Fic: For All We Know 2/2
Radek is alone in the lab, just as he had thought. Still, John stumbles across the threshold somewhat hesitantly - he needs to voice out loud some thoughts that are running amok in his head and it seems that Zelenka is just about the only person in the Universe qualified to listen to him. Luckily enough, Zelenka is actually capable of some human empathy (witnessed by the restraint with which he seems to have handled being privy to such information), unlike Rodney.
After his little revelation in the media room’s doorway, John has pretty much come to accept what it is that he wants. As shocking as it was at first, he knows that his newfound feelings explain quite a lot of things that simply had him confused before.
What he doesn’t yet have an explanation for, is Elizabeth. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that she was just scared. John does understand that, should they act on their feelings, the stakes would be pretty high. What he doesn’t get is being preemptively scared of something that does not even exist yet, of something that is still hidden deep inside you.
The Elizabeth he knows isn’t scared of anything. Sometimes she has been scared for people, fearing for their lives and wellbeing, but her impatience with indecisiveness, her assertion that not choosing is always worse than any possible choice you make, has meant that she has stepped through the Gate all by herself to negotiate for nuclear bombs from people who have tried to kill her; has taken the hand of a Replicator even after having just had one rather painfully jabbed into her forehead; has told a roomful of stuffy officers on Earth to, in so many words, stuff it; and she never wavered from looking him in the eye, telling him that she’d be there, telling him the truth, when he was turning into an aggressive monster that he couldn’t control.
Elizabeth always looked him in the eye; now she doesn’t even look at him anymore.
“Hey…,” John greets, once he has made it the whole way through the door.
Zelenka looks up from his computer screen, glasses perched somewhat lopsidedly on the tip of his nose. “Oh, hi,” he smiles, lifting a finger to realign his eyewear. “Rodney is off to induce nervous breakdown in the guys working on that new gravity lab we discovered. I had to listen to him riling himself up for fifteen minutes before he left.”
He can picture that so well in his head that it sidetracks John for a second, but then he shakes himself out of it. “Oh, no,” he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his pants, stepping a bit closer. “I was actually…,” one hand comes out and makes a completely unnecessary sweep through the air. John goes silent for a moment, Zelenka tilting his head to contemplate the Colonel in expectant confusion.
“So,” John starts again, furrowing his brow, “The other day I saw some of those video clips you’ve made…”
“Oh,” Radek squares his shoulders, lifting his eyebrows happily. “Which ones?” Seeing John open his mouth, then close it again, biting his lower lip, Radek repeats, “Oh…” but now the intonation is knowing rather than inquisitive.
“Yeah,” John admits bashfully, “Elizabeth was watching them in the media room and I kind of… stumbled into it.”
“How did she…?”
“… and then I stumbled right out again. She,” John shakes his head, “she doesn’t even know I was there.”
Silence ensues, Zelenka adopting the stance of kindly waiting out whatever it is that John needs help with, giving John space by letting his eyes wander along the walls and ceilings of the lab.
Unable to find the right words, John resorts to musing out loud, “Things have been really weird,” he frowns at the sound of the word, looking down at his feet, “and, well, wrong, between me and her lately, and I couldn’t understand what had…” Now he looks up at Radek again, “Why haven’t you said something?”
The suggestion that he maybe should have seems to take the scientist aback. He huffs, but then smirks kindly. “Why hasn’t she?” he asks. And while John is still wondering whether the question was rhetorical, he continues, “Why haven’t you?”
“But I didn’t know…,” John’s head snaps up in indignation.
“John, you mean to tell me that you didn’t know that you were in love with Dr.Weir?” there is disbelief in Zelenka’s question. John just stares at him. “Come on, I’ll show you something,” Radek finally announces.
He adjusts his glasses again and then delves into his computer, fingers gliding along the keyboard without him even looking at them. “Aha,” he mutters, pointing to the screen, and John steps around him to see what is there. It’s a picture, of him and Elizabeth in her office. Elizabeth is looking at the wooden statues on her desk and John is looking at Elizabeth, wearing much the same expression that Elizabeth had in that video clip. He looks genuinely happy to be where he is, and try as he might, John can’t remember ever actually feeling that happy.
“When was this taken?” John asks, dragging his eyes off the screen to look at Zelenka.
Radek shrugs, “Two, maybe three months after we came.”
“Huh,” is all John can reply.
“I’m pretty sure I have a few more on this server,” Radek offers.
John gives it a moment’s thought and then waves his hand, “Could you…?”
“Sure.”
The scientist clicks through a few catalogues and on the next picture that pops on the screen he and Elizabeth are standing side by side, elbows touching, looking at each other and smiling as if only they two are privy to a juicy secret and again, though this time he can pretty much pinpoint the period when the picture was taken, John can’t remember there being any secret. He doesn’t really need to see any more.
“So,” Radek asks, clicking the catalogues closed, “I know it’s really none of my business, but… Now what?”
“Now…,” John begins, but then has to concede, “I have no idea.”
Radek lifts his eyebrows again, this time clearly in sympathy. “Well, good luck with that.”
“Yeah,” John smirks, rubbing his forehead bashfully. “Thanks.”
He begins to leave, but then turns back. “Radek, am I the last person on Atlantis to find out that Elizabeth and I are in love with each other?”
Zelenka chuckles, grabbing hold of the tabletop in front of him and using it as leverage to swivel himself around on his chair. “No,” he says, “now I believe that Elizabeth is.”
*
There are certain evenings when this happens - usually after another disaster has been averted, sometimes for seemingly no particular reason at all. First it’s just a bigger gang gathering around a table at dinner in the mess hall, then others join, pretty soon having to form a second circle of chairs just to fit in, then the neighboring tables get incorporated and eventually a vast share of the city’s personnel, almost giddy with exhaustion, is there, shoulder to shoulder, human contact and life in its simplest form.
This is one of those nights when everybody is safe again, but is looking for confirmation of it in numbers. John is sitting to the edge of the crowd, at a corner table, leaning his back against the wall. Ronon is slouching across from him, nursing a beer, the distant look in his eyes revealing how far he’s travelled in his mind. The lights are low, big candles that Teyla carried in at some point flickering on tables, and the sea is vast and dark behind the windows.
In the core of the crowd, Carson and his fellow Scot, the biologist Dr McNamara, are singing. Carson’s eyes are closed, partly out of self-consciousness, John knows, but mostly because the universe outside himself has ceased to exist for him. Aside from a few people swaying lightly, some even not to the rhythm of the music, everything is perfectly still; the ethereal voices of the two men are echoing back from the high metal vaults of the ceiling and John can feel them vibrating down his spine.
The traditional Celtic song is about a young man going off to battle, saying goodbye to his bride who is left to look at his retreating back until the path under his feet, the one taking him away from his home and his heart, is swallowed by the rolling moors. And the young woman who keeps waiting for him, even when days and weeks turn into months, and seasons change, holding on to hope, trusting that her love will keep him safe.
John’s eyes are steadfastly on Elizabeth, who is staring just as stubbornly at the singers, though John doubts she is actually looking at anything. He wonders what she sees right then, sitting on the other side of the crowd from him, near the doorway, back stiff and straight, but head slightly hung so that a few loose strands of hair are falling on her face. He wonders if, listening to that story of a reluctant warrior, she is thinking about him at all.
John understands that boy in the song. He knows why the boy’s heart is breaking, he knows how it feels; and yet, he knows why the boy is going. The things that you never want to leave are the things worth fighting for, and it’s better to be doing that fighting as far away as possible from what you want to protect. Of course, that is the logic that will end up stranding you on Godforsaken backwater planets, shivering in dark cold nights; or cocooned in a tiny vessel, nothing but empty space and distant stars around you. For you never really know what loneliness and desolation feels like until you actually have something to be cut off from - once you’ve gained something in life to leave behind. John understands the boy, because he is the boy, fighting an ongoing, gargantuan, fight, to keep coming home to the girl. But now, listening to the song, John can’t help but wonder whether being the girl is not worse - at least he knows that she is safe back home and that he gets to actively do something so that she stays safe. If he had to wait around somewhere, knowing that Elizabeth was facing danger, he would lose his mind. In fact, he has, on several occasions, done just that.
He is thinking all that, brow furrowed and gaze fixed on Elizabeth, when she suddenly stirs from her reverie and turns her head, looking him straight in the eye. And he realizes, without any doubt, that Zelenka was wrong - Elizabeth knows. She knows that it’s not just her, that he’s in love with her, too. Her eyes are shining in the candlelight, a slightly haunted and wary look in them compelling him to reach out to her. Every fiber of his body can feel the pull of her calling for him, making his heart heavy and his head light. And then she suddenly frowns and tilts her head, averting her gaze. The next moment, she is up from her chair and leaving, trying to be nonchalant and inconspicuous about it, the haste of escape in her step.
Instantly getting up himself, he silently curses the haphazardly seated crowd, now forming an obstacle course for him and giving Elizabeth a dangerous head start. Darting around and over people, he thinks that this is going to stop here - he is tired of her running and her completely uncharacteristic wavering is scaring him. He has to make it so that she finds it okay to look him in the eye again - or his own life will become unbearable. He has to make her feel safe or he has failed her. The pain of her love for him hurting her so much is almost crippling to him.
When he finally makes it to the hallway, he can’t see Elizabeth anymore, but he can hear the retreating clang of her hurried steps to the right of him. He picks up the pace, praying that she wouldn’t have a chance to jump into a transporter. Turning the next corner, he can already get a glimpse of her red shirt as she slips around a bend.
“Elizabeth!” he shouts, hearing his voice travel toward her in an echo. She doesn’t even slow down, though, rationally, she can’t hope to outrun him. “Stop!” he belts again and is almost surprised when she actually does. She has reached a little hall leading to a balcony and now she is just standing there, hands limp to her sides, head hung. Carefully, as if not wanting to spook a jumpy animal, John steps closer to her. He has reached out a hand, intending to lay it on her hip, when she jolts, starting to move away again. Almost on instinct, John quickly takes the last few steps and his outstretched arm wraps around her shoulders, drawing her up against him.
“Stop,” he now says quietly, pressing his cheek into her hair. Then he exhales loudly. ”Elizabeth, you’re driving me nuts here and I’m pretty sure you’re making yourself just as crazy…”
There’s something almost panicky about her heavy breathing, her chest rising and falling under his arm. “John, I can’t…” she starts unevenly, but he cuts her off.
“Whatever it is you’re so scared of, it can’t possibly be worse than this.”
She goes lax in his arms, leaning her body into his, and for a moment John can’t quite tell whether it’s because she feels defeated or whether it’s relief. The silence she maintains is still incredibly tense, though, so he suspects the former.
“I miss you,” he mutters, feeling a bit of desperation scratching at his throat. Turning his head, John buries his face into her hair. “No matter what happens, you’re my family and I won’t let you fade out of it just because you’re scared to love me.”
“That is not what I am scared of,” Elizabeth quickly announces, and though that isn’t exactly the kind of denial John is expecting from her, he is oddly encouraged by the indignation in her voice.
“Really?” he asks and, a moment later, can finally feel Elizabeth truly relax a little.
“Well,” she gives a small self-deprecating huff, “okay, maybe it is."
“Why?” The question is out of his mouth before he can contemplate whether bluntness is the best course of action when Elizabeth is clearly in a fragile state of mind.
She turns in his arms. Her brow is clearly furrowed, but he’s glad to note that she isn’t making any attempt to get out of his hold. The question is out there now and all John can do is shrug. It is a completely legitimate question.
Elizabeth takes a few deeper breaths and then asks, “Is this really what you want, John?”
It’s a question that has obtained a shockingly simple answer lately, given the incredibly messy entanglement they’re finding themselves in at the moment.
So, now he just looks at her, really looks at her and sees her hazel eyes getting darker under his scrutiny and then just slightly, almost imperceptibly, shakes his head, the corner of his lip lifting for a tiniest of smiles, and touches his forehead to hers. They stay like this for a long moment. John sees Elizabeth’s eyes slip shut and, shortly, closes his as well, concentrating on the feel of her; her angles and curves pressed against him; her breathing, intense and solid.
She shifts slightly against him, and then her nose is brushing against his and John can sense her breath on his lips. For a little while, their noses and mouths and foreheads are engaged in a little dance, a choreography of inching closer and angling apart. Then Elizabeth inhales sharply and suddenly her lips cover his and he has to splay his palm on her jaw line in order to hold on to this kiss with all that he’s got.
A moment later Elizabeth is looking down at their feet and he is looking down at the side of her face and his hand is still covering her cheek.
He touches his forehead to her hair and says, “Admittedly, there are many, many things that I don’t know - like what there is in this to be scared of. But I know, beyond any doubt, that this is what I want.”
With a sigh, Elizabeth turns her back to him again, but now she is willingly leaning into his chest and he is starting to get the feeling that there might be light at the end of the tunnel, after all. She’s not running away from him anymore, she’s slowly coming closer. He just has to try and sustain that momentum.
“You know,” he tries to sound thoughtful, “maybe I should be scared, but I’m just not smart enough to see it. You’ve always been the brains behind the operation - you want to help me out here?”
It wasn’t so much a question, but rather a prompt, a wordy indication of what he needs from Elizabeth, and they both know it. John can feel her snort as well as hear it. “Right, Mensa boy,” she says. “Dumb as a doornail.”
“Come on,” John goads, “explain it to me. Why is it so bad?”
“Well,” Elizabeth relents. “You know… It’s against the rules. It could cost me my career. I’ve sacrificed quite a lot to get here.” It feels almost like a challenge for him, to disprove her reasoning. It is, admittedly, the mother of all excuses, because it seems like a force outside themselves is against them, something beyond their control, something neither of them can do anything about. It nicely shifts the blame from every other obstacle that might come in their way, namely themselves. But John thinks that, even though their relationship would be tricky to explain and, yes, maybe slightly ethically questionable, breaking these so-called rules would not get them court-martialed or anything. Besides, if they’ve managed to solve the divisions of civilian and military power in the city, kept their people (well, a vast majority of them, anyway) alive, kept the city afloat, and navigate the quagmire of political and military interest and power struggles back on Earth and still be here after all this time, they can surely get away with a relationship. And Pegasus is too cold, lonely and dark a place to not even try.
“What exactly is it that’s against the rules, Elizabeth?” he asks, after he’s given it a moment’s thought. “The way we feel about each other? Well, that ship has certainly sailed already. Besides, you’re really not the kind of woman who would let anyone tell you what you’re supposed to feel. Even if it should put your career on the line.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” she says, and he’s not quite sure whether she’s being self-deprecating or genuinely resigned.
“Oh, yes, you are,” he asserts, nevertheless. “Deep down you know that how we feel about each other is nobody’s business and what we do about these feelings is even more private. And you know that is how I feel about these things as well. Which is also why our feelings would never affect the way we run this city.”
“Might I remind you that they already did? Why do you think you got stuck on those babysitting missions? And why do you think you got shot right after?” He also doesn’t know whether her trying to provoke him now is a good sign or not. She’s doing it either to make him disprove it or to push him away. It would certainly be of help if he could look her in the eye, but for now he is still stuck conversing with the back of her head and he has to try and make the best of it.
“You’re not the reason I got shot, and the way you feel about me most certainly isn’t. Just as it isn’t to blame for why you ostracized me - this,“ he taps his finger to her heart, “didn’t do it; this,” now he gently taps her forehead, “did. You were just driving yourself crazy for no good reason whatsoever. If things were clear and right between the two of us, you’d never have a reason to do anything like that.”
Elizabeth is silent for a moment, hanging her head as is her habit when she is trying to quickly think things over. John decides to take that as a good sign.
“You really have an answer for everything, don’t you?” she finally concludes with a sigh. “The end justifies the means?”
“It does sometimes,” he answers, carefully.
“That’s another problem. You have a tendency to behave like a five-year-old, run off and thrash about in the mud, do things just because you want to, consequences be damned.” Her words are quick and quiet. “And, God help me, when I’m around you, you start to rub off on me. I also start to think that I can get away with pretty much anything.”
He snorts, “Elizabeth, when you’re around me, I promise you, you can get away with pretty much anything.”
“Ah, walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“Indeed. Also, you know as well as I do that the reasons why I’m bad for you are also the reasons why I’m good for you. I’m not some kind of a monkey-boy. I’ve just accepted the fact that you cannot control everything all the time.” John tightens the hold of his arms around her and supports his chin on her shoulder.
“I know that I can’t control everything…,” Elizabeth starts to announce, but John cuts him off.
“I’m not so sure you do. Or, if you do, then it freaks you out a little bit every time you think about it.”
Elizabeth is quiet and still against him and he thinks that she might actually be at a loss for words. He decides to give her a bit of a nudge. He is actually starting to look forward to the end of this conversation.
“Look,” he says, rubbing his cheek against hers, “I actually get why you’d be scared of that, but it’s still not a particularly good reason. You trust me more than you’re giving yourself credit for right now. You know that, whenever you do decide to let go, I’ll be there to catch you. Every time.”
“Yes,” is Elizabeth’s simple reply.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I trust you. With almost anything.” From the corner of his eye, John can see Elizabeth closing her eyes. He feels the gravity of those three words and understands how they can sweep a person away.
“Anything, except your heart…,” he muses.
Elizabeth replies without opening her eyes, “No, I think it’s pretty safe to say you’ve got that as well.”
For a moment there is silence between them, their breathing echoing back from the metal walls of the hall. Pressing his lips into her hair, John wonders whether that was a confession she made to him or to herself. He doesn’t know yet whether these were really the things that had Elizabeth hiding from him or whether they have just been subterfuge she’s been lobbing in his way to keep him from getting too close to her and to the core of the issue.
Either way, this isn’t over yet. John straightens and says, “So, now that we’ve established what really isn’t the problem, you want to throw in the towel and come clean?”
Elizabeth isn’t a fool, she knows when she’s cornered. Besides, even if he hasn’t reached the bottom of this yet, he has managed to win her back - she feels safe around him again, she knows that if she absolutely needs to run somewhere, he’s the best place to go. And while he waits for Elizabeth to gather up the courage, John manages to ruminate on the irony of him knowing Elizabeth so well that he can tell all that from the way she stands, but still not having had any idea that she was in love with him. Or that he was in love with her.
“I’m crap at relationships,” she finally blurts, at the same time turning her head to face away from him.
This announcement takes John somewhat aback, if only because this kind of laconic bluntness is a new side of Elizabeth.
“Yes, you are,” he snorts, shifting his body so that he would face her. He’s not saying this just to provoke her, even though that definitely is a part of it. He really thinks that she is crap at relationships, mainly because she hasn’t had any since Simon and not for a lack of effort on the part of the male population, both in Atlantis and off-world. He has personally witnessed the wall snapping up around Elizabeth the moment harmless flirting starts to show signs of potential for something more. Elizabeth is not crap at relationships because she is a klutz or unlucky at love. Elizabeth is crap precisely because she is a control freak - she can control her work, the stacks of paper on the corner of her desk, the flow of conversation around a banquet or a negotiation table, but she can’t control emotions or the depths to which they run. From what he has been able to deduct about her relationship with Simon, it seems to fit the pattern - after all, she left without even telling him that she’d be going anywhere, being fully aware that she might not be coming back. She’d been in control of that relationship and the main reason that Simon’s moving on had thrown her as much as it did was that she hadn’t expected it, not that her heart had been particularly broken.
Elizabeth turns slightly to eye him incredulously.
“Hey, it’s not like you’re any better yourself! At least I don’t keep arbitrarily stumbling in and out of them.” And though this might not be the most suitable moment, he thinks that he’s never wanted to kiss the life out of her more than right now. She’s not scared anymore, there’s fight in her, and though he’d love her any way he could get her, this is how he loves her the best. So, he doesn’t let go of this argument.
“No, you like to do both with a bang,” he quips, barely able to hold back laughter.
Something flashes in Elizabeth’s eyes and he is almost sure that it’s amusement as well, though it might also be anger. He can’t quite tell in this light.
“You’re not helping yourself here,” Elizabeth crumbles and he is even more certain that she is amused.
“Well, the way I see it,” he lifts an eyebrow and tucks a loose curl of hair behind her ear, “it’s as simple as figuring out what makes you happy and going for it; and then holding on to it with all you’ve got.”
“That’s certainly dramatic.”
“I think it’s organic.”
Now it’s Elizabeth’s turn to lift an eyebrow, “How’s that?”
“Of all the things to build my life around,” he explains, “I think happiness is the best. I just hadn’t found it yet.”
“And now you have?” She is almost smiling now.
He grins back, “Oh yeah.”
Elizabeth shakes her head. “That still doesn’t change the fact that we’re both crap at relationships.”
There’s an explanation bubbling up from deep within him, one that will make her understand, perfectly and clearly, why this isn’t an issue, why this time it will all be different, why everything that has been in the past is completely irrelevant in this case, but right now he doesn’t know how to put it into words yet. Still, he has to try.
“This isn’t a relationship, Elizabeth,” he tells her. “This is everything.”
“Yes, that takes the pressure off,” she sighs.
“No, I mean…,” he attempts to get a hold on his line of reasoning, but it’s hard. The effort is making him frown, his eyes looking for the answers on the ceiling and the walls. “I mean, we’re not trying to play house here, go through the stages and motions of a…” He huffs. It’s still not coming out right. “Elizabeth, I want to be more; I want to be more for you. That’s my happiness,” he finally shrugs.
When he looks at her again, he thinks he is seeing a new kind of shine in her eyes. Like maybe she is about to cry, even though that makes no sense at all. But then his own sight suddenly gets a bit blurry at the edges and he realizes that this is it. That this is the moment when everything begins. She was right to be scared, it isn’t going to be easy, especially at moments not like this one, at moments when the rest of the Universe comes barging in and demands a place in what they have between them.
But in the end, when she turns to fully face him and lifts her arms to place her palms on his nape and raises to her toes to fully reach him and then kisses him like there’s no tomorrow, like there’s nothing else except him and her, it’s all worth it.
“This love thing,” she whispers, lips still touching his, “admittedly, feels pretty good.”
“Who’d have thought, huh?” he smiles, not breaking the contact either.
She tries to lean back a little, but his body follows her, inch for inch. “You’re not going to let me go anymore, are you?” she asks, laughter bubbling in her voice.
“Nope.”
“This is going to be interesting…,” she contends and leans back in to kiss him again.
END