Guises in Four Seasons (1/2)

[saphanibaal]

Another cleaned-up-and-tweaked story from sga_flashfic (well, half of one).

-title- Guises in Four Seasons
-warnings- Gen and suitable for general audiences. Takes place in the asymptotic-to-canon AU I've written in a few times before.
-spoilers- "Autumn" is a missing scene for the Ronon parts of "Duet"; "Winter" takes place sometime after "Epiphany."
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Comments

autumn

[bratfarrar]

"I found myself eventually. Hadn't seen him for a while."

Oh, ouch.

Because in the end no place -- not even Atlantis -- is worth the life of even one of his people, and the day he forgets that is the day he'd best relieve himself of his command and take on no more responsibility than that of sentient remote control.

I can't figure out how to say what I want to say about this. Argh. It's probably my favorite line from the story, though. Says a lot about John.

Re: autumn

[saphanibaal]

//Oh, ouch.//

Thanks, I think.

This version of Sheppard has been... reinventing himself for a long time. The basic things stay the same from iteration to iteration, as long as he knows what they are, but the rest -- and matters are a little complicated now; he'd spent some of his ground time at McMurdo laying remote ground for a false identity to step into after resigning from the Air Force and then drifting for a while, and then Elizabeth asked him to go to Atlantis and O'Neill strongly suggested that he should, and that changed things.

//I can't figure out how to say what I want to say about this. Argh.//

This happens to me a lot. *rueful smile* I'm glad that you were at least able to distinguish what you thought particularly worth comment: sometimes I can't even manage that.

//It's probably my favorite line from the story, though. Says a lot about John.//

Thank you!

I was really pleased with it when I came up with the way to phrase it; it's sort of central to my concept of Sheppard.

winter

[bratfarrar]

"Before I joined the Air Force, I spent some time tramping over half the Southeast." He doesn't want to explain what sent him there, really doesn't want to get into exactly how old he is

And yet these are the things he hints at to Ronon and Teyla.

"My first wife died. I couldn't save her. ...I think maybe she took the part of me that knew how to say no with her."

As if after her it didn't matter anymore. Or something.

"Saving kids." John can't quite work up the energy for a snarl, although he does manage something dry and dead that might -- in Bizarro World, in a Dali landscape -- pass for wry laughter at the end.

I love this description, and the way it shows how screwed up John still is over her death.

"They didn't even sound like people. Well, maybe Fearlingas. If they'd gone all feral and shit."

To quote Rodney, Feh-ar-whichwhat? I tried looking them up and couldn't find anything.

Re: winter

[saphanibaal]

//--He doesn't want to explain what sent him there, really doesn't want to get into exactly how old he is--

And yet these are the things he hints at to Ronon and Teyla.//

But Ronon and Teyla don't have the context to draw the inferences that Rodney would draw; as it is, mentioning a "first wife" is pushing it, as she isn't on Sheppard's current official records. (Well, to be fair, Deb and Jesse aren't listed in Sheppard's current Air Force records, either; there's a cryptic note pointing to the records that do list them, mostly due to the fact that he went about joining the USAF in a weird sort of way.) Sheppard wants Rodney to think of him as pretty much the same age; he already knew Teyla didn't

Re: winter

[bratfarrar]

More subtle worldbuilding; cf. elf in "Definitions."

Thank you! I knew I had heard that word before, I just couldn't figure out where.

But Ronon and Teyla don't have the context to draw the inferences that Rodney would draw

That what I was trying to say, I just didn't do it very well. I was trying to say that it seems like John's showing each of them a slightly different side of himself, and doing it very carefully and deliberately. Sometimes he slips and reveals perhaps a little more than he intended (as with telling Rodney of his first wife: The words hang there, filling the hall, truer maybe than he'd thought they were), but he's got it all marked out in his head as to who can be trusted with (be allowed to see?) what.

Re: winter

[bratfarrar]

And I can't believe it took me this long to realize that Jen was his daughter. Argh. (Please take that as indicative of my inattentiveness in reading, not your writing skills.)