[SGA] Said Woman, Take It Slow
Title: Said Woman, Take It Slow
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard, Zelenka
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1900
Summary: Between love and the noblest cause, there should be no contest.
Notes: Set after "The Lost Boys." Many thanks to miriam for the discussion and the waffles.
Originally Posted: November 13, 2005
Said Woman, Take It Slow
It is solid night by the time he is able to get away, slowly drawing toward morning with the darkness thick and close around him. He is late, and for that he is sorry; she has been kept waiting long enough. But he also knows the heartbreaking truth that waiting is all she can do.
He sits at the east pier, east because even in this distant world it is the first to be graced with the light of the sun and he feels he should offer her every hope he has. He waits patiently; she has earned her recalcitrance and he can feel the sharp balancing edge of the hurt beneath.
Soon, he hears her.
Shhushha, shhushha, the waves say.
Radek inclines his head in greeting. "You are lovely tonight." It is something he says each time and means each time; he would not presume to lie. Her stars glow softly, milkily, eschewing diamonds too ostentatious and setting instead upon pearls, more befitting of her quiet power. Though they glow more dimly now, black pearls of mourning rather than the white of discovery, she is incandescent even through the widow's veil wrapped around her sea, edges fluttering in the breeze near Radek as he pays his respects.
He sits quietly, content for the time to be at peace, to be at rest, to simply be. One thing he has never liked about the Westerners is their need to do, their dependence on Brownian motion that makes it impossible for them to sit in their own company. Perhaps, he thinks, he has been spending too much time with Miko and her Eastern philosophies. Or perhaps he is one of the few people content to be who he is, requiring nothing more from himself than what he already knows he can give.
The waves wash softly in approval.
"I am sorry," he says, "there has been no word." She already knows, of course, but it is respectful to extend her the courtesy. "We have not given up hope." Though with each day that passes, a bit more slips away.
She feels it and sighs.
"Nor should you," he chides gently.
It is strange, this relationship they have developed. John has been Atlantis's dutiful husband, caring and protective. Rodney has been her lover, torrid and fiery. Radek, in their absence, has become something of her governess, someone placed outside the intimate circle because he is not one of her royalty.
Now, though, he is all she has left. It falls to him to offer reassurance that her husband has not deserted her, her lover not spurned her. So he does what he can, offers her company, solace, a kind word and a gentle hand in apology for all the fumbling they have added to her grief, like a crass suitor come courting too soon. Increasingly she needs to be coaxed, gentled, comforted. He may not have the gene and others may think him crazy for the nights spent out in her darkness and cold, tender conversation sight unseen, but it does not take a gene to see she is heartsick.
"You're tired," he says, and the waves slow, exhausted and lonely and weak on the water. "Please," he says, though it's the worst kind of cruelty to ask any more of her. "Just a while longer. Just a while.
"We love them, too."
--------
It is a few days before he can see her again. Kavanagh's arrogance seems to increase with each day Rodney is away and it is all Radek can do to prevent the catastrophic failure of systems Kavanagh shouldn't even have had access to. He requests tighter security protocols from Elizabeth, though he knows that means fewer hours of already precious sleep and even more small fires to put out.
He wishes desperately for Rodney to return, not because he cares about him and is worried about him and misses him, but because he doesn't know what to do. They are good, the scientists in the lab, but Rodney makes them all better and good is just not good enough. He never knew how Rodney managed to do it all, and he had help.
Radek has only himself. He doesn't need Atlantis to tell him that is not enough.
When he goes to her that night, he is weary and frayed. The mist drifts over his face like a gentle brush of fingers and says, I know you are trying.
"It is not enough," and he is only vaguely surprised to hear his voice thick and choked.
It will have to be. The current is strong and determined and Radek finds himself, not for the first time, absurdly grateful for the divinity of the feminine.
"Thank you," he says softly, and the quiet sound of waves lapping against the pier follows him all the way to his quarters.
--------
The following week, he is in need of Miko's smaller, more delicate hands. He scours the labs and the control room in his search for her, an hour's worth of delay, and then finds her where he started, in the furthest corner of the main lab crying quietly.
"He's not coming back," she says, as though she has only just realized. Radek knows how she feels about Rodney, knows what she is feeling now, and because she doesn't have the weight of the expedition resting on her shoulders, she can allow it of herself. He doesn't ask her to stop. Instead, he says softly, "If it will help," and wipes the tears from her eyes so more can fall in their place. He gathers the others, calls a close to their work day, and locks the empty labs behind them.
The rain starts falling that evening and doesn't stop.
--------
The third day, the Marines start to grow restless. The fifth day, Elizabeth has the linguists searching the database for the mention of anything approximating "monsoon season." The seventh day, someone scrawls, "Scattered showers, my ass. -Noah" across the windows of the meteorology labs. The ninth day, Radek braves the driving rain and sits on the pier, letting the sharp edges of the raindrops pierce his skin and sink into his bones. "If it helps," he says quietly, and settles in.
The tenth day, they see the sun.
--------
The next few days pass with nothing but more failure to remark upon and then suddenly there is unscheduled gate activation in the midst of a hurried supper at the mess, a flurry of activity, and the colonel and his team are falling through the gate, bruised and battered and so much worse for the wear but amazingly, ridiculously alive.
Radek doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he does neither. Instead, he hangs back and watches through the windows as the waves crash noisily against the city in something that sounds like so much joy.
--------
It is solid night by the time he is able to get away, slowly drawing toward morning with the darkness thick and close around him. He is late, and for that he is sorry; she has been kept waiting long enough.
It has been many days since he has sat with her and for that he owes her an apology. At first, he needed to give her time to welcome her lovers home with the privacy afforded such a reunion; even if she is too much of a lady give it voice, he knows when he is not wanted. As days passed, it became more and more difficult to face her rejection, to be stripped of the cloak and crown he'd only been lent and not given.
That he is not truly royalty, however, does not mean he can't behave as though he is. It is with that in mind that he makes his way across the path he has worn bright and sits on the pier, content to be at peace, to be at rest, requiring nothing more from himself than what he has already given.
He takes his dismissal graciously, giving in return all the gratitude she has inspired in him these many weeks.
"Děkuji," he offers after a moment, sincere and heartfelt. It is all that needs to be said.
He is standing to leave when he hears the soft echo of bootsteps, followed by two indiscernible whispered voices. He remains where he is, quiet and crouched in the darkness, knowing instinctively that whatever is happening should not be disturbed.
There are quiet sounds of settling in; long, drawn-out moments of silence. Then Radek hears an intimate sound, familiar but long forgotten, and his recognition of it as the sound of faithful kisses being given and taken sets something in his chest to aching.
The moonlight shifts and though he didn't want to, he can now see Rodney.
With the colonel.
The lapping of the waves masks his indrawn breath. He is surprised, but not at this. Things between Rodney and the colonel have changed, he has felt it since their return. And if he were to be honest, he has been expecting something like this in the back of his mind where distant possibilities reside for quite some time.
It's not as though Radek expected the colonel to treat Rodney like a kurva, the colonel has never seemed like the kind of man who sees intimacy in sex. So it is the colonel's tenderness, the fingers that slide delicately across the back of Rodney's neck, the hand that cherishingly cradles his cheek, the contented smile that plays along his lips as they brush over Rodney's.
That is what surprises Radek.
It is also what hurts him. There have been other distant possibilities residing in the back his mind, though they don't matter now. What matters is that he's losing everything he has made his on this distant alien world. Rodney has been his for, as they say, better or worse. For a time, Atlantis had been his just the same. Now Atlantis, Rodney, and the colonel all belong to each other.
Radek knows now what it is like to be heartsick.
--------
He goes, eventually, to see Dr. Heightmeyer. She uses all the right words, words like stress and trauma and fugue, but none of them can even begin to describe what happened to Radek while Atlantis was his or begin to answer his questions.
He is not usually the sort of man who needs the right words or the right answers; he is not a Westerner and it has been enough for him that the words and questions exist. It takes him much time to remember that, to stop listening for Atlantis's voice on the water or the brush of the colonel's lips across Rodney's. It is a long time, a trying time, a disappointing time.
He realizes he is still straining his ears.
--------
The next day, he wakes up to the sound of rain and he remembers her desperation, her grief, her need for him. Whether it was real or not has ceased to matter; it was real enough to Radek.
He braves the rain and sits on the pier, letting her sink through his skin and into his bones. "It helps," he says quietly, and settles in.
He is still sitting when the rain stops and the sun breaks through the clouds. In the silence he remembers he does not need to do. He sits quietly, content to be at peace, to be at rest, to simply be.
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard, Zelenka
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1900
Summary: Between love and the noblest cause, there should be no contest.
Notes: Set after "The Lost Boys." Many thanks to miriam for the discussion and the waffles.
Originally Posted: November 13, 2005
Said Woman, Take It Slow
It is solid night by the time he is able to get away, slowly drawing toward morning with the darkness thick and close around him. He is late, and for that he is sorry; she has been kept waiting long enough. But he also knows the heartbreaking truth that waiting is all she can do.
He sits at the east pier, east because even in this distant world it is the first to be graced with the light of the sun and he feels he should offer her every hope he has. He waits patiently; she has earned her recalcitrance and he can feel the sharp balancing edge of the hurt beneath.
Soon, he hears her.
Shhushha, shhushha, the waves say.
Radek inclines his head in greeting. "You are lovely tonight." It is something he says each time and means each time; he would not presume to lie. Her stars glow softly, milkily, eschewing diamonds too ostentatious and setting instead upon pearls, more befitting of her quiet power. Though they glow more dimly now, black pearls of mourning rather than the white of discovery, she is incandescent even through the widow's veil wrapped around her sea, edges fluttering in the breeze near Radek as he pays his respects.
He sits quietly, content for the time to be at peace, to be at rest, to simply be. One thing he has never liked about the Westerners is their need to do, their dependence on Brownian motion that makes it impossible for them to sit in their own company. Perhaps, he thinks, he has been spending too much time with Miko and her Eastern philosophies. Or perhaps he is one of the few people content to be who he is, requiring nothing more from himself than what he already knows he can give.
The waves wash softly in approval.
"I am sorry," he says, "there has been no word." She already knows, of course, but it is respectful to extend her the courtesy. "We have not given up hope." Though with each day that passes, a bit more slips away.
She feels it and sighs.
"Nor should you," he chides gently.
It is strange, this relationship they have developed. John has been Atlantis's dutiful husband, caring and protective. Rodney has been her lover, torrid and fiery. Radek, in their absence, has become something of her governess, someone placed outside the intimate circle because he is not one of her royalty.
Now, though, he is all she has left. It falls to him to offer reassurance that her husband has not deserted her, her lover not spurned her. So he does what he can, offers her company, solace, a kind word and a gentle hand in apology for all the fumbling they have added to her grief, like a crass suitor come courting too soon. Increasingly she needs to be coaxed, gentled, comforted. He may not have the gene and others may think him crazy for the nights spent out in her darkness and cold, tender conversation sight unseen, but it does not take a gene to see she is heartsick.
"You're tired," he says, and the waves slow, exhausted and lonely and weak on the water. "Please," he says, though it's the worst kind of cruelty to ask any more of her. "Just a while longer. Just a while.
"We love them, too."
--------
It is a few days before he can see her again. Kavanagh's arrogance seems to increase with each day Rodney is away and it is all Radek can do to prevent the catastrophic failure of systems Kavanagh shouldn't even have had access to. He requests tighter security protocols from Elizabeth, though he knows that means fewer hours of already precious sleep and even more small fires to put out.
He wishes desperately for Rodney to return, not because he cares about him and is worried about him and misses him, but because he doesn't know what to do. They are good, the scientists in the lab, but Rodney makes them all better and good is just not good enough. He never knew how Rodney managed to do it all, and he had help.
Radek has only himself. He doesn't need Atlantis to tell him that is not enough.
When he goes to her that night, he is weary and frayed. The mist drifts over his face like a gentle brush of fingers and says, I know you are trying.
"It is not enough," and he is only vaguely surprised to hear his voice thick and choked.
It will have to be. The current is strong and determined and Radek finds himself, not for the first time, absurdly grateful for the divinity of the feminine.
"Thank you," he says softly, and the quiet sound of waves lapping against the pier follows him all the way to his quarters.
--------
The following week, he is in need of Miko's smaller, more delicate hands. He scours the labs and the control room in his search for her, an hour's worth of delay, and then finds her where he started, in the furthest corner of the main lab crying quietly.
"He's not coming back," she says, as though she has only just realized. Radek knows how she feels about Rodney, knows what she is feeling now, and because she doesn't have the weight of the expedition resting on her shoulders, she can allow it of herself. He doesn't ask her to stop. Instead, he says softly, "If it will help," and wipes the tears from her eyes so more can fall in their place. He gathers the others, calls a close to their work day, and locks the empty labs behind them.
The rain starts falling that evening and doesn't stop.
--------
The third day, the Marines start to grow restless. The fifth day, Elizabeth has the linguists searching the database for the mention of anything approximating "monsoon season." The seventh day, someone scrawls, "Scattered showers, my ass. -Noah" across the windows of the meteorology labs. The ninth day, Radek braves the driving rain and sits on the pier, letting the sharp edges of the raindrops pierce his skin and sink into his bones. "If it helps," he says quietly, and settles in.
The tenth day, they see the sun.
--------
The next few days pass with nothing but more failure to remark upon and then suddenly there is unscheduled gate activation in the midst of a hurried supper at the mess, a flurry of activity, and the colonel and his team are falling through the gate, bruised and battered and so much worse for the wear but amazingly, ridiculously alive.
Radek doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he does neither. Instead, he hangs back and watches through the windows as the waves crash noisily against the city in something that sounds like so much joy.
--------
It is solid night by the time he is able to get away, slowly drawing toward morning with the darkness thick and close around him. He is late, and for that he is sorry; she has been kept waiting long enough.
It has been many days since he has sat with her and for that he owes her an apology. At first, he needed to give her time to welcome her lovers home with the privacy afforded such a reunion; even if she is too much of a lady give it voice, he knows when he is not wanted. As days passed, it became more and more difficult to face her rejection, to be stripped of the cloak and crown he'd only been lent and not given.
That he is not truly royalty, however, does not mean he can't behave as though he is. It is with that in mind that he makes his way across the path he has worn bright and sits on the pier, content to be at peace, to be at rest, requiring nothing more from himself than what he has already given.
He takes his dismissal graciously, giving in return all the gratitude she has inspired in him these many weeks.
"Děkuji," he offers after a moment, sincere and heartfelt. It is all that needs to be said.
He is standing to leave when he hears the soft echo of bootsteps, followed by two indiscernible whispered voices. He remains where he is, quiet and crouched in the darkness, knowing instinctively that whatever is happening should not be disturbed.
There are quiet sounds of settling in; long, drawn-out moments of silence. Then Radek hears an intimate sound, familiar but long forgotten, and his recognition of it as the sound of faithful kisses being given and taken sets something in his chest to aching.
The moonlight shifts and though he didn't want to, he can now see Rodney.
With the colonel.
The lapping of the waves masks his indrawn breath. He is surprised, but not at this. Things between Rodney and the colonel have changed, he has felt it since their return. And if he were to be honest, he has been expecting something like this in the back of his mind where distant possibilities reside for quite some time.
It's not as though Radek expected the colonel to treat Rodney like a kurva, the colonel has never seemed like the kind of man who sees intimacy in sex. So it is the colonel's tenderness, the fingers that slide delicately across the back of Rodney's neck, the hand that cherishingly cradles his cheek, the contented smile that plays along his lips as they brush over Rodney's.
That is what surprises Radek.
It is also what hurts him. There have been other distant possibilities residing in the back his mind, though they don't matter now. What matters is that he's losing everything he has made his on this distant alien world. Rodney has been his for, as they say, better or worse. For a time, Atlantis had been his just the same. Now Atlantis, Rodney, and the colonel all belong to each other.
Radek knows now what it is like to be heartsick.
--------
He goes, eventually, to see Dr. Heightmeyer. She uses all the right words, words like stress and trauma and fugue, but none of them can even begin to describe what happened to Radek while Atlantis was his or begin to answer his questions.
He is not usually the sort of man who needs the right words or the right answers; he is not a Westerner and it has been enough for him that the words and questions exist. It takes him much time to remember that, to stop listening for Atlantis's voice on the water or the brush of the colonel's lips across Rodney's. It is a long time, a trying time, a disappointing time.
He realizes he is still straining his ears.
--------
The next day, he wakes up to the sound of rain and he remembers her desperation, her grief, her need for him. Whether it was real or not has ceased to matter; it was real enough to Radek.
He braves the rain and sits on the pier, letting her sink through his skin and into his bones. "It helps," he says quietly, and settles in.
He is still sitting when the rain stops and the sun breaks through the clouds. In the silence he remembers he does not need to do. He sits quietly, content to be at peace, to be at rest, to simply be.