D is for Drowned
Title: D is for Drowned
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: Time Shift 'verse
Characters: Parrish, Lorne, Cadman
Pairing: Parrish/Lorne
Rating: PG
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 6,242
Notes: for parrish_lorne alphabet soup
Warnings: Mostly!dead characters
Prompts: Letter D
HC Bingo Fill: Drowning
Fanbingo Fill: Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey
I remember the water.
It was cold, so cold that my teeth started chattering as soon as it rose high enough to top my boots. It poured down over the laces, soaking my socks. If there had been more time, I would have complained heartily about that.
But there wasn’t more time.
The smell wasn’t like the ocean back home. It wasn’t all fresh and sharp and salty like beach vacations remembered from my childhood. I didn’t want to inhale this aroma. I wasn’t driven by some need to soak it in - quite the contrary. It was stale, millennia of must and mold and rankness had turned it sour and repellant. That was what death smelled like, though I had not known that when I stepped into this corridor.
I’d been closely following the marine I had been assigned to, a Lieutenant Cadman. Doing everything just as I had been told to do before we left the SGC, I was being a dutiful civilian contractor. She suddenly stopped splashing through the water and tilted her head to listen to something. “What’s that noise?” Cadman spun around, shining the flashlight on the front of her gun across the walls.
“It sounds like someone pounding,” I offered as I listened too. I had never heard anything like that noise. It was freaking me out. It was like something out of a horror movie.
Cadman waved to the two soldiers that were with us and ordered, “Peterson, you and Shelton go left; I’ll take the Doctor with me and go right. Go four hundred paces and report back, keep your eyes open and be careful.”
That was the last time I saw those poor boys. They disappeared down the corridor. A short time later I heard a loud crash, followed by a rush of water. I’m pretty sure I heard screams, before they were cut off or drowned out by the sound of the water.
The weird noise came again close to us, but it wasn’t pounding, it was creaking and groaning. The floor under us shook violently, throwing Cadman sideways. I caught her as she crashed into me, and we both slammed into the wall. She lost her gun; it went flying out of her hands and splashed into the water a few feet away. I could see the light still shining, cutting an eerie green glow through the rising sea water. I could see the swirling on the surface, I could see how fast it was moving.
“Let me go!” Cadman was wriggling to get out of my arms. I released her; until then I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding onto her. She’d been warm, a spot of warm against the increasingly cold city. She scrambled towards her weapon, sloshing through the murky coldness that was now almost to my knees.
“We’ve got to find a way up!” she shouted and pointed towards the ceiling as she reclaimed her rifle. She was only reiterating what we knew, what we had been trying to do since the radios had cut out and the water had met us at every turn, through every door we opened as we tried to find out way back to the Gate Room. We were lost; turned and twisted around in the maze of ancient corridors that all looked and smelled the same. We each shouted for Peterson and Shelton, but they didn’t answer. We shared a look, knowing there would be no answer. Cadman sighed shakily and pointed in the opposite direction from the water that was coming towards us.
The weird Atlantis lights flickered a few times and then went out completely. I lost my nerve at that point; it was a bit too much; cold, wet, lost and now all in the dark. I probably sounded as frightened as I felt as I screamed to find her, “Lieutenant!”
“Over here, Parrish!”
I saw the light of her gun and I splashed towards it, figuring that’s where she would be. It was getting harder to move; the water was almost to the middle of my thighs. “The water is rising faster!”
“I know, I know. Let’s go this way!” her voice was losing the confidence she’d had earlier, I tried not to let that scare me more, she clasped my hand and tugged me towards her. Her hand was cold; the dunking into the water to retrieve her gun had chilled her skin. She led me along, guided only by the light from her weapon.
The city creaked and groaned around us. “I think we’re sinking,” there, I’d said it; I’d admitted it, though it gave me a pain in my stomach to do so.
“Yeah, Doc. Yeah I think you’re right,” she sighed and pointed her gun at the ceiling.
The water suddenly surged upwards around us; it had been at my hips, now it lapped at my armpits. That brought it nearly to Cadman’s chin. She yelped and coughed as another wave rolled through.
We were swimming now in the bone-numbing ice water. The water was lifting us up towards the ceiling. “A seam!” Cadman shouted suddenly as the beam of her gun cut across the bulkhead. She struggled to keep the gun level so that she could follow along the seam she had spotted.
I grabbed the loop on the back of her vest and tried to keep her face out of the water so that she could keep hold of the gun. I spotted it before she did, “Hatch! A hatch, there!” We both started swimming madly for it.
The water surged up again, and without purchase on the floor, I was tumbled by the force of this time. Out of control, I spun around and slammed into the ceiling and the wall. I lost sight of the light, of Cadman’s light. I thought I felt something brush past me touching my leg, it might have been her, I couldn’t tell. I couldn't see anything.
The water was everywhere. I didn’t know which way was up anymore. It was so dark. So cold. Then I realized suddenly that I couldn’t breathe. My chest grew tight; I was running out of air. I never thought I would go through the Gate and drown within hours of arriving on the mission. Nothing anyone had said at the SGC had prepared me for death like this. Screaming at the unfairness of it would waste the last few seconds of air I had. So would crying.
I stopped struggling, trying to remain calm. Maybe I could find an air pocket, though I had no idea what I would do with a few more minutes, should I find them. I looked around. It was so dark. My chest was on fire now. I could feel the panic rising again. I saw light. I started swimming towards it, kicking with every bit of energy I had. The water was moving in every direction at once. I hoped I wasn’t swimming down, that it wasn’t Cadman’s gun I was seeing. It could be lying at the bottom, I could be going deeper.
But the light was too bright, and as I got a little closer closer, I saw that it was square. The hatch. The hatch was open. Had Cadman made it to the hatch and pried it open? I prayed that she had.
Certainty set in that I wasn’t going to make it, I was getting lightheaded, I was out of air. So close, but still too far. In my mind, I was screaming, as I died.
I saw a shadow cross over the light, movement. Someone alive in this sinking city, this place of death?
There was a loud noise near me; as if something had hit the water, and the light was suddenly gone, obliterated. I thought it was my vision going. Pinpricks of pain exploded in my head. Then I felt a hand on my arm. A strong hand grasped my sleeve, then another grabbed at my shoulder. I was yanked suddenly forward, towards the place where the light had been. With the quick and unexpected motion, I instinctively gasped in surprise, I inhaled. I sucked in the vile, salty death of the Atlantis sea.
Choking, I flailed a bit, before the last of my strength deserted me.
In the cold, in the dark, with the smell of musty water in my nose, I died a galaxy away from the world of my birth.
~*~
“C’mon David, breathe, damn it! That’s it, that’s it, c'mon buddy.”
A cold hand clasped my chin and turned my head to the side. I retched up the ocean that had settled in my gut. Pressure on my stomach had me doing it again. “Good, that’s good, get it all out.”
I couldn’t help sobbing a bit as I threw up. I had always hated being sick, ever since I was a kid. I always did everything I could to avoid vomiting. This guy was pushing on my aching stomach and chest and forcing me to it. “Stop, please, stop,” I managed to whimper as I tried to push his hands away.
“David!” I was suddenly gathered up into a pair of very strong arms and tightly hugged. A hand clasped my head and held me close, I breathed in an unfamiliar aftershave. Razor stubble brushed across my cheek. I admit, I let myself fall against my rescuer for a few moments, soaking in his warmth. It felt good to be held. I was alive. I’d somehow lived through my death.
“We really have to go. Can you stand?” I was gently set back. It was dark; I could only see the outline of him.
“I have to, don’t I?” I used his shoulder for leverage as I tried to get my feet under me. We were on a platform of some kind; I had to step down to get to the floor. I almost lost my balance as I moved.
He stood and pulled me up. He steadied me as I teetered for a moment. "Got it?” he patted my shoulder as I grunted and tugged on my sleeve. “This way, we really have to hurry.”
We were splashing through water again as we entered another corridor. I looked back once and asked him, “Cadman?”
“She didn’t make it. None of them made it,” he answered me quietly and kept moving.
The water continued to rise steadily. “Not again,” I mumbled as a wave came in and the level increased. It was over my knees and moving up quickly. I stumbled and fell forward into the cold muck. Had I been rescued only to drown again?
“David? David!” There was panic in the voice calling my name. I was hauled up, coughing and sputtering, spitting out the salt water. I hated the taste of the sea, I decided in that moment.
“Okay, okay." I tried to stand, "No, I’m woozy,” I stumbled against him as my knees wobbled and my legs went out from under me.
Without another word, I was dragged over his shoulders into a fireman’s carry. I didn’t bother struggling, I didn’t have the strength. Besides, he seemed to have a plan, which was more than I had. I closed my eyes and did my best not to interfere, concentrating instead on not throwing up on the guy’s back. I had a few moments to think, and I realized the guy knew my name; he’d called me David, several times. That was a little odd since no one involved in the expedition called me by name, everyone called me Doctor Parrish.
He was strong, I’ll give him that. He was wading through thigh-high water carrying me. I’m not that much of a lightweight. “Almost there,” he panted. I opened my eyes and I could see a doorway ahead, glowing with warm yellow light in the cold darkness of Atlantis.
He heaved us both through the doorway, and we tumbled forward, splashing in the water. We were swimming again. I didn’t have the strength for this. I let out a cry of frustration as my arms and legs refused to work properly. An arm wound around my middle and I was hauled up against him. “C’mon David, not too much further, see, right over there?”
I looked around, blinking against the stinging muck in my eyes; I could see something ahead, gold against the green. There was a low level thrumming, the sound of machinery working. It was a welcome sound after hearing nothing but the groaning and creaking of the city dying around us. “Hold onto me, I have to get the hatch.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung like a monkey, too exhausted to do anything else. “Almost… there,” my rescuer was tiring; his voice was barely above a whisper as he lunged towards the goal.
There was a sudden flash of bright light and we fell again. But this time a hard deck met us instead of cold water, though water rained down on us, carried along through the hatch with our bodies. As soon as we were down, the guy untangled himself from me and moved away. I heard something slam closed behind us. Eyes closed against the bright light, I flopped onto my back and gasped for air. I probably looked like a fish. I heard him moving around, felt him move past me. “Hang on; we’re getting out of here.”
I wasn’t dead. That was taking a little time to sink in.
There was a tremble, and then we were moving.
“This is going to feel weird, it might even hurt,” the warning was followed by a violent rocking and then everything turned inside out. It was too much for my abused self to take. I blacked out.
~*~
“David? Wake up.”
I was warm, too warm and comfortable to wake up. I tried to ignore the unfamiliar voice. But he was persistent. “David, come on, you need to eat something.”
I slowly opened my eyes and stared at the face peering down at me with concern. I had not seen anyone look at me like that in years, not since my mom had died and taken with her the last person that cared anything for my welfare.
“That’s it, wake up. You’ve had me worried, you’ve been out for too long,” the guy slipped an arm under my shoulders and lifted me into a sitting position, holding me until I was steady.
I grabbed his arm as he turned away, disgusted with how weak I felt, at how loose my grip was on his sleeve. “Thank you for pulling me out of there.”
“You’re welcome.” He brushed the hair back from my face, his fingers lingering for a few moments. “Here, have some soup, it’s the vegetable MRE that you like.” A warm thermos mug was pressed into my hand. The guy was a soldier, though his uniform was a little different than the ones the marines of the expedition had been wearing. He was dressed all in black, empty Velcro spots where ID patches would be. Brown hair (a bit longer than I was used to seeing on military types) blue eyes, sturdy build, I didn’t recognize him, I’m fairly sure I’d never seen him before.
“Do I know you?” I asked as I sipped at the soup, it was odd, he knew me and that made me a little nervous.
He shook his head, smiling lightly. “No. You wouldn’t, we haven’t met yet. I’m Lorne.”
He had a nice smile, and there was something in his eyes as he looked at me, I had a hard time looking away. He was right, I liked the soup. “You know me.”
“Yeah. I do… did.”
“I see. No, I don’t, not really. You saved me. Did the others get out?”
“No, well, yes and no. The timeline was changed and the entire expedition was saved. But in the original timeline, everyone except Elizabeth Weir died.”
“I drowned.”
He nodded. “The first time around, yes.”
“I just did, I remember it, I can still taste the salt water with every breath. But you pulled me out. I don’t understand… how is any of this possible?”
Lorne waved a hand around the compartment. “Time machine.”
That was a bit too much for me to wrap my head around. “The US government has a time machine?”
He shook his head. “No, I have a time machine. I kinda stole it.”
“You stole a time machine?”
Lorne shrugged and started picking at his cuticles. “I stole it from a bad guy, well the guts of it, anyway. I had help; another guy who knew what he was doing helped me install it in my puddlejumper, once we got away.”
“I assume this is the puddlejumper?”
“Yeah, I was doing a ferry run through the Gate and the creep diverted me. I wasn’t his target though, so he was just keeping me prisoner until he figured out what to do with me.”
I took another sip of the soup. “And you escaped?”
He shrugged, “I had help.”
“So you said. So, why save me, instead of anyone else in the expedition?”
He looked down at his hands. “The jerk dragged me out of my timeline; the guy I escaped with and I couldn't backtrack to figure out which one it was. I’m lost. I’ve been alone for a while. I suspect I might be going a bit peculiar. I got this idea and it seemed to make sense, but now that I’m trying to explain it all, it sounds a little crazy.”
“You came to Atlantis and pulled me out, to what… keep you company?”
“See, crazy? Sorry,” he blushed and looked down.
I was completely baffled. “Of all the people you know, you chose me? Why me?”
“I know you best, you’re my… best friend,” he waved a little square device at me. “This is programmed to your life sign; you were on my Gate team. I couldn’t find anyone else alive by the time I got the ‘jumper secured and went looking. The section you were in was one of the last to flood completely, apparently. I went in twice, the first time, I didn’t find you. Then I managed to convince the time drive to behave and let me go back ten minutes earlier.”
“So you can’t go back again?”
“I don’t think the drive will let me, I almost overshot the last time, it overheats the engines.”
I had to ask, I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t. “Could you try? Lieutenant Cadman was right there, she couldn’t have been far from where you found me. Please.”
He gave a heavy sigh and looked over at the concoction of wires and tubes and machinery that must be the time engine. “It’s important to you to try, isn’t it?”
I nodded. If there was a chance… the Lieutenant had tried to save me. She had almost succeeded, we'd been so close.
Lorne sighed again and climbed to his feet. He went to the machine and glared at it. “Listen to me, you flaky piece of junk. One more time. Please? You know the way already, how hard can it be?”
“Lorne, you are talking to a machine.”
He blushed as he looked over at me. “I know. It’s become a bit of a habit, now. I’ve been alone a while.”
“In this little ship?”
He glanced around. “Yeah, going a bit stir crazy. This puppy didn’t come with all the expansion options available on the original model, some of them, but not all,” he patted the side of the machine and then moved to sit in the pilot’s seat. "I haven't figured everything out yet."
I took the mug of soup and went to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. He smiled over at me as he touched controls. “I really can’t promise anything, David.”
“But you’re trying?” I was surprised; he was doing this, simply because I had asked?
“I’m trying,” he smiled tightly and hit a control. “Hold on, this part always makes me a little dizzy.”
~*~
He made me wait in the puddlejumper while he went to try to fish Cadman out of the corridor where he’d found me. I couldn’t argue, I was still really weak and I’d be more of a liability if I tried to help. He wouldn’t be able to save both of us if I went down again, which I probably would. I knew what waited out there; I wasn’t particularly keen on going back out into the cold water or the dark.
I was supposed to wait by the hatch and open it when Lorne came back; this was my part of the rescue. He had handed me a life signs detector and given me a very brief lesson in reading it. I smiled as I suddenly saw two dots where there had been one, and they were both moving towards me. He’d found someone.
I hit the control for the hatch and Lorne and Cadman fell through it in a splash of water. I hurriedly closed it again. Coughing up water and pushing his hair out of his eyes, Lorne rolled to his knees and crawled towards the pilot’s chair. He shook off water as he went. “David, take care of her. I took too much time.”
The jumper was suddenly rocked as something hit the side of it. It moved, pushed by the impact. I looked over at Lorne as he dragged himself into the seat. “Water. This chamber is flooding!”
I knelt beside Cadman and rolled her onto her stomach. She coughed feebly and I breathed a sigh of relief; she was alive. I turned her face so she wouldn’t choke if she threw up. Unsure what to do, since first aid was not my strong point, I was about to strip her out of the heavy military vest so she could breathe better when Lorne yelled from the front of the ship, “Brace yourself!”
I threw myself over Cadman and threaded my fingers through the deck plating. The little ship seemed to flip completely over. I wondered if it was the water or something Lorne was doing. The world went wonky and I felt the same shift that had happened when the time engine was engaged to bring us here less than ten minutes ago. Things went a bit black and fuzzy.
Lorne’s hands were suddenly on my shoulders. “David, we’re safe. You can let go now. Let me help her.”
“We’re safe?” I sat up and looked down at the soaking wet marine on the floor. “We did it?”
He was tugging at the fastenings of her gear. “Yeah, let’s get the TAC vest off her; she swallowed a lot of ocean and that has to come up.”
With both of us working, we soon had the unconscious woman stripped to her tank top and panties. “There’s some dry clothes in the third compartment there,” Lorne pointed as he reached for the blankets that were still on the bench where I had dropped them earlier.
Lorne wrestled Cadman into a sitting position, “Get that basin over there.” I followed where he was pointing and retrieved the shallow basin. “You aren’t a sympathetic puker, are you?”
I shook my head and he smiled grimly. “Sorry about this, Laura,” he whispered as he worked a finger into her mouth. I figured out what he was doing just in time to get the basin up into place. She choked and expelled some of the sea water she’d swallowed.
“Waste vent, over there to the left,” Lorne pointed and I dumped the basin. He was rubbing Cadman’s back as she coughed weakly and tossed her head around. She was slowly rousing, clinging to Lorne’s arm where it was wrapped around her waist. “Breathe, Cadman, easy, take slow breaths.”
I crouched in front of her and got the basin under her chin as she gagged. When she finished and relaxed back against Lorne, she opened her eyes and looked at me. After blinking wildly for a few moments, I’m sure the salt water had stung her eyes, she whispered, “Parrish?”
“Yup, hi,” I gave her what was surely a very relieved smile.
“We got out? How did we get out?” her voice was weak and her eyes unfocused, but she seemed to be doing better than I had after Lorne rescued me.
“Him,” I tossed my chin towards our rescuer.
She leaned back a little and looked up at Lorne. She frowned, “I don’t know you.”
“Nope, you don’t, not yet. Major Lorne.”
“Oh, okay then,” she whispered and then sagged back against him.
I met his eyes over her head. “Well, now what?”
His eyes went wide as he looked at the unconscious woman in his arms, then around the ‘jumper and then at me. “I have no idea. I didn’t really plan too far beyond rescuing you.”
“Do you do this sort of thing frequently?” I spread a blanket on the floor as he gently lowered Cadman to the deck.
“Rescuing? Well, yeah, kinda. Part of my job. Planning ahead, no so much,” he blushed and then smirked. He reached a hand out and grabbed mine, giving it a squeeze. “I’m glad it worked.”
“Me too.”
~*~
“So, we’re dead,” Cadman declared quietly and pulled her knees up to her chest and shivered under the blanket she had clasped around her. She rested one cheek on her knee and looked over at me. Her color was better, peaches and cream instead of just washed out cream as it had been earlier.
“Not really,” I knew there was no conviction in my answer. We were, in a way, I had to admit, “But our old lives are gone.”
“I don’t know whether to kiss him or kill him, stupid zoomie,” Cadman glared up at Lorne in the pilot’s seat.
“I heard that. I’d really prefer a kiss,” Lorne called cheerfully.
She smiled. “Maybe when I know you better, Major.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”
He glanced back and smirked at her. “And I know you keep your promises.”
“See, that, right there, that’s what makes me sorta want to slap him. He knows us, but we don’t know him,” Cadman hissed as she jabbed a finger in Lorne’s direction.
“If he didn’t, we’d be dead - all dead - Lieutenant,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, true.” she nodded and struggled to her feet, wrapping the blanket around her as she went forward. He leaned down and kissed Lorne on the cheek. “Thank you.” She sat in the co-pilot’s seat and wriggled back until she was comfortable. “Where do we go from here?”
“Well, I know a few planets in Pegasus where we can do a little tomb raiding to raise capital,” Lorne said with a bit of uncertainty, “Since none of us are drawing pay from the SGC anymore, we have to find something to earn bread money.”
I wasn’t certain I liked this idea. “Thievery?”
He looked over at me, “Archeology, for a profit.”
“What about the descendants of those civilizations?”
Lorne smiled, “All dead worlds, I promise; abandoned, vacant, deserted, no future descendants to worry about,” he looked to each of us hopefully.
What could I say? It was better than drowning. “I guess I’m in.”
“Me too,” Cadman said and then peered over at Lorne rebellion in her eyes, “Do I still have to call you sir?”
“Nope, in fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. Call me Evan.”
~*~
We stood on the edge of the hole, staring down into the darkness. Laura was chewing on her lip and hugging her gun, P90, the correct term for it is a P-90. She had offered to go down, but Evan wanted her standing guard. They were still teaching me the ins and outs of watching our backs. I was learning how to make a camp, how to fire a weapon, how to do first aid, how to field dress freshly killed meat; apparently all things I had once learned when I was part of Lorne’s Gate team.
My main useful contribution was finding edible things when we landed. Making Evan and Laura eat their vegetables was not the easiest of tasks, especially because most of them didn’t taste the way they looked, being alien and all. I’d taken to frying everything, since they complained about it all being baby food if I mashed the offerings.
“I found it!” Evan shouted, and Laura and I breathed a sigh of relief. There were no people on this planet, but there were lizard things and weird weather patterns and acid rain and we wanted to be gone as soon as possible. We’d made our base camp on the planet's more temperate moon. The river water there even tasted good, if a bit heavy with minerals.
He tossed a canvas bag up, which Laura caught easily and set aside. Laura and I knelt down, grabbed Evan’s arms and hauled him up. I was beginning to think he leaned towards me on purpose when we did this, since he always fell on top of me. Today was no different. Laura laughed and reached for the bag, ignoring us and digging through it for the treasure.
Evan wasn’t showing any inclination towards moving. I can’t say I minded much. I was imagining that the touches had become more frequent, lingering longer in the weeks since we’d been traveling together. Was I reading too much into it, seeing something I wanted to see? I watched him. I tried not to get caught at it. Our living quarters were too small, our situation too crowded if something went bad, I didn’t want to say anything to ruin the new friendship the three of us had fallen into.
But I don’t think I was imagining the press against my thigh, fleetingly felt before Evan rolled off me and leapt easily to his feet. He held a hand out to me, hauling me up. Sitting beside us on the ground, Laura chortled with glee as she pulled out a handful of sparkling jewelry. “Shiny!!!”
“She’s a magpie, you realize that?” I asked to break the tension that had suddenly flared up between Evan and me.
Evan stroked his chin. “So long as she lets go of it when it comes time to sell, I don’t mind if she rolls around in the treasure now and then.”
Laura plopped an ornate headdress on her head and posed for us. “How’s that look?”
“Adorable, Princess. Hip hop, time to move, here comes the rain,” Evan pointed towards the horizon.
Cadman jumped to her feet and danced off happily towards the puddlejumper. I laughed a little as I watched her go. “She’s a nut,” Evan said.
“She’s our nut,” I smiled, because she was and it made me feel good to see her happy. Such a short time ago, I didn’t know she existed, and now, I couldn’t imagine life without her.
Warm fingers grasped my elbow, holding me back as I turned to go to the ‘jumper. I turned to see Evan looking at me oddly. “Uh, look, I don’t want things to get weird. If you want me to give you space, I will. I'm going to give you space.”
He looked upset; his eyes were odd as I looked at him. “Huh?”
“I know you care a lot about her. Things are tight in the ‘jumper. I can… be elsewhere, I'll set up a tent further away.”
I tugged my arm away from him; he thought… me and Laura? I didn’t know what to say, I was so surprised. I think my jaw might have dropped open.
He shrugged, and anything else he might have said was cut off as thunder crashed overhead and we heard the first drops of acid rain hitting the ground not far off. “Crap! Run!” Evan took off and I dashed after him.
I admit I’m a bit of a coward; I avoided Evan as we went back to base camp and went through our evening chores. I prepped fish caught in the river that hadn’t killed us the first two times we’d eaten it and some veggies that had the consistency and flavor of sweet potatoes but the color of bananas.
He’d been avoiding me too. “I’m going to set up a tent,” Evan said as he came out of the jumper with a bundle of gear under his arm. We had a couple in the jumper and had used them to take a break from sleeping in the back of the little ship now and then.
“I’ll watch the stove, chef Boyardee, go talk to Evan,” Laura waved her hand at the fish sizzling in the pan and then pointed towards Evan, stomping down the ground to make a flat spot for the tent. “Go on, I can handle this, go fix that.”
What in the hell was I going to say? I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets and walked over to Evan, picking my way carefully as I’d been taught so I didn’t turn an ankle. He caught my eye and gave a quick nod as I approached. He snapped out the nylon of the tent, letting it unroll. I caught the end and knelt to hold it down while he staked his side. We made quick work of setting up the tent, with two of us it took only minutes.
Evan unzipped the front of it and sat inside, letting his feet dangle through the door. I sat beside him, mirroring him, letting my feet rest beside his. “So, uhm, what you said before…”
He looked away. “I meant it. I’ll sleep out here tonight; you guys can have the jumper.”
'Here goes everything,' I thought. “I’d rather stay in the tent.”
He nodded and said in a rush, “Oh, yeah, right, more room. Sure, I can take the jumper.”
“I meant I’d rather stay out here in the tent.. with you.”
His head snapped so quickly I thought he might have hurt something. “Huh? Really?”
I moved before I lost the courage to, and more aggressively than I’ve ever been with anyone before. I grabbed his cheeks in both my hands and kissed him hard and full on the lips. He was startled and I thought he was going to hit me and that I’d ruined everything, but then he made a little sound in the back of his throat, grabbed onto me too and kissed me back.
“Well, uhm, okay,” he whispered as we broke for air.
I pushed his hair back off his face; he really needed a haircut, and kissed his forehead. There was something I needed to know, something he’d said, back on that first day that had never been far from my mind. I took a deep breath and forced myself to ask, “Tell me something?”
“Uh huh?”
“When I asked why you came for me, you said because I was your best friend - was it more than that? Am I a replacement for another David?”
He surged to his knees and grabbed my face in his hands as he shook his head violently, “No, no. We were friends, with the way regs were; it couldn’t ever have been more. The David from my timeline was with someone in his department. We were just friends. You’re you. He was him. It’s different.”
“Okay. I just needed to know,” his answer made me feel better. I kissed him again, more gently this time.
“You guys need to cut off the frisky stuff and come over here and eat!” Laura shouted from over by the fire.
Reluctantly, we broke off the kissing. “She’ll burn the fish if we don’t go now.”
I stood and then dragged Evan up after me when he just sat there looking a little dazed. He held back and kicked at the dirt and asked, “So, you really want to share the tent?”
“Yeah, we'll take it slow, see how it goes?”
“Okay. Yeah, okay.”
He was a little hesitant, but then he reached for my hand and held it as we went back towards the campfire. I felt like a school kid all over again as Laura glanced up and then away. I was all nervous and excited and scared.
After we cleaned up and debated casually about making a bigger fire and sitting outside, Laura yawned and stretched, “Not for me boys, I’m heading for bed. Come get your stuff and take an extra blanket, David; it gets cold out here in the wee hours.”
She waggled her fingers at us as we grabbed sleeping bags, air pads and blankets from the jumper. A warning finger pointed at her nose kept her from making any snarky comments when she caught my eye.
We spread the bedding down and flopped on top of it and shut off the lantern so as not to attract bugs to the glow of the tent. Or perform puppet theater for the amusement of Cadman back at the jumper, should she be peeking. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. “I think maybe we really need to go slow,” I said as I listened to Evan’s rapid breathing for a while.
“Uhm, yeah. Okay, good idea,” he seemed very relieved at that.
I rolled towards him as something occurred to me. “Evan, you have done this before… with a guy?” He was quiet, too quiet, for too long. “Evan?”
“No. Just kissing,” he whispered.
Damn. Well, that explained a few things. “Well, then slow it is. It's been a long day, maybe just sleeping tonight, okay?”
“Maybe some more kissing? I liked the kissing,” he suggested hopefully as he shifted closer to me.
I laughed and reached for him, pulling him close and kissing him again. “I liked the kissing too.” He relaxed a bit and snuggled in. We kissed a little more and then the exertions of digging up the treasure started catching up with us and we both started yawning. Evan fell asleep between one kiss and the next, snoring lightly as he cuddled against me, his face pressed close to my ear.
I could get used to this.
Being dead didn’t suck quite as much as I thought it would.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: Time Shift 'verse
Characters: Parrish, Lorne, Cadman
Pairing: Parrish/Lorne
Rating: PG
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 6,242
Notes: for parrish_lorne alphabet soup
Warnings: Mostly!dead characters
Prompts: Letter D
HC Bingo Fill: Drowning
Fanbingo Fill: Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey
I remember the water.
It was cold, so cold that my teeth started chattering as soon as it rose high enough to top my boots. It poured down over the laces, soaking my socks. If there had been more time, I would have complained heartily about that.
But there wasn’t more time.
The smell wasn’t like the ocean back home. It wasn’t all fresh and sharp and salty like beach vacations remembered from my childhood. I didn’t want to inhale this aroma. I wasn’t driven by some need to soak it in - quite the contrary. It was stale, millennia of must and mold and rankness had turned it sour and repellant. That was what death smelled like, though I had not known that when I stepped into this corridor.
I’d been closely following the marine I had been assigned to, a Lieutenant Cadman. Doing everything just as I had been told to do before we left the SGC, I was being a dutiful civilian contractor. She suddenly stopped splashing through the water and tilted her head to listen to something. “What’s that noise?” Cadman spun around, shining the flashlight on the front of her gun across the walls.
“It sounds like someone pounding,” I offered as I listened too. I had never heard anything like that noise. It was freaking me out. It was like something out of a horror movie.
Cadman waved to the two soldiers that were with us and ordered, “Peterson, you and Shelton go left; I’ll take the Doctor with me and go right. Go four hundred paces and report back, keep your eyes open and be careful.”
That was the last time I saw those poor boys. They disappeared down the corridor. A short time later I heard a loud crash, followed by a rush of water. I’m pretty sure I heard screams, before they were cut off or drowned out by the sound of the water.
The weird noise came again close to us, but it wasn’t pounding, it was creaking and groaning. The floor under us shook violently, throwing Cadman sideways. I caught her as she crashed into me, and we both slammed into the wall. She lost her gun; it went flying out of her hands and splashed into the water a few feet away. I could see the light still shining, cutting an eerie green glow through the rising sea water. I could see the swirling on the surface, I could see how fast it was moving.
“Let me go!” Cadman was wriggling to get out of my arms. I released her; until then I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding onto her. She’d been warm, a spot of warm against the increasingly cold city. She scrambled towards her weapon, sloshing through the murky coldness that was now almost to my knees.
“We’ve got to find a way up!” she shouted and pointed towards the ceiling as she reclaimed her rifle. She was only reiterating what we knew, what we had been trying to do since the radios had cut out and the water had met us at every turn, through every door we opened as we tried to find out way back to the Gate Room. We were lost; turned and twisted around in the maze of ancient corridors that all looked and smelled the same. We each shouted for Peterson and Shelton, but they didn’t answer. We shared a look, knowing there would be no answer. Cadman sighed shakily and pointed in the opposite direction from the water that was coming towards us.
The weird Atlantis lights flickered a few times and then went out completely. I lost my nerve at that point; it was a bit too much; cold, wet, lost and now all in the dark. I probably sounded as frightened as I felt as I screamed to find her, “Lieutenant!”
“Over here, Parrish!”
I saw the light of her gun and I splashed towards it, figuring that’s where she would be. It was getting harder to move; the water was almost to the middle of my thighs. “The water is rising faster!”
“I know, I know. Let’s go this way!” her voice was losing the confidence she’d had earlier, I tried not to let that scare me more, she clasped my hand and tugged me towards her. Her hand was cold; the dunking into the water to retrieve her gun had chilled her skin. She led me along, guided only by the light from her weapon.
The city creaked and groaned around us. “I think we’re sinking,” there, I’d said it; I’d admitted it, though it gave me a pain in my stomach to do so.
“Yeah, Doc. Yeah I think you’re right,” she sighed and pointed her gun at the ceiling.
The water suddenly surged upwards around us; it had been at my hips, now it lapped at my armpits. That brought it nearly to Cadman’s chin. She yelped and coughed as another wave rolled through.
We were swimming now in the bone-numbing ice water. The water was lifting us up towards the ceiling. “A seam!” Cadman shouted suddenly as the beam of her gun cut across the bulkhead. She struggled to keep the gun level so that she could follow along the seam she had spotted.
I grabbed the loop on the back of her vest and tried to keep her face out of the water so that she could keep hold of the gun. I spotted it before she did, “Hatch! A hatch, there!” We both started swimming madly for it.
The water surged up again, and without purchase on the floor, I was tumbled by the force of this time. Out of control, I spun around and slammed into the ceiling and the wall. I lost sight of the light, of Cadman’s light. I thought I felt something brush past me touching my leg, it might have been her, I couldn’t tell. I couldn't see anything.
The water was everywhere. I didn’t know which way was up anymore. It was so dark. So cold. Then I realized suddenly that I couldn’t breathe. My chest grew tight; I was running out of air. I never thought I would go through the Gate and drown within hours of arriving on the mission. Nothing anyone had said at the SGC had prepared me for death like this. Screaming at the unfairness of it would waste the last few seconds of air I had. So would crying.
I stopped struggling, trying to remain calm. Maybe I could find an air pocket, though I had no idea what I would do with a few more minutes, should I find them. I looked around. It was so dark. My chest was on fire now. I could feel the panic rising again. I saw light. I started swimming towards it, kicking with every bit of energy I had. The water was moving in every direction at once. I hoped I wasn’t swimming down, that it wasn’t Cadman’s gun I was seeing. It could be lying at the bottom, I could be going deeper.
But the light was too bright, and as I got a little closer closer, I saw that it was square. The hatch. The hatch was open. Had Cadman made it to the hatch and pried it open? I prayed that she had.
Certainty set in that I wasn’t going to make it, I was getting lightheaded, I was out of air. So close, but still too far. In my mind, I was screaming, as I died.
I saw a shadow cross over the light, movement. Someone alive in this sinking city, this place of death?
There was a loud noise near me; as if something had hit the water, and the light was suddenly gone, obliterated. I thought it was my vision going. Pinpricks of pain exploded in my head. Then I felt a hand on my arm. A strong hand grasped my sleeve, then another grabbed at my shoulder. I was yanked suddenly forward, towards the place where the light had been. With the quick and unexpected motion, I instinctively gasped in surprise, I inhaled. I sucked in the vile, salty death of the Atlantis sea.
Choking, I flailed a bit, before the last of my strength deserted me.
In the cold, in the dark, with the smell of musty water in my nose, I died a galaxy away from the world of my birth.
~*~
“C’mon David, breathe, damn it! That’s it, that’s it, c'mon buddy.”
A cold hand clasped my chin and turned my head to the side. I retched up the ocean that had settled in my gut. Pressure on my stomach had me doing it again. “Good, that’s good, get it all out.”
I couldn’t help sobbing a bit as I threw up. I had always hated being sick, ever since I was a kid. I always did everything I could to avoid vomiting. This guy was pushing on my aching stomach and chest and forcing me to it. “Stop, please, stop,” I managed to whimper as I tried to push his hands away.
“David!” I was suddenly gathered up into a pair of very strong arms and tightly hugged. A hand clasped my head and held me close, I breathed in an unfamiliar aftershave. Razor stubble brushed across my cheek. I admit, I let myself fall against my rescuer for a few moments, soaking in his warmth. It felt good to be held. I was alive. I’d somehow lived through my death.
“We really have to go. Can you stand?” I was gently set back. It was dark; I could only see the outline of him.
“I have to, don’t I?” I used his shoulder for leverage as I tried to get my feet under me. We were on a platform of some kind; I had to step down to get to the floor. I almost lost my balance as I moved.
He stood and pulled me up. He steadied me as I teetered for a moment. "Got it?” he patted my shoulder as I grunted and tugged on my sleeve. “This way, we really have to hurry.”
We were splashing through water again as we entered another corridor. I looked back once and asked him, “Cadman?”
“She didn’t make it. None of them made it,” he answered me quietly and kept moving.
The water continued to rise steadily. “Not again,” I mumbled as a wave came in and the level increased. It was over my knees and moving up quickly. I stumbled and fell forward into the cold muck. Had I been rescued only to drown again?
“David? David!” There was panic in the voice calling my name. I was hauled up, coughing and sputtering, spitting out the salt water. I hated the taste of the sea, I decided in that moment.
“Okay, okay." I tried to stand, "No, I’m woozy,” I stumbled against him as my knees wobbled and my legs went out from under me.
Without another word, I was dragged over his shoulders into a fireman’s carry. I didn’t bother struggling, I didn’t have the strength. Besides, he seemed to have a plan, which was more than I had. I closed my eyes and did my best not to interfere, concentrating instead on not throwing up on the guy’s back. I had a few moments to think, and I realized the guy knew my name; he’d called me David, several times. That was a little odd since no one involved in the expedition called me by name, everyone called me Doctor Parrish.
He was strong, I’ll give him that. He was wading through thigh-high water carrying me. I’m not that much of a lightweight. “Almost there,” he panted. I opened my eyes and I could see a doorway ahead, glowing with warm yellow light in the cold darkness of Atlantis.
He heaved us both through the doorway, and we tumbled forward, splashing in the water. We were swimming again. I didn’t have the strength for this. I let out a cry of frustration as my arms and legs refused to work properly. An arm wound around my middle and I was hauled up against him. “C’mon David, not too much further, see, right over there?”
I looked around, blinking against the stinging muck in my eyes; I could see something ahead, gold against the green. There was a low level thrumming, the sound of machinery working. It was a welcome sound after hearing nothing but the groaning and creaking of the city dying around us. “Hold onto me, I have to get the hatch.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung like a monkey, too exhausted to do anything else. “Almost… there,” my rescuer was tiring; his voice was barely above a whisper as he lunged towards the goal.
There was a sudden flash of bright light and we fell again. But this time a hard deck met us instead of cold water, though water rained down on us, carried along through the hatch with our bodies. As soon as we were down, the guy untangled himself from me and moved away. I heard something slam closed behind us. Eyes closed against the bright light, I flopped onto my back and gasped for air. I probably looked like a fish. I heard him moving around, felt him move past me. “Hang on; we’re getting out of here.”
I wasn’t dead. That was taking a little time to sink in.
There was a tremble, and then we were moving.
“This is going to feel weird, it might even hurt,” the warning was followed by a violent rocking and then everything turned inside out. It was too much for my abused self to take. I blacked out.
~*~
“David? Wake up.”
I was warm, too warm and comfortable to wake up. I tried to ignore the unfamiliar voice. But he was persistent. “David, come on, you need to eat something.”
I slowly opened my eyes and stared at the face peering down at me with concern. I had not seen anyone look at me like that in years, not since my mom had died and taken with her the last person that cared anything for my welfare.
“That’s it, wake up. You’ve had me worried, you’ve been out for too long,” the guy slipped an arm under my shoulders and lifted me into a sitting position, holding me until I was steady.
I grabbed his arm as he turned away, disgusted with how weak I felt, at how loose my grip was on his sleeve. “Thank you for pulling me out of there.”
“You’re welcome.” He brushed the hair back from my face, his fingers lingering for a few moments. “Here, have some soup, it’s the vegetable MRE that you like.” A warm thermos mug was pressed into my hand. The guy was a soldier, though his uniform was a little different than the ones the marines of the expedition had been wearing. He was dressed all in black, empty Velcro spots where ID patches would be. Brown hair (a bit longer than I was used to seeing on military types) blue eyes, sturdy build, I didn’t recognize him, I’m fairly sure I’d never seen him before.
“Do I know you?” I asked as I sipped at the soup, it was odd, he knew me and that made me a little nervous.
He shook his head, smiling lightly. “No. You wouldn’t, we haven’t met yet. I’m Lorne.”
He had a nice smile, and there was something in his eyes as he looked at me, I had a hard time looking away. He was right, I liked the soup. “You know me.”
“Yeah. I do… did.”
“I see. No, I don’t, not really. You saved me. Did the others get out?”
“No, well, yes and no. The timeline was changed and the entire expedition was saved. But in the original timeline, everyone except Elizabeth Weir died.”
“I drowned.”
He nodded. “The first time around, yes.”
“I just did, I remember it, I can still taste the salt water with every breath. But you pulled me out. I don’t understand… how is any of this possible?”
Lorne waved a hand around the compartment. “Time machine.”
That was a bit too much for me to wrap my head around. “The US government has a time machine?”
He shook his head. “No, I have a time machine. I kinda stole it.”
“You stole a time machine?”
Lorne shrugged and started picking at his cuticles. “I stole it from a bad guy, well the guts of it, anyway. I had help; another guy who knew what he was doing helped me install it in my puddlejumper, once we got away.”
“I assume this is the puddlejumper?”
“Yeah, I was doing a ferry run through the Gate and the creep diverted me. I wasn’t his target though, so he was just keeping me prisoner until he figured out what to do with me.”
I took another sip of the soup. “And you escaped?”
He shrugged, “I had help.”
“So you said. So, why save me, instead of anyone else in the expedition?”
He looked down at his hands. “The jerk dragged me out of my timeline; the guy I escaped with and I couldn't backtrack to figure out which one it was. I’m lost. I’ve been alone for a while. I suspect I might be going a bit peculiar. I got this idea and it seemed to make sense, but now that I’m trying to explain it all, it sounds a little crazy.”
“You came to Atlantis and pulled me out, to what… keep you company?”
“See, crazy? Sorry,” he blushed and looked down.
I was completely baffled. “Of all the people you know, you chose me? Why me?”
“I know you best, you’re my… best friend,” he waved a little square device at me. “This is programmed to your life sign; you were on my Gate team. I couldn’t find anyone else alive by the time I got the ‘jumper secured and went looking. The section you were in was one of the last to flood completely, apparently. I went in twice, the first time, I didn’t find you. Then I managed to convince the time drive to behave and let me go back ten minutes earlier.”
“So you can’t go back again?”
“I don’t think the drive will let me, I almost overshot the last time, it overheats the engines.”
I had to ask, I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t. “Could you try? Lieutenant Cadman was right there, she couldn’t have been far from where you found me. Please.”
He gave a heavy sigh and looked over at the concoction of wires and tubes and machinery that must be the time engine. “It’s important to you to try, isn’t it?”
I nodded. If there was a chance… the Lieutenant had tried to save me. She had almost succeeded, we'd been so close.
Lorne sighed again and climbed to his feet. He went to the machine and glared at it. “Listen to me, you flaky piece of junk. One more time. Please? You know the way already, how hard can it be?”
“Lorne, you are talking to a machine.”
He blushed as he looked over at me. “I know. It’s become a bit of a habit, now. I’ve been alone a while.”
“In this little ship?”
He glanced around. “Yeah, going a bit stir crazy. This puppy didn’t come with all the expansion options available on the original model, some of them, but not all,” he patted the side of the machine and then moved to sit in the pilot’s seat. "I haven't figured everything out yet."
I took the mug of soup and went to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. He smiled over at me as he touched controls. “I really can’t promise anything, David.”
“But you’re trying?” I was surprised; he was doing this, simply because I had asked?
“I’m trying,” he smiled tightly and hit a control. “Hold on, this part always makes me a little dizzy.”
~*~
He made me wait in the puddlejumper while he went to try to fish Cadman out of the corridor where he’d found me. I couldn’t argue, I was still really weak and I’d be more of a liability if I tried to help. He wouldn’t be able to save both of us if I went down again, which I probably would. I knew what waited out there; I wasn’t particularly keen on going back out into the cold water or the dark.
I was supposed to wait by the hatch and open it when Lorne came back; this was my part of the rescue. He had handed me a life signs detector and given me a very brief lesson in reading it. I smiled as I suddenly saw two dots where there had been one, and they were both moving towards me. He’d found someone.
I hit the control for the hatch and Lorne and Cadman fell through it in a splash of water. I hurriedly closed it again. Coughing up water and pushing his hair out of his eyes, Lorne rolled to his knees and crawled towards the pilot’s chair. He shook off water as he went. “David, take care of her. I took too much time.”
The jumper was suddenly rocked as something hit the side of it. It moved, pushed by the impact. I looked over at Lorne as he dragged himself into the seat. “Water. This chamber is flooding!”
I knelt beside Cadman and rolled her onto her stomach. She coughed feebly and I breathed a sigh of relief; she was alive. I turned her face so she wouldn’t choke if she threw up. Unsure what to do, since first aid was not my strong point, I was about to strip her out of the heavy military vest so she could breathe better when Lorne yelled from the front of the ship, “Brace yourself!”
I threw myself over Cadman and threaded my fingers through the deck plating. The little ship seemed to flip completely over. I wondered if it was the water or something Lorne was doing. The world went wonky and I felt the same shift that had happened when the time engine was engaged to bring us here less than ten minutes ago. Things went a bit black and fuzzy.
Lorne’s hands were suddenly on my shoulders. “David, we’re safe. You can let go now. Let me help her.”
“We’re safe?” I sat up and looked down at the soaking wet marine on the floor. “We did it?”
He was tugging at the fastenings of her gear. “Yeah, let’s get the TAC vest off her; she swallowed a lot of ocean and that has to come up.”
With both of us working, we soon had the unconscious woman stripped to her tank top and panties. “There’s some dry clothes in the third compartment there,” Lorne pointed as he reached for the blankets that were still on the bench where I had dropped them earlier.
Lorne wrestled Cadman into a sitting position, “Get that basin over there.” I followed where he was pointing and retrieved the shallow basin. “You aren’t a sympathetic puker, are you?”
I shook my head and he smiled grimly. “Sorry about this, Laura,” he whispered as he worked a finger into her mouth. I figured out what he was doing just in time to get the basin up into place. She choked and expelled some of the sea water she’d swallowed.
“Waste vent, over there to the left,” Lorne pointed and I dumped the basin. He was rubbing Cadman’s back as she coughed weakly and tossed her head around. She was slowly rousing, clinging to Lorne’s arm where it was wrapped around her waist. “Breathe, Cadman, easy, take slow breaths.”
I crouched in front of her and got the basin under her chin as she gagged. When she finished and relaxed back against Lorne, she opened her eyes and looked at me. After blinking wildly for a few moments, I’m sure the salt water had stung her eyes, she whispered, “Parrish?”
“Yup, hi,” I gave her what was surely a very relieved smile.
“We got out? How did we get out?” her voice was weak and her eyes unfocused, but she seemed to be doing better than I had after Lorne rescued me.
“Him,” I tossed my chin towards our rescuer.
She leaned back a little and looked up at Lorne. She frowned, “I don’t know you.”
“Nope, you don’t, not yet. Major Lorne.”
“Oh, okay then,” she whispered and then sagged back against him.
I met his eyes over her head. “Well, now what?”
His eyes went wide as he looked at the unconscious woman in his arms, then around the ‘jumper and then at me. “I have no idea. I didn’t really plan too far beyond rescuing you.”
“Do you do this sort of thing frequently?” I spread a blanket on the floor as he gently lowered Cadman to the deck.
“Rescuing? Well, yeah, kinda. Part of my job. Planning ahead, no so much,” he blushed and then smirked. He reached a hand out and grabbed mine, giving it a squeeze. “I’m glad it worked.”
“Me too.”
~*~
“So, we’re dead,” Cadman declared quietly and pulled her knees up to her chest and shivered under the blanket she had clasped around her. She rested one cheek on her knee and looked over at me. Her color was better, peaches and cream instead of just washed out cream as it had been earlier.
“Not really,” I knew there was no conviction in my answer. We were, in a way, I had to admit, “But our old lives are gone.”
“I don’t know whether to kiss him or kill him, stupid zoomie,” Cadman glared up at Lorne in the pilot’s seat.
“I heard that. I’d really prefer a kiss,” Lorne called cheerfully.
She smiled. “Maybe when I know you better, Major.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”
He glanced back and smirked at her. “And I know you keep your promises.”
“See, that, right there, that’s what makes me sorta want to slap him. He knows us, but we don’t know him,” Cadman hissed as she jabbed a finger in Lorne’s direction.
“If he didn’t, we’d be dead - all dead - Lieutenant,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, true.” she nodded and struggled to her feet, wrapping the blanket around her as she went forward. He leaned down and kissed Lorne on the cheek. “Thank you.” She sat in the co-pilot’s seat and wriggled back until she was comfortable. “Where do we go from here?”
“Well, I know a few planets in Pegasus where we can do a little tomb raiding to raise capital,” Lorne said with a bit of uncertainty, “Since none of us are drawing pay from the SGC anymore, we have to find something to earn bread money.”
I wasn’t certain I liked this idea. “Thievery?”
He looked over at me, “Archeology, for a profit.”
“What about the descendants of those civilizations?”
Lorne smiled, “All dead worlds, I promise; abandoned, vacant, deserted, no future descendants to worry about,” he looked to each of us hopefully.
What could I say? It was better than drowning. “I guess I’m in.”
“Me too,” Cadman said and then peered over at Lorne rebellion in her eyes, “Do I still have to call you sir?”
“Nope, in fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. Call me Evan.”
~*~
We stood on the edge of the hole, staring down into the darkness. Laura was chewing on her lip and hugging her gun, P90, the correct term for it is a P-90. She had offered to go down, but Evan wanted her standing guard. They were still teaching me the ins and outs of watching our backs. I was learning how to make a camp, how to fire a weapon, how to do first aid, how to field dress freshly killed meat; apparently all things I had once learned when I was part of Lorne’s Gate team.
My main useful contribution was finding edible things when we landed. Making Evan and Laura eat their vegetables was not the easiest of tasks, especially because most of them didn’t taste the way they looked, being alien and all. I’d taken to frying everything, since they complained about it all being baby food if I mashed the offerings.
“I found it!” Evan shouted, and Laura and I breathed a sigh of relief. There were no people on this planet, but there were lizard things and weird weather patterns and acid rain and we wanted to be gone as soon as possible. We’d made our base camp on the planet's more temperate moon. The river water there even tasted good, if a bit heavy with minerals.
He tossed a canvas bag up, which Laura caught easily and set aside. Laura and I knelt down, grabbed Evan’s arms and hauled him up. I was beginning to think he leaned towards me on purpose when we did this, since he always fell on top of me. Today was no different. Laura laughed and reached for the bag, ignoring us and digging through it for the treasure.
Evan wasn’t showing any inclination towards moving. I can’t say I minded much. I was imagining that the touches had become more frequent, lingering longer in the weeks since we’d been traveling together. Was I reading too much into it, seeing something I wanted to see? I watched him. I tried not to get caught at it. Our living quarters were too small, our situation too crowded if something went bad, I didn’t want to say anything to ruin the new friendship the three of us had fallen into.
But I don’t think I was imagining the press against my thigh, fleetingly felt before Evan rolled off me and leapt easily to his feet. He held a hand out to me, hauling me up. Sitting beside us on the ground, Laura chortled with glee as she pulled out a handful of sparkling jewelry. “Shiny!!!”
“She’s a magpie, you realize that?” I asked to break the tension that had suddenly flared up between Evan and me.
Evan stroked his chin. “So long as she lets go of it when it comes time to sell, I don’t mind if she rolls around in the treasure now and then.”
Laura plopped an ornate headdress on her head and posed for us. “How’s that look?”
“Adorable, Princess. Hip hop, time to move, here comes the rain,” Evan pointed towards the horizon.
Cadman jumped to her feet and danced off happily towards the puddlejumper. I laughed a little as I watched her go. “She’s a nut,” Evan said.
“She’s our nut,” I smiled, because she was and it made me feel good to see her happy. Such a short time ago, I didn’t know she existed, and now, I couldn’t imagine life without her.
Warm fingers grasped my elbow, holding me back as I turned to go to the ‘jumper. I turned to see Evan looking at me oddly. “Uh, look, I don’t want things to get weird. If you want me to give you space, I will. I'm going to give you space.”
He looked upset; his eyes were odd as I looked at him. “Huh?”
“I know you care a lot about her. Things are tight in the ‘jumper. I can… be elsewhere, I'll set up a tent further away.”
I tugged my arm away from him; he thought… me and Laura? I didn’t know what to say, I was so surprised. I think my jaw might have dropped open.
He shrugged, and anything else he might have said was cut off as thunder crashed overhead and we heard the first drops of acid rain hitting the ground not far off. “Crap! Run!” Evan took off and I dashed after him.
I admit I’m a bit of a coward; I avoided Evan as we went back to base camp and went through our evening chores. I prepped fish caught in the river that hadn’t killed us the first two times we’d eaten it and some veggies that had the consistency and flavor of sweet potatoes but the color of bananas.
He’d been avoiding me too. “I’m going to set up a tent,” Evan said as he came out of the jumper with a bundle of gear under his arm. We had a couple in the jumper and had used them to take a break from sleeping in the back of the little ship now and then.
“I’ll watch the stove, chef Boyardee, go talk to Evan,” Laura waved her hand at the fish sizzling in the pan and then pointed towards Evan, stomping down the ground to make a flat spot for the tent. “Go on, I can handle this, go fix that.”
What in the hell was I going to say? I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets and walked over to Evan, picking my way carefully as I’d been taught so I didn’t turn an ankle. He caught my eye and gave a quick nod as I approached. He snapped out the nylon of the tent, letting it unroll. I caught the end and knelt to hold it down while he staked his side. We made quick work of setting up the tent, with two of us it took only minutes.
Evan unzipped the front of it and sat inside, letting his feet dangle through the door. I sat beside him, mirroring him, letting my feet rest beside his. “So, uhm, what you said before…”
He looked away. “I meant it. I’ll sleep out here tonight; you guys can have the jumper.”
'Here goes everything,' I thought. “I’d rather stay in the tent.”
He nodded and said in a rush, “Oh, yeah, right, more room. Sure, I can take the jumper.”
“I meant I’d rather stay out here in the tent.. with you.”
His head snapped so quickly I thought he might have hurt something. “Huh? Really?”
I moved before I lost the courage to, and more aggressively than I’ve ever been with anyone before. I grabbed his cheeks in both my hands and kissed him hard and full on the lips. He was startled and I thought he was going to hit me and that I’d ruined everything, but then he made a little sound in the back of his throat, grabbed onto me too and kissed me back.
“Well, uhm, okay,” he whispered as we broke for air.
I pushed his hair back off his face; he really needed a haircut, and kissed his forehead. There was something I needed to know, something he’d said, back on that first day that had never been far from my mind. I took a deep breath and forced myself to ask, “Tell me something?”
“Uh huh?”
“When I asked why you came for me, you said because I was your best friend - was it more than that? Am I a replacement for another David?”
He surged to his knees and grabbed my face in his hands as he shook his head violently, “No, no. We were friends, with the way regs were; it couldn’t ever have been more. The David from my timeline was with someone in his department. We were just friends. You’re you. He was him. It’s different.”
“Okay. I just needed to know,” his answer made me feel better. I kissed him again, more gently this time.
“You guys need to cut off the frisky stuff and come over here and eat!” Laura shouted from over by the fire.
Reluctantly, we broke off the kissing. “She’ll burn the fish if we don’t go now.”
I stood and then dragged Evan up after me when he just sat there looking a little dazed. He held back and kicked at the dirt and asked, “So, you really want to share the tent?”
“Yeah, we'll take it slow, see how it goes?”
“Okay. Yeah, okay.”
He was a little hesitant, but then he reached for my hand and held it as we went back towards the campfire. I felt like a school kid all over again as Laura glanced up and then away. I was all nervous and excited and scared.
After we cleaned up and debated casually about making a bigger fire and sitting outside, Laura yawned and stretched, “Not for me boys, I’m heading for bed. Come get your stuff and take an extra blanket, David; it gets cold out here in the wee hours.”
She waggled her fingers at us as we grabbed sleeping bags, air pads and blankets from the jumper. A warning finger pointed at her nose kept her from making any snarky comments when she caught my eye.
We spread the bedding down and flopped on top of it and shut off the lantern so as not to attract bugs to the glow of the tent. Or perform puppet theater for the amusement of Cadman back at the jumper, should she be peeking. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. “I think maybe we really need to go slow,” I said as I listened to Evan’s rapid breathing for a while.
“Uhm, yeah. Okay, good idea,” he seemed very relieved at that.
I rolled towards him as something occurred to me. “Evan, you have done this before… with a guy?” He was quiet, too quiet, for too long. “Evan?”
“No. Just kissing,” he whispered.
Damn. Well, that explained a few things. “Well, then slow it is. It's been a long day, maybe just sleeping tonight, okay?”
“Maybe some more kissing? I liked the kissing,” he suggested hopefully as he shifted closer to me.
I laughed and reached for him, pulling him close and kissing him again. “I liked the kissing too.” He relaxed a bit and snuggled in. We kissed a little more and then the exertions of digging up the treasure started catching up with us and we both started yawning. Evan fell asleep between one kiss and the next, snoring lightly as he cuddled against me, his face pressed close to my ear.
I could get used to this.
Being dead didn’t suck quite as much as I thought it would.