Cold War
Title: Cold War
Author: crucibilly
Pairing(s): John/Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2082
Genre: Angst
Summary: During the first year on Atlantis, John fights a war with Elizabeth. He doesn't know why.
Notes: This is weird, and a little dark, and maybe more than a little out of character. It has a Sheppard coming to terms with how large Elizabeth looms in his life in a way that's less upstanding than the Sheppard we normally see in fic. I didn't make him a serial killer or anything, but he's definitely a little broken emotionally, and I wanted to explore that.
He flirts with her, at first, as a power play.
John Sheppard learns by accident what sort of effect he can have on his new boss before the Atlantis expedition even leaves the ice of the South Pole base. They're walking down a corridor and Dr. Weir makes a wrong turn, so he pats her arm to redirect her, giving her a smile as he does. She trails off in the middle of a sentence.
It's sort of cute, and reassuring too. Bosses don't usually feel anything for him but potent dislike. Besides, maybe he can use this to do an end run around Sumner.
So he flirts with her. Gives her a smile just for her during meetings. Pulls out her chair at lunch. She does a better job, after that first time, of hiding her reaction, but still, it works. Makes her more inclined to listen to him.
It's harmless. He's sure she knows he doesn't mean anything by it. Anyway, it's her responsibility, isn't it, not to let her decisions be affected that sort of thing? She's the boss. Everyone's trying to curry favor. He just happens to be better at it than most.
It's after that first harrowing day in Atlantis when he and Dr. Weir are standing shoulder to shoulder, drinking champagne out of tin mugs, that he realizes how delicate the balance of power is going to be out here. She tells him she's giving him his own team like it's a gift, like it's up to her. But the military is his anyway, isn't it? Not that he would, but if he wanted to, he could run Atlantis entirely. He's got all the guns.
A young lieutenant shyly brings her a drink. Dr. Weir chats with the woman, who barely seems to notice Sheppard, and John realizes they've known each other for more than a year. The same is probably true for much of the military contingent, and all of the scientists.
She turns back to the ocean, and he leans next to her, shoulder to shoulder. Like a team. Like equals.
For some time, they continue that way. She's genuinely good company, so it's no hardship to bring her coffee midmorning, or to chat with her as the sun sets.
"It is inspiring," Teyla says one day, "To see the friendship between yourself and Dr. Weir. You disagree on many things, and yet you have great respect for each other. It is one of the reasons I was able to trust your people so much."
"What?" he says.
"There is -" One of Teyla's delicate little hesitations, then. Does she do that from fear of crossing an unseen cultural boundary? Or is she always so careful? - "There is a warmth when you speak to her. You do not show it with your friends."
Interesting, that Teyla can see that. That he and Elizabeth are not friends. But whatever warmth she thinks she sees - she's wrong. After Afghanistan, after Nancy, when he went to Antarctica, it was like he was frozen. Atlantis has thawed him out, mostly. The world is tangible again. But with Elizabeth - only with Elizabeth - the ice remains.
A little part of him despises Elizabeth. What if she had not fought to bring him along? Would another man have woken the Wraith? Shot Sumner? Would she have forgiven him if he had?
That's not what this is about, though. If he really hated her it would show, would burn hot and unmistakable. This is something else.
One night he goes looking for her on the balcony as usual. He doesn't see her and he turns to go when he hears her laughter. She's there, at the far end, with some of the scientists. A picnic. Or at least, a blanket on the floor, and some bottles of wine. Just like the scientists to hoard the booze. Just like them to use it to kiss up to the boss.
The others are seated, sprawled, wine-softened. She's standing, like she's not a part of it, like she might step away at any moment, but there's a glass in her hand, and every face is turned up to her. Dr. Bascombe - that biochemist Rodney calls "a Colin Firth wannabe" - Bascombe's got his arm propped just behind her heel, his arm almost brushing the back of her knee. She sees John. Waves. He waves back. He doesn't know what to do with his hands.
He begins, slightly, to snub her.
Movie nights are with his team, yes, but he invites others too, Zelenka and Beckett and whoever else he takes a shine to - enough to show her that this isn't just a team-building thing, that that's not the reason she wasn't invited. Hey, you're always so busy, I just figured you wouldn't wanna come. That's what he'll say if she ever asks why.
She doesn't, but starts showing up anyway. Teyla invites her, or Beckett, or even Rodney. He has no choice but to admit to himself that she's won this one. He scores a few points back by sitting beside her and letting his hand brush hers when he steals her popcorn, consoling himself with how it makes her shiver.
He's not like this. He's pretty nice to most people. Why is it so important to keep her vulnerable to him? Why does he find such comfort in poking her until she flinches? Should he learn to stop his campaign of small cruelties?
But no, because when the Genii come, the ice is what saves them. She's mine, mine, I'll kill you if you look at her, if you touch her, if you hurt her, she is not for you. From the moment he hears of her death to the moment he sends a bullet past her shoulder, the ice swallows him whole. He doesn't understand, afterward, quite what happened to him. He doesn't think she does either, but she does understand that this is a major victory for him in their silent war, that it is time to give herself to him.
Her rain-damp curls are cold against his bare shoulder as he thrusts into her. Her skin warms under his palms and he clutches her greedily, wondering if her pale skin will bruise.
It does, he learns, though not as often she leaves scratches down his back. He thinks for a while that he's won. Having her when he wants, feeling her eyes on his back as he leaves afterwards - this must be what he was after all along, wasn't it?
One afternoon on the balcony she doesn't look at him, doesn't laugh at his jokes, just stares absently out to sea and fiddles with that necklace she always wears. When he finally demands her attention, she gives him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, John. It's my boyfriend's birthday today. I've been a bit distracted."
His throat feels choked but he will speak normally, he will. "Simon. Sure. Only natural. Hey, you should take tonight off. Relax." Her gaze cuts to him because "relax" is usually a code word for them and he hastens to add, "I'll mind the fort." Because hey, no big deal. She shouldn't go thinking he needs to take her just after hearing that a man she hasn't seen in almost a year, a man in another galaxy, is the man she considers her current boyfriend.
"No, I'll be all right." She rubs a hand over her eyes (was she crying over Simon?), then touches his hand. "But thank you, John. You're really a wonderful friend."
"Yeah, no, sure, no problem." Point to her.
It's not hard to see that Chaya bothers her. He does pretty much rub the Ancient woman in Elizabeth's face. But seeing her chagrin doesn't help him regain his footing with her. Things are accelerating, now, he's afraid of the wraith and he's afraid of failing his people and he's afraid of not being the number one thing Elizabeth thinks about and probably none of it matters because they're all going to die in a few weeks anyway. They're together in her room almost every night, planning and fucking and using each other to stay awake. He's in free fall, he can't catch his breath, and maybe it's because for the first time he has no chance of hurting her more than the rest of the world will.
They survive.
He freezes when she touches him, when she puts her arms around him in the middle of the gate room. Proof, finally, in full public view, of what a hold he has on her. He can barely move.
They don't touch after that. His own empty bed is cool, calm, peaceful.
Back on Earth, there are fast food restaurants and SUVs and Easter decorations. He doesn't know who he's been for the past year. When she smiles at his promotion ceremony and kisses his cheek, he realizes she's a stranger. Christ, what has he been doing? Does Elizabeth, the flesh-and-blood Elizabeth, even have any sense of the struggle he's been waging with the Elizabeth in his head? And if she does, does she have any better idea than he does as to why?
It's a name on a file in Beckett's office that begins to make things clear. As he stares at the neat label in Elizabeth's handwriting, he thinks that the ice is still there, but he can finally see what it's been protecting all this time.
Her house is absurdly suburban. When she opens the door she's wearing cotton shorts and an old Amnesty International t-shirt. Packing clothes. "John? What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" He pushes past her, not waiting for an answer.
"What is it?"
"Is he coming with us?"
She shakes her head but it's not an answer. She's staring at him, wide-eyed, as he scans the matching furniture, the pictures on the walls, the dog bed in the corner. People who live alone don't have living rooms like this. "Simon. Dr. Wallace. I don't think he should come."
"John -"
He turns to face her. "I don't want him to come." A month ago he would have hated himself for what he's revealed with a request like that. Now he hates himself for waiting this long. Maybe too long.
Because she says nothing, only stays frozen, waiting, watching him with well-earned caution. He's the one who reaches out, slowly, almost shyly, and though he's touched her far more intimately dozens of times, somehow his hand ends up in the middle of her back, just where it rested when she hugged him in the gate room. Maybe she's remembering too, because her arms slide around his neck and she hugs him with that absurd, infuriating, eternal trust he could never seem to dent. He's shaking and it takes him a second to realize that he's breathing, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," into her neck over and over.
She doesn't ask for what. "It's been a hard year," she says. "We did what we had to."
He brushes her lips with his, gently. Her hand is resting on his chest and it makes him ache. Maybe he should have kept his distance, his calculation, because no part of him is safe from her now. Maybe he should leave. He pulls her closer instead.
Later, when they're lying on one of those tasteful rugs, his head pillowed on her bare stomach, her hand combing through his hair as he traces circles around her navel (so new, all this well-known territory, now that it's for exploration rather than conquest!), he says, "So is he?"
He feels her laugh under his cheek. "He declined my request."
He presses a kiss to her skin. "I'm glad."
"So am I."
Knowing he's in love with her doesn't mean he has any idea what's going to happen next. He's been a dick to her for the better part of a year. Maybe they'll be together. Or maybe this is an end, not a beginning, and they will go back to Atlantis as the platonic, faintly friendly colleagues the world thinks they are. Or maybe he'll get back there and these selfish impulses will seize him again, though he suspects that this time they won't be so easily forgiven.
It doesn't matter. He's ceded the field, and he wonders if she knew what she was doing all along, because her conquest of him is complete.
Author: crucibilly
Pairing(s): John/Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2082
Genre: Angst
Summary: During the first year on Atlantis, John fights a war with Elizabeth. He doesn't know why.
Notes: This is weird, and a little dark, and maybe more than a little out of character. It has a Sheppard coming to terms with how large Elizabeth looms in his life in a way that's less upstanding than the Sheppard we normally see in fic. I didn't make him a serial killer or anything, but he's definitely a little broken emotionally, and I wanted to explore that.
He flirts with her, at first, as a power play.
John Sheppard learns by accident what sort of effect he can have on his new boss before the Atlantis expedition even leaves the ice of the South Pole base. They're walking down a corridor and Dr. Weir makes a wrong turn, so he pats her arm to redirect her, giving her a smile as he does. She trails off in the middle of a sentence.
It's sort of cute, and reassuring too. Bosses don't usually feel anything for him but potent dislike. Besides, maybe he can use this to do an end run around Sumner.
So he flirts with her. Gives her a smile just for her during meetings. Pulls out her chair at lunch. She does a better job, after that first time, of hiding her reaction, but still, it works. Makes her more inclined to listen to him.
It's harmless. He's sure she knows he doesn't mean anything by it. Anyway, it's her responsibility, isn't it, not to let her decisions be affected that sort of thing? She's the boss. Everyone's trying to curry favor. He just happens to be better at it than most.
It's after that first harrowing day in Atlantis when he and Dr. Weir are standing shoulder to shoulder, drinking champagne out of tin mugs, that he realizes how delicate the balance of power is going to be out here. She tells him she's giving him his own team like it's a gift, like it's up to her. But the military is his anyway, isn't it? Not that he would, but if he wanted to, he could run Atlantis entirely. He's got all the guns.
A young lieutenant shyly brings her a drink. Dr. Weir chats with the woman, who barely seems to notice Sheppard, and John realizes they've known each other for more than a year. The same is probably true for much of the military contingent, and all of the scientists.
She turns back to the ocean, and he leans next to her, shoulder to shoulder. Like a team. Like equals.
For some time, they continue that way. She's genuinely good company, so it's no hardship to bring her coffee midmorning, or to chat with her as the sun sets.
"It is inspiring," Teyla says one day, "To see the friendship between yourself and Dr. Weir. You disagree on many things, and yet you have great respect for each other. It is one of the reasons I was able to trust your people so much."
"What?" he says.
"There is -" One of Teyla's delicate little hesitations, then. Does she do that from fear of crossing an unseen cultural boundary? Or is she always so careful? - "There is a warmth when you speak to her. You do not show it with your friends."
Interesting, that Teyla can see that. That he and Elizabeth are not friends. But whatever warmth she thinks she sees - she's wrong. After Afghanistan, after Nancy, when he went to Antarctica, it was like he was frozen. Atlantis has thawed him out, mostly. The world is tangible again. But with Elizabeth - only with Elizabeth - the ice remains.
A little part of him despises Elizabeth. What if she had not fought to bring him along? Would another man have woken the Wraith? Shot Sumner? Would she have forgiven him if he had?
That's not what this is about, though. If he really hated her it would show, would burn hot and unmistakable. This is something else.
One night he goes looking for her on the balcony as usual. He doesn't see her and he turns to go when he hears her laughter. She's there, at the far end, with some of the scientists. A picnic. Or at least, a blanket on the floor, and some bottles of wine. Just like the scientists to hoard the booze. Just like them to use it to kiss up to the boss.
The others are seated, sprawled, wine-softened. She's standing, like she's not a part of it, like she might step away at any moment, but there's a glass in her hand, and every face is turned up to her. Dr. Bascombe - that biochemist Rodney calls "a Colin Firth wannabe" - Bascombe's got his arm propped just behind her heel, his arm almost brushing the back of her knee. She sees John. Waves. He waves back. He doesn't know what to do with his hands.
He begins, slightly, to snub her.
Movie nights are with his team, yes, but he invites others too, Zelenka and Beckett and whoever else he takes a shine to - enough to show her that this isn't just a team-building thing, that that's not the reason she wasn't invited. Hey, you're always so busy, I just figured you wouldn't wanna come. That's what he'll say if she ever asks why.
She doesn't, but starts showing up anyway. Teyla invites her, or Beckett, or even Rodney. He has no choice but to admit to himself that she's won this one. He scores a few points back by sitting beside her and letting his hand brush hers when he steals her popcorn, consoling himself with how it makes her shiver.
He's not like this. He's pretty nice to most people. Why is it so important to keep her vulnerable to him? Why does he find such comfort in poking her until she flinches? Should he learn to stop his campaign of small cruelties?
But no, because when the Genii come, the ice is what saves them. She's mine, mine, I'll kill you if you look at her, if you touch her, if you hurt her, she is not for you. From the moment he hears of her death to the moment he sends a bullet past her shoulder, the ice swallows him whole. He doesn't understand, afterward, quite what happened to him. He doesn't think she does either, but she does understand that this is a major victory for him in their silent war, that it is time to give herself to him.
Her rain-damp curls are cold against his bare shoulder as he thrusts into her. Her skin warms under his palms and he clutches her greedily, wondering if her pale skin will bruise.
It does, he learns, though not as often she leaves scratches down his back. He thinks for a while that he's won. Having her when he wants, feeling her eyes on his back as he leaves afterwards - this must be what he was after all along, wasn't it?
One afternoon on the balcony she doesn't look at him, doesn't laugh at his jokes, just stares absently out to sea and fiddles with that necklace she always wears. When he finally demands her attention, she gives him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, John. It's my boyfriend's birthday today. I've been a bit distracted."
His throat feels choked but he will speak normally, he will. "Simon. Sure. Only natural. Hey, you should take tonight off. Relax." Her gaze cuts to him because "relax" is usually a code word for them and he hastens to add, "I'll mind the fort." Because hey, no big deal. She shouldn't go thinking he needs to take her just after hearing that a man she hasn't seen in almost a year, a man in another galaxy, is the man she considers her current boyfriend.
"No, I'll be all right." She rubs a hand over her eyes (was she crying over Simon?), then touches his hand. "But thank you, John. You're really a wonderful friend."
"Yeah, no, sure, no problem." Point to her.
It's not hard to see that Chaya bothers her. He does pretty much rub the Ancient woman in Elizabeth's face. But seeing her chagrin doesn't help him regain his footing with her. Things are accelerating, now, he's afraid of the wraith and he's afraid of failing his people and he's afraid of not being the number one thing Elizabeth thinks about and probably none of it matters because they're all going to die in a few weeks anyway. They're together in her room almost every night, planning and fucking and using each other to stay awake. He's in free fall, he can't catch his breath, and maybe it's because for the first time he has no chance of hurting her more than the rest of the world will.
They survive.
He freezes when she touches him, when she puts her arms around him in the middle of the gate room. Proof, finally, in full public view, of what a hold he has on her. He can barely move.
They don't touch after that. His own empty bed is cool, calm, peaceful.
Back on Earth, there are fast food restaurants and SUVs and Easter decorations. He doesn't know who he's been for the past year. When she smiles at his promotion ceremony and kisses his cheek, he realizes she's a stranger. Christ, what has he been doing? Does Elizabeth, the flesh-and-blood Elizabeth, even have any sense of the struggle he's been waging with the Elizabeth in his head? And if she does, does she have any better idea than he does as to why?
It's a name on a file in Beckett's office that begins to make things clear. As he stares at the neat label in Elizabeth's handwriting, he thinks that the ice is still there, but he can finally see what it's been protecting all this time.
Her house is absurdly suburban. When she opens the door she's wearing cotton shorts and an old Amnesty International t-shirt. Packing clothes. "John? What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" He pushes past her, not waiting for an answer.
"What is it?"
"Is he coming with us?"
She shakes her head but it's not an answer. She's staring at him, wide-eyed, as he scans the matching furniture, the pictures on the walls, the dog bed in the corner. People who live alone don't have living rooms like this. "Simon. Dr. Wallace. I don't think he should come."
"John -"
He turns to face her. "I don't want him to come." A month ago he would have hated himself for what he's revealed with a request like that. Now he hates himself for waiting this long. Maybe too long.
Because she says nothing, only stays frozen, waiting, watching him with well-earned caution. He's the one who reaches out, slowly, almost shyly, and though he's touched her far more intimately dozens of times, somehow his hand ends up in the middle of her back, just where it rested when she hugged him in the gate room. Maybe she's remembering too, because her arms slide around his neck and she hugs him with that absurd, infuriating, eternal trust he could never seem to dent. He's shaking and it takes him a second to realize that he's breathing, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," into her neck over and over.
She doesn't ask for what. "It's been a hard year," she says. "We did what we had to."
He brushes her lips with his, gently. Her hand is resting on his chest and it makes him ache. Maybe he should have kept his distance, his calculation, because no part of him is safe from her now. Maybe he should leave. He pulls her closer instead.
Later, when they're lying on one of those tasteful rugs, his head pillowed on her bare stomach, her hand combing through his hair as he traces circles around her navel (so new, all this well-known territory, now that it's for exploration rather than conquest!), he says, "So is he?"
He feels her laugh under his cheek. "He declined my request."
He presses a kiss to her skin. "I'm glad."
"So am I."
Knowing he's in love with her doesn't mean he has any idea what's going to happen next. He's been a dick to her for the better part of a year. Maybe they'll be together. Or maybe this is an end, not a beginning, and they will go back to Atlantis as the platonic, faintly friendly colleagues the world thinks they are. Or maybe he'll get back there and these selfish impulses will seize him again, though he suspects that this time they won't be so easily forgiven.
It doesn't matter. He's ceded the field, and he wonders if she knew what she was doing all along, because her conquest of him is complete.