Fic: There are cracks in everything (that's how the light comes in)
Title: There are cracks in everything (that's how the light comes in)
Pairings: John/Elizabeth, Carson/Teyla
Rating: M
Spoilers: s4 Doppleganger
Prompt used: angsty fic with smut and a happy ending. Seasons 1-3 are my favorites, but I don't mind season 4 realted fic. AU's rock so if anyone wants to write how Sparky met in another place and time or some crazy adventure John and Elizabeth go on in another reality I won't protest. Also any mention of The Team or any showcase of the friendships in Atlantis is a big plus.
Beta readers: hihoplastic and tenacious_err. I can't thank you enough for all your amazing help. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own SGA. The title was lovingly borrowed from Leonard Cohen.
A/N: Written for bigdamnxenafan at sparky_santa fic exchange. I opted for S4 based fic, which turned into a fix - it of sorts - if one can consider a story where everything and everyone is slightly fractured a fix - it. Elizabeth is there, and she is nanite - free, but still recovering from an injury, while Atlantis is damaged and cut off from Earth and there so many things to deal with. I guess this is not one of those stories where admission of feelings follows after life danger of epic proportions - I'd rather call it subtle angst with cumulative effect that leads to that one, life changing point.
Comments are love.
*
This isn't what breaks them.
He is alone inside the isolation room, and Elizabeth braces herself, thinking how it might have happened too many times already. It's not the first moment when the sight of near loss is real, but this is an important moment nevertheless. They've been on their own, for months now. John's uniform looks worn, and her own isn't in better shape. A month ago she had to sew it back together. Yesterday she had sent them into the unknown, and they brought danger back with them, without even knowing.
Elizabeth places her palms against the cool glass, lips forming a soundless 'hey'. John gets up from the narrow stretcher and walks toward her. It seems as nothing is wrong with him, but his every step seems heavy. He looked into the crystal, and the invisible creature latched itself on him, fed on his fears and spread. Weight lifts from his chest visibly as he mimics her motion, palm against palm and glass in between. They've lost two men, and they still can't comprehend how it actually happened. They were near losing Kate - she fell asleep and almost didn't wake up, when the creature that looked like John to them all tried to convince her to jump.
John looks pale, and so incredibly tired; he looks the same way she feels.
She touches her headset.
“Sleepy?”
John does the same, but the headset isn't there and he pulls his hand away and slides it into his pocket, looking caught and alone. It breaks her heart a little, as he touches the plastic covered comm link on the wall.
“Yeah.”
His voice comes through tired, unguarded, and she thinks she can hear the fear.
“We'll figure it out.” There's a smile. “Stay with me, okay?”
She remembers he sees his own face in the dreams and has to wonder. Knowing him, he won't tell her anything, but she had seen it for herself. It looked like John, in her own dream.
“Before Sandman gets me. Or should I call him Freddy?”
She makes herself smile.
“We'll kick his ass,” she jokes.
“Is it me and my sleep deprivation, or did your bedside manner just improve?”
She looks at his hand, his fingertips.
“Hey,” she says, and looks tired and worn and real, “it took me long enough to learn, don't you think?”
“Definitely,” he agrees. “Four years and all you can come up with is, 'We'll kick his ass?'”
“Maybe that’s why Rodney and Kate sent me here.” She shrugs a little, and somehow looks younger than ever before. “Practice makes perfect.”
“Not in your case. You're hopeless,” he says, and just for a moment his eyes seem familiar with the teasing light inside. She wonders how much of it is for her benefit and how much of it is real; if her presence does anything to comfort him.
“Dance with me?” she asks. She needs to do something, rather than speak, and wonders if years spent near him had rubbed off her, or if they had always been tuned in like that. Doing is easier, and he accepts after several silent moments and looking at her.
It's ridiculous. It's just right. He thinks he knows her, but there always seems to be something new.
“How?” he asks, and wants to touch her. “I mean...”
Palms touch the invisible barrier of isolation, close to her face, and his, and he repeats. It's something they do, often. Then her forehead touches the thick isolation glass, and he thinks he understands.
“See? Like that.” Her voice is music, and his heart is picking up the rhythm. His face is almost touching hers.
“So. Why did they send you here?” The words and hope flutter like a butterfly.
“I volunteered,” she admits, and her smile is perhaps more than he can handle. Carefully, she keeps her weight off her bad leg. He doesn't ask where her crutch is and she doesn't ask about his dreams.
He sighs, right there into her face, and as his breath clouds the glass he says, “I'm so tired,” and means something else. She knows and nods.
“We'll fix it,” she says, and he trusts her.
This isn't what breaks them, but they realize - slowly and gently; gently like the dance - they could finally be broken.
*
She’s almost asleep - face in her palm in front of the laptop screen. Rodney walks over slowly, a cup of tea in his hand. She looks up as he sits down, placing the cup between them as she pushes her laptop away.
“Anything?” she asks, but she knows he’d literally have come running if there was something new or important.
“No, nothing,” he says, and takes a sip. “I mean, there are still a few things we haven’t tried, but…”
“Rodney,” she says. She doesn't want them to risk or experiment or put themselves into greater risk. In the end, it always comes down to inevitable.
“Elizabeth.” It feels like an echo.
To be truthful, he feels useless at the moment. It’s not good when Rodney finds nothing to talk about, and if he is honest, this situation is making him panic. But Rodney has run out of words, just as Carson and Keller are out of miracles, and they've all run out of science and John is running out of time.
Elizabeth looks pale and tired and scared. He’d seen pale and tired before, but scared is rare, and Rodney can count times he’d seen her like this on the fingers of one hand.
So he keeps talking; goes through the options again, but that doesn’t change the fact that John is still alone in a padded room with a sociopath alien in his head. It will try to kill him with his own fears once his eyelids close.
“We’ll find a way,” she concludes, and Rodney isn't sure whom she seems to be comforting.
“Tea?” He offers his own cup. She needs something, and he just can’t spout out a miracle, as much as he wants. She looks at him and almost smiles, then takes the cup. Then she looks at him, surprised.
“Rodney.” She pauses. “Is there lemon in this tea?” she asks, and he gives her a half-grin. She thinks she knows him - and while she does - it's nice to see her surprised.
“My allergies, they are a myth, actually,” he confesses slowly, and smiles and she smiles in return, tired and worn, and Rodney wants to hug her, or assure her somehow. “Just don’t tell Sheppard. He, um, needs some way to shut me up, or at least think he did, and I talk faster than him, and…you know. Lemon. I see it. I hate it, actually. It's easy. It's almost like I'm allergic to it...we'll be out of lemon soon.”
“Rodney,” she says, like she’s deciding if she has enough in her to laugh. “You made up an allergy?” she says, touched and surprised and he thinks he’s blushing a little.
“Yeah, I did? It’s, a, uh, long story.” Elizabeth’s eyes are entirely too kind. “It involves high school, and, um…don’t tell Sheppard?” He says it with certainty, because there will be another day, and another moment when John will wave a slice of lemon in front of his face and he will shut up, although reluctantly.
There has to be that day somewhere down the line.
Elizabeth is looking at him, and he doesn’t know what exactly he said to make her eyes light up like that. But it doesn’t last, and her face just melts - sadness and warmth and amusement causing his heart to drop.
“He, uh...dreamed that he left you behind.” Rodney's voice is quiet. It's none of his business, but something here doesn't seem right. He simply needs to say it, and his mind is running in several directions. Elizabeth looks at him, confused. “Sheppard. He dreams of leaving you behind.” He clears his throat and holds Elizabeth's gaze, not needing to remember how John tried to save him from his dream, and then the table turned and it was John's dream. “The Genii, the Replicators, some God-forsaken planet,” he stops, and remembers waking up and Keller trying to revive John. It worked, that one time. “It's...I mean, I was in danger in my dream, you know?”
And when he can't explain it better, it seems that she understands what he's been meaning to say.
And that is what breaks her.
*
“You're good to go, son.” Elizabeth can see Carson scribbling down words on John's infirmary sheet as Jennifer measures his blood pressure.
“No more nasty alien in my head?” he tries to joke when he catches the sight of Elizabeth, standing at the door. They're caught in each other's gaze, and she tries to look somewhere other than his bare chest and realizes he has gray hair mixed with black and scars underneath.
“I'm sorry, I'll come back if you're not quite finished here,” she says as she finally looks away from John.
“Oh, it's okay love. Colonel ain't that shy, aren't you? It's good you've showed up. Jennifer was about to clear him for duty,” says Carson. Attention shifts to younger woman; she hands John a shirt and offers him a smile.
“You're back to normal,” she says. “I declare him fit for duty,” Jennifer looks at Elizabeth as she continues. “I would prefer if he stayed out of off world missions for the next couple of days.”
Elizabeth nods to that, and thanks both doctors as they leave the room and then there's just her and John.
“Hey,” he says. She keeps the distance between them now when there is no isolation glass and thinks of four years worth of made up allergies and counts all the times he could have died. There are lines on John's face he didn't have when she first met him. He hops down from the stretcher.
“Hey. Feeling better?”
“Good as new.” His grin is happy.
She just can't handle it, seeing him a step away from death and then alive.
“Good. That's... good,” she offers.
“Back to awkward bedside manner, I see.” Elizabeth tries to smile, shrug it off, like she usually does, but she knows there are scars on his chest and lines on his face and it's all too real and too much.
John steps closer - “Elizabeth” - there's something heavy in his eyes, something she almost recognizes.
“You want to grab lunch? You must be starving.”
“Sure,” he says carefully and approaches her, comes close enough for her to feel his scent and his warmth. His hand brushes hers and she can't tell if was it intentional or not. The touch makes her tense and he notices immediately. “You okay?”
Her answer falls too quickly from her mouth, “Of course. Why wouldn't I be?”
It doesn't sound true even to her. She tries to pull away from his closeness, and at the same time he tries to keep her in place with a hand on her wrist. John isn't very tactile, never has been with her. His hand is so warm. It makes her feel even worse, when she looks at the familiar sight of his fingers; roughness against her soft looking skin.
“Elizabeth.” Breath comes through his nose. “I'm not...I'm better.”
What he means is, 'I won't hurt you.' She knows that.
“I know. That's not -”
The both turn around when Carson enters the room, and Elizabeth frees herself of his hold.
“I forgot my pen light.” Carson goes to pick it up from the desk near the bed. “Colonel, I wanted to remind you of your appointment with Doctor Heightmeyer.”
Before John can react the moment is broken and Elizabeth is standing by the door.
“I have reports to go through,” she says, looking at him, seeing the lines on his face and feeling guilty. She pulls out a smile that does nothing but distance them further. “I just wanted to know you are all right.”
And then she is gone.
*
“It’s not fair.” Elizabeth hears Teyla's voice, and realizes she’s never heard her sound like that. The gym is empty, lit by the glow of setting sun, and Elizabeth can see Teyla standing near the window, facing away from Carson. Elizabeth watches as Carson wheels himself closer.
“No, I guess not, love.” His voice is lighter than Elizabeth expects, but then Carson always could find good in anything, in all things. Teyla touches the window and Carson touches her.
“We will never dance,” she says, and turns, a sad smile on her face.
“You silly thing,” he says, with such such fondness that Elizabeth’s chest tightens. She thinks of what Jennifer told her earlier - after John had fallen asleep, safely.
“Carson told me he'd rather have his patients with a CMO who can run when they need him. Or her,” Jennifer looked down. “I'm so sorry.”
“Doctor Keller.”
The younger woman flinched and looked up.
“You did all you could. Doctor Keller -” Elizabeth's voice was hurried, insistent, when the young doctor looked away. “I still feel perfectly safe with my life in your hands.”
“It feels...” Jennifer looked up and met Elizabeth's eyes. “I didn't do enough.”
“And I want you to know that I agree with Doctor Beckett.”
Jennifer just held Elizabeth's gaze.
Carson pulls Teyla onto his lap and spins his wheelchair and they kiss. “Of course we will dance.” Elizabeth feels like a thief, watching how they lean in together and their foreheads touch, a moment intimate like lace. She is about to turn and leave, but they both call out to her.
“Elizabeth!”
“Hey, lass.” Elizabeth turns just as Teyla is getting up. Her face seems lighter, less sad when she kisses Carson briefly. Secrets are for fools and denial comes with a price. Elizabeth leans against her crutch as she walks toward them.
Teyla gives Carson a smile as she passes him and Elizabeth walks to Carson, stops shortly to squeeze Teyla's hand back.
“How are you?” asks the Doctor when they settle near the window, Elizabeth on a bench and Carson near her, aglow in the warm sunshine.
She thinks how Carson could have died. How John would have worn the dress blues, and would’ve carried the coffin through the ‘Gate. She thinks of a Scottish flag, crisp and folded between Korean and German flags, and then beneath them, the stars and stripes for America, a flag for two marines who died this time, a flag for John, just waiting there.
“Stop that, love,” says Carson, and Elizabeth looks up at him. He is narrowing his eyes at her, like when she is playing brave and trying to convince him that she doesn't need food or sleep. Not really.
“Stop what?”
“That. Whatever you’re thinking and giving yourself headache with.”
Elizabeth leans her elbows on her knees and lets her face drop low.
“You have drugs for that, right?”
“I think I’m all out of them.” Carson’s smile is incomprehensible, but he is the man who heard the angles sing, and decided to go back.
“Should have known,” she sighs, and rubs her temples.
“Not like they’d do much good, I’m afraid.” They don’t make pills strong enough to beat anxieties when Colonel Sheppard gets himself in trouble,” She looks at him and Carson nudges her fondly.
“No kidding.” Her voice is shaky as it comes out on another sigh.
“Well, there are no pills which can beat the headache induced by Elizabeth Weir deciding to go off world either.”
When she doesn't pick up the conversation he decides to speak further.
“He’s been through worse than this, love. He’ll be just fine. He’s far too stubborn to let this get him.”
“That he is,” she says and a smile tugs at her lips before she can stop it and it feels so heavy.
“He also has something to come home to,” he nudges her again, not just literally.
“Is there a point to this conversation?” she asks him with half smile. He pats her knee in a friendly manner,
“Other than Kate will kick my ass? I guess birds of a feather flock together. There is a reason why two of you work so well and make each other lose sleep.”
“Huh.”
“That, and Rodney won’t be that embarrassed because you two made the walls blush again,” says Carson.
“Carson. John and I- ”
“He will be all right, love. But sometimes he needs to hear that from you. And that you will be okay too.” His voice is soft, spreading through the room like warmth. Elizabeth closes her eyes.
And then there isn’t much more to be said. They sit there for a while as the sun is setting.
“I should be going,” Elizabeth says. The darkness is gathering, claiming corners of the room and she can barely make out the door. So little light to cling to.
“Aye, love. Take care of yourself.”
*
This is how she dreams:
She knows she's dreaming, but she can't wake. She is standing in her usual spot, the balcony overlooking the 'Gate, watching him leave. He stops, turns; he smiles at her and waves. She waves back. She doesn't have crutches, and nothing hurts after standing too long. The blue glimmer of the wormhole is almost hopeful.
They bring him back dead.
She can go back to the moment when he waves at her, to warn him. He stops, he turns, she can't speak. His smile doesn't fade.
They don't come back. Then they come back without him. The time after that, they bring him barely alive, after the Wraith has sucked all of his life.
Don't go! she screams, but it's silent. He waves and steps through the 'Gate.
They come back, carrying him bruised and bleeding. He wants to tell her something, he tries. He dies on her arms.
Elizabeth watches, again and again, how he stops and turns and gives her a little wave.
She sees him behind the thick isolation glass and his breath freezes in the air. She punches the glass with her hand, both fists hitting the cold barrier as he fades. One last breath turns into mist and he isn't there any more.
This is how she dreams, and she knows it's not the creature from the crystal that brings the dreams.
She wakes up without the voice to scream.
*
This is how she comes to him - quietly, in the night, when she can't sleep; when she thinks of what might have been, and what could happen. When he opens the door, she doesn't know what to say - and mercifully, he doesn't ask. There had always been understanding between them, something that ran deeper than just words. He walks toward the bed and she follows, telling herself not to think of this. John doesn't protest when she sits on the edge of his bed, and she doesn't say anything when he shifts to make room for her to lie down.
They both know why she is here. A tingle runs down her side, where her body is almost touching his as they both stare toward the ceiling.
“Did I wake you?” she asks, and feels as he shakes his head.
“I had too much sleep,” he says. “Well, not exactly, but I feel like that.”
And then silence - because she doesn't know exactly how to say it. They've lost too much time? He could have died? She could have died?
“Carson...he won't be getting better,” she says instead.
John's hand finds hers in the darkness.
“My leg won't be fixed,” she adds.
We may never return home, she thinks, and holds his hand tighter. The moment is tight and bitter, stuck in her throat. This city may not be fixed. We are in danger. I will have to send you to meet your death again. She bites back breath and tears and wants it all to stop.
“It’s that…” He turns to her, lying flat on his back on the soft mattress. She’s gazing up at the ceiling, which she cannot see. When he doesn’t say anything more, she turns to look at him, and he holds his breath, and looks away “I hate windows,” he barely whispers.
“I hate my crutches,” she confesses, equally quiet, and slips slightly closer.
“Yeah.”
“But they’re not your fault, John,” she says and feels him tense. “They’re not.”
She slides her fingers down his arm, and this is that moment. They both swallow tightly.
“I can’t just let you go - ”
“You can’t stand in front of every window for me either,” she replies, and touches him lightly. The muscles jump under her fingers, beneath the soft, worn fabric of his shirt. “For everyone else. Not everything is your fault.”
He rolls to his side, eyes on hers, and then they lock onto her lips. He wants to kiss her, but doesn’t, not yet.
“I want to,” John confesses, his hand reaches for hers on the mattress. “I need to.”
“I don't want to choose between you and-”
Her fingers are so small around his, but he feels like she could protect him - like she could save him. He inches closer and she touches his cheek. He turns his face into her hand, kissing her palm.
“I'd stand in front of any window for you, John.”
She would. He opens his mouth to speak and then swallows tightly, looking terrified just as she feels. She holds onto the painful longing in his eyes.
“Birds of a feather,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“A very wise man told me that,” she says. In the silence she touches his lips and he closes his eyes, and damn everything - the duty and the danger and ships crashing down on them; the rules she blindly held onto.
“I’m tired,” she says finally, and he looks at her. She keeps her fingers on his lips, for him to kiss the tips, and doesn’t pull back. She’s tired of responsibility and danger and the constant making of hard, hard decisions, but mostly, she is tired of pulling back from him. When his lips claim hers it’s a soft descent and rapid rising - soaring high, going home.
They shift slowly, tentatively at fist, because it’s finally happening and it’s too good to be true and oh so wrong and neither of them wants the other to stop but if they push too hard it might just disappear, just like that. But they don’t, and what’s driving them together is finally stronger than what’s keeping them apart, and soon John’s body is solid against Elizabeth’s and they’re panting into each other’s mouths and then it feels fast and hard, completely natural, like they’ve grown on each other’s breath since the beginning of time.
He does pull back, only a little, before his hands slide completely under her shirt. She breathes his name, “John”, so harshly, it’s barely a word, and he seems to understand. They kiss and melt and she’s moaning under his hands. All of it goes away, the City, the dreams, the past few days, Carson’s wheelchair and the broken window, and her leg that still hurts. She forgets she could have died, because she’s alive. Right now she knows she’s alive, and she shudders and bites John’s shoulder, her mouth on his shirt, and when his scent fills her - familiar, warm and soft - she knows this is home, and this is right.
They undress, fumble with clothes in hurry, trying to reach and touch and kiss. Then, suddenly, nothing is there any more, nothing. Just them and skin and he is so warm. Her solid comfort she has relied on for so long, and been so cold without.
She sighs, blind when his fingers sink into her. He is gentle, careful as he stares down at her, and it’s not that she is naked under his eyes - she is open, and that makes it so much more precious. His eyes grow worried because she can’t make a sound when he’s looking at her like this. She could lose herself, but he would never lose her; never let her slip away.
She knows he’d come back. He’d stand up, and run, and come after her. Any time. Always. His fingers send waves up her spine, tingling like flames through her nerves and she clutches the sheets tightly in her hands.
When he kisses her, she can almost taste his fear. It’s been floating in his eyes ever since the window, and welling up in his chest with guilt every time he looks at her with crutches. And all she wants to tell him is that she’s here because of him, she came this far because there was always someone to lean on. Always. He never let her down and she knows, he never will.
He goes down on her, slowly, down her body, kissing the places where bruises have faded, until his face is between her thighs. “’Lizabeth,” he says against her, and it’s hot and heavy, what he does to her. He is hesitant at first, listening to her breathing, feeling how her body moves when he kisses and licks her. She is rising to meet his mouth, trying to stay as close as possible and his palms are sweating against the skin of her thighs, rough against soft, black and red, war and peace, contradiction and harmony. “Shh,” he says, and she would scream if she could, but everything - his mouth and glass crashing, and galaxy raging in war spinning around them and her body burning under his lips - it’s just too much. She feels his fingers entering her and spreads her legs wider because she needs more of him, more, right there, inside, and it’s so perfect and right.
She doesn’t even hear her own voice - a loud, long moan when she comes.
Moments later, when she’s calm and breathing he pulls her on top of him and they hold each other. He seems content and happy, even while he’s hard against her inner thigh and probably aching in need. She moves, sliding down onto him, watching as his eyes lose focus and then drift shut. She sees for the first time, clearly, just how gorgeous he is, with his grays and his scars. Elizabeth can feel him in her, solid and hot; his body under hers; every moan and breath when she moves. It goes so slowly at first, because she is tight and aching and it has been a long time. The air is stuck in her chest as she moves, and rough fingers brush the soft skin, feel her ribs, her breasts. He makes her move, shift, until she is leaning over him with breasts hanging over his open mouth.
She rocks her hips and her bad leg hurts, and John holds her still when she winces.
“Your leg?” he asks breathlessly, and when she nods he turns them around, then enters her carefully.
It’s so hard and takes so much out of her, watching him like this, knowing she could break him. Yet she can’t look away. It hurts, but what’s inside John’s chest has to hurt more, indefinitely more, and Elizabeth wills her body to relax. They shift and slide and he is moving harshly above her. It won’t take long - John holds her close, face buried in the crook of her shoulder.
He comes with a long groan, his body completely in her, and then there is silence. Just silence. When she is able to breathe again, she kisses him long and tender.
They fall asleep peacefully, two bodies and one pillow.
Pairings: John/Elizabeth, Carson/Teyla
Rating: M
Spoilers: s4 Doppleganger
Prompt used: angsty fic with smut and a happy ending. Seasons 1-3 are my favorites, but I don't mind season 4 realted fic. AU's rock so if anyone wants to write how Sparky met in another place and time or some crazy adventure John and Elizabeth go on in another reality I won't protest. Also any mention of The Team or any showcase of the friendships in Atlantis is a big plus.
Beta readers: hihoplastic and tenacious_err. I can't thank you enough for all your amazing help. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own SGA. The title was lovingly borrowed from Leonard Cohen.
A/N: Written for bigdamnxenafan at sparky_santa fic exchange. I opted for S4 based fic, which turned into a fix - it of sorts - if one can consider a story where everything and everyone is slightly fractured a fix - it. Elizabeth is there, and she is nanite - free, but still recovering from an injury, while Atlantis is damaged and cut off from Earth and there so many things to deal with. I guess this is not one of those stories where admission of feelings follows after life danger of epic proportions - I'd rather call it subtle angst with cumulative effect that leads to that one, life changing point.
Comments are love.
*
This isn't what breaks them.
He is alone inside the isolation room, and Elizabeth braces herself, thinking how it might have happened too many times already. It's not the first moment when the sight of near loss is real, but this is an important moment nevertheless. They've been on their own, for months now. John's uniform looks worn, and her own isn't in better shape. A month ago she had to sew it back together. Yesterday she had sent them into the unknown, and they brought danger back with them, without even knowing.
Elizabeth places her palms against the cool glass, lips forming a soundless 'hey'. John gets up from the narrow stretcher and walks toward her. It seems as nothing is wrong with him, but his every step seems heavy. He looked into the crystal, and the invisible creature latched itself on him, fed on his fears and spread. Weight lifts from his chest visibly as he mimics her motion, palm against palm and glass in between. They've lost two men, and they still can't comprehend how it actually happened. They were near losing Kate - she fell asleep and almost didn't wake up, when the creature that looked like John to them all tried to convince her to jump.
John looks pale, and so incredibly tired; he looks the same way she feels.
She touches her headset.
“Sleepy?”
John does the same, but the headset isn't there and he pulls his hand away and slides it into his pocket, looking caught and alone. It breaks her heart a little, as he touches the plastic covered comm link on the wall.
“Yeah.”
His voice comes through tired, unguarded, and she thinks she can hear the fear.
“We'll figure it out.” There's a smile. “Stay with me, okay?”
She remembers he sees his own face in the dreams and has to wonder. Knowing him, he won't tell her anything, but she had seen it for herself. It looked like John, in her own dream.
“Before Sandman gets me. Or should I call him Freddy?”
She makes herself smile.
“We'll kick his ass,” she jokes.
“Is it me and my sleep deprivation, or did your bedside manner just improve?”
She looks at his hand, his fingertips.
“Hey,” she says, and looks tired and worn and real, “it took me long enough to learn, don't you think?”
“Definitely,” he agrees. “Four years and all you can come up with is, 'We'll kick his ass?'”
“Maybe that’s why Rodney and Kate sent me here.” She shrugs a little, and somehow looks younger than ever before. “Practice makes perfect.”
“Not in your case. You're hopeless,” he says, and just for a moment his eyes seem familiar with the teasing light inside. She wonders how much of it is for her benefit and how much of it is real; if her presence does anything to comfort him.
“Dance with me?” she asks. She needs to do something, rather than speak, and wonders if years spent near him had rubbed off her, or if they had always been tuned in like that. Doing is easier, and he accepts after several silent moments and looking at her.
It's ridiculous. It's just right. He thinks he knows her, but there always seems to be something new.
“How?” he asks, and wants to touch her. “I mean...”
Palms touch the invisible barrier of isolation, close to her face, and his, and he repeats. It's something they do, often. Then her forehead touches the thick isolation glass, and he thinks he understands.
“See? Like that.” Her voice is music, and his heart is picking up the rhythm. His face is almost touching hers.
“So. Why did they send you here?” The words and hope flutter like a butterfly.
“I volunteered,” she admits, and her smile is perhaps more than he can handle. Carefully, she keeps her weight off her bad leg. He doesn't ask where her crutch is and she doesn't ask about his dreams.
He sighs, right there into her face, and as his breath clouds the glass he says, “I'm so tired,” and means something else. She knows and nods.
“We'll fix it,” she says, and he trusts her.
This isn't what breaks them, but they realize - slowly and gently; gently like the dance - they could finally be broken.
*
She’s almost asleep - face in her palm in front of the laptop screen. Rodney walks over slowly, a cup of tea in his hand. She looks up as he sits down, placing the cup between them as she pushes her laptop away.
“Anything?” she asks, but she knows he’d literally have come running if there was something new or important.
“No, nothing,” he says, and takes a sip. “I mean, there are still a few things we haven’t tried, but…”
“Rodney,” she says. She doesn't want them to risk or experiment or put themselves into greater risk. In the end, it always comes down to inevitable.
“Elizabeth.” It feels like an echo.
To be truthful, he feels useless at the moment. It’s not good when Rodney finds nothing to talk about, and if he is honest, this situation is making him panic. But Rodney has run out of words, just as Carson and Keller are out of miracles, and they've all run out of science and John is running out of time.
Elizabeth looks pale and tired and scared. He’d seen pale and tired before, but scared is rare, and Rodney can count times he’d seen her like this on the fingers of one hand.
So he keeps talking; goes through the options again, but that doesn’t change the fact that John is still alone in a padded room with a sociopath alien in his head. It will try to kill him with his own fears once his eyelids close.
“We’ll find a way,” she concludes, and Rodney isn't sure whom she seems to be comforting.
“Tea?” He offers his own cup. She needs something, and he just can’t spout out a miracle, as much as he wants. She looks at him and almost smiles, then takes the cup. Then she looks at him, surprised.
“Rodney.” She pauses. “Is there lemon in this tea?” she asks, and he gives her a half-grin. She thinks she knows him - and while she does - it's nice to see her surprised.
“My allergies, they are a myth, actually,” he confesses slowly, and smiles and she smiles in return, tired and worn, and Rodney wants to hug her, or assure her somehow. “Just don’t tell Sheppard. He, um, needs some way to shut me up, or at least think he did, and I talk faster than him, and…you know. Lemon. I see it. I hate it, actually. It's easy. It's almost like I'm allergic to it...we'll be out of lemon soon.”
“Rodney,” she says, like she’s deciding if she has enough in her to laugh. “You made up an allergy?” she says, touched and surprised and he thinks he’s blushing a little.
“Yeah, I did? It’s, a, uh, long story.” Elizabeth’s eyes are entirely too kind. “It involves high school, and, um…don’t tell Sheppard?” He says it with certainty, because there will be another day, and another moment when John will wave a slice of lemon in front of his face and he will shut up, although reluctantly.
There has to be that day somewhere down the line.
Elizabeth is looking at him, and he doesn’t know what exactly he said to make her eyes light up like that. But it doesn’t last, and her face just melts - sadness and warmth and amusement causing his heart to drop.
“He, uh...dreamed that he left you behind.” Rodney's voice is quiet. It's none of his business, but something here doesn't seem right. He simply needs to say it, and his mind is running in several directions. Elizabeth looks at him, confused. “Sheppard. He dreams of leaving you behind.” He clears his throat and holds Elizabeth's gaze, not needing to remember how John tried to save him from his dream, and then the table turned and it was John's dream. “The Genii, the Replicators, some God-forsaken planet,” he stops, and remembers waking up and Keller trying to revive John. It worked, that one time. “It's...I mean, I was in danger in my dream, you know?”
And when he can't explain it better, it seems that she understands what he's been meaning to say.
And that is what breaks her.
*
“You're good to go, son.” Elizabeth can see Carson scribbling down words on John's infirmary sheet as Jennifer measures his blood pressure.
“No more nasty alien in my head?” he tries to joke when he catches the sight of Elizabeth, standing at the door. They're caught in each other's gaze, and she tries to look somewhere other than his bare chest and realizes he has gray hair mixed with black and scars underneath.
“I'm sorry, I'll come back if you're not quite finished here,” she says as she finally looks away from John.
“Oh, it's okay love. Colonel ain't that shy, aren't you? It's good you've showed up. Jennifer was about to clear him for duty,” says Carson. Attention shifts to younger woman; she hands John a shirt and offers him a smile.
“You're back to normal,” she says. “I declare him fit for duty,” Jennifer looks at Elizabeth as she continues. “I would prefer if he stayed out of off world missions for the next couple of days.”
Elizabeth nods to that, and thanks both doctors as they leave the room and then there's just her and John.
“Hey,” he says. She keeps the distance between them now when there is no isolation glass and thinks of four years worth of made up allergies and counts all the times he could have died. There are lines on John's face he didn't have when she first met him. He hops down from the stretcher.
“Hey. Feeling better?”
“Good as new.” His grin is happy.
She just can't handle it, seeing him a step away from death and then alive.
“Good. That's... good,” she offers.
“Back to awkward bedside manner, I see.” Elizabeth tries to smile, shrug it off, like she usually does, but she knows there are scars on his chest and lines on his face and it's all too real and too much.
John steps closer - “Elizabeth” - there's something heavy in his eyes, something she almost recognizes.
“You want to grab lunch? You must be starving.”
“Sure,” he says carefully and approaches her, comes close enough for her to feel his scent and his warmth. His hand brushes hers and she can't tell if was it intentional or not. The touch makes her tense and he notices immediately. “You okay?”
Her answer falls too quickly from her mouth, “Of course. Why wouldn't I be?”
It doesn't sound true even to her. She tries to pull away from his closeness, and at the same time he tries to keep her in place with a hand on her wrist. John isn't very tactile, never has been with her. His hand is so warm. It makes her feel even worse, when she looks at the familiar sight of his fingers; roughness against her soft looking skin.
“Elizabeth.” Breath comes through his nose. “I'm not...I'm better.”
What he means is, 'I won't hurt you.' She knows that.
“I know. That's not -”
The both turn around when Carson enters the room, and Elizabeth frees herself of his hold.
“I forgot my pen light.” Carson goes to pick it up from the desk near the bed. “Colonel, I wanted to remind you of your appointment with Doctor Heightmeyer.”
Before John can react the moment is broken and Elizabeth is standing by the door.
“I have reports to go through,” she says, looking at him, seeing the lines on his face and feeling guilty. She pulls out a smile that does nothing but distance them further. “I just wanted to know you are all right.”
And then she is gone.
*
“It’s not fair.” Elizabeth hears Teyla's voice, and realizes she’s never heard her sound like that. The gym is empty, lit by the glow of setting sun, and Elizabeth can see Teyla standing near the window, facing away from Carson. Elizabeth watches as Carson wheels himself closer.
“No, I guess not, love.” His voice is lighter than Elizabeth expects, but then Carson always could find good in anything, in all things. Teyla touches the window and Carson touches her.
“We will never dance,” she says, and turns, a sad smile on her face.
“You silly thing,” he says, with such such fondness that Elizabeth’s chest tightens. She thinks of what Jennifer told her earlier - after John had fallen asleep, safely.
“Carson told me he'd rather have his patients with a CMO who can run when they need him. Or her,” Jennifer looked down. “I'm so sorry.”
“Doctor Keller.”
The younger woman flinched and looked up.
“You did all you could. Doctor Keller -” Elizabeth's voice was hurried, insistent, when the young doctor looked away. “I still feel perfectly safe with my life in your hands.”
“It feels...” Jennifer looked up and met Elizabeth's eyes. “I didn't do enough.”
“And I want you to know that I agree with Doctor Beckett.”
Jennifer just held Elizabeth's gaze.
Carson pulls Teyla onto his lap and spins his wheelchair and they kiss. “Of course we will dance.” Elizabeth feels like a thief, watching how they lean in together and their foreheads touch, a moment intimate like lace. She is about to turn and leave, but they both call out to her.
“Elizabeth!”
“Hey, lass.” Elizabeth turns just as Teyla is getting up. Her face seems lighter, less sad when she kisses Carson briefly. Secrets are for fools and denial comes with a price. Elizabeth leans against her crutch as she walks toward them.
Teyla gives Carson a smile as she passes him and Elizabeth walks to Carson, stops shortly to squeeze Teyla's hand back.
“How are you?” asks the Doctor when they settle near the window, Elizabeth on a bench and Carson near her, aglow in the warm sunshine.
She thinks how Carson could have died. How John would have worn the dress blues, and would’ve carried the coffin through the ‘Gate. She thinks of a Scottish flag, crisp and folded between Korean and German flags, and then beneath them, the stars and stripes for America, a flag for two marines who died this time, a flag for John, just waiting there.
“Stop that, love,” says Carson, and Elizabeth looks up at him. He is narrowing his eyes at her, like when she is playing brave and trying to convince him that she doesn't need food or sleep. Not really.
“Stop what?”
“That. Whatever you’re thinking and giving yourself headache with.”
Elizabeth leans her elbows on her knees and lets her face drop low.
“You have drugs for that, right?”
“I think I’m all out of them.” Carson’s smile is incomprehensible, but he is the man who heard the angles sing, and decided to go back.
“Should have known,” she sighs, and rubs her temples.
“Not like they’d do much good, I’m afraid.” They don’t make pills strong enough to beat anxieties when Colonel Sheppard gets himself in trouble,” She looks at him and Carson nudges her fondly.
“No kidding.” Her voice is shaky as it comes out on another sigh.
“Well, there are no pills which can beat the headache induced by Elizabeth Weir deciding to go off world either.”
When she doesn't pick up the conversation he decides to speak further.
“He’s been through worse than this, love. He’ll be just fine. He’s far too stubborn to let this get him.”
“That he is,” she says and a smile tugs at her lips before she can stop it and it feels so heavy.
“He also has something to come home to,” he nudges her again, not just literally.
“Is there a point to this conversation?” she asks him with half smile. He pats her knee in a friendly manner,
“Other than Kate will kick my ass? I guess birds of a feather flock together. There is a reason why two of you work so well and make each other lose sleep.”
“Huh.”
“That, and Rodney won’t be that embarrassed because you two made the walls blush again,” says Carson.
“Carson. John and I- ”
“He will be all right, love. But sometimes he needs to hear that from you. And that you will be okay too.” His voice is soft, spreading through the room like warmth. Elizabeth closes her eyes.
And then there isn’t much more to be said. They sit there for a while as the sun is setting.
“I should be going,” Elizabeth says. The darkness is gathering, claiming corners of the room and she can barely make out the door. So little light to cling to.
“Aye, love. Take care of yourself.”
*
This is how she dreams:
She knows she's dreaming, but she can't wake. She is standing in her usual spot, the balcony overlooking the 'Gate, watching him leave. He stops, turns; he smiles at her and waves. She waves back. She doesn't have crutches, and nothing hurts after standing too long. The blue glimmer of the wormhole is almost hopeful.
They bring him back dead.
She can go back to the moment when he waves at her, to warn him. He stops, he turns, she can't speak. His smile doesn't fade.
They don't come back. Then they come back without him. The time after that, they bring him barely alive, after the Wraith has sucked all of his life.
Don't go! she screams, but it's silent. He waves and steps through the 'Gate.
They come back, carrying him bruised and bleeding. He wants to tell her something, he tries. He dies on her arms.
Elizabeth watches, again and again, how he stops and turns and gives her a little wave.
She sees him behind the thick isolation glass and his breath freezes in the air. She punches the glass with her hand, both fists hitting the cold barrier as he fades. One last breath turns into mist and he isn't there any more.
This is how she dreams, and she knows it's not the creature from the crystal that brings the dreams.
She wakes up without the voice to scream.
*
This is how she comes to him - quietly, in the night, when she can't sleep; when she thinks of what might have been, and what could happen. When he opens the door, she doesn't know what to say - and mercifully, he doesn't ask. There had always been understanding between them, something that ran deeper than just words. He walks toward the bed and she follows, telling herself not to think of this. John doesn't protest when she sits on the edge of his bed, and she doesn't say anything when he shifts to make room for her to lie down.
They both know why she is here. A tingle runs down her side, where her body is almost touching his as they both stare toward the ceiling.
“Did I wake you?” she asks, and feels as he shakes his head.
“I had too much sleep,” he says. “Well, not exactly, but I feel like that.”
And then silence - because she doesn't know exactly how to say it. They've lost too much time? He could have died? She could have died?
“Carson...he won't be getting better,” she says instead.
John's hand finds hers in the darkness.
“My leg won't be fixed,” she adds.
We may never return home, she thinks, and holds his hand tighter. The moment is tight and bitter, stuck in her throat. This city may not be fixed. We are in danger. I will have to send you to meet your death again. She bites back breath and tears and wants it all to stop.
“It’s that…” He turns to her, lying flat on his back on the soft mattress. She’s gazing up at the ceiling, which she cannot see. When he doesn’t say anything more, she turns to look at him, and he holds his breath, and looks away “I hate windows,” he barely whispers.
“I hate my crutches,” she confesses, equally quiet, and slips slightly closer.
“Yeah.”
“But they’re not your fault, John,” she says and feels him tense. “They’re not.”
She slides her fingers down his arm, and this is that moment. They both swallow tightly.
“I can’t just let you go - ”
“You can’t stand in front of every window for me either,” she replies, and touches him lightly. The muscles jump under her fingers, beneath the soft, worn fabric of his shirt. “For everyone else. Not everything is your fault.”
He rolls to his side, eyes on hers, and then they lock onto her lips. He wants to kiss her, but doesn’t, not yet.
“I want to,” John confesses, his hand reaches for hers on the mattress. “I need to.”
“I don't want to choose between you and-”
Her fingers are so small around his, but he feels like she could protect him - like she could save him. He inches closer and she touches his cheek. He turns his face into her hand, kissing her palm.
“I'd stand in front of any window for you, John.”
She would. He opens his mouth to speak and then swallows tightly, looking terrified just as she feels. She holds onto the painful longing in his eyes.
“Birds of a feather,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“A very wise man told me that,” she says. In the silence she touches his lips and he closes his eyes, and damn everything - the duty and the danger and ships crashing down on them; the rules she blindly held onto.
“I’m tired,” she says finally, and he looks at her. She keeps her fingers on his lips, for him to kiss the tips, and doesn’t pull back. She’s tired of responsibility and danger and the constant making of hard, hard decisions, but mostly, she is tired of pulling back from him. When his lips claim hers it’s a soft descent and rapid rising - soaring high, going home.
They shift slowly, tentatively at fist, because it’s finally happening and it’s too good to be true and oh so wrong and neither of them wants the other to stop but if they push too hard it might just disappear, just like that. But they don’t, and what’s driving them together is finally stronger than what’s keeping them apart, and soon John’s body is solid against Elizabeth’s and they’re panting into each other’s mouths and then it feels fast and hard, completely natural, like they’ve grown on each other’s breath since the beginning of time.
He does pull back, only a little, before his hands slide completely under her shirt. She breathes his name, “John”, so harshly, it’s barely a word, and he seems to understand. They kiss and melt and she’s moaning under his hands. All of it goes away, the City, the dreams, the past few days, Carson’s wheelchair and the broken window, and her leg that still hurts. She forgets she could have died, because she’s alive. Right now she knows she’s alive, and she shudders and bites John’s shoulder, her mouth on his shirt, and when his scent fills her - familiar, warm and soft - she knows this is home, and this is right.
They undress, fumble with clothes in hurry, trying to reach and touch and kiss. Then, suddenly, nothing is there any more, nothing. Just them and skin and he is so warm. Her solid comfort she has relied on for so long, and been so cold without.
She sighs, blind when his fingers sink into her. He is gentle, careful as he stares down at her, and it’s not that she is naked under his eyes - she is open, and that makes it so much more precious. His eyes grow worried because she can’t make a sound when he’s looking at her like this. She could lose herself, but he would never lose her; never let her slip away.
She knows he’d come back. He’d stand up, and run, and come after her. Any time. Always. His fingers send waves up her spine, tingling like flames through her nerves and she clutches the sheets tightly in her hands.
When he kisses her, she can almost taste his fear. It’s been floating in his eyes ever since the window, and welling up in his chest with guilt every time he looks at her with crutches. And all she wants to tell him is that she’s here because of him, she came this far because there was always someone to lean on. Always. He never let her down and she knows, he never will.
He goes down on her, slowly, down her body, kissing the places where bruises have faded, until his face is between her thighs. “’Lizabeth,” he says against her, and it’s hot and heavy, what he does to her. He is hesitant at first, listening to her breathing, feeling how her body moves when he kisses and licks her. She is rising to meet his mouth, trying to stay as close as possible and his palms are sweating against the skin of her thighs, rough against soft, black and red, war and peace, contradiction and harmony. “Shh,” he says, and she would scream if she could, but everything - his mouth and glass crashing, and galaxy raging in war spinning around them and her body burning under his lips - it’s just too much. She feels his fingers entering her and spreads her legs wider because she needs more of him, more, right there, inside, and it’s so perfect and right.
She doesn’t even hear her own voice - a loud, long moan when she comes.
Moments later, when she’s calm and breathing he pulls her on top of him and they hold each other. He seems content and happy, even while he’s hard against her inner thigh and probably aching in need. She moves, sliding down onto him, watching as his eyes lose focus and then drift shut. She sees for the first time, clearly, just how gorgeous he is, with his grays and his scars. Elizabeth can feel him in her, solid and hot; his body under hers; every moan and breath when she moves. It goes so slowly at first, because she is tight and aching and it has been a long time. The air is stuck in her chest as she moves, and rough fingers brush the soft skin, feel her ribs, her breasts. He makes her move, shift, until she is leaning over him with breasts hanging over his open mouth.
She rocks her hips and her bad leg hurts, and John holds her still when she winces.
“Your leg?” he asks breathlessly, and when she nods he turns them around, then enters her carefully.
It’s so hard and takes so much out of her, watching him like this, knowing she could break him. Yet she can’t look away. It hurts, but what’s inside John’s chest has to hurt more, indefinitely more, and Elizabeth wills her body to relax. They shift and slide and he is moving harshly above her. It won’t take long - John holds her close, face buried in the crook of her shoulder.
He comes with a long groan, his body completely in her, and then there is silence. Just silence. When she is able to breathe again, she kisses him long and tender.
They fall asleep peacefully, two bodies and one pillow.