Reinventing Destiny

by fade2red, shepweirfan

Summary:

After stepping through the Stargate in Fran's body,(Ghost in the Machine) Elizabeth Ascends once again. She follows Atlantis to Earth and after making contact with John they devise a plan to make her human again. There's an ancient device that can clone Elizabeth's body and put her consciousness back in it. The catch it's back in the Pegasus Galaxy. After the transfer is complete everything is fine until Elizabeth's new body begins breaking down. Then the race is on for John and the others to find a gene therapy treatment that can save her. One of Michael's labs holds the key. Will the data be retrieved and Elizabeth saved? Do they live happily ever after?

Notes:

This is a coauthored work. Shepweirfan's lj pseud is seramercury if you wish to find more of her work there. All of fade2red's work is posted on AO3. Many thanks to our betas justmalea and hihoplastic and also to krisrussel for the read through and suggestion. We heart you all!

Art by

Chapter 1: Prologue

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. 
~William Shakespeare

 

Space was cold. Even though she couldn't feel it, she knew she was surrounded by its vastness with no sight, no sound, nothing save the inevitable silence. There was no fate worse than being trapped in this shell of a body with nothing but her thoughts for company. Every choice, every mistake played out over and over again in her mind. Elizabeth believed oblivion would find her and after interminable days, or perhaps months, passed by, drifting in this borrowed body, she welcomed its icy grasp. Yet she was left to wait, to wait for an end that would not come.

The body didn't breakdown as she expected it to. Perhaps there were too many inorganic components or perhaps space wasn't as harsh as she remembered. Whatever it was, she found herself in her own private hell, unable to move or speak, torn between anger and longing.

After a time she bordered on madness, conflicting opinions warring within her own psyche. Should she Ascend again or not? Coul d she Ascend again or not? If she managed to separate her consciousness from her physical being once more, then what? She didn't have a home to go back to, did she?