She steps through the Stargate and drinks in the sights and smells of a little, dusty, relatively primitive planet tucked away in an obscure corner of the universe.

Earth.

To her, it's the most beautiful place in the cosmos, and for so long she's been afraid, desperately afraid, that she'll never see it again.

"Welcome home."

Two sweeter words have never fallen upon human ears.

For much of her adult life, Elizabeth Weir viewed 'home' as an elusive concept, an illusion really. Upon returning 'home', those who had longed for it were often disappointed, discovering that it wasn't all they'd remembered it to be, their wistful memories crushed beneath the weight of reality.

Now she knows exactly what the word 'home' means. She knows why the promise of 'home' has given countless soldiers on countless battlefields, those of Earth and a million other planets down through the millennia, the strength to drag their ravaged bodies through one more battle.

She is so euphoric, so caught up in this serendipitous visit to her planet, that she ignores the alarm bells -- for a while. Something's off, they say. Something's wrong.

Kisses don't feel right, roses don't smell right, raindrops are the wrong color. She tries to tell herself that she is the one who's changed, but she knows all along it's a lie.

In the end, the heartbreaking truth is revealed: home, in this case, really is an illusion. Returned to a place of hard dirt and bitter darkness, she blinks away the last images of the world she loves. She must be strong. She mustn't show her disappointment.

Hallucinations be damned; Earth is real, and even if she never sees it again, she'll fight for it with the last breath in her body.

It's home. That's enough.