Endings
Title: Endings
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: 1st of the Sins 'verse
Characters: Lorne, Beckett, Stackhouse, Cadman, Zelenka, Chuck
Pairing: Past Lorne/Parrish
Rating: PG-13
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 2,096
Content Notes: Death!Fic.
Note: For Claire, who wanted Death!Fic. Careful what you wish for, baby. The queen of overkill doth accede to your request.
Note on the Notes: THIS FIC HAS PEOPLE DYING IN IT AND STAYING DEAD. I warned you.
“Pride goeth before the fall”
~*~
“What are you grinning about, Major?” Stackhouse asked, looking over at him from the co-pilot’s seat.
“I won an award,” he replied, his grin growing to show teeth.
Behind them, Cadman snorted. “Braggart.”
“Hey! He asked, I answered.” Lorne banked the puddlejumper to the left as a warning flashed overhead about turbulence. “It isn’t like I’m dancing around shouting it from the balconies all over the city.”
“No, you just whooped it up in the control room when you got the message, according to Chuck,” Laura retorted.
“I heard was very good dance,” Zelenka added. “With butt wiggle.” The engineer had been reluctant to join their team at first, but had proved to be a good fit, filling the vacancy left by Parrish’s absence.
Evan smiled again. “Hey, I was just happy to get the news in the databurst.” He had been, it had been a little bit of good news after a long spell of misery.
“Your mom would have been proud,” Stackhouse said when the silence stretched on for a minute.
At that, Evan’s smile faded a bit. He nodded tightly. “Yeah. She’s the one that submitted the painting to the competition. She would have been really happy that I won. They sent the notice about my making the final cut to her, so at least she saw that before...”
First he’d lost David, then his mom. He really had nothing left to tie him to Earth anymore, so when Atlantis was shipping out to Pegasus, this time without any guarantee of supplies or support from Earth, he had signed on.
Laura reached over and squeezed Evan’s shoulder. “She was proud of you, Evan.”
Later, when Evan thought back on it, he realized those were the last words he heard a friend say before everything in Pegasus went to hell. Sadly, those were Laura’s final words.
The warning klaxon sounded a moment before the jumper lurched sideways and the control panel exploded. As the puddlejumper spun out of control, Stackhouse and Cadman’s screams followed him into the darkness.
~*~
“Lieutenant Colonel Lorne, can you hear me? Squeeze my finger if you can hear me, lad.”
It hurt like hell, but he tightened his index finger in response to Beckett’s demand. He opened his eyes, but everything was black. Were his eyes open? He raised his hand to check, but encountered bandages. Why was it so noisy? He could hear people rushing around. And the sound of wind billowing canvas.
His hand was gently forced back to his side. “Don’t touch,” Beckett said.
“Wha... what happened?”
“We were invaded. You were shot down.”
Invaded? “Situation? Where’s my team?”
“You need to focus on yourself right now, Colonel. You need to heal.”
“Answer the question. Cadman, Stackhouse, Zelenka?”
Beckett squeezed his arm and replied gently, “I’m very sorry, they didn’t make it.”
He tamped down on the scream fighting to get out. His friends were dead? He breathed through his nose until the urge to cry passed. “My leg hurts,” he told Beckett after doing a quick inventory. His right leg was numb, he couldn’t feel it at all, his left hurt from thigh to ankle.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t do much more than patch you up. We’re at the alpha site and working with minimal supplies.”
The alpha site? What the hell? “Atlantis?”
Beckett paused too long before he answered. “Lost.”
“Huh? How?”
“We were overrun, ten days ago, you’ve been unconscious.”
Evan lifted his hand to run it through his hair, a nervous habit, but his hand was bandaged. “So we have to take it back. You have to get me back on my feet, Doc.”
Beckett’s hand landed on his shoulder and patted him. He sighed deeply. “That won’t be possible, lad. For starters, the city is gone, the self destruct was set in order to destroy the gate. I’m sure you know the foothold protocols involved in protecting Earth.”
“Crap! I need to talk to Sheppard.”
Another long silence. The knot in Evan’s middle grew heavier. “He stayed in the chair until the last, covering the evacuation.”
Then he was truly alone now, everyone in Pegasus that he considered a real friend was gone. He bit down on his lip to still the trembling. He wanted David now more than ever. David would have held him and consoled him.
“And there’s something else, you might as well hear it all now. Your injuries were quite severe. I couldn’t do anything to repair your eyes, there was too much debris from the explosion before the crash. I’m sorry to tell you, lad, you’re blind. Also, I’m afraid your right leg was badly infected. I had no choice, Evan, I had to amputate at the knee.”
~*~
Every name he spoke, everyone he asked after, was lost. Ronon and McKay had stayed with Sheppard, protecting him as he protected the city. Teyla had been with the Athosians, and without access to the Gate was cut off from the Alpha Site. Wallowing in grief and pain, Evan stopped asking questions and refused to talk to anyone for a few days. He was weighted down by all the losses. His mother, his home, his friends, the sky... David.
The only voice he recognized now was Chuck’s. The tech came by every day and read to him, apparently encouraged by Evan’s silence to continue visiting. He couldn’t be bothered to listen to the words, though he appreciated Chuck’s attempt at consolation.
They had no wheelchairs, so he was confined to his cot or to a blanket that Chuck and Beckett would spread on the grass so that he could get some sun and fresh air.
Eighty science and support personnel had survived the city’s destruction. Only about a dozen marines had made it through in the evac, and they visited with him in turn. He was ranking officer now, which further depressed him. Blind and crippled, he couldn’t lead. He turned command over to Sergeant Sils. Sils insisted on reporting in to him every day and eventually, Lorne stopped protesting and just listened to the reports, humoring Sils.
When the Daedalus turned up, the surviving expedition members were overjoyed at the unexpected rescue. Evan was apathetic.
~*~
“Colonel Lorne...”
“Go away, Latrice, I’m not in the mood for talking today.”
The psychiatrist sighed heavily. “You’re being released.”
He shrugged and turned his wheelchair so that the sun was on his face. Night and day, chill and warmth now, rather than dark and light. “I have nowhere to go.”
“We’ve made arrangements for an apartment not far from the hospital.”
Evan slapped his right thigh and pointed at where the stump was. “I can’t exactly get around and take care of myself these days,” he snapped. Anger was his default emotion of late. It never seemed to phase his therapists, which was frustrating. He was spoiling for a fight and couldn’t get one.
“You’ll have a team of caregivers until you’re able to be on your own. You cannot stay here forever, Colonel. Your wounds are healed, you don’t need hospitalization any longer. We talked about this.”
“You talked about this. I didn’t agree to anything.” It didn’t matter what he said, really. In the end, he was bundled up and shuttled out. Chuck, one of the few Atlantis people that had maintained contact with him since they arrived back in Colorado Springs, had volunteered to drive him to his new place. His primary caregiver was meeting them there.
Chuck chatted about the weather, sports, and the gossip about the few people left at the SGC Evan knew, filling the car ride with noise as Evan remained silent. “Here we are. Eleven fourteen Crescent Place. You’re in apartment 1D. That’s good, on ground floor, you won’t have issues getting in and out with the chair.” Evan appreciated the fact that Chuck didn’t baby him. He’d been practical and pragmatic and honest with him ever since the Alpha Site. If Evan hadn’t decided to keep everyone at arm’s length, he might have called Chuck a friend.
He put an arm around Chuck’s neck to keep his balance as he slid into the chair. “There ya go, Colonel,” Chuck said as he settled into the padded seat.
“Just call me Evan, Chuck. I’m retired.” There was no one left that called him Evan anymore. Maybe being a little friendly with Chuck wouldn’t be a terribly bad thing.
He was pushed along the sidewalk. “This is a nice complex. Balconies or patios on every apartment. Flowerbeds everywhere. Oops, looks like you’ve got your requisite nosy neighbor lady. Old lady wearing a kitty cat sweater on a scooter at nine o’clock, in front of 1 B. I bet she has a pair of binoculars in her basket.” Evan snorted lightly at the image.
They stopped and there was a rattle of keys. The door opened with a mild squeak of hinges. “Oh, hey! I didn’t expect...” Chuck exclaimed. “You know what? Let’s get inside, Cat Lady is watching, I really don’t want to give her a show.”
The temperature dropped as they moved inside the air conditioned apartment. “I’m gonna go make coffee,” Chuck said and Evan heard his footsteps as he walked away abandoning him to whomever had opened the door for them.
Evan sensed someone moving closeby. Hands rested on his thighs as someone crouched down in front of him. Then a familiar hand stroked over his cheek, fingering the scars there. “Damn, Evan, what did they do to you?”
At the sound of that very unexpected voice, Evan was unable to hold back the tears. He sobbed as David gathered him into his arms and pulled his face into the curve of his neck and held him, fingers twisted in Evan’s hair. “I’m sorry, Evan. I’m so, so sorry.”
“You left me,” he sobbed wetly, clinging to David.
His arms tightened and he stroked a hand over Evan’s hair, dropping kisses here and there as he rocked Evan as much as possible with his awkward position in the chair. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed behind. I should have been there.”
He clung for another minute as he got his raging emotions under control. “If you’d been there, you’d be dead too. I’m glad you weren’t. I needed you, but I’m glad you weren’t there.”
Slowly untangling himself, David pushed back, his hands sliding over Evan’s face and down his throat to rest on his chest. “For what it’s worth, I’m here now, and I won’t leave you again. Colonel Carter called and said you needed a hand. I wish you’d called, that I didn’t have to hear about this from a stranger.”
“I didn’t know what to say. I thought we were done. I didn’t think you’d care.”
“Idiot. I was waiting for you to call and apologize, asshole. I would have come back. Stubborn jerk, you left me. I never expected you to go back to Pegasus without me.”
There was anger in David’s voice and Evan breathed a sigh of relief to hear it. He didn’t want David’s pity. He didn’t want anyone’s pity, but he couldn’t stand it from David. “It wasn’t my fault, I was waiting for you to apologize,” he retorted, smirking slightly.
“Wasn’t your...? It was all your fault! You know what? Forget it. It’s in the past. I’m sorry for my part in it, I’m sorry for leaving. Let’s just move on, okay?” David’s voice held a hint of frustration and Evan knew exactly how his face looked, the twist of his lips, the way he would be rolling his eyes.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
He slapped his thigh. “I can’t walk.”
“They’ll fit you with a prosthetic as soon as you stop feeling sorry for yourself and do your therapy properly.”
“I can’t see.”
Grunting in quiet agreement, David ruffled his hair. “You’ve still got your other senses. You’ll adapt. We’ll adapt.”
Evan fumbled a hand out and around until he caught David’s. “You’re staying?”
“I said I was.”
“I just needed to hear it again.”
“Were you always this needy?”
The laugh came out before he could stop it. “You’re real, right? You're not a figment of my imagination?”
His face was caught up between David’s hands and a kiss pressed to his lips. Then David bit his lower lip. “Real, or shall I pinch you too?”
“Nah, we’re good.” He waved a hand at the wheelchair and his ruined eyes. “This sucks, but we’re good.”
The End
Prompts: for Parrish/Lorne 7 Deadly Sins Challenge: Pride
Kink Bingo: Emotion Play
Hurt Comfort Bingo: Losing a limb/limb function
Cotton Candy Bingo: Injury - wildcard
Angst Bingo: Losing a limb/limb functionOriginally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: 1st of the Sins 'verse
Characters: Lorne, Beckett, Stackhouse, Cadman, Zelenka, Chuck
Pairing: Past Lorne/Parrish
Rating: PG-13
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 2,096
Content Notes: Death!Fic.
Note: For Claire, who wanted Death!Fic. Careful what you wish for, baby. The queen of overkill doth accede to your request.
Note on the Notes: THIS FIC HAS PEOPLE DYING IN IT AND STAYING DEAD. I warned you.
“Pride goeth before the fall”
~*~
“What are you grinning about, Major?” Stackhouse asked, looking over at him from the co-pilot’s seat.
“I won an award,” he replied, his grin growing to show teeth.
Behind them, Cadman snorted. “Braggart.”
“Hey! He asked, I answered.” Lorne banked the puddlejumper to the left as a warning flashed overhead about turbulence. “It isn’t like I’m dancing around shouting it from the balconies all over the city.”
“No, you just whooped it up in the control room when you got the message, according to Chuck,” Laura retorted.
“I heard was very good dance,” Zelenka added. “With butt wiggle.” The engineer had been reluctant to join their team at first, but had proved to be a good fit, filling the vacancy left by Parrish’s absence.
Evan smiled again. “Hey, I was just happy to get the news in the databurst.” He had been, it had been a little bit of good news after a long spell of misery.
“Your mom would have been proud,” Stackhouse said when the silence stretched on for a minute.
At that, Evan’s smile faded a bit. He nodded tightly. “Yeah. She’s the one that submitted the painting to the competition. She would have been really happy that I won. They sent the notice about my making the final cut to her, so at least she saw that before...”
First he’d lost David, then his mom. He really had nothing left to tie him to Earth anymore, so when Atlantis was shipping out to Pegasus, this time without any guarantee of supplies or support from Earth, he had signed on.
Laura reached over and squeezed Evan’s shoulder. “She was proud of you, Evan.”
Later, when Evan thought back on it, he realized those were the last words he heard a friend say before everything in Pegasus went to hell. Sadly, those were Laura’s final words.
The warning klaxon sounded a moment before the jumper lurched sideways and the control panel exploded. As the puddlejumper spun out of control, Stackhouse and Cadman’s screams followed him into the darkness.
~*~
“Lieutenant Colonel Lorne, can you hear me? Squeeze my finger if you can hear me, lad.”
It hurt like hell, but he tightened his index finger in response to Beckett’s demand. He opened his eyes, but everything was black. Were his eyes open? He raised his hand to check, but encountered bandages. Why was it so noisy? He could hear people rushing around. And the sound of wind billowing canvas.
His hand was gently forced back to his side. “Don’t touch,” Beckett said.
“Wha... what happened?”
“We were invaded. You were shot down.”
Invaded? “Situation? Where’s my team?”
“You need to focus on yourself right now, Colonel. You need to heal.”
“Answer the question. Cadman, Stackhouse, Zelenka?”
Beckett squeezed his arm and replied gently, “I’m very sorry, they didn’t make it.”
He tamped down on the scream fighting to get out. His friends were dead? He breathed through his nose until the urge to cry passed. “My leg hurts,” he told Beckett after doing a quick inventory. His right leg was numb, he couldn’t feel it at all, his left hurt from thigh to ankle.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t do much more than patch you up. We’re at the alpha site and working with minimal supplies.”
The alpha site? What the hell? “Atlantis?”
Beckett paused too long before he answered. “Lost.”
“Huh? How?”
“We were overrun, ten days ago, you’ve been unconscious.”
Evan lifted his hand to run it through his hair, a nervous habit, but his hand was bandaged. “So we have to take it back. You have to get me back on my feet, Doc.”
Beckett’s hand landed on his shoulder and patted him. He sighed deeply. “That won’t be possible, lad. For starters, the city is gone, the self destruct was set in order to destroy the gate. I’m sure you know the foothold protocols involved in protecting Earth.”
“Crap! I need to talk to Sheppard.”
Another long silence. The knot in Evan’s middle grew heavier. “He stayed in the chair until the last, covering the evacuation.”
Then he was truly alone now, everyone in Pegasus that he considered a real friend was gone. He bit down on his lip to still the trembling. He wanted David now more than ever. David would have held him and consoled him.
“And there’s something else, you might as well hear it all now. Your injuries were quite severe. I couldn’t do anything to repair your eyes, there was too much debris from the explosion before the crash. I’m sorry to tell you, lad, you’re blind. Also, I’m afraid your right leg was badly infected. I had no choice, Evan, I had to amputate at the knee.”
~*~
Every name he spoke, everyone he asked after, was lost. Ronon and McKay had stayed with Sheppard, protecting him as he protected the city. Teyla had been with the Athosians, and without access to the Gate was cut off from the Alpha Site. Wallowing in grief and pain, Evan stopped asking questions and refused to talk to anyone for a few days. He was weighted down by all the losses. His mother, his home, his friends, the sky... David.
The only voice he recognized now was Chuck’s. The tech came by every day and read to him, apparently encouraged by Evan’s silence to continue visiting. He couldn’t be bothered to listen to the words, though he appreciated Chuck’s attempt at consolation.
They had no wheelchairs, so he was confined to his cot or to a blanket that Chuck and Beckett would spread on the grass so that he could get some sun and fresh air.
Eighty science and support personnel had survived the city’s destruction. Only about a dozen marines had made it through in the evac, and they visited with him in turn. He was ranking officer now, which further depressed him. Blind and crippled, he couldn’t lead. He turned command over to Sergeant Sils. Sils insisted on reporting in to him every day and eventually, Lorne stopped protesting and just listened to the reports, humoring Sils.
When the Daedalus turned up, the surviving expedition members were overjoyed at the unexpected rescue. Evan was apathetic.
~*~
“Colonel Lorne...”
“Go away, Latrice, I’m not in the mood for talking today.”
The psychiatrist sighed heavily. “You’re being released.”
He shrugged and turned his wheelchair so that the sun was on his face. Night and day, chill and warmth now, rather than dark and light. “I have nowhere to go.”
“We’ve made arrangements for an apartment not far from the hospital.”
Evan slapped his right thigh and pointed at where the stump was. “I can’t exactly get around and take care of myself these days,” he snapped. Anger was his default emotion of late. It never seemed to phase his therapists, which was frustrating. He was spoiling for a fight and couldn’t get one.
“You’ll have a team of caregivers until you’re able to be on your own. You cannot stay here forever, Colonel. Your wounds are healed, you don’t need hospitalization any longer. We talked about this.”
“You talked about this. I didn’t agree to anything.” It didn’t matter what he said, really. In the end, he was bundled up and shuttled out. Chuck, one of the few Atlantis people that had maintained contact with him since they arrived back in Colorado Springs, had volunteered to drive him to his new place. His primary caregiver was meeting them there.
Chuck chatted about the weather, sports, and the gossip about the few people left at the SGC Evan knew, filling the car ride with noise as Evan remained silent. “Here we are. Eleven fourteen Crescent Place. You’re in apartment 1D. That’s good, on ground floor, you won’t have issues getting in and out with the chair.” Evan appreciated the fact that Chuck didn’t baby him. He’d been practical and pragmatic and honest with him ever since the Alpha Site. If Evan hadn’t decided to keep everyone at arm’s length, he might have called Chuck a friend.
He put an arm around Chuck’s neck to keep his balance as he slid into the chair. “There ya go, Colonel,” Chuck said as he settled into the padded seat.
“Just call me Evan, Chuck. I’m retired.” There was no one left that called him Evan anymore. Maybe being a little friendly with Chuck wouldn’t be a terribly bad thing.
He was pushed along the sidewalk. “This is a nice complex. Balconies or patios on every apartment. Flowerbeds everywhere. Oops, looks like you’ve got your requisite nosy neighbor lady. Old lady wearing a kitty cat sweater on a scooter at nine o’clock, in front of 1 B. I bet she has a pair of binoculars in her basket.” Evan snorted lightly at the image.
They stopped and there was a rattle of keys. The door opened with a mild squeak of hinges. “Oh, hey! I didn’t expect...” Chuck exclaimed. “You know what? Let’s get inside, Cat Lady is watching, I really don’t want to give her a show.”
The temperature dropped as they moved inside the air conditioned apartment. “I’m gonna go make coffee,” Chuck said and Evan heard his footsteps as he walked away abandoning him to whomever had opened the door for them.
Evan sensed someone moving closeby. Hands rested on his thighs as someone crouched down in front of him. Then a familiar hand stroked over his cheek, fingering the scars there. “Damn, Evan, what did they do to you?”
At the sound of that very unexpected voice, Evan was unable to hold back the tears. He sobbed as David gathered him into his arms and pulled his face into the curve of his neck and held him, fingers twisted in Evan’s hair. “I’m sorry, Evan. I’m so, so sorry.”
“You left me,” he sobbed wetly, clinging to David.
His arms tightened and he stroked a hand over Evan’s hair, dropping kisses here and there as he rocked Evan as much as possible with his awkward position in the chair. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed behind. I should have been there.”
He clung for another minute as he got his raging emotions under control. “If you’d been there, you’d be dead too. I’m glad you weren’t. I needed you, but I’m glad you weren’t there.”
Slowly untangling himself, David pushed back, his hands sliding over Evan’s face and down his throat to rest on his chest. “For what it’s worth, I’m here now, and I won’t leave you again. Colonel Carter called and said you needed a hand. I wish you’d called, that I didn’t have to hear about this from a stranger.”
“I didn’t know what to say. I thought we were done. I didn’t think you’d care.”
“Idiot. I was waiting for you to call and apologize, asshole. I would have come back. Stubborn jerk, you left me. I never expected you to go back to Pegasus without me.”
There was anger in David’s voice and Evan breathed a sigh of relief to hear it. He didn’t want David’s pity. He didn’t want anyone’s pity, but he couldn’t stand it from David. “It wasn’t my fault, I was waiting for you to apologize,” he retorted, smirking slightly.
“Wasn’t your...? It was all your fault! You know what? Forget it. It’s in the past. I’m sorry for my part in it, I’m sorry for leaving. Let’s just move on, okay?” David’s voice held a hint of frustration and Evan knew exactly how his face looked, the twist of his lips, the way he would be rolling his eyes.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
He slapped his thigh. “I can’t walk.”
“They’ll fit you with a prosthetic as soon as you stop feeling sorry for yourself and do your therapy properly.”
“I can’t see.”
Grunting in quiet agreement, David ruffled his hair. “You’ve still got your other senses. You’ll adapt. We’ll adapt.”
Evan fumbled a hand out and around until he caught David’s. “You’re staying?”
“I said I was.”
“I just needed to hear it again.”
“Were you always this needy?”
The laugh came out before he could stop it. “You’re real, right? You're not a figment of my imagination?”
His face was caught up between David’s hands and a kiss pressed to his lips. Then David bit his lower lip. “Real, or shall I pinch you too?”
“Nah, we’re good.” He waved a hand at the wheelchair and his ruined eyes. “This sucks, but we’re good.”
The End
Prompts: for Parrish/Lorne 7 Deadly Sins Challenge: Pride
Kink Bingo: Emotion Play
Hurt Comfort Bingo: Losing a limb/limb function
Cotton Candy Bingo: Injury - wildcard
Angst Bingo: Losing a limb/limb functionOriginally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/