They came back with Ford.

Elizabeth should have been happy. Thrilled. Lord knew it made her feel like a horrible leader, a horrible person, that she wasn't.

She stood, arms hanging limply, and watched as Ronon and Teyla dumped Ford's unconscious form on the floor. Ronon stared down at the lieutenant for a moment, jaw twitching, and then turned sharply away. Teyla followed. Her brief anguished glance at Elizabeth spoke volumes.

McKay didn't quit working for days afterward. He drove himself to the point of exhaustion, finally forcing Elizabeth to order him to stop. He didn't.

Teyla and Ronon were always together, and even after they were weaned off the enzyme, there was something different about them. They were colder, quieter, more dangerous somehow, almost daring anyone to challenge their newfound relationship. They were more a military alliance than a romantic couple, united in shared pain and fury.

Ford, after he regained consciousness, was mostly quiet. It seemed he finally grasped, finally comprehended, the enormity of what he had done, of what had been done to him. He knew to place some of the responsibility on the drug that had overwhelmed his system -- no shoulders were strong enough to bear the whole weight of what had happened -- but he also understood that he had failed in a monumental way.

He was polite and meekly agreed to be weaned off the enzyme, but he looked into no one's eyes. Perhaps he knew they would never see him the same way again. Perhaps he knew the condemnation in their eyes would be more than he could bear.

Elizabeth ... Elizabeth was brisk and authoritative and calm. She issued commands and ran Atlantis like the competent leader she was, and if she inwardly questioned her ability to continue, she hid it well.

She didn't sleep much. Sometimes she prowled the outside balconies at 3 AM. Sometimes, when no one was near, she climbed up onto the railing and stared down at the dark, deep ocean below. She never jumped -- she just looked.

Atlantis moved on forever altered, forever lacking something -- someone.

They brought back Ford, but Sheppard died on the ship. In the end, they never could forgive.

Ford disappeared through the Stargate three weeks later. This time, they let him go.