Chapter 7

I'm floating. I'm floating in the space. In the far, cold nothing. Everything is black.

I feel...no, I don't feel. I feel nothing. My body is stiff. I can barley move. I close my eyes. I'm too tired to keep them open any longer.

I try to think back. To find out how long I'm here now. It has to be over hounderts or years.

My body becomes weaker and weaker.

I open my eyes. I know now I will be dying. Now my soul will finally find peace.

My body must have turned because now I face the stargate again. The bodys of the replicators around me are drifting as mine does.

One of my past teammates looks at me. There's no hatred in his eyes. He looks sad.

At first I think my eyes betray me, but the I see it clearly. The bodies around me start to glow.

A few nanites start to losen from their bodies. A clouds of silver dust are floating around me.

I feel how my nanites also start to lose their connections and I look down at my hands.

My fingers disolve into nanites and my arms start to do the same I look after them until a bright, white light blindes me.

I look around me. The white light now surrounds me. Normally I would have felt panic, but somehow I feel calm.

I look back to my hands. They are back again, but now they glow oddly and look like they are made of stardust.

"Elizabeth."

The vouce sounds like a melodie. Like a wispered song. I turn around.

"Hello. Do you know where you are?"

The man in front of me also glows. His lips don't move when he talks. His body looks as if it is made of stardust too. It looks like there are stars in his brown hair and stars sparkle in his nutbrown eyes.

I open my eyes to say:"No", but the words don't come out.

"Sure you don't", I hear him say.

"Did...did I ascend?"

The man smiles. I don't need him to answer.

"We decided to offer you a new chance. You gave your life more then once and we think you deserve to live your life. You've lost so much."

"Will you be sending me back?"

"To life, yes, but I won't be allowed to bring you back to the moment you died or earlier."

"I see..."

"Atlantis does still exist. We know it was the most important thing for you in the world. We think that is also a reason for giving you back your life. You choose Atlantis before everything else. Even before your own life."

"I did...So I can go back to Atlantis?"

"Yes. And no matter on wich planet we would send you, you would find a way to Atlantis. You belong there."

I smile. I loose myself in memories.

"Elizabeth, you have to go now."

I look up at him.

"Will you be twlling me who you are? I have the feeling I've seen you before...", I say while going in no special direction.

"My name is Janus..."

I smile and a bright light blinds me again...

I wake up on the planet. Alone.

I have no idea where or who I am, but what I know is that I have neither food nor clothes or something to drink...

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I open my eyes and look around. I'm back in Jack's quaters.

"Is smoething wrong?"

I remember everything...

"No...I...thank you, but I think I don't need your computer anymore", I say and go towards the door.

"Hey! Why so suddenly?"

"I just found what I was searching for", I say and step outside and after a little hesitation I ask,"Do you have a psychiatrist around here?"

"Yeah, why?"

I leave and walk the now more than familiar way to the controllroom. I look into the faces of persons I don't know and I feel sad.

"Elizabeth! Are you searching for something?", Ella asks. She comes down the steps and hugs me.

I pull back. I know we are friends, but somehow I can't shake the feeling I'm still not allowed to show any feelings.

"Is something wrong?"

"No. I...I just need someone to talk... And I mean a psychiatrist", I look down at my feet. I feel ashamed. When I was the leader I would never have admitted that.

"What happened?"

"I have to...think...about some things, ok? Don't be angry, but I can't talk about this with you."

"I'm not angry. I will bring you to Dr. Jasons."

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"So, you are this new guest?"

The word 'guest' hurts. I feel home in Atlantis. It is my home!

"What were you thinking right now?", Dr. Jasons asks me with narrowed eyes.

"I'm no guest here...Atlantis is my home. It has always been more home to me than earth", I say looking out of the window onto the towers of Atlantis.

"I don't understand...", the Doctor looks confused.

"I don't know if you know...I was born on earth. 14. Oktober 1974. I died a thousand years ago. I descended. That's why I couldn't remember anything, but now I do. I remember everything."

"Tell me how you died. What excactly do you remember?"

"We met the replicators..."

"We were the one's who sent the mashine. We come in peace", I say to the man.

"His name was Niam...", I sign," He wanted to reach ascension. Oberoth just wanted to... he hated the ancients...He wanted to kill them, but they were dead so he just captured us and...he read our minds..."

I am in a dark room. I hear screams. People are calling my name. My people. They are begging. Begging for their lifes.

Now I hear one voice perfectly.

"Elizabeth help meee!", Teyla screams.

I see her. Right before me. I reach for her, but she disappears.

I want to call her name, but it is as if I was underwater. I suddenly can't breathe.

I open my eyes. The replicator pulls his hand out of my head. I gasp for air. My head hurts like hell.

"We all had different visions...I never told anyone about mine", I pause and look out of the window again,"Niam helped us escape. We were in the juper and everything was fine until..."

Niam suddenly spins around and grasps my throat. I can't breathe. I try to pull his hands off my neck. I vaguely see Ronon pulling at Niams shoulders.

My vision starts to blurry. I loose the battle. I'm scared. Suddenly Niam is away.

"I don't think this will stop him", Rodney says.

John walks to the controls and slams his hand on them. I hear something on my left. That's when I realise that Niam had been in the back part of the jumper. John had sent him to space.

"You okay", John asks me with a concerned look.

"Yes. I'm fine", I lie.

"After all I was the leader! I wasn't allowed to show weakness!", I shake my head,"To be honest...I felt awful."

"I believe you..."

I smile.

"On the way back to earth the Dedalus found a ship with ancients. They said we should leave...I felt bad leaving Atlantis, but it had always been their city not mine. We left and I somehow slipped into depressions. Carson visited me and talked me into a dinner with my friends. We received a call and found out that the ancients got killed by the replicators. Against our orders we saved our two people on Atlantis and got the city back. We thougt we had peace now... One day I woke up in a psychiatry. I thought I was going crazy. They told my Atlantis was a spring of my imagination! I knew they were wrong. It appeared that I was in coma through nanites and that was just a dream. Dr. Bekket told me Niam had infected me with them when he strangled me. They rold me they shut them down. It felt odd to have metal in your body, dead nanites and you don't feel different. Or to know they were alive before and you didn't know..."

I pause. I never told anyone my story.

I never showed anyone my emotions.

"Do you need some water?"

I shake my head.

"One day the replicators sent a satelit with a weapon. We tried to fight it. We had our shield but it was too strong. We tried everything, but in the end we had to leave the planet."

"Atlantis will leave this planet."

I look proud on my people. I know they will do it. I know that we will do it. We are srtang together.

Though my chest hurts at the thought of leaving Lantea and somehow I feel I'm not alone with that.

"We started the stardrive, but somehow we couldn't come high enough. I ordered to shut down the shiel as long as the weapon was busy with th asteroid we pushed between it and us. We enabled the shield again as soon as we were hugh enough, but it was to late...for me..."

I want to see how we leave. I look our of the window and suddenly a bright light blinds me. I didn't see the blast coming so I am surprised and have just enough time to get my arms in front of my face before I get thrown through the whole room. A sharp pain bors into my brain and the wounds of the glass are burning. With the screams of my people around me I loose consciousness...

"Is that how you died?"

"No, but I wish it had been so..."

I wake up on a surgerybed in one of the isolation rooms. "John?", I rip of the thing on my head,"Rodney, whats going on?"

"They had reactivated the nanites", I say bitterly,"To save my life. John was the only on who understood me. Who understood I wouldn't have wanted that. We were stranded in space. The ZPM had lost its energy, but Rodney had an idea. He wanted to steal one from the replicator homeworld with my help. Everything went well, we had a ZPM, we had enough time to get off the planet...We should have gone, but Rodney saw a way to get the replicators to defeat the wraith. John and Ronon only had to load the code up at the central data knot, but somehow it didn't work. They were soon surrounded by replicators and there was no way out. I had an idea, but I knew it would cost my life. I didn't care. All I wanted was to safe mt friends. I left the jumper and ran through the corridors to find Oberoth. When I found him I drang in his mind. I froze the replicators. At first I was strong. I could keep them all under control. I could keep him under control, but I wasn't able to keep it up. I wasn't strong enough. I felt my energy slip away. Then John came. He didn't want to leave without me. It was dumb. I told him to go..."

"Get to the jumper!", I yell over my shoulder.

"You're comin with us!"

"I cant keep them frozen much longer!", I anwer desperately.

"Were not leavin you behind!", John says. We both know that's not possible.

"If you dont leave right now none of us will get out of here. So, go that's an order!", I say. I just hope he just goes and doesn't make this harder than it already is.

"Elizabeth!"

"GO!", I scream turning around.

I see John. He fires at the replicator wich started to move again. They surround me. I meet John's look and see something I've never seen in them. Sadness...

"They pulled me into an operation room. They cut the transmitter out of my shoulder when I was councious. They destroyed it. I knew it wouldn't even leave a scar. I was part of a machine", I wisper and look up into the eyes of the doctor.

His mouth is opened in surprise.

I continue looking into his eyes.

"They wanted informations. They searched through my mind, but I refused to give anything away. They tortured me, but I took all the pain. I succeeded to change the charakter and thinking of some of them. Oberoth decided I was a risk for him. So he...He extracted the nanites from my body. They kept my body alive..."

I'm laying on a hard underground. Replicators surround me. I feel the nanites leave my body and part of me leaves with them. My body suddenly starts to hurt like hell. My head aches and I hope someone just knockes me out to stop this agony. I feel my life running out of my body. I close my eyes and when the rest of the nanites leave my body, I leave it with them...

I exhale and collapse in the chair.

Dr. Jasons offers me the water. The cold fluid gives me back some of my strength.

"Thanks"

The room is filled with silence for a few moments.

"I'm sorry...for all you had to go through, but...that's not what you came here for, is it?"

"No. I finaly remember everything, but there's something...I hear this voice. It's a man and", I lean forward in the chair as if there was someone who could hear me if I am too loud, "before I came here, before I fully regained my memories I saw him. He told me he was...Atlantis."

"The city?"

"I honestly don't know. And I don't know if that's just stress. Maybe I should just take a rest and look what will happen..."

"Yes, that's probably the best idea. Sleep a little. And eat something before you do so. Tell me if 'Atlantis' keeps 'visiting' you, ok?"

"Ok", I say,"Thank you."

"Sleep well."