The Mornings are Brighter for Some of Us by sonadorita (commentary by neevebrody)
Title: The Mornings are Brighter for Some of Us
Author: sonadorita
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Commenter: neevebrody
Commentary in bold
The Original Story
First of all, I want to say why I chose to commentate on this story. I'm a reader and like to think a wide range of fiction and fanfiction appeals to me; however, as with most other things, the more bizarre, macabre or unusual the better. That's what I love about this author; she's like my brain twin. We both enjoy angsty, unusual, off-the-beaten-path fics - both reading them and writing them. When she asked me to beta this for her, I had no idea it would be the beginning of such a wonderful friendship. This story is everything that most McShep stories aren't and perhaps that's why it's so special to me.
When Julie Skeete came to Atlantis, she expected to lead a life devoted to science and exploration in a stronghold of progress, as a pioneer in the world of the future. What she didn't expect was to fall in love with her boss. Rodney McKay had everything she admired - brilliance, intelligence, witty humor - and a pair of the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. In some ways, he reminded her of Wayne.
Now, I'll admit, the "Wayne" thing pinged something on the internal radar right away for me, but on first reading I didn't realize how much. Also, I'm not sure why, but it struck me from the very beginning that Julie Skeete and John Sheppard have the same initials. The author swears she wasn't aware of this at first and it certainly wasn't intentional. I found that very interesting.
On her first day on the base, she learned that pretty much everyone couldn't stand Rodney McKay for the life of them, or at least pretended not to like him, and when she had her first dinner with a few of her new colleagues and asked about him, the rants and complaints just wouldn't stop. She couldn't wait to get to know him in private.
"Who the hell are you?" was the first sentence Rodney directed at Julie, the next day, when she sat down at his table in the mess hall and beamed at him.
"Julie Skeete, PhD," she introduced herself, extending a hand, which he ignored since he was too busy scrolling through some files on his data pad and eating at the same time. "I'm new to the city, I arrived yesterday."
"Uh-huh," Rodney said, his attention focusing on his work again.
"I thought I could join you for lunch, chat a little with you, so we could get to know each other." Excitement quickened the beating of her heart as she gazed at his hands, the clear lines of his face, his receding hairline, all of which she had only seen from a greater distance so far.
"You thought so," he mumbled without looking up, his voice muffled by his sandwich. It was stuffed with eggs. Julie loved eggs.
"What is it with all your coworkers?" she asked, to which he finally paid actual attention, blue eyes gazing at her, skimming over her. "I've talked to some of them, but none of them seem to have a positive thing to say about you, which I don't understand at all."
Rodney crooked his lips and Julie's heart did a dance of joy. It was their first meeting, their first date, and she had made him smile already. Suddenly she felt the urge to get rid of her jacket, as the temperature in the extensive room seemed to have increased rapidly.
This was my first inkling that Ms. Skeete was a bit strange. I wasn't exactly sure what I thought yet, but I seem to remember thinking it was an odd characterization.
"How long have you been here again?" Rodney asked, and she told him. "Huh. Come along to P9C-447 tomorrow, you could be useful there."
Julie's voice trembled audibly when she said thank you and yes, yes, of course she would to come along, praising his generousness and brilliance even when he'd already got up and left her in favor of a few others sitting at another table, one of whom she recognized as Colonel Sheppard. She didn't mind though, after all he had invited her to work with him on their first date, he had smiled at her, just like Wayne had.
Wayne again, and this one was the hook for me. As a reader I found myself wanting to know who this Wayne was and just what the deal was with Julie Skeete. That's not to say the beginning wasn't enough to catch my interest, but by this point, I couldn't have stopped reading if I'd wanted to.
*
Unable to sleep for longer than an hour or two, Julie needed a lot of coffee the next morning to feel prepared for her first off-world mission with, and she still couldn't quite believe it, Rodney. Their team consisted of half a dozen scientists, led by Rodney, and four marines for safety reasons. Major Lorne's team had encountered some sort of electronic library on P9C-447 and it was their job to download the large chunks of information, which turned out to be rather difficult, as the data had been saved in a format none of them had encountered before.
Rodney was in a terrible mood, barking at whoever crossed his path. Julie felt that he complained about her the most of all, yelling at her for connecting one of the library's energy crystals with her laptop in a way that almost blew up the entire facility, yelling at her when she fixed the problem and did it right, and yelling at her when she was the first one to decode a large cache of data.
Perhaps it's not easy to catch upon the first reading, but overnight she's changed the way she looks at Rodney. It's no longer Rodney McKay or Doctor McKay, it's "Rodney." This is a very subtle but very significant change and begins to show us a bit of her psyche.
"I get it now," she said when he took a breath in the middle of a rant, initiated because the information she had just downloaded had shaped up as unimportant stuff about some planet's naturalistic religion. "You're trying to show me how cruel you are." And I'm taking that as a sign of affection, she added in her thoughts.
"What?" Rodney acted confused, but Julie knew she had seen through him - and he had to be impressed by that. "Can we please focus on our work?"
Then he ranted on, but left her very soon because someone else was even dumber than she was.
"You're doing a good job," Dr. Simpson told Julie, offering her reassurance and encouragement she didn't need. "It's just his way to appreciate that."
After a few hours, when they had finished their work and everyone began packing their stuff together, Julie was assigned to take photos of the cryptic inscriptions on the walls for the linguists. Nobody noticed that among the photos she took were also a few fantastic, deliberate shots of Rodney's face.
The best of the photos ended up in a large format above Julie's bed, together with a drawing of Rodney smiling at her while holding her hand. She'd never been more glad to have taken additional fine arts courses when her physics courses became too boring. Wayne would have appreciated such a delicate work, countless different coal lines shaping into two bodies looking at each other in boundless devotion, and Julie was certain that Rodney would love it as well once she showed it to him.
Again, very subtle progression here deeper into Julie's mind and background. What do we learn here? We learn in one or two paragraphs that she has an obsessive personality. We learn that she was a brilliant student. Being bored by her academic classes, she chose to feed the other side of her brain with artistic endeavors. But the author didn't actually come out and "tell" us any of that.
When she went to bed that night, she could hardly take her eyes off her wall, rolling over to curl up in her usual fetal position after an hour of gazing at her two versions of Rodney. She fell asleep with her face turned to the photo on the nightstand, which showed a happy, elderly couple in front of a beautiful red cottage that looked a lot like the place where one could have spent a joyful childhood. Of all the people Julie had lived with in the past, these two were the only ones that deserved this special place next to her bed, and soon Rodney would make it here as well, where he could watch over her sleep with a smile that lasted forever.
Only on closer inspection, could one discern the faint watermark of the copyright peeking out of the frame at the very bottom, and the tiny scratch of extant magazine text in one corner.
Again, what have we learned? Not only obsessive/compulsive, she's likely neurotic as well. We also learn that perhaps Julie was orphaned or somehow ended up in a succession of foster homes, and that the couple in the frame are the "ideal" of the parents she should have had, of the happy childhood and life she should have had, deserved to have. These three preceding paragraphs are, seemingly on a first reading, filler, something personal and it's very easy to read by this quickly, but in reality these few words are the heart of the story and the heart of this character. Simply brilliant.
*
When Julie entered the mess hall the next day after working out at the gym, she spotted Rodney among some friends at a larger table, talking rapidly to the huge man in front of him, who looked a little lost, as he obviously understood nothing. There was a woman sitting at Rodney's left side, laughing a few times during his ramblings, red hair flowing over her back. Julie hated her at first sight.
"Hey, Rodney," she greeted him as she forcefully squished her tray between Rodney's and the red-haired woman's, pulling a chair over from another table. The woman seemed surprised, but made more space for her as she watched in confusion how Julie took her place.
"Uhm, hi," Rodney said, staring at her with his eyes opened wide, answering her bright smile with a twitch of his lips. Julie could understand his awkwardness; after all introducing one's new girlfriend to family or friends was always a precarious and sometimes difficult situation. "That's, uh--"
There was a moment of hesitation and Julie, surprised by how excited and nervous Rodney seemed to be, decided to help him before this ended in a mess of embarrassment and confusion. "Julie," she introduced herself. "Julie Skeete, PhD. I'm one of Rodney's new subordinates."
She laughed, hoping that this would break the ice. The huge man across from Rodney just glared at her and the woman next to him - she must be Teyla - shifted uneasily on her chair.
"Well, uhm," Julie coughed when for a moment nothing happened except that an awkward silence spread. "Don't you want to introduce me to your, uh, friends, Rodney?"
That's when Colonel Sheppard, sitting on Rodney's other side, spilled his water all over the table and onto Teyla's plate. The red-haired woman jumped up and hurried away to get some cloths, very much to Julie's content, and Rodney turned to her and hissed, "What the hell is going on, Dr. Skeete?"
Her spirit left her like a snuffed out candle. Had she been too forward? But Rodney must have sensed the almost magical chemistry between the two of them that had existed from the very first moment on, he must have felt her love, he must have--
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Rodney, I just... I thought we would eat lunch to--"
"Well, you thought wrong," Rodney said, louder now. "Now pick up your tray and leave, Katie was sitting here."
Yes, Katie, the red-haired woman, an evil witch sprung out of the horror stories Julie's mother had read her as a child.
Unwilling to start their first real fight in front of the entire mess hall, Julie got her tray and smashed it on the table right behind Rodney's back. "As you wish," she muttered, throwing him a sad look to indicate that she was disappointed by him.
This is an excellent view from inside Julie's head and from her psyche. It's at this point where the reader starts to think this Julie Skeete is a bit out of touch with reality. I love that the story is through Skeete's POV and this is why... we are able to get a slow progression into Skeete's thinking. From this point, it begins to give us a creepy feeling, and I have to say that I will endeavor to find other suitable descriptive words but "creepy" seemed to be the word of choice for most readers.
After Katie returned and wiped over the wet table, they settled down to continue eating. Julie didn't take her eyes off Rodney and Katie, only barely noticing the estranged glances Teyla and the big man at the other side of their table shot at her. There was talk of some mission they'd all been on, except for Katie, and she reasoned the huge guy must be Ronon Dex, Rodney's teammate. Her own food lay untouched in front of her, as all her appetite had vanished within seconds. The sound of laughter came from the table now; Rodney had made a joke about some natives and Katie guffawed, a loud, witch-like cackle that set Julie's teeth on edge. She watched as Katie patted Rodney's shoulder, her hand lingering there just a moment too long to be the touch of a mere friend. Were they a couple? It couldn't be. As if he had heard her thoughts, Rodney turned around to face her, frowning. Oh, he must feel terribly uncomfortable in Katie's presence, longing for Julie's companion instead. She smiled back reassuringly.
This paragraph gives us an excellent contrast in our own perception of these characters and how Julie sees them. Interesting how Katie is immediately characterized as a witch and how, even though Rodney pulled no punches, Julie still idolized him.
"Later," she mouthed, and Rodney turned to his food again, making some gesture in front of his face that Julie couldn't see perfectly. If he ever told her off like this again, she would sit down at a different table so she could actually look him in the face. In the eyes, which reminded her so much of Wayne's.
*
Julie waited for Rodney all day, but he was busy in another part of the city where someone had discovered an ancient device. She wound up chatting with Dr. Simpson while working on the files they had extracted the previous day, about living on Atlantis, and, naturally, about Rodney.
"I saw him with that Katie in the mess hall today," Julie said, pronouncing Katie's name like a curse. "Are they a couple?"
Dr. Simpson smiled. "There are rumors about them," she told. "They're true, if you ask me." She said this and a lot more, but Julie stopped listening, a dark shadow veiling her thoughts.
"Where's she working?" she asked, interrupting Dr. Simpson mid-sentence.
Here we see a little more about Julie. She is totally self-absorbed. She engaged Dr. Simpson in conversation, but only to find out what she wanted to know and didn't think anything of interrupting and ignoring her.
"In the botany labs, she--" Julie was on her feet in an instant. "Hey, where are you going? Are you okay?"
Unnoticed, she stole a knife from the mess hall and made her way to the botany labs. She could see the blood on the blade already, feel it running down her hand, her fingers, warm, thick and sticky. The thought of Katie, lying on the ground, dead and pale, caused pleasant shivers to run down Julie's spine, made her feel confident and certain that she was doing the right thing, that this was the only way to go. Soon, Rodney would thank her for this.
I loved the descriptors here and we get our own mental picture right along with Julie. I enjoyed getting caught up in this.
She had never been to the botany labs before, but they weren't far from the physics labs and she knew the way. Actually, she only had to follow the unfamiliar scent of alien plants.
As the doors opened, she slipped into the labs, very literally like an assassin. Katie was sitting at a desk typing something, her back to Julie. Perfect. At the far end of the labs, someone else was working, but neither he nor Katie had noticed Julie, nor did she see anyone else around. She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and curled her fingers around the handle of the knife, just beyond her fingertips the cool, smooth blade that would make everything all right. She waited another moment, though, for she feared that someone might be hiding behind some of the large plants. When she felt that her way was safe, she advanced on Katie. Four steps. Three steps.
Again with the mental image. Making the reader "feel" that knife in her pocket and Julie's conviction that what she's doing is not only justified but will clear the way to Rodney, that it will make everything all right.
"Hey, I've never seen you around here."
A blonde, young woman smiled at Julie, her hands and clothes covered with dirt. She must have been kneeling somewhere on the ground where Julie couldn't see her.
"I... yeah." Her hand let go of the knife as if it had heated upon the blonde's arrival.
"You." Katie had spun around in her chair, looking up to Julie with a cold expression. "What are you doing here?"
"I... it's... it doesn't matter anymore." She fled, defeated, humiliated, running away from the woman who was supposed to die, who had taken the place preserved for Julie, who had stolen something dear to her.
But then, as she was roaming the city without an aim or a particular direction, Julie realized that she had approached the murder in the wrong way. If she had killed Katie in the labs, what would she have done with the corpse? What had she been thinking? The city housed the best scientists Earth had to offer; surely, they would have discovered fingerprints and other evidence and followed the traces right to Julie.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she scolded herself when she reached her quarters after what could have been ten minutes or two hours. Life wasn't this simple. Atlantis wasn't Earth.
No, she would need to act more carefully.
We get more insight into the downward spiral here. Her first taste of defeat has an effect on her, and it's amazing to realize that not only does Julie not see the idea of murder as wrong, she believes it was her execution that was wrong, her plan. Utterly dark and satisfying if you're keeping up with Julie's descent.
*
The next morning Rodney finally turned up in the labs again, and Julie was waiting for him at his desk with a cup of coffee that he took without a word of gratitude.
"Good morning," she greeted him nevertheless. "Rodney, are you mad at me?"
He blinked at her, confusion turning the crook of his lips Julie found so attractive into a bewildered grimace. "What?" So he wasn't.
"Would you like to eat lunch with me today?"
"No," he answered, slurping his coffee.
"Then dinner perhaps?"
"No," he said, more indignantly, beckoning her to go away. "I'm working."
It was all Katie's fault, Julie thought as she retreated to her own desk. When Katie wasn't in his thoughts, he was perfectly nice to her, like during their first date, or like during their off-world mission when he, in his own special way, had praised the work she had been doing. He had probably spent the night with Katie, and the dark thoughts she had placed in his mind ruined the good atmosphere that had always reigned whenever Julie and Rodney were together. She was amazed how fast everything had gone. With Wayne, becoming a couple had taken months, and only after three years of a happy marriage, he had been taken away from her by some stupid love affair. Maybe things were different this time, Julie thought. Maybe it all happened the other way round.
If there was any lingering doubt that Julie Skeete is an incredibly disturbed young women, it just left the building. What I see from this paragraph is a possible projection of a past failure onto Katie. Rodney's being rude to her was totally someone else's fault. And we finally get a little more information on Wayne. The pacing is near perfect here, because we've been so wrapped up in Julie's warped mind and her little plan, we almost forgot that we wanted to know more about Wayne. And perhaps the reader thinks that the love affair and a divorce made Julie so bitter and disturbed.
Lost in her thoughts, she stared at the screen of her laptop, barely paying attention to the data rattling down. A plan was shaping in her mind, a plan on how to get rid of that Katie person. It still had rough edges and flaws, but it was starting to look pretty good already.
When she lifted her gaze, Rodney was not where he was supposed to be. His desk chair was empty, still twirling lightly as if Rodney had left it only a short time ago. Maybe he was with Katie, visiting her in the labs so she could confound his mind again?
I love how in almost every paragraph we get little markers of Julie's thought processes. Rodney wasn't where he was supposed to be. How dare he act independently of "her" control? And it's telling that the one and only thing she thinks of is that he's off kissing Katie.
Julie got up and hurried out of the labs. She didn't know what she was going to do if she caught Rodney and Katie kissing somewhere, but she couldn't simply let it happen either.
She bumped into him midway between the physics labs and the stairs leading, among other things, to the botany section. He yelled, flailing, and whatever he had been carrying dropped to the floor with a great cracking noise.
"Oh no, I'm sorry," Julie apologized instantly, kneeling down to the mess she had caused. The device Rodney had held had lost some splinters, glass and some alien metal Julie didn't recognize immediately.
"Fantastic, doctor," Rodney groaned, bowing down to help her pick up the shards. "If it's broken now, I'm going to kill you."
It was just a joke, Julie knew, but nevertheless his words made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
"I'm really sorry," she muttered. "We were both moving too fast, I guess, I should have watched out better... What is this, anyway?"
"A crystal we found," Rodney informed her, opening the rest of the device's hull, which the impact had destroyed. "I hope for your sake it still works."
Both sighed in relief when it came active with a slight buzz. "I saw something similar once at the SGC," Julie said, frowning, trying to remember more. "Someone named it a 'memory saver'."
"A memory saver?" Rodney echoed, suddenly gazing at her in excitement. Julie immediately stopped regretting running into him. "Come on, you need to tell me everything you know about it."
Interesting that the only thing she gets out of this exchange is that Rodney's actually interested in something she had to say, convinced that he's not angry with her anymore.
*
The morning passed by in a dance of joy and warmth. Julie and Rodney were working side-by-side, and although there were several occasions when he yelled at her, during these hours she felt that there was something special between them, a unique kind of love tingling down her back when Rodney told stories with his hands or his eyes met her gaze when they talked. She had never been happier; she had never been more in love with anyone, not even with Wayne.
My favorite thing here is the phrase "when Rodney told stories with his hands." A very apt description indeed and a lovely turn of phrase.
The crystal turned out to be capable of saving a person's memories indeed, but when they uploaded the memories of their first volunteer, Dr. Kusanagi, it suddenly broke down and they realized they would need more energy. In the afternoon, Rodney had to go on a mission with his team, which Julie regretted deeply, and postponed the work on the crystal until the next day.
Rodney told Julie to write a report of their work so far, but when she looked to his desk after typing the first paragraph, Rodney was gone again, though this time she saw him walking through the door.
"Hey, Rodney!" she called, running after him. "Where are you going?"
"Getting something to eat," he muttered, staring down at the data pad he was holding. "And then I go off-world, remember."
"Can I join you?" Julie asked. "For lunch, I mean."
Rodney stopped. "Type that report before you forget everything," he said strictly. "It's not like the memory crystal is working already."
"I--"
"We'll be talking about the mission anyway," Rodney added, and again he gave her a crooked smile that warmed her heart and made up for everything he had just said. "And you'll be out of place."
Reluctantly, Julie let him go and returned to the labs to write the report, although she didn't feel good at all about him being in the mess hall with his team and Katie probably, where she couldn't see him. They could easily sneak out of the mess hall into some empty room to make out secretly, and she, Julie, would never know.
It broke her heart, and for a while, she had trouble concentrating on the report. The words just wouldn't come out the way they should, and after ten minutes she had only typed two sentences because her thoughts kept drifting back to Rodney, who was with Katie, holding hands, kissing, and damn, she just couldn't let it happen.
The mess hall was packed when she arrived, but she spotted Rodney immediately. He was sitting at a table with just his team. Katie was on the other side of the large room, talking to that blonde chick Julie had met when she had so stupidly tried to stab Katie.
Relieved a little, Julie returned to her report, finishing it in less than thirty minutes. When she had clicked the button to send it to Rodney's inbox, he showed up again, still munching a donut while he collected some things he probably needed for the next mission.
"I sent you the report," she announced with a big smile. "Good luck on your mission."
He was lost in thought, mumbling some 'yes, yes, thank you' without looking at her. However, when he left the labs he turned around once again, as if he had just remembered something. Julie smiled, knowing that it was her he had remembered. She waved, but he didn't wave back, too shy to show his affection in front of so many people. To cover his unease, he called for Radek, saying something to him before he finally rushed through the doors.
I loved this bit, not only for what it tells us about Julie, but about Rodney as well. All the fanon talk about clueless!Rodney really rings true here. It was at this point I found myself thinking: Rodney, you can't possibly not see this, but I realize it's because he has no regard for Julie. She's an underling, a nameless, faceless minion to be ordered around. He looks through her like air and she doesn't see it. Concocting elaborate excuses in her head for his behavior. The thing with Radek shows this brilliantly. I almost get an out-of-body feeling here because I'm inside Skeete's head, but as a rational person, I almost feel embarrassed for her thinking that Rodney's aside to Zelenka was really a signal to her. We as rational thinkers know that Rodney had forgotten to tell Radek something. Even the spatial area here gives you a weird feeling. We know it probably only took seconds for Rodney to turn and speak to Radek and then go out the doors, but the way the paragraph reads (from inside Julie's head) it seems we see what she sees, like one of those romantic slow motion sequences of two people coming together. Again, this is the way I like to get wrapped up in a story.
*
Julie spent the entire afternoon in the labs. In the beginning, she could focus on her work, but about an hour after Rodney's departure she could only think about what he was doing, who he was looking at with those magnificent blue eyes, who he was smiling at with his lips that just couldn't seem to form a straight line. As she began to worry about him, she asked Dr. Zelenka if he knew when the team would return, but he couldn't give her a satisfying answer. She tried once more to get some work done, but everything suddenly seemed unimportant to her.
To fight her disquiet, she headed for the control room, asking the technicians if Rodney's team had signed in again, but all the answers she received only left her with an increasing concern she couldn't keep down.
They returned two hours after sunset, worn out and dirty. Rodney looked like he had taken a bath in mud and sludge. Streaks of blood covered his face and hair, making him seem like he had jumped out of some war movie. Julie wanted nothing more than to rush forward, into his arms, to give him comfort and consolation, but she knew that he'd rather have her stay in the background and not reveal their love in front of other expedition members so soon. Thus, she remained in the control room at the balustrade, watching Rodney and the others as an increasing group of people gathered around them, medical doctors, marines, Colonel Carter. They all headed for the infirmary, but Rodney could walk on his own, strong despite the pain he must have suffered. As he disappeared into a corridor leading away from the gate room, Julie sighed in admiration. Slowly she turned to go to the mess hall as hunger was suddenly making her stomach ache.
She ate a very belated dinner, hurrying more and more the emptier her plate got. Katie was probably with Rodney now, inflicting her scheming thoughts on him. Maybe he was lying in one of the infirmary beds, perhaps high on pain drugs, completely at her mercy and unable to react to the love spells she might put on him to make him compliant.
Of course, Julie knew that this was just a fantasy. Katie was a normal woman and not a witch out of a children's fairy tale book, but still she couldn't keep from imagining that she was one indeed.
Now, I wonder if this might be Julie's way of holding back the growing panic - she tells herself, of course it's just a fantasy, but I seriously wonder if she believes that, if she knows the difference. She clearly knows Katie isn't a caricature witch in black hat and riding a broom, but in her mind, Katie is no less capable of casting a spell. I just thought that was an interesting juxtaposition of thought for Julie.
Her bottle was still half-full and the salad not even touched, but Julie hurried out of the mess hall, leaving her tray behind for someone else to clean up. Were they kissing now? Had they drawn the curtains close around Rodney's bed, and was Katie slipping her pale fingers beneath the waistband of Rodney's pants? Blood rushed in Julie's ears as she dashed into the infirmary, her eyes skimming the room for any sign of Rodney or Katie, or maybe a bed concealed by a curtain.
"Can you tell me where Rodney is?" she asked one of the nurses when she couldn't see him immediately.
"Oh, he's not here," the nurse told her. "He only had a few cuts and didn't have to spend the night here."
Julie didn't bother being polite and saying thank you, she hurried off to the labs instead, where she found Rodney's desk empty, nor could she spot him anywhere else. Then they had to be in Rodney's quarters, or Katie's, spending some time in private.
Julie could not let that happen.
She rang the chimes of Rodney's quarters, once, twice, she waited, tried again, but nothing happened.
"He's not there," someone walking past her said, a young scientist she had seen around once or twice, but she didn't know his name. "I saw him at Colonel Sheppard's quarters just ten minutes ago."
Colonel Sheppard? What were Rodney and Katie doing in Colonel Sheppard's quarters -- "Can you show me the way? I need to talk to Rodney, it's important."
"Just down the hallway, the left corridor, the second door on the right."
Not a word of thank you for him either, too strong was her urge to intervene, to keep things from happening, to keep them from becoming intimate with one another.
Totally oblivious to the fact that it could be anyone other than Katie.
She had to ring twice before Sheppard opened the door, clearly annoyed by the interruption of whatever he was doing.
"Hi," Julie said, perhaps he recognized her, Rodney must have told him about how the air seemed to thicken when they were together, how their eyes would meet and not part for long, intense minutes, how each of them longed for the other one's touches. "Is Rodney with you?"
"Uh, yeah, he is." Sheppard was leaning against the doorframe, steadying himself against the wall, maybe also a way to keep her from looking inside. "Why?"
"I need to talk to him," she said. "It's really important."
"Hmm. Something happened in the labs?"
"No, it's rather... it's personal." The second she said this, she knew she should have lied.
"So it's nothing vital to the city? Nobody's in mortal danger?"
"No, but--"
"Then it can wait. Rodney's busy." An apologetic smile, too impersonal to be honest, and the door closed in front of Julie before she could protest.
I love the description of Sheppard's smile and you can just see it, can't you. In just those few words, you get Sheppard's entire demeanor to this woman.
"Wait, Colonel!" He didn't reopen the door. She pounded against it with her fist, the pain shooting through her arm feeling almost pleasant. "Open!"
Nothing happened. She paced in front of the door; three steps right, three steps left, and inspiration struck her, the plan on how to kill Katie suddenly getting its final shape.
Again, she rang the bell, more indignantly this time. A few seconds passed, then Sheppard opened. For a moment she wondered why he was only wearing his military jacket and nothing beneath, his hairy chest clearly visible to her, but then her mind focused on more important things.
"What is it," he hissed through gritted teeth.
"Rodney. He's in there," Julie said. "Is Katie there, too?" Sheppard must be giving them cover, the relationship between Rodney and Katie had never been made public, they were keeping it secret and Sheppard was one of the few people who knew about it.
"Katie?" For a moment, Sheppard seemed confused, then his mouth twitched. "Oh, yeah, Katie. Yes, she's here. They're busy and can't talk to you." The hell they were. "You can see Rodney tomorrow."
"John, what's up?" Rodney's voice, like the first ray of the morning sun caressing her skin after a dark and cold night.
Without thinking, Julie sped forward to get past Sheppard, but she had underestimated his strength. He pushed her back with only one arm, using the other one to point at something far, far away from him and Rodney.
"You go now," he yelled, his face turning into a furious grimace. "And if I have to say this again, you'll spend the night in a nice and cozy cell!"
The door closed again, and Julie was alone in the silent corridor. Accepting her defeat, but only this time, she walked back toward the transporters. Well then, Katie hadn't left her a choice. If she wanted to spend her final night with Rodney, fine, so be it. A wry smile turned up on Julie's lips when she abandoned the transporter three levels down, heading for the armory.
First of all, I love getting McShep from unlikely places. I love the picture we get here of their relationship without anyone telling us they're together. Perfect execution here and that includes the strength of John's protection of Rodney. Lastly, what a transformation for Julie from desperate to calculating and so very scary at the end.
*
Katie should have been dead, but instead she ended up in the infirmary with many broken limbs, burnt hair and scorched skin. Everyone on the base was talking about the bomb, contemplating and discussing who could have planted it in the door to Katie's quarters, why she had been the victim, whether there was a hidden enemy in the city, whether everyone was in danger now, where the enemy was hiding now.
Julie was surprised but also incredibly glad when she saw Rodney eating lunch all alone on the large balcony attached to the mess hall. Next to him on the table was his data pad, but there was still enough space for her tray.
"Hey," she greeted him softly. "How are you?"
He looked up, frowning at her, mumbling something through his mouth filled with some meat dish.
"I'm sorry about what happened to Katie," Julie said, and she didn't even have to lie, she really was sorry about the course of events - Katie's corpse was supposed to be fully covered by a white blanket by now. "You must feel terrible."
Rodney shifted on his chair, wincing. "Yeah, a little," he said when he had swallowed. "But she survived. We'll catch the culprit soon enough and everyone's going to be able to enter their quarters without fear again."
"Yes, I'm sure," Julie answered, smiling. "But if you want to talk about it, I'm there for you."
Rodney choked on his water, perhaps overwhelmed by her gentleness. "Would you sit down elsewhere?" he said when he could speak again. "I've got work to do."
"Of course," Julie agreed, not leaving without squeezing his shoulder briefly.
"Oh, by the way," he called back to her. "Colonel Sheppard said you wanted to talk to me last night - what was it?"
"Oh, that." Julie coughed. "It's not important anymore. But thank you for asking."
She wasn't sure, but maybe Rodney was shaking his head and cursing under his breath when he turned his attention back to the food in front of him. Maybe it was because he would have really liked to continue their conversation.
For her lunch, she chose a table from where she could observe Rodney without it being too obvious. When Dr. Simpson joined her, telling her some theories about the bomb, Julie wished her colleague had been struck by it as well, because when she looked at Rodney's table again, he wasn't there, where he was supposed to be.
"I've got to go," she muttered, completely ignoring the fact that Dr. Simpson was talking, not caring about her or her tray.
On her way to the labs she neither cared about her open, fluttering lab coat nor about the people she hustled, arriving just in time to see Rodney leaving. First, she wanted to address him, but then she realized where he was going and decided to follow him unseen.
The infirmary was fairly empty, only three or four beds in the main room were being used, two of them concealed by a curtain. One of them was where Rodney was heading. He slipped behind it before Julie could intervene or see who was lying there, although she knew it already - it must be Katie. Quietly, and without attracting the attention of the medical personnel, she huddled into the small space between the curtain of Katie's bed and the wall, where she couldn't be spotted easily by anyone walking by, and at the same time overhear what they were saying.
"... just close my eyes," Katie just said, the smile in her voice clearly audible. So, she could speak again, although the explosion must have burned most of her facial skin. Rodney answered something, but spoke too quietly for Julie to understand it, then she heard a noise that distinctly resembled a kiss.
Katie couldn't kiss. Julie hadn't killed her, but she had scorched her face. She had thought that this would keep her at least from making out with Rodney, but no, not even that seemed to stop her.
Wayne had kissed like that.
In one single, flowing movement, Julie stepped out of her hideaway and drew the curtain of Katie's bed back, freezing at what she saw. Her first reaction was relief - Rodney wasn't kissing Katie, he wasn't in love with her; he was free for Julie.
Only that he wasn't, because he was kissing Colonel Sheppard.
"Damn," Sheppard cursed, letting go of Rodney immediately. In the blink of an eye, they were standing at separate sides of Katie's bed, as if nothing had ever happened.
"Doctor, listen," Rodney said, raising his hands in a way that was probably supposed to be appeasing, but considering that he had just cheated on the woman who loved him, it was just pathetic. In a lot of ways, he reminded Julie of Wayne.
And we've gone even deeper now - Julie's delusions in full swing and then this bolt from the blue that breaks something in her, she literally snaps. It's interesting that we're back to that line about reminding her of Wayne, but we've done a total 180 degree turn and at this point, I had a sinking feeling of what really might have happened to Wayne.
For a moment, she didn't know what to say. Katie was lying in her bed with most of her face and body covered with bandages, unable to move, unlike the two men, whose hands were trembling, or was it her, Julie, whose sight was shaking?
"Rodney." One word, full of contempt, disappointment, anger and hate all at once. She had sounded the same when she had spoken Wayne's name, many years ago. The contempt wasn't only directed at Rodney but also at herself - how could she have been so blind? Sheppard hadn't been the cover for Rodney and Katie, it had been the suppositional relationship between the two of them that had hidden the real one of Sheppard and Rodney. She had placed the bomb at the wrong door. One day she would have to offer Katie an apology. "You're betraying me."
"I'm what?" -- "He's what?"
The air in the room felt suddenly too thin for Julie to breathe. Rodney's betrayal seemed to have sucked all the oxygen out of it, as if he was trying to suffocate her.
"I can't believe you're doing this to me, not after everything we shared," she hissed with a pitching voice, but she didn't care about her appearance anymore. Her heart beat so loudly she wondered if the three people in front of her could hear it. "Not after--" Then her voice died in a painful hiccup, and it was history repeating all over again.
Rodney and Sheppard exchanged bemused, confused glances, but Julie knew that Rodney understood.
"I don't know what--" Sheppard started, but she didn't care for his words, focusing on Rodney.
She clearly has no regard for Sheppard whatsoever - he's not even worth her attention.
"I thought you felt it, too," she shouted at him, probably loud enough to arouse the attention of the medical personnel and the other patients, but she didn't care at all. The frown around Rodney's eyes fell, and understanding was visible on his face. "I can't believe you're putting everything between us, everything that's happened, the best chance of your whole life at stake for this..." She trailed off, gesturing at Sheppard without looking at him. A laugh escaped Rodney's lips, a laugh of the kind you make when something is absolutely not funny at all. "I would have been a wonderful girlfriend, a wonderful wife," Julie went on. "But you're just as foolish as Wayne was."
Again, she doesn't recognize Sheppard as worthy of her jealously. Here is where the past catches up with her and in her mind, it's Wayne all over again I interpreted this originally as Julie feeling it was a failure on her part, but the author was quick to explain that Julie didn't recognize anything as her responsibility, this was nothing that she had done, it was all Rodney for being foolish enough, like Wayne, not to see what a wonderful person she was and how it was she and she alone that could make him happy.
"Wayne?" Sheppard echoed.
"Oh Jesus," Rodney said, obviously shocked, but amusement and pride colored his voice. "You love me." He shook his head in disbelief, and how could he? "Did you hear that? She thinks she loves me."
"You have to listen," Sheppard insisted, taking a step closer to Julie. She stepped back. "Before you tell anyone about what you've seen, please, let's just talk--"
He said more, senseless words pouring out of his mouth. They became a waterfall when Rodney spoke as well. Rodney, Rodney who should have been hers but who had chosen another path. Julie remembered Wayne, how he had bled and then burnt, and knew that it was a path of death.
Okay, so this is where I really start to get concerned and where we see that all is lost as far as Julie is concerned. There's only one thing for Rodney, she has one thing, a single objective on her mind and to her, it's still a thing Rodney had chosen.
She heard them following her as she ran out of the infirmary, but she was faster and they lost her before she had even started hiding for real. They tried to reach her over the radio, but she tore it from her head and tossed it to the ground, hurrying up the stairs to the next floor. She would need a spot where she could not be seen and where Rodney would definitely search for her. One floor down, she heard footsteps and then Rodney's voice, shouting her name. A wide grin parted her lips when she discovered a few large boxes just a few feet down the corridor, a grin that turned confident of victory when she heard Rodney reporting to John that he had found her headset and that he was going upstairs.
As Rodney's footsteps approached quickly, Julie felt something hard pressing against her leg. Muffling a chuckle, she clasped her fingers around the knife that had been supposed to kill Katie, and which was ultimately going to take her revenge now.
I must have been obsessed with the knife or something, because I just love all the allusions and the mental pictures we get every time it's mentioned. I told you, brain twins. I love it.
When Rodney ran past her, Julie darted forward with a cry, the blade of her knife hitting home with a satisfying, painful sound and a surprised yelp from Rodney. She pulled it out again, realizing that she had hit his shoulder instead of his neck, and only after she'd been pushed to the ground, the knife skittering away from her, did she accept that this time, everything was a little different and more difficult.
"Doctor, what the hell are you doing?" Rodney shrieked, trying to press her to the floor, but her hands were quick, knocking his chin so hard the bone gave a gut-wrenching croak and Rodney fell, letting go of her. "John! She's attacking me!" The goddamned radio. She had to end this quickly; the Colonel and the marines would be here in no time.
Another stroke of her fist, well placed on the other side of Rodney's chin. He cried in pain, much like Wayne had, giving her the pleasure he had refused her otherwise. She scrabbled for the knife and felt it at the tips of her fingers. Grabbing it, she raised her arm to cut Rodney again, at the right place this time, but he was faster, gripping the hand that held the knife, trying to push it away from his body.
Oh my, that line "giving her the pleasure he had refused her otherwise," so eerie and somehow you just feel it's true, that Julie feels as much conviction and passion for killing Rodney as she did for loving him. Sorry, but that is the height of creepy. Kind of makes your skin crawl (and be very afraid for Rodney).
"What have I ever done to you?" he yelled, bright red patches seeping slowly through his shirt. "Why are you doing this?"
He didn't deserve an answer, and Julie knew she didn't have the time for talking. The wound in his shoulder wasn't enough to kill him, and the bruises in his face weren't either. Succeeding was more important now, after the humiliation, she wanted revenge, and she would not let him take that from her, too.
With her free hand she clawed at his face and the grip around her other one softened. Pain shot through her body when Rodney's knee slammed into her abdomen before she could stab him, and through his yells and the blood rushing in her ears, she could hear footsteps, one level down.
And I think everyone gives a little sigh of relief that Rodney finally fights back here.
Hurry up, sweetheart. It was Wayne's voice. Wayne, who had fought just like Rodney was fighting now, covered in his own blood just like Rodney; Wayne, who had died with a cry on his lips just like--
The knife sank deep into the flesh of Rodney's arm, too close to the elbow, though, to be in danger of causing major damage to his arteries. She had to try again. She met his gaze, his blue eyes full of fear and pain, and asked herself now how she could not have seen the streak of betrayal in them, the glint that would have told her he wasn't someone who deserved her love.
All about her. Not a thought of whether or not she was someone who deserved Rodney. That goes without saying.
"Rodney," she said, her voice full of scorn and pity. His bare neck lay before her, thick blue veins pulsing beneath the skin. She lifted the knife one more time, to end it once and for all.
The knife dropped to the floor as strong arms drew her away from Rodney. Someone took her hands, binding them behind her back, not minding her furious screeching. She was pushed onto the ground, her body aching from the impact. Colonel Sheppard helped Rodney to sit up, steadying him; he gazed at Julie as his mouth formed words she didn't understand, the hard lines of his face softening as relief washed away his fear.
Again, John's love and protection from an unlikely source. Excellent.
Hands grabbed her and forced her further away from him, but she kept her head turned toward Rodney, her Rodney, who should have died and who didn't. Rodney, who wouldn't love her, who never had, who had made her fail.
As Rodney's body vanished from her sight, she could hear Wayne's spiteful laughter. This time you didn't succeed, sweetheart. This time you lose.
Then the tears came.
Ultimately, I insisted that the tears come because she's finally admitted defeat to herself, that somehow "she's" failed. But the author pointed out that the only way Julie sees this as a defeat is because Rodney refused to die, refused to fall for her, so that, in the end, it's still someone else's fault.
Sometimes, it's hard to put into words why one story will hit you in such a way as to make it unforgettable and one you'd want to read again and again. And, of course, every reader is going to have their own reasons. This story hit my macabre buttons and in thinking back on it, I want to compare it, and Julie's point of view, to looking through a glass, darkly. That imperfect perception of reality that we all possess and some are cursed with more than others.
-End.
Author: sonadorita
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Commenter: neevebrody
Commentary in bold
The Original Story
First of all, I want to say why I chose to commentate on this story. I'm a reader and like to think a wide range of fiction and fanfiction appeals to me; however, as with most other things, the more bizarre, macabre or unusual the better. That's what I love about this author; she's like my brain twin. We both enjoy angsty, unusual, off-the-beaten-path fics - both reading them and writing them. When she asked me to beta this for her, I had no idea it would be the beginning of such a wonderful friendship. This story is everything that most McShep stories aren't and perhaps that's why it's so special to me.
When Julie Skeete came to Atlantis, she expected to lead a life devoted to science and exploration in a stronghold of progress, as a pioneer in the world of the future. What she didn't expect was to fall in love with her boss. Rodney McKay had everything she admired - brilliance, intelligence, witty humor - and a pair of the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. In some ways, he reminded her of Wayne.
Now, I'll admit, the "Wayne" thing pinged something on the internal radar right away for me, but on first reading I didn't realize how much. Also, I'm not sure why, but it struck me from the very beginning that Julie Skeete and John Sheppard have the same initials. The author swears she wasn't aware of this at first and it certainly wasn't intentional. I found that very interesting.
On her first day on the base, she learned that pretty much everyone couldn't stand Rodney McKay for the life of them, or at least pretended not to like him, and when she had her first dinner with a few of her new colleagues and asked about him, the rants and complaints just wouldn't stop. She couldn't wait to get to know him in private.
"Who the hell are you?" was the first sentence Rodney directed at Julie, the next day, when she sat down at his table in the mess hall and beamed at him.
"Julie Skeete, PhD," she introduced herself, extending a hand, which he ignored since he was too busy scrolling through some files on his data pad and eating at the same time. "I'm new to the city, I arrived yesterday."
"Uh-huh," Rodney said, his attention focusing on his work again.
"I thought I could join you for lunch, chat a little with you, so we could get to know each other." Excitement quickened the beating of her heart as she gazed at his hands, the clear lines of his face, his receding hairline, all of which she had only seen from a greater distance so far.
"You thought so," he mumbled without looking up, his voice muffled by his sandwich. It was stuffed with eggs. Julie loved eggs.
"What is it with all your coworkers?" she asked, to which he finally paid actual attention, blue eyes gazing at her, skimming over her. "I've talked to some of them, but none of them seem to have a positive thing to say about you, which I don't understand at all."
Rodney crooked his lips and Julie's heart did a dance of joy. It was their first meeting, their first date, and she had made him smile already. Suddenly she felt the urge to get rid of her jacket, as the temperature in the extensive room seemed to have increased rapidly.
This was my first inkling that Ms. Skeete was a bit strange. I wasn't exactly sure what I thought yet, but I seem to remember thinking it was an odd characterization.
"How long have you been here again?" Rodney asked, and she told him. "Huh. Come along to P9C-447 tomorrow, you could be useful there."
Julie's voice trembled audibly when she said thank you and yes, yes, of course she would to come along, praising his generousness and brilliance even when he'd already got up and left her in favor of a few others sitting at another table, one of whom she recognized as Colonel Sheppard. She didn't mind though, after all he had invited her to work with him on their first date, he had smiled at her, just like Wayne had.
Wayne again, and this one was the hook for me. As a reader I found myself wanting to know who this Wayne was and just what the deal was with Julie Skeete. That's not to say the beginning wasn't enough to catch my interest, but by this point, I couldn't have stopped reading if I'd wanted to.
*
Unable to sleep for longer than an hour or two, Julie needed a lot of coffee the next morning to feel prepared for her first off-world mission with, and she still couldn't quite believe it, Rodney. Their team consisted of half a dozen scientists, led by Rodney, and four marines for safety reasons. Major Lorne's team had encountered some sort of electronic library on P9C-447 and it was their job to download the large chunks of information, which turned out to be rather difficult, as the data had been saved in a format none of them had encountered before.
Rodney was in a terrible mood, barking at whoever crossed his path. Julie felt that he complained about her the most of all, yelling at her for connecting one of the library's energy crystals with her laptop in a way that almost blew up the entire facility, yelling at her when she fixed the problem and did it right, and yelling at her when she was the first one to decode a large cache of data.
Perhaps it's not easy to catch upon the first reading, but overnight she's changed the way she looks at Rodney. It's no longer Rodney McKay or Doctor McKay, it's "Rodney." This is a very subtle but very significant change and begins to show us a bit of her psyche.
"I get it now," she said when he took a breath in the middle of a rant, initiated because the information she had just downloaded had shaped up as unimportant stuff about some planet's naturalistic religion. "You're trying to show me how cruel you are." And I'm taking that as a sign of affection, she added in her thoughts.
"What?" Rodney acted confused, but Julie knew she had seen through him - and he had to be impressed by that. "Can we please focus on our work?"
Then he ranted on, but left her very soon because someone else was even dumber than she was.
"You're doing a good job," Dr. Simpson told Julie, offering her reassurance and encouragement she didn't need. "It's just his way to appreciate that."
After a few hours, when they had finished their work and everyone began packing their stuff together, Julie was assigned to take photos of the cryptic inscriptions on the walls for the linguists. Nobody noticed that among the photos she took were also a few fantastic, deliberate shots of Rodney's face.
The best of the photos ended up in a large format above Julie's bed, together with a drawing of Rodney smiling at her while holding her hand. She'd never been more glad to have taken additional fine arts courses when her physics courses became too boring. Wayne would have appreciated such a delicate work, countless different coal lines shaping into two bodies looking at each other in boundless devotion, and Julie was certain that Rodney would love it as well once she showed it to him.
Again, very subtle progression here deeper into Julie's mind and background. What do we learn here? We learn in one or two paragraphs that she has an obsessive personality. We learn that she was a brilliant student. Being bored by her academic classes, she chose to feed the other side of her brain with artistic endeavors. But the author didn't actually come out and "tell" us any of that.
When she went to bed that night, she could hardly take her eyes off her wall, rolling over to curl up in her usual fetal position after an hour of gazing at her two versions of Rodney. She fell asleep with her face turned to the photo on the nightstand, which showed a happy, elderly couple in front of a beautiful red cottage that looked a lot like the place where one could have spent a joyful childhood. Of all the people Julie had lived with in the past, these two were the only ones that deserved this special place next to her bed, and soon Rodney would make it here as well, where he could watch over her sleep with a smile that lasted forever.
Only on closer inspection, could one discern the faint watermark of the copyright peeking out of the frame at the very bottom, and the tiny scratch of extant magazine text in one corner.
Again, what have we learned? Not only obsessive/compulsive, she's likely neurotic as well. We also learn that perhaps Julie was orphaned or somehow ended up in a succession of foster homes, and that the couple in the frame are the "ideal" of the parents she should have had, of the happy childhood and life she should have had, deserved to have. These three preceding paragraphs are, seemingly on a first reading, filler, something personal and it's very easy to read by this quickly, but in reality these few words are the heart of the story and the heart of this character. Simply brilliant.
*
When Julie entered the mess hall the next day after working out at the gym, she spotted Rodney among some friends at a larger table, talking rapidly to the huge man in front of him, who looked a little lost, as he obviously understood nothing. There was a woman sitting at Rodney's left side, laughing a few times during his ramblings, red hair flowing over her back. Julie hated her at first sight.
"Hey, Rodney," she greeted him as she forcefully squished her tray between Rodney's and the red-haired woman's, pulling a chair over from another table. The woman seemed surprised, but made more space for her as she watched in confusion how Julie took her place.
"Uhm, hi," Rodney said, staring at her with his eyes opened wide, answering her bright smile with a twitch of his lips. Julie could understand his awkwardness; after all introducing one's new girlfriend to family or friends was always a precarious and sometimes difficult situation. "That's, uh--"
There was a moment of hesitation and Julie, surprised by how excited and nervous Rodney seemed to be, decided to help him before this ended in a mess of embarrassment and confusion. "Julie," she introduced herself. "Julie Skeete, PhD. I'm one of Rodney's new subordinates."
She laughed, hoping that this would break the ice. The huge man across from Rodney just glared at her and the woman next to him - she must be Teyla - shifted uneasily on her chair.
"Well, uhm," Julie coughed when for a moment nothing happened except that an awkward silence spread. "Don't you want to introduce me to your, uh, friends, Rodney?"
That's when Colonel Sheppard, sitting on Rodney's other side, spilled his water all over the table and onto Teyla's plate. The red-haired woman jumped up and hurried away to get some cloths, very much to Julie's content, and Rodney turned to her and hissed, "What the hell is going on, Dr. Skeete?"
Her spirit left her like a snuffed out candle. Had she been too forward? But Rodney must have sensed the almost magical chemistry between the two of them that had existed from the very first moment on, he must have felt her love, he must have--
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Rodney, I just... I thought we would eat lunch to--"
"Well, you thought wrong," Rodney said, louder now. "Now pick up your tray and leave, Katie was sitting here."
Yes, Katie, the red-haired woman, an evil witch sprung out of the horror stories Julie's mother had read her as a child.
Unwilling to start their first real fight in front of the entire mess hall, Julie got her tray and smashed it on the table right behind Rodney's back. "As you wish," she muttered, throwing him a sad look to indicate that she was disappointed by him.
This is an excellent view from inside Julie's head and from her psyche. It's at this point where the reader starts to think this Julie Skeete is a bit out of touch with reality. I love that the story is through Skeete's POV and this is why... we are able to get a slow progression into Skeete's thinking. From this point, it begins to give us a creepy feeling, and I have to say that I will endeavor to find other suitable descriptive words but "creepy" seemed to be the word of choice for most readers.
After Katie returned and wiped over the wet table, they settled down to continue eating. Julie didn't take her eyes off Rodney and Katie, only barely noticing the estranged glances Teyla and the big man at the other side of their table shot at her. There was talk of some mission they'd all been on, except for Katie, and she reasoned the huge guy must be Ronon Dex, Rodney's teammate. Her own food lay untouched in front of her, as all her appetite had vanished within seconds. The sound of laughter came from the table now; Rodney had made a joke about some natives and Katie guffawed, a loud, witch-like cackle that set Julie's teeth on edge. She watched as Katie patted Rodney's shoulder, her hand lingering there just a moment too long to be the touch of a mere friend. Were they a couple? It couldn't be. As if he had heard her thoughts, Rodney turned around to face her, frowning. Oh, he must feel terribly uncomfortable in Katie's presence, longing for Julie's companion instead. She smiled back reassuringly.
This paragraph gives us an excellent contrast in our own perception of these characters and how Julie sees them. Interesting how Katie is immediately characterized as a witch and how, even though Rodney pulled no punches, Julie still idolized him.
"Later," she mouthed, and Rodney turned to his food again, making some gesture in front of his face that Julie couldn't see perfectly. If he ever told her off like this again, she would sit down at a different table so she could actually look him in the face. In the eyes, which reminded her so much of Wayne's.
*
Julie waited for Rodney all day, but he was busy in another part of the city where someone had discovered an ancient device. She wound up chatting with Dr. Simpson while working on the files they had extracted the previous day, about living on Atlantis, and, naturally, about Rodney.
"I saw him with that Katie in the mess hall today," Julie said, pronouncing Katie's name like a curse. "Are they a couple?"
Dr. Simpson smiled. "There are rumors about them," she told. "They're true, if you ask me." She said this and a lot more, but Julie stopped listening, a dark shadow veiling her thoughts.
"Where's she working?" she asked, interrupting Dr. Simpson mid-sentence.
Here we see a little more about Julie. She is totally self-absorbed. She engaged Dr. Simpson in conversation, but only to find out what she wanted to know and didn't think anything of interrupting and ignoring her.
"In the botany labs, she--" Julie was on her feet in an instant. "Hey, where are you going? Are you okay?"
Unnoticed, she stole a knife from the mess hall and made her way to the botany labs. She could see the blood on the blade already, feel it running down her hand, her fingers, warm, thick and sticky. The thought of Katie, lying on the ground, dead and pale, caused pleasant shivers to run down Julie's spine, made her feel confident and certain that she was doing the right thing, that this was the only way to go. Soon, Rodney would thank her for this.
I loved the descriptors here and we get our own mental picture right along with Julie. I enjoyed getting caught up in this.
She had never been to the botany labs before, but they weren't far from the physics labs and she knew the way. Actually, she only had to follow the unfamiliar scent of alien plants.
As the doors opened, she slipped into the labs, very literally like an assassin. Katie was sitting at a desk typing something, her back to Julie. Perfect. At the far end of the labs, someone else was working, but neither he nor Katie had noticed Julie, nor did she see anyone else around. She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and curled her fingers around the handle of the knife, just beyond her fingertips the cool, smooth blade that would make everything all right. She waited another moment, though, for she feared that someone might be hiding behind some of the large plants. When she felt that her way was safe, she advanced on Katie. Four steps. Three steps.
Again with the mental image. Making the reader "feel" that knife in her pocket and Julie's conviction that what she's doing is not only justified but will clear the way to Rodney, that it will make everything all right.
"Hey, I've never seen you around here."
A blonde, young woman smiled at Julie, her hands and clothes covered with dirt. She must have been kneeling somewhere on the ground where Julie couldn't see her.
"I... yeah." Her hand let go of the knife as if it had heated upon the blonde's arrival.
"You." Katie had spun around in her chair, looking up to Julie with a cold expression. "What are you doing here?"
"I... it's... it doesn't matter anymore." She fled, defeated, humiliated, running away from the woman who was supposed to die, who had taken the place preserved for Julie, who had stolen something dear to her.
But then, as she was roaming the city without an aim or a particular direction, Julie realized that she had approached the murder in the wrong way. If she had killed Katie in the labs, what would she have done with the corpse? What had she been thinking? The city housed the best scientists Earth had to offer; surely, they would have discovered fingerprints and other evidence and followed the traces right to Julie.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she scolded herself when she reached her quarters after what could have been ten minutes or two hours. Life wasn't this simple. Atlantis wasn't Earth.
No, she would need to act more carefully.
We get more insight into the downward spiral here. Her first taste of defeat has an effect on her, and it's amazing to realize that not only does Julie not see the idea of murder as wrong, she believes it was her execution that was wrong, her plan. Utterly dark and satisfying if you're keeping up with Julie's descent.
*
The next morning Rodney finally turned up in the labs again, and Julie was waiting for him at his desk with a cup of coffee that he took without a word of gratitude.
"Good morning," she greeted him nevertheless. "Rodney, are you mad at me?"
He blinked at her, confusion turning the crook of his lips Julie found so attractive into a bewildered grimace. "What?" So he wasn't.
"Would you like to eat lunch with me today?"
"No," he answered, slurping his coffee.
"Then dinner perhaps?"
"No," he said, more indignantly, beckoning her to go away. "I'm working."
It was all Katie's fault, Julie thought as she retreated to her own desk. When Katie wasn't in his thoughts, he was perfectly nice to her, like during their first date, or like during their off-world mission when he, in his own special way, had praised the work she had been doing. He had probably spent the night with Katie, and the dark thoughts she had placed in his mind ruined the good atmosphere that had always reigned whenever Julie and Rodney were together. She was amazed how fast everything had gone. With Wayne, becoming a couple had taken months, and only after three years of a happy marriage, he had been taken away from her by some stupid love affair. Maybe things were different this time, Julie thought. Maybe it all happened the other way round.
If there was any lingering doubt that Julie Skeete is an incredibly disturbed young women, it just left the building. What I see from this paragraph is a possible projection of a past failure onto Katie. Rodney's being rude to her was totally someone else's fault. And we finally get a little more information on Wayne. The pacing is near perfect here, because we've been so wrapped up in Julie's warped mind and her little plan, we almost forgot that we wanted to know more about Wayne. And perhaps the reader thinks that the love affair and a divorce made Julie so bitter and disturbed.
Lost in her thoughts, she stared at the screen of her laptop, barely paying attention to the data rattling down. A plan was shaping in her mind, a plan on how to get rid of that Katie person. It still had rough edges and flaws, but it was starting to look pretty good already.
When she lifted her gaze, Rodney was not where he was supposed to be. His desk chair was empty, still twirling lightly as if Rodney had left it only a short time ago. Maybe he was with Katie, visiting her in the labs so she could confound his mind again?
I love how in almost every paragraph we get little markers of Julie's thought processes. Rodney wasn't where he was supposed to be. How dare he act independently of "her" control? And it's telling that the one and only thing she thinks of is that he's off kissing Katie.
Julie got up and hurried out of the labs. She didn't know what she was going to do if she caught Rodney and Katie kissing somewhere, but she couldn't simply let it happen either.
She bumped into him midway between the physics labs and the stairs leading, among other things, to the botany section. He yelled, flailing, and whatever he had been carrying dropped to the floor with a great cracking noise.
"Oh no, I'm sorry," Julie apologized instantly, kneeling down to the mess she had caused. The device Rodney had held had lost some splinters, glass and some alien metal Julie didn't recognize immediately.
"Fantastic, doctor," Rodney groaned, bowing down to help her pick up the shards. "If it's broken now, I'm going to kill you."
It was just a joke, Julie knew, but nevertheless his words made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
"I'm really sorry," she muttered. "We were both moving too fast, I guess, I should have watched out better... What is this, anyway?"
"A crystal we found," Rodney informed her, opening the rest of the device's hull, which the impact had destroyed. "I hope for your sake it still works."
Both sighed in relief when it came active with a slight buzz. "I saw something similar once at the SGC," Julie said, frowning, trying to remember more. "Someone named it a 'memory saver'."
"A memory saver?" Rodney echoed, suddenly gazing at her in excitement. Julie immediately stopped regretting running into him. "Come on, you need to tell me everything you know about it."
Interesting that the only thing she gets out of this exchange is that Rodney's actually interested in something she had to say, convinced that he's not angry with her anymore.
*
The morning passed by in a dance of joy and warmth. Julie and Rodney were working side-by-side, and although there were several occasions when he yelled at her, during these hours she felt that there was something special between them, a unique kind of love tingling down her back when Rodney told stories with his hands or his eyes met her gaze when they talked. She had never been happier; she had never been more in love with anyone, not even with Wayne.
My favorite thing here is the phrase "when Rodney told stories with his hands." A very apt description indeed and a lovely turn of phrase.
The crystal turned out to be capable of saving a person's memories indeed, but when they uploaded the memories of their first volunteer, Dr. Kusanagi, it suddenly broke down and they realized they would need more energy. In the afternoon, Rodney had to go on a mission with his team, which Julie regretted deeply, and postponed the work on the crystal until the next day.
Rodney told Julie to write a report of their work so far, but when she looked to his desk after typing the first paragraph, Rodney was gone again, though this time she saw him walking through the door.
"Hey, Rodney!" she called, running after him. "Where are you going?"
"Getting something to eat," he muttered, staring down at the data pad he was holding. "And then I go off-world, remember."
"Can I join you?" Julie asked. "For lunch, I mean."
Rodney stopped. "Type that report before you forget everything," he said strictly. "It's not like the memory crystal is working already."
"I--"
"We'll be talking about the mission anyway," Rodney added, and again he gave her a crooked smile that warmed her heart and made up for everything he had just said. "And you'll be out of place."
Reluctantly, Julie let him go and returned to the labs to write the report, although she didn't feel good at all about him being in the mess hall with his team and Katie probably, where she couldn't see him. They could easily sneak out of the mess hall into some empty room to make out secretly, and she, Julie, would never know.
It broke her heart, and for a while, she had trouble concentrating on the report. The words just wouldn't come out the way they should, and after ten minutes she had only typed two sentences because her thoughts kept drifting back to Rodney, who was with Katie, holding hands, kissing, and damn, she just couldn't let it happen.
The mess hall was packed when she arrived, but she spotted Rodney immediately. He was sitting at a table with just his team. Katie was on the other side of the large room, talking to that blonde chick Julie had met when she had so stupidly tried to stab Katie.
Relieved a little, Julie returned to her report, finishing it in less than thirty minutes. When she had clicked the button to send it to Rodney's inbox, he showed up again, still munching a donut while he collected some things he probably needed for the next mission.
"I sent you the report," she announced with a big smile. "Good luck on your mission."
He was lost in thought, mumbling some 'yes, yes, thank you' without looking at her. However, when he left the labs he turned around once again, as if he had just remembered something. Julie smiled, knowing that it was her he had remembered. She waved, but he didn't wave back, too shy to show his affection in front of so many people. To cover his unease, he called for Radek, saying something to him before he finally rushed through the doors.
I loved this bit, not only for what it tells us about Julie, but about Rodney as well. All the fanon talk about clueless!Rodney really rings true here. It was at this point I found myself thinking: Rodney, you can't possibly not see this, but I realize it's because he has no regard for Julie. She's an underling, a nameless, faceless minion to be ordered around. He looks through her like air and she doesn't see it. Concocting elaborate excuses in her head for his behavior. The thing with Radek shows this brilliantly. I almost get an out-of-body feeling here because I'm inside Skeete's head, but as a rational person, I almost feel embarrassed for her thinking that Rodney's aside to Zelenka was really a signal to her. We as rational thinkers know that Rodney had forgotten to tell Radek something. Even the spatial area here gives you a weird feeling. We know it probably only took seconds for Rodney to turn and speak to Radek and then go out the doors, but the way the paragraph reads (from inside Julie's head) it seems we see what she sees, like one of those romantic slow motion sequences of two people coming together. Again, this is the way I like to get wrapped up in a story.
*
Julie spent the entire afternoon in the labs. In the beginning, she could focus on her work, but about an hour after Rodney's departure she could only think about what he was doing, who he was looking at with those magnificent blue eyes, who he was smiling at with his lips that just couldn't seem to form a straight line. As she began to worry about him, she asked Dr. Zelenka if he knew when the team would return, but he couldn't give her a satisfying answer. She tried once more to get some work done, but everything suddenly seemed unimportant to her.
To fight her disquiet, she headed for the control room, asking the technicians if Rodney's team had signed in again, but all the answers she received only left her with an increasing concern she couldn't keep down.
They returned two hours after sunset, worn out and dirty. Rodney looked like he had taken a bath in mud and sludge. Streaks of blood covered his face and hair, making him seem like he had jumped out of some war movie. Julie wanted nothing more than to rush forward, into his arms, to give him comfort and consolation, but she knew that he'd rather have her stay in the background and not reveal their love in front of other expedition members so soon. Thus, she remained in the control room at the balustrade, watching Rodney and the others as an increasing group of people gathered around them, medical doctors, marines, Colonel Carter. They all headed for the infirmary, but Rodney could walk on his own, strong despite the pain he must have suffered. As he disappeared into a corridor leading away from the gate room, Julie sighed in admiration. Slowly she turned to go to the mess hall as hunger was suddenly making her stomach ache.
She ate a very belated dinner, hurrying more and more the emptier her plate got. Katie was probably with Rodney now, inflicting her scheming thoughts on him. Maybe he was lying in one of the infirmary beds, perhaps high on pain drugs, completely at her mercy and unable to react to the love spells she might put on him to make him compliant.
Of course, Julie knew that this was just a fantasy. Katie was a normal woman and not a witch out of a children's fairy tale book, but still she couldn't keep from imagining that she was one indeed.
Now, I wonder if this might be Julie's way of holding back the growing panic - she tells herself, of course it's just a fantasy, but I seriously wonder if she believes that, if she knows the difference. She clearly knows Katie isn't a caricature witch in black hat and riding a broom, but in her mind, Katie is no less capable of casting a spell. I just thought that was an interesting juxtaposition of thought for Julie.
Her bottle was still half-full and the salad not even touched, but Julie hurried out of the mess hall, leaving her tray behind for someone else to clean up. Were they kissing now? Had they drawn the curtains close around Rodney's bed, and was Katie slipping her pale fingers beneath the waistband of Rodney's pants? Blood rushed in Julie's ears as she dashed into the infirmary, her eyes skimming the room for any sign of Rodney or Katie, or maybe a bed concealed by a curtain.
"Can you tell me where Rodney is?" she asked one of the nurses when she couldn't see him immediately.
"Oh, he's not here," the nurse told her. "He only had a few cuts and didn't have to spend the night here."
Julie didn't bother being polite and saying thank you, she hurried off to the labs instead, where she found Rodney's desk empty, nor could she spot him anywhere else. Then they had to be in Rodney's quarters, or Katie's, spending some time in private.
Julie could not let that happen.
She rang the chimes of Rodney's quarters, once, twice, she waited, tried again, but nothing happened.
"He's not there," someone walking past her said, a young scientist she had seen around once or twice, but she didn't know his name. "I saw him at Colonel Sheppard's quarters just ten minutes ago."
Colonel Sheppard? What were Rodney and Katie doing in Colonel Sheppard's quarters -- "Can you show me the way? I need to talk to Rodney, it's important."
"Just down the hallway, the left corridor, the second door on the right."
Not a word of thank you for him either, too strong was her urge to intervene, to keep things from happening, to keep them from becoming intimate with one another.
Totally oblivious to the fact that it could be anyone other than Katie.
She had to ring twice before Sheppard opened the door, clearly annoyed by the interruption of whatever he was doing.
"Hi," Julie said, perhaps he recognized her, Rodney must have told him about how the air seemed to thicken when they were together, how their eyes would meet and not part for long, intense minutes, how each of them longed for the other one's touches. "Is Rodney with you?"
"Uh, yeah, he is." Sheppard was leaning against the doorframe, steadying himself against the wall, maybe also a way to keep her from looking inside. "Why?"
"I need to talk to him," she said. "It's really important."
"Hmm. Something happened in the labs?"
"No, it's rather... it's personal." The second she said this, she knew she should have lied.
"So it's nothing vital to the city? Nobody's in mortal danger?"
"No, but--"
"Then it can wait. Rodney's busy." An apologetic smile, too impersonal to be honest, and the door closed in front of Julie before she could protest.
I love the description of Sheppard's smile and you can just see it, can't you. In just those few words, you get Sheppard's entire demeanor to this woman.
"Wait, Colonel!" He didn't reopen the door. She pounded against it with her fist, the pain shooting through her arm feeling almost pleasant. "Open!"
Nothing happened. She paced in front of the door; three steps right, three steps left, and inspiration struck her, the plan on how to kill Katie suddenly getting its final shape.
Again, she rang the bell, more indignantly this time. A few seconds passed, then Sheppard opened. For a moment she wondered why he was only wearing his military jacket and nothing beneath, his hairy chest clearly visible to her, but then her mind focused on more important things.
"What is it," he hissed through gritted teeth.
"Rodney. He's in there," Julie said. "Is Katie there, too?" Sheppard must be giving them cover, the relationship between Rodney and Katie had never been made public, they were keeping it secret and Sheppard was one of the few people who knew about it.
"Katie?" For a moment, Sheppard seemed confused, then his mouth twitched. "Oh, yeah, Katie. Yes, she's here. They're busy and can't talk to you." The hell they were. "You can see Rodney tomorrow."
"John, what's up?" Rodney's voice, like the first ray of the morning sun caressing her skin after a dark and cold night.
Without thinking, Julie sped forward to get past Sheppard, but she had underestimated his strength. He pushed her back with only one arm, using the other one to point at something far, far away from him and Rodney.
"You go now," he yelled, his face turning into a furious grimace. "And if I have to say this again, you'll spend the night in a nice and cozy cell!"
The door closed again, and Julie was alone in the silent corridor. Accepting her defeat, but only this time, she walked back toward the transporters. Well then, Katie hadn't left her a choice. If she wanted to spend her final night with Rodney, fine, so be it. A wry smile turned up on Julie's lips when she abandoned the transporter three levels down, heading for the armory.
First of all, I love getting McShep from unlikely places. I love the picture we get here of their relationship without anyone telling us they're together. Perfect execution here and that includes the strength of John's protection of Rodney. Lastly, what a transformation for Julie from desperate to calculating and so very scary at the end.
*
Katie should have been dead, but instead she ended up in the infirmary with many broken limbs, burnt hair and scorched skin. Everyone on the base was talking about the bomb, contemplating and discussing who could have planted it in the door to Katie's quarters, why she had been the victim, whether there was a hidden enemy in the city, whether everyone was in danger now, where the enemy was hiding now.
Julie was surprised but also incredibly glad when she saw Rodney eating lunch all alone on the large balcony attached to the mess hall. Next to him on the table was his data pad, but there was still enough space for her tray.
"Hey," she greeted him softly. "How are you?"
He looked up, frowning at her, mumbling something through his mouth filled with some meat dish.
"I'm sorry about what happened to Katie," Julie said, and she didn't even have to lie, she really was sorry about the course of events - Katie's corpse was supposed to be fully covered by a white blanket by now. "You must feel terrible."
Rodney shifted on his chair, wincing. "Yeah, a little," he said when he had swallowed. "But she survived. We'll catch the culprit soon enough and everyone's going to be able to enter their quarters without fear again."
"Yes, I'm sure," Julie answered, smiling. "But if you want to talk about it, I'm there for you."
Rodney choked on his water, perhaps overwhelmed by her gentleness. "Would you sit down elsewhere?" he said when he could speak again. "I've got work to do."
"Of course," Julie agreed, not leaving without squeezing his shoulder briefly.
"Oh, by the way," he called back to her. "Colonel Sheppard said you wanted to talk to me last night - what was it?"
"Oh, that." Julie coughed. "It's not important anymore. But thank you for asking."
She wasn't sure, but maybe Rodney was shaking his head and cursing under his breath when he turned his attention back to the food in front of him. Maybe it was because he would have really liked to continue their conversation.
For her lunch, she chose a table from where she could observe Rodney without it being too obvious. When Dr. Simpson joined her, telling her some theories about the bomb, Julie wished her colleague had been struck by it as well, because when she looked at Rodney's table again, he wasn't there, where he was supposed to be.
"I've got to go," she muttered, completely ignoring the fact that Dr. Simpson was talking, not caring about her or her tray.
On her way to the labs she neither cared about her open, fluttering lab coat nor about the people she hustled, arriving just in time to see Rodney leaving. First, she wanted to address him, but then she realized where he was going and decided to follow him unseen.
The infirmary was fairly empty, only three or four beds in the main room were being used, two of them concealed by a curtain. One of them was where Rodney was heading. He slipped behind it before Julie could intervene or see who was lying there, although she knew it already - it must be Katie. Quietly, and without attracting the attention of the medical personnel, she huddled into the small space between the curtain of Katie's bed and the wall, where she couldn't be spotted easily by anyone walking by, and at the same time overhear what they were saying.
"... just close my eyes," Katie just said, the smile in her voice clearly audible. So, she could speak again, although the explosion must have burned most of her facial skin. Rodney answered something, but spoke too quietly for Julie to understand it, then she heard a noise that distinctly resembled a kiss.
Katie couldn't kiss. Julie hadn't killed her, but she had scorched her face. She had thought that this would keep her at least from making out with Rodney, but no, not even that seemed to stop her.
Wayne had kissed like that.
In one single, flowing movement, Julie stepped out of her hideaway and drew the curtain of Katie's bed back, freezing at what she saw. Her first reaction was relief - Rodney wasn't kissing Katie, he wasn't in love with her; he was free for Julie.
Only that he wasn't, because he was kissing Colonel Sheppard.
"Damn," Sheppard cursed, letting go of Rodney immediately. In the blink of an eye, they were standing at separate sides of Katie's bed, as if nothing had ever happened.
"Doctor, listen," Rodney said, raising his hands in a way that was probably supposed to be appeasing, but considering that he had just cheated on the woman who loved him, it was just pathetic. In a lot of ways, he reminded Julie of Wayne.
And we've gone even deeper now - Julie's delusions in full swing and then this bolt from the blue that breaks something in her, she literally snaps. It's interesting that we're back to that line about reminding her of Wayne, but we've done a total 180 degree turn and at this point, I had a sinking feeling of what really might have happened to Wayne.
For a moment, she didn't know what to say. Katie was lying in her bed with most of her face and body covered with bandages, unable to move, unlike the two men, whose hands were trembling, or was it her, Julie, whose sight was shaking?
"Rodney." One word, full of contempt, disappointment, anger and hate all at once. She had sounded the same when she had spoken Wayne's name, many years ago. The contempt wasn't only directed at Rodney but also at herself - how could she have been so blind? Sheppard hadn't been the cover for Rodney and Katie, it had been the suppositional relationship between the two of them that had hidden the real one of Sheppard and Rodney. She had placed the bomb at the wrong door. One day she would have to offer Katie an apology. "You're betraying me."
"I'm what?" -- "He's what?"
The air in the room felt suddenly too thin for Julie to breathe. Rodney's betrayal seemed to have sucked all the oxygen out of it, as if he was trying to suffocate her.
"I can't believe you're doing this to me, not after everything we shared," she hissed with a pitching voice, but she didn't care about her appearance anymore. Her heart beat so loudly she wondered if the three people in front of her could hear it. "Not after--" Then her voice died in a painful hiccup, and it was history repeating all over again.
Rodney and Sheppard exchanged bemused, confused glances, but Julie knew that Rodney understood.
"I don't know what--" Sheppard started, but she didn't care for his words, focusing on Rodney.
She clearly has no regard for Sheppard whatsoever - he's not even worth her attention.
"I thought you felt it, too," she shouted at him, probably loud enough to arouse the attention of the medical personnel and the other patients, but she didn't care at all. The frown around Rodney's eyes fell, and understanding was visible on his face. "I can't believe you're putting everything between us, everything that's happened, the best chance of your whole life at stake for this..." She trailed off, gesturing at Sheppard without looking at him. A laugh escaped Rodney's lips, a laugh of the kind you make when something is absolutely not funny at all. "I would have been a wonderful girlfriend, a wonderful wife," Julie went on. "But you're just as foolish as Wayne was."
Again, she doesn't recognize Sheppard as worthy of her jealously. Here is where the past catches up with her and in her mind, it's Wayne all over again I interpreted this originally as Julie feeling it was a failure on her part, but the author was quick to explain that Julie didn't recognize anything as her responsibility, this was nothing that she had done, it was all Rodney for being foolish enough, like Wayne, not to see what a wonderful person she was and how it was she and she alone that could make him happy.
"Wayne?" Sheppard echoed.
"Oh Jesus," Rodney said, obviously shocked, but amusement and pride colored his voice. "You love me." He shook his head in disbelief, and how could he? "Did you hear that? She thinks she loves me."
"You have to listen," Sheppard insisted, taking a step closer to Julie. She stepped back. "Before you tell anyone about what you've seen, please, let's just talk--"
He said more, senseless words pouring out of his mouth. They became a waterfall when Rodney spoke as well. Rodney, Rodney who should have been hers but who had chosen another path. Julie remembered Wayne, how he had bled and then burnt, and knew that it was a path of death.
Okay, so this is where I really start to get concerned and where we see that all is lost as far as Julie is concerned. There's only one thing for Rodney, she has one thing, a single objective on her mind and to her, it's still a thing Rodney had chosen.
She heard them following her as she ran out of the infirmary, but she was faster and they lost her before she had even started hiding for real. They tried to reach her over the radio, but she tore it from her head and tossed it to the ground, hurrying up the stairs to the next floor. She would need a spot where she could not be seen and where Rodney would definitely search for her. One floor down, she heard footsteps and then Rodney's voice, shouting her name. A wide grin parted her lips when she discovered a few large boxes just a few feet down the corridor, a grin that turned confident of victory when she heard Rodney reporting to John that he had found her headset and that he was going upstairs.
As Rodney's footsteps approached quickly, Julie felt something hard pressing against her leg. Muffling a chuckle, she clasped her fingers around the knife that had been supposed to kill Katie, and which was ultimately going to take her revenge now.
I must have been obsessed with the knife or something, because I just love all the allusions and the mental pictures we get every time it's mentioned. I told you, brain twins. I love it.
When Rodney ran past her, Julie darted forward with a cry, the blade of her knife hitting home with a satisfying, painful sound and a surprised yelp from Rodney. She pulled it out again, realizing that she had hit his shoulder instead of his neck, and only after she'd been pushed to the ground, the knife skittering away from her, did she accept that this time, everything was a little different and more difficult.
"Doctor, what the hell are you doing?" Rodney shrieked, trying to press her to the floor, but her hands were quick, knocking his chin so hard the bone gave a gut-wrenching croak and Rodney fell, letting go of her. "John! She's attacking me!" The goddamned radio. She had to end this quickly; the Colonel and the marines would be here in no time.
Another stroke of her fist, well placed on the other side of Rodney's chin. He cried in pain, much like Wayne had, giving her the pleasure he had refused her otherwise. She scrabbled for the knife and felt it at the tips of her fingers. Grabbing it, she raised her arm to cut Rodney again, at the right place this time, but he was faster, gripping the hand that held the knife, trying to push it away from his body.
Oh my, that line "giving her the pleasure he had refused her otherwise," so eerie and somehow you just feel it's true, that Julie feels as much conviction and passion for killing Rodney as she did for loving him. Sorry, but that is the height of creepy. Kind of makes your skin crawl (and be very afraid for Rodney).
"What have I ever done to you?" he yelled, bright red patches seeping slowly through his shirt. "Why are you doing this?"
He didn't deserve an answer, and Julie knew she didn't have the time for talking. The wound in his shoulder wasn't enough to kill him, and the bruises in his face weren't either. Succeeding was more important now, after the humiliation, she wanted revenge, and she would not let him take that from her, too.
With her free hand she clawed at his face and the grip around her other one softened. Pain shot through her body when Rodney's knee slammed into her abdomen before she could stab him, and through his yells and the blood rushing in her ears, she could hear footsteps, one level down.
And I think everyone gives a little sigh of relief that Rodney finally fights back here.
Hurry up, sweetheart. It was Wayne's voice. Wayne, who had fought just like Rodney was fighting now, covered in his own blood just like Rodney; Wayne, who had died with a cry on his lips just like--
The knife sank deep into the flesh of Rodney's arm, too close to the elbow, though, to be in danger of causing major damage to his arteries. She had to try again. She met his gaze, his blue eyes full of fear and pain, and asked herself now how she could not have seen the streak of betrayal in them, the glint that would have told her he wasn't someone who deserved her love.
All about her. Not a thought of whether or not she was someone who deserved Rodney. That goes without saying.
"Rodney," she said, her voice full of scorn and pity. His bare neck lay before her, thick blue veins pulsing beneath the skin. She lifted the knife one more time, to end it once and for all.
The knife dropped to the floor as strong arms drew her away from Rodney. Someone took her hands, binding them behind her back, not minding her furious screeching. She was pushed onto the ground, her body aching from the impact. Colonel Sheppard helped Rodney to sit up, steadying him; he gazed at Julie as his mouth formed words she didn't understand, the hard lines of his face softening as relief washed away his fear.
Again, John's love and protection from an unlikely source. Excellent.
Hands grabbed her and forced her further away from him, but she kept her head turned toward Rodney, her Rodney, who should have died and who didn't. Rodney, who wouldn't love her, who never had, who had made her fail.
As Rodney's body vanished from her sight, she could hear Wayne's spiteful laughter. This time you didn't succeed, sweetheart. This time you lose.
Then the tears came.
Ultimately, I insisted that the tears come because she's finally admitted defeat to herself, that somehow "she's" failed. But the author pointed out that the only way Julie sees this as a defeat is because Rodney refused to die, refused to fall for her, so that, in the end, it's still someone else's fault.
Sometimes, it's hard to put into words why one story will hit you in such a way as to make it unforgettable and one you'd want to read again and again. And, of course, every reader is going to have their own reasons. This story hit my macabre buttons and in thinking back on it, I want to compare it, and Julie's point of view, to looking through a glass, darkly. That imperfect perception of reality that we all possess and some are cursed with more than others.
-End.