officer had not jumped at her invitation to come exploring with them. In fact, if she hadn't talked General O'Neill into strong-arming the young former major into becoming part of the Atlantis expedition, she was sure he would still be ferrying passengers and supplies at McMurdo Station. Sheppard had told O'Neill that he liked it there. She supposed, knowing his military record, that the cold, desolation of the Antarctic wasteland seemed a respite from the ruins of his career. Shunned by the top brass for taking matters into his own hands to make sure none of their men were left behind enemy lines, he had been banished to a far corner of the world where his penchant for following his own moral compass instead of his superior's orders would no longer cause the military trouble. Though all but forgotten and left with no future chance to redeem himself, he found his career had stalled faster than an F16 with engine burnout. Yet during his stint at McMurdo, he still got to pursue his passion for flying and no longer had to deal with men dying under his command. Those facts combined made the icy wasteland a welcome reprieve for the maverick officer the Air Force didn't quite know what to do with. Though Elizabeth felt Sheppard was wallowing in the smoldering remains of his once-promising career, he had seemed resigned to, if not accepting, of his newfound circumstance. Who was she to decide what ultimately gave another soul peace?

But she had not left things alone. As soon as the strength of Sheppard's rare and naturally-occurring ATA gene made itself known, Elizabeth had been willing to pay any price to obtain use of it. Even if the final cost would not be her own. Once she saw how effortlessly the pilot had activated the star chart, she had done everything in her power to make sure his fate was no longer in his own hands. None of the brilliant scientists on her staff had come close to Sheppard's natural ability in making Ancient technology come alive. It was as if all those long-unused consoles had been waiting millennia for John Sheppard's arrival. If she had been forced to call in all her political markers to get him on her team, she would have gladly done so. The Atlantis expedition had needed him, and if she were honest with herself, so had she. She just hadn't consciously known it. At least, she hadn't then.

Thinking back over the past three years, Elizabeth realized hindsight was more hindrance than help. Hard-earned wisdom came only after mistakes had been made, when it was too late to turn back the hands of time and make what was wrong once again right. If only good people like John Sheppard did not have to pay the price when others made wrong choices, especially when she was the one who made that wrong choice.

They had lost many team members since coming to Atlantis. Far too many by her standards she felt. The cost at times seemed much too high. Collateral damage was what the military personal called it. Acceptable loses to insure the success of any operation. She used to hate it that the military establishment would use such an impersonal term to describe the loss of flesh and blood human beings. But now after having to make tough command decisions as leader of the Atlantean expedition, she understood it. Her mind could see the cold logic of such a philosophy even as her heart cried out to reject it. It was why she had refused to hand Ladon over to his former superior officer and why she now was heartbroken and guilt-ridden over her decision.

It unfortunately was not the first time she had to bear the burden of a colleague's death since joining the SGC. Once she distrusted the armed forces and spoke out against the military to broker peace, now she joined forces with them to fight wars. Were it not for the seriousness of the current situation, she would have laughed bitterly at the irony of it all. It had been Sheppard after all that showed her not all military personnel were mindless killer drones trained only to follow orders. With his laid-back attitude, easy grin, and self-effacing wit, he effortlessly stole past her defenses. And if she were truly honest with herself, she would also admit he stole her heart.

Sighing deeply as she watched the rippling ocean waves, she silently acknowledged that secret truth. Though she could never openly show it let alone act on it, she cared deeply for the tousle-haired Lt. Colonel--much more than was allowed by their respective leadership positions. But that secret would have to remain yet another burden she would have to bear. Like John, she too could hide her feelings, stowing them away in the back of her mind and the unreachable depths of her heart.

She lifted one hand up to her face and quickly wiped away the tears that suddenly threatened to fall from her eyes. She no sooner brushed away the traces of lingering wetness when the beep of her headset interrupted her reverie.

Tapping the receive button, she answered the summons. "This is Weir."

"Dr. Weir, we're receiving an incoming message from Jumper Two. Should I patch it through? " The gate technician informed her as he answered the hail from the returning puddle jumper.

"Go ahead, Chuck." Expecting the news from the rescue team to be the worst, her heart raced and her throat went dry as she nervously replied.

A familiar voice spoke into her earpiece as the transmission was transferred to her radio. "Major Lorne here, ma'am. We found Lt. Colonel Sheppard. He's alive, and we're bringing him home."

A sigh of relief escaped her lips before she responded. "That's good to hear. How is Colonel Sheppard? " She closed her eyes as she spoke, trying not to picture her once athletic military commander aged and frail as the result of the repeated Wraith feedings.

Muffled voices were heard in the background as Lorne consulted with the man in question. "He says he's fine, ma'am, though Doc Beckett wants to check him out when we get back to make sure. Uh, we need to make a slight detour before returning to Atlantis though. Colonel's orders. ETA is approximately 30 minutes. "

"Detour? Major Lorne, what the hell is going on? " Elizabeth demanded an explanation even as she wondered why the team wasn't immediately rushing back to the city. Surely Carson would want to whisk Sheppard to the infirmary for immediate medical evaluation and treatment after his ordeal.

"I'm not entirely sure I understand it myself, Dr. Weir, but the colonel said we have to drop off a friend on the way home. He says he'll explain it all to you when we get back. Jumper Two out. " The major cut the transmission short before Elizabeth could question him further.

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Elizabeth looked over at the gate crew as if they could provide the answer Major Lorne's somewhat cryptic reply lacked. Seeing they were as much at a loss as she was, she threw up her hands in defeat and headed back to her office to wait for her wayward team's return. After watching his boss walk away in frustration, Chuck glanced over at his colleague at the neighboring console and shrugged, knowing the expedition leader wouldn't fully relax until she saw for herself that her second-in-command was back safe and sound.

If Major Lorne's estimate was accurate, Elizabeth only had to keep the tight rein on her emotions for thirty minutes longer. Only thirty minutes remained until her tension could be released with the return of her flagship team. After the lengthy wait she had already endured, these final moments should have seemed a mere blink of an eye. But the brief notification that Sheppard was alive did little to relieve her anxiety and dispel her worry about the events of the past few days. Knowing Sheppard as well as she did, she did not believe for a second that he was fine, as the major had attested over the radio. How could he be? She saw the results of the Wraith feedings firsthand via the satellite transmission from Kolya's lair. Sheppard's pat answer in response to inquiries about his health could be covering up a myriad of laments. The man had a reputation of downplaying his injuries by insisting he was 'fine' when he could be hovering near death's door. Or he could really be okay—with John you never could tell.

Time seemed to stand still as Elizabeth continued her vigil back inside her office, absented-mindedly rearranging the various knickknacks on her desk. She found herself picking up an Athosian-made terra cotta pot several times, letting her fingers linger over its glazed surface. The cool feel of its fired brown clay only served to remind her of John Sheppard, since he gave her the pot as a surprise birthday gift during their first year in the city. It was only one of many reminders of the man that permeated the room. His presence seemed to linger in every corner. How many times had he sat on the corner of this same desk, idly picking up the same artifacts and objects as he chatted with her before heading off on that day's mission? She could not sit there without expecting to see his warm grin or hear his lazy drawl greeting her when she looked across the wide expanse of polished wood.

Debating whether she should remain there among the many memories or wait for her team in the jumper bay, Elizabeth decided the larger expanse of the hanger would allow her more room to expend her restless energy. Besides, the glass walls of her office gave the gate crew an unobstructed view of her nervous pacing which did little to put them at ease. She would have to wait to fall apart in the privacy of her quarters much later when the adrenaline rush finally abated after this recent crisis passed. From frequent experience, she knew the eventual crash would hit hard and fast, leaving her physically exhausted and emotionally drained. Until then, she just had to hold herself together to see her team come home.

Elizabeth was halfway to the jumper bay when her radio headset chirped insistently. Touching the earpiece to activate it, she acknowledged the incoming call.

"Hello, this is Weir."

Chuck replied on the other end. "Ma'am, I thought you'd like to know Major Lorne just radioed in. He's on approach to the docking bay doors and should be landing momentarily. "

"Understood. I 'm on my way to the jumper bay now and will meet them there. "

After ending the call, she quickened her steps as she moved down the corridor, eager to reach the hanger deck before the incoming puddle jumper docked. The bay's doors whooshed open, and she stepped inside the cavernous room just as the Atlantean shuttle began its descent through the skylight opening in the ceiling high above her head. Standing safely just inside the entranceway, she waited impatiently until the small spaceship gently and smoothly touched down on the landing pad. A team of medics entered the bay behind her and followed alongside her as they rushed forward to approach the jumper together.

Not sure what to expect, Elizabeth nervously bit her lower lip as she watched the back hatch slowly open and drop to the floor at her feet. Two burly marines in combat gear exited the rear of the ship, blocking her view of the occupants still inside. They nodded to her as they walked towards her, but her attention remained too focused on the interior of the ship to give them more than a passing glance in return.

Ronon and Teyla came out next before she could head inside. The tall Satedan warrior wore an unreadable expression on his tanned, impassive face as he acknowledged her presence with a slight tilt of his head and uttered her name by way of greeting with a rich baritone that rumbled from the depths of his chest. Elizabeth briefly touched his arm before turning to Teyla, as he ambled past with a determined, ground-eating stride. The Athosian woman appeared somewhat dazed and shell-shocked, but a serene smile lit her face when she looked up at Elizabeth.

"Teyla! What happened out there? Where's John? How is he? " The words spilled out in a breathless babble as Weir tried to finally get some answers to the questions that plagued her.

Teyla grasped both Weir's hands, squeezing them gently to quiet the taller woman's anxiety as she gave her a short, simple reply.

"Go see for yourself. He is well." She released her hold on Elizabeth and pointed her towards the open hatch with a nod of encouragement.

A familiar sound rang out from the cockpit as she strode up the ramp into the rear compartment.

"I'm telling you, Carson, it's just not natural. He definitely looks younger than he did before. If we didn't arrive when we did, who knows what condition that Wraith would have left him in. God forbid, we might've had to experience a rehash of Sheppard's teenage years. " Rodney McKay's voice was an octave higher than usual, signaling a release of pent-up stress.

"Rodney, don't be over exaggerating now. Does the colonel look like he'll be revisiting puberty anytime soon? " Carson Beckett's lyric brogue did nothing to hide his exasperation towards the hyper physicist.

"The doc's right, McKay. I feel fine. No pimples, cracking voice, or the need to steal the keys to dad's Porsche to go joyriding after curfew. "

Sheppard's voice sounded just as strong as it always had with a touch of a west coast drawl that made it distinctly his own. Certainly it didn't hold a trace of the weakness or tremors she would have expected in a prematurely aged man.

"Wait, your father had a Porsche? " Rodney asked with a hint of jealousy.

Elizabeth's sudden arrival interrupted whatever retort Sheppard had in mind. She stopped momentarily in her tracks, shocked at the sight before her.

"John?! "

Sheppard turned from his discussion with McKay and Beckett to face her across the cramped jumper compartment. While he stood there looking healthy and whole, a sly grin stole across his lips as he jokingly called out to her.

"Hey, honey. I'm home. Hope you kept supper waiting. I'm starving. "

Not quite understanding how he could be alive and well, she rushed toward him without further conscious thought. Before he had a chance to react, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, blinking back tears of joy and utter relief.

TBC


End file.
