Elizabeth says, "John, John, Major," and when John finally turns to look at her, at her and Ford, she says, "It’s time to go." He nods, because there’s not many other ways he can respond to that, and says, "I know. I’m right behind you."

He takes a step towards them, shifting his grip on his P-90, but then he stops again. She and Ford are standing as close to the wormhole as they can get without actually going through, Ford with his own gun cocked and ready, Elizabeth with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Both of their faces are pale and tight, drawn-looking in the darkness. Exhausted, too, and the shadows underneath Elizabeth’s eyes, John notices, look deep, like bruises.

He wishes that he could blame it on the lighting, on the undulating blue of the event horizon, but he’s pretty sure that when they get to the other side and step out into the daylight, they’ll both look exactly the same.

He’s sure that he’ll look just as bad as he feels, too.

"We go together," Elizabeth says, orders, still in command. She looks down at her watch, across the room to where the self-destruct counter is moving ever closer to zero. "We only have four minutes left before this wormhole collapses, John. We should go now."

"I know that," he says. "Just give me a moment, okay?"

He turns away again before she can answer, but he hears her sigh behind him. He hears Ford shifting from one foot to the other, the metal of his gun rubbing against the rough fabric of his uniform, something clicking against a button, and then he blocks the sound out, because this is it.

The city looks unfamiliar in the darkness. Too empty, too much as it did when they first arrive through the Gate from Earth, except that this time it’s worse, because when John stepped out of the Gate before, there’d already been soldiers prowling around the perimeter of the room.

It looked so new then, everything so… alien. Now it’s not. Now it’s familiar, right, the way his world is supposed to look.

He turns slowly in a circle, his boots inching over the floor millimeter by millimeter. The gun is heavy in his arms, and his finger slides over the trigger even though there’s nothing to shoot at, not yet, and not, God willing, for a really long time to come.

He knows they won’t be able to hide forever, of course, but he can always hope.

John lets his eyes trace the arches of the window, the curve of the railing. He stares at the glass-filtered sky and wishes that he had time to take a Jumper up just one last time, just once so that he can re-memorize the beauty of the towers that rise above them, the ocean that surrounds them, the green rolling hills of the mainland.

He closes his eyes and pictures the room surrounding him: windows, railings, desks and screens, the staircases with the imbedded lights; but then he lets his brain move farther, deeper. He consciously seeks out his connection to the city, whatever it is that the gene does for him, and he feels it now, in these last moments, stronger than he has ever felt it before.

He feels each level of the city like it is an inch of his own height, the hallways that stretch out around him like they are his own limbs. It surrounds him, fills him, is him, and he can do anything, make her do anything he wants her to, because she will listen, and then, behind him, Elizabeth says, "John, now."

Slowly he opens his eyes again and the deepness of the feeling is gone, it’s back to how it always is, was, has been, just a general awareness, just resting there at the edge of his consciousness.

He completes his turn in one step, and then he’s back facing Elizabeth and Ford again. He steps forward, one step, two, three, and on the sixth he reaches them, he stands with them as they turn to face the Gate, too. Elizabeth looks to him, pain and resignation and too much defeat in her gaze, so he nods at her again, because again, there isn’t really much else he can do.

He holds out his hand, letting it hover at the small of her back and says, "After you." This is what he doesn’t say: maybe he wasn’t the first man to set foot in Atlantis, that honor belonged to Colonel Sumner, but John, he will be the last to leave.

He watches as Elizabeth closes her eyes, as she takes a deep breath, and then she steps through. It’s just him and Ford now, and he doesn’t have to say anything to the other man, to encourage him onwards, because Ford says, "I’ll see you on the other side, Sir," and then he’s gone, too.

There’s less than a minute left before the wormhole closes now, John knows, and he can feel each second as it ticks away, so all he does is turn around again, let himself reach out to his city one last time, a caress, a goodbye. That’s it.

Then he takes that final step backwards, he leaves. Goodbye.