x. box in the attic
all_unwritten
prompt: box in the attic
Me: *mutters* stupid muse.
Muse: *cracks whip and cackles evilly*
Me: But I'm not a writer!
Muse: *glares menacingly*
Me: *starts typing meekly and wonders when we're going to get to the Sparky portion of this*
I'm being pwned by writing exercises and a recalcitrant muse.
So, uh.. part 2. If this keeps happening I'm going to have to name it aren't I?
There was an old box in the attic of her mother's house that she told him about once, a box full of her memories. All the little pieces to the puzzle, things he knows and things he's wondered about. Whenever she had the chance to go back, she added things to it or sent them to her mom to do it for her. There's a lock of hair from when she was a baby and her hair was mostly blond. He's seen her first report card, a neat row of A's running across it that's not surprising in the least.
She still has the first flower a boy ever gave her, and the small daisy is pressed between two sheets of poems copied from a book in a child's handwriting. There's pictures too, a lot of them, and one of his favorites is one of a dancing six year old Elizabeth wearing a party dress with her hair in pigtails. She's grinning so widely he can see a dimple in her cheek he never even knew she had. He sees plenty of things from her adult life too, a picture of her at graduation, a copy of her thesis, photos she's taken in various places she's visited for diplomatic missions around the world, little trinkets that speak of a life spent mostly in transit.
What causes him to stop and stare for several long moments is that there are pictures of him in here too. And yes, there's a photograph of their people too, a group of them sitting in a quiet, rather nondescript corner of Atlantis, joking together during one of the rare moments when somebody or something wasn't trying to kill them. He remembers that night, they commandeered one of the unused suites and watched horror movies until two in the morning. Somehow they'd managed to drag Elizabeth into it as well and he thinks back to when they first got there and knows they didn't sit that close to each other in the beginning.
He thinks Carson must've somehow taken the picture of them sitting together in the restaurant they'd finally met up in after long weeks on earth. She'd set about cutting them out of her lives, but then she was there with them and if they all ignored the sadness in her eyes they could almost pretend nothing was wrong. Carson had been snapping photos to send to his mother off and on since they got back and Rodney had fussed about it enough to divert his attention to them. It was a moment John remembered well- Elizabeth had stared at him silently for just a second and he'd seen the pain she was working so hard to bottle up, realizing that her heart was always going to be in Atlantis. He flips the picture over out of curiosity and sees her familiar writing on the back, just four words: "I can't say goodbye."
He knows about all these things and others in the box, not because she told him about them- because aside from a few small details she'd never volunteered the information- but because her mother somehow got the box sent to him with the latest batch of mail from earth. It had surprised him at first, to be receiving anything that wasn't from the SGC, but the package was labeled quite clearly. Renata Weir had sent the entire box to him along with a note;
'John, I don't know you very well except for what my daughter's said and what I figured out on my own. I know if things had been different... well that's not my place to say, but there are a few things you need to know about the woman you're fighting to bring home, and I hope this box helps you do that. It's full of the things she found memorable about life, and you might be surprised what she found most imporant.
I know you're still looking and I can't say how thankful I am for that. If nothing else, remember that Elizabeth's a fighter. I don't know much about where you and her have been or what mission is so important that I can count the number of times I've seen her in the past few years. I've made my peace with that- honestly I'm used to it after all these years- but I believe she's still out there somewhere, trying to come home.
Don't give up. In the meantime, keep this safe for her, I think you'll find what's in it interesting.
-Renata Weir'
Well it had surprised him, there were a few other shots of him and her and various other people from the expedition, always carefully positioned so they didn't give away any details but enough that there was a general idea of the people she worked with. John closed the old wooden box quietly, leaving out the photo with her words on the back and propping it on top of the lid; he stared at it for a minute longer, remembering how that fraction of a moment had seemed to stretch out between them. She belonged here, he knew it then and now.
"I'm not saying goodbye either, Elizabeth" he muttered quietly, a look of grim determination crystallizing in his eyes as he strode from the room. He needed to talk to Sam about M4X-553, it was time to bring her home.
http://community.livejournal.com/all_unwritten/37297.html?thread=944049#t944049
prompt: box in the attic
Me: *mutters* stupid muse.
Muse: *cracks whip and cackles evilly*
Me: But I'm not a writer!
Muse: *glares menacingly*
Me: *starts typing meekly and wonders when we're going to get to the Sparky portion of this*
I'm being pwned by writing exercises and a recalcitrant muse.
So, uh.. part 2. If this keeps happening I'm going to have to name it aren't I?
There was an old box in the attic of her mother's house that she told him about once, a box full of her memories. All the little pieces to the puzzle, things he knows and things he's wondered about. Whenever she had the chance to go back, she added things to it or sent them to her mom to do it for her. There's a lock of hair from when she was a baby and her hair was mostly blond. He's seen her first report card, a neat row of A's running across it that's not surprising in the least.
She still has the first flower a boy ever gave her, and the small daisy is pressed between two sheets of poems copied from a book in a child's handwriting. There's pictures too, a lot of them, and one of his favorites is one of a dancing six year old Elizabeth wearing a party dress with her hair in pigtails. She's grinning so widely he can see a dimple in her cheek he never even knew she had. He sees plenty of things from her adult life too, a picture of her at graduation, a copy of her thesis, photos she's taken in various places she's visited for diplomatic missions around the world, little trinkets that speak of a life spent mostly in transit.
What causes him to stop and stare for several long moments is that there are pictures of him in here too. And yes, there's a photograph of their people too, a group of them sitting in a quiet, rather nondescript corner of Atlantis, joking together during one of the rare moments when somebody or something wasn't trying to kill them. He remembers that night, they commandeered one of the unused suites and watched horror movies until two in the morning. Somehow they'd managed to drag Elizabeth into it as well and he thinks back to when they first got there and knows they didn't sit that close to each other in the beginning.
He thinks Carson must've somehow taken the picture of them sitting together in the restaurant they'd finally met up in after long weeks on earth. She'd set about cutting them out of her lives, but then she was there with them and if they all ignored the sadness in her eyes they could almost pretend nothing was wrong. Carson had been snapping photos to send to his mother off and on since they got back and Rodney had fussed about it enough to divert his attention to them. It was a moment John remembered well- Elizabeth had stared at him silently for just a second and he'd seen the pain she was working so hard to bottle up, realizing that her heart was always going to be in Atlantis. He flips the picture over out of curiosity and sees her familiar writing on the back, just four words: "I can't say goodbye."
He knows about all these things and others in the box, not because she told him about them- because aside from a few small details she'd never volunteered the information- but because her mother somehow got the box sent to him with the latest batch of mail from earth. It had surprised him at first, to be receiving anything that wasn't from the SGC, but the package was labeled quite clearly. Renata Weir had sent the entire box to him along with a note;
'John, I don't know you very well except for what my daughter's said and what I figured out on my own. I know if things had been different... well that's not my place to say, but there are a few things you need to know about the woman you're fighting to bring home, and I hope this box helps you do that. It's full of the things she found memorable about life, and you might be surprised what she found most imporant.
I know you're still looking and I can't say how thankful I am for that. If nothing else, remember that Elizabeth's a fighter. I don't know much about where you and her have been or what mission is so important that I can count the number of times I've seen her in the past few years. I've made my peace with that- honestly I'm used to it after all these years- but I believe she's still out there somewhere, trying to come home.
Don't give up. In the meantime, keep this safe for her, I think you'll find what's in it interesting.
-Renata Weir'
Well it had surprised him, there were a few other shots of him and her and various other people from the expedition, always carefully positioned so they didn't give away any details but enough that there was a general idea of the people she worked with. John closed the old wooden box quietly, leaving out the photo with her words on the back and propping it on top of the lid; he stared at it for a minute longer, remembering how that fraction of a moment had seemed to stretch out between them. She belonged here, he knew it then and now.
"I'm not saying goodbye either, Elizabeth" he muttered quietly, a look of grim determination crystallizing in his eyes as he strode from the room. He needed to talk to Sam about M4X-553, it was time to bring her home.
http://community.livejournal.com/all_unwritten/37297.html?thread=944049#t944049