It takes Sheppard a long time to die. Part of her is glad, because it means she still has someone to talk to. Another part of her is sad because it means he has to suffer longer, and she can tell he's tired.

He looks up at her with veiled hazel eyes. He still tries hard to hide the pain, even though that became impossible some time ago. She can read agony in every tense line of his body, in the slight tremor of his voice. She remembers that tremor, from when he had the Iratus bug stuck to his neck, and that tension, from when he had a Wraith feeding on him.

"Teyla," he says. "How long has it been?"

"Five days," she tells him, and pretends she can't see the blood oozing from the corner of his mouth when he speaks. He's dying from the inside out, just like the others. Rodney McKay said, rather calmly for him, that the virus would liquefy their insides. He was right. He was the second to die.

Teyla is the only one who's immune. Sheppard thinks it is because of her Wraith DNA, and she figures he's probably right. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that she will soon walk the haunted halls alone. She knows she can't travel to the mainland, because she might infect her people with the virus, and not all of them have Wraith DNA. Not to mention the fact that she can't fly the jumpers.

After John dies, she will be utterly alone.

He's been giving up, slowly, over the past few hours. She can see it in his face, hear it in his voice, read it in his eyes. He wants to fight but his body is betraying him, and his strength of will can't defeat the microscopic monster eating out his insides.

She sits down next to him, and he leans his head against her shoulder, asking for comfort in a small, silent gesture that communicates so much about his state. His dark, sweat-soaked hair pokes up as obnoxiously as ever, and his skin is icy to the touch. Sitting like this, with his face touching her shoulder, she can feel the small tremors wracking his failing form. She's losing him.

The selfish part of her wants to beg him to stay, wants to tell him she can't do this alone. But her selfless streak is stronger, and it bids him go, rest, be at peace. After he dies she will cremate him, and sing for him like she did the others. These people became her family, so she performs the rituals for them.

Sheppard's pale skin makes the stubble on his face look darker by comparison. She can feel the exhaustion emanating from him. She can also tell that he's fighting to survive partly because he feels guilty about leaving her alone. It's absurd, but it's Sheppard -- he's always cared more about his team than himself.

"Teyla?" He whispers, and the ineffable sadness in his weak voice builds a lump in her throat. The ache in her chest, which has not abated since the first death, grows so strong she can hardly breathe.

"Yes, John?" She looks down at him, at the spiky, unruly head of hair resting on her shoulder, and she drinks in the warmth of him, the fading closeness. He is all she has.

"I'm sorry," he manages to say, and then he coughs and blood streams from his mouth. He chokes, struggling to breathe. She supports him, rubs his back in small, futile motions, and begins to cry.

"John," she says. "Colonel..."

He's losing, going limp, his lips turning blue because he can't breathe any more. His eyes apologize and ask if she's going to be okay, and she cries harder because even when he's dying, he still worries about her. Through the tears she tells him she'll be fine, but she can tell he doesn't believe her. He knows her too well.

It only takes a few minutes. When it's over, she gently lowers his cooling body to the floor and closes his staring hazel eyes one last time. The warmth and closeness are gone forever. She doesn't cry any more.

"Goodbye, John," she says softly.

She is the guardian of Atlantis now, the lonely ghost roaming the haunted halls of the ancestors. She is the only one left now, the only defense standing between the Wraith and Earth. She checks the long-range sensors frequently. If the Wraith come, she will know well in advance.

She radioed her people on the mainland and told them what happened. If the Wraith come, her people are to hide themselves in the forest and hope the Wraith stay focused on the city. She will try to give the Athosians warning.

Teyla roams the balconies at night. In the perfect, eerie stillness of the empty city, she sits on the railing and looks up at a sky full of stars. She wonders how many people live on worlds orbiting the stars she can see. She wonders how it can be possible to be so alone in a place that has held so much life.

Sheppard has been dead for eight months by the time the Wraith arrive.

It is nighttime. She has just finished watching Sheppard's football video and she is half-dozing in a chair when the sensors begin to beep.

For an instant she almost hopes it's an Earth ship, even though she knows it can't be. Before she died, Weir got a message to Earth telling them of the Wraith plague, telling them never to come back to the Pegasus galaxy.

A closer look at the sensors tells her it's a Wraith fleet.

Part of her is almost glad. She's been coasting aimlessly these past eight months, just waiting for this to happen, and part of her is glad this will finally be over.

With one minute left before the self-destruct goes off, she walks out to the balcony and stares up at the stars. She wonders what awaits her -- if perhaps her friends and family will welcome her with open arms. She only hopes that she will not be alone.

In the last few seconds before the great city is destroyed, she opens her arms to the sky. "I am the Guardian," she says, and she smiles as the city disintegrates in a burst of white light.