Originally Posted: Apr. 24th, 2007 (LiveJournal Link)
Length/Rating: 182 words, PG-13, Gen
Pairing/Warnings: Deathfic-ish (implied), spoilers for “The Return” (AU-ish)
Summary: Two hundred people went through the gate, not all of them came home. Written for sga_flashfic The Return challenge.

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The SGC tries to bring them home, untwine them from borrowed seas and skies. Pour them back into lives left on the near side of forever, forgetting those few who’d stepped across a galaxy with nothing left to lose.

They’d buried their past in Pegasus, wrapped in the light of unknown stars and laid to rest with songs sung in languages they hadn’t time to learn. Starting over in a whirlwind of fire and fury, they embraced the chance to be reborn.

Now they walk the mountain corridors, reduced to faint mimicry of those who’d never left. Nothing reaches them; no comforting words, no awkward peace offerings from those realizing too late that some who’d stumbled back through that gate, came back as ghosts.

Atlantis will sing for them, when they’re back under distant stars and the waters of home curl around the ashes. She’ll sing for them, her lost children found again, all Sheppard has to do is bring them home.

They’ll find a way, they always have. Because home is only eight steps away, and they have promises to keep.