Those Days (Heightmeyer)
Title: Those Days
Author: twilight_la_fae
Beta(e): thousand_faces
Characters: Heightmeyer
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: "The Return Pt. 1" (03x10)
Written For: koushi_san, who wanted Dr. Kate Heightmeyer contemplating her past and her usefulness to the expedition
Summary: It's always on one of those days.
The day she got asked to join the expedition, Kate had been having one of those days. Everyone has them, and while they seem funny in retrospect, they’re a nightmare when they’re happening. Kate had woken up grouchy, cut herself shaving in the shower, tripped over her cat and burnt her toast. She’d gotten to the SGC late, had one of her patients relapse, and got an nasty phone call from her neighbor informing her that once again, Kate had left a window open and Jubes had made a great escape, and was now happily ensconced in a very unhappy Mrs. Ramsay’s petunias. She’d had to run home, throw her yowling, claw-happy kitty back in the house, shut the window, and run back to work, only to be informed that she was supposed to be in a meeting fifteen minutes ago.
She’d broken a heel dashing to the boardroom, and, fed up, walked into the meeting frazzled, shoeless, and covered in cat hair. She’d raised her chin at the amused faces and sat down with the last shred of dignity she had left. O’Neill had taken one look at her and said, “Perfect,” And then they offered her the position.
*
So, in Kate’s mind, it was pretty fitting that the day she was told to leave Atlantis, it was one of those days. The scientists had screwed with the water temperature again, so Kate had to deal with a bipolar shower, and she ran out her nice-smelling apple shampoo. She stubbed her toe, which, actually, wasn’t anything new considering the small quarters she inhabited, and broke one of her high heels, which really sucked, because they were her second to last pair, and she didn’t have anymore Starbursts to trade Dr. Willows down in Biology for a new pair.
The kitchen ran out of the muffins with the fantastic, oddly but hilariously shaped fruit from PX10456 in them and Dr. Weir cornered her to ask her if she’d managed to have any progress with Sheppard’s sessions yet. Which Kate hadn’t, because she quite firmly believed that Sheppard was quite mentally healthy, he just went along to his own little tune, and so they usually spent that time playing cards. Weir had given her that scary I-Know-What-You-Are-Doing-And-I’m-Not-Happy face, and Kate then had to flee to her office without any coffee. Then there was a small lab explosion, and Rodney nearly killed Kavanaugh, and then Kate had to listen to Kavanaugh bitch about how he’s under appreciated and how he was going to get this back to the SGC, and wouldn’t they all be sorry, and blah, blah-blah, blah-blah, and is she taking any notes? Can’t she see how stressed he is? And Kate thought, well, if you were less of an absolute dickhead, maybe you’d get laid once in a while, and maybe then you’d be a little mellow, you loser. But instead she smiled and tapped her page of doodles with her pen and said, Of course she can see he’s stressed, why doesn’t he take a couple of deep breaths and go back to the lab, since Rodney’s gone testing the Gate Bridge, and all will be serene. But he stayed for ten more minutes going on and on, and Kate desperately prayed for divine intervention because she had not had any coffee yet, and this really, really required some sort of caffeine.
When she finally kicked Kavanaugh out of her office, she had two other appointments before lunch, one with Private Abbot, who was cheerful and bouncy, but had a bad habit of fiddling with her prosthetic ear, after a particularly virulent off-world tribe recently deemed her unworthy of her real one. She also had a bad habit of completely redirecting you with her cheerfulness, and it was only after she left you remembered she’d been waking up screaming for the last six nights. The other was even more frustrating, Lt. Cobb, who stayed mostly silent and sulky, and who only had opened up once when Kate got really fed up and threw a bunch of tiny Chinese firecrackers at him, which elicited a major freak out. And really, she should feel bad about that, but she figured that it would make him see he’s got an issue he needs to work out, but instead it made him get really rather surly towards her. So by lunchtime rolled around, both he and Kate were strung out and frustrated, and Kate was thirty seconds from smacking him around the head with her clipboard when the buzzer went off.
So Kate was in an understandably horrid mood, and therefore wasn’t overly shocked when Dr. Weir came over the intercom and let them all knew- no joke- that the Ancients had returned to claim their home and they had forty-eight hours to pack up and leave.
Kate wasn’t much for the idea of karma, but she thought she might ought to consider it.
*
The day that Kate was called back to Atlantis, she was having one of those days. Not one of the days where everything goes wrong, but one of those days where everything is sickeningly right. Everyone had just heard about the successful reestablishment of an SGC controlled Atlantis, courtesy of the Dream Team, and now everybody was anxiously waiting for a call back home, or not. Rumors flew about people not going back, and since Kate had been having a really good day so far, she was really starting to worry about that. As she successfully made her toast burn-free, avoided getting scratched from a really pissed off Jubes, made it to work on time, doubts began to creep up in her head. She wasn’t all that of an important person - there were three other psychologists that were just as good as she was, and goodness knows most of the people in Atlantis had some sort of support group built up out of necessity. Plus, she had a sneaking suspicion that Weir didn’t like her all too much, and Kate ended up staring at her sandwich at abject horror at lunch because she had avoided being scratched by Jubes; Jubes, who is fast like a freak and she is so not going back home ever again, and just before she broke into tears, someone came on the intercom and asked for all Atlantis medical personnel to please report to the boardroom. So Kate glumly abandoned her sandwich, and headed towards the boardroom, feeling a cloud of misery settle over her when something utterly fantastic happened. Just inside the boardroom, her heel snapped and she fell flat on her face. So when everybody stared at her when she had to bite her lip to keep from busting out laughing when Landry told them they were all going back to Atlantis, she just shrugged, smiled, and said, "It’s just been one of those days."
Author: twilight_la_fae
Beta(e): thousand_faces
Characters: Heightmeyer
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: "The Return Pt. 1" (03x10)
Written For: koushi_san, who wanted Dr. Kate Heightmeyer contemplating her past and her usefulness to the expedition
Summary: It's always on one of those days.
The day she got asked to join the expedition, Kate had been having one of those days. Everyone has them, and while they seem funny in retrospect, they’re a nightmare when they’re happening. Kate had woken up grouchy, cut herself shaving in the shower, tripped over her cat and burnt her toast. She’d gotten to the SGC late, had one of her patients relapse, and got an nasty phone call from her neighbor informing her that once again, Kate had left a window open and Jubes had made a great escape, and was now happily ensconced in a very unhappy Mrs. Ramsay’s petunias. She’d had to run home, throw her yowling, claw-happy kitty back in the house, shut the window, and run back to work, only to be informed that she was supposed to be in a meeting fifteen minutes ago.
She’d broken a heel dashing to the boardroom, and, fed up, walked into the meeting frazzled, shoeless, and covered in cat hair. She’d raised her chin at the amused faces and sat down with the last shred of dignity she had left. O’Neill had taken one look at her and said, “Perfect,” And then they offered her the position.
*
So, in Kate’s mind, it was pretty fitting that the day she was told to leave Atlantis, it was one of those days. The scientists had screwed with the water temperature again, so Kate had to deal with a bipolar shower, and she ran out her nice-smelling apple shampoo. She stubbed her toe, which, actually, wasn’t anything new considering the small quarters she inhabited, and broke one of her high heels, which really sucked, because they were her second to last pair, and she didn’t have anymore Starbursts to trade Dr. Willows down in Biology for a new pair.
The kitchen ran out of the muffins with the fantastic, oddly but hilariously shaped fruit from PX10456 in them and Dr. Weir cornered her to ask her if she’d managed to have any progress with Sheppard’s sessions yet. Which Kate hadn’t, because she quite firmly believed that Sheppard was quite mentally healthy, he just went along to his own little tune, and so they usually spent that time playing cards. Weir had given her that scary I-Know-What-You-Are-Doing-And-I’m-Not-Happy face, and Kate then had to flee to her office without any coffee. Then there was a small lab explosion, and Rodney nearly killed Kavanaugh, and then Kate had to listen to Kavanaugh bitch about how he’s under appreciated and how he was going to get this back to the SGC, and wouldn’t they all be sorry, and blah, blah-blah, blah-blah, and is she taking any notes? Can’t she see how stressed he is? And Kate thought, well, if you were less of an absolute dickhead, maybe you’d get laid once in a while, and maybe then you’d be a little mellow, you loser. But instead she smiled and tapped her page of doodles with her pen and said, Of course she can see he’s stressed, why doesn’t he take a couple of deep breaths and go back to the lab, since Rodney’s gone testing the Gate Bridge, and all will be serene. But he stayed for ten more minutes going on and on, and Kate desperately prayed for divine intervention because she had not had any coffee yet, and this really, really required some sort of caffeine.
When she finally kicked Kavanaugh out of her office, she had two other appointments before lunch, one with Private Abbot, who was cheerful and bouncy, but had a bad habit of fiddling with her prosthetic ear, after a particularly virulent off-world tribe recently deemed her unworthy of her real one. She also had a bad habit of completely redirecting you with her cheerfulness, and it was only after she left you remembered she’d been waking up screaming for the last six nights. The other was even more frustrating, Lt. Cobb, who stayed mostly silent and sulky, and who only had opened up once when Kate got really fed up and threw a bunch of tiny Chinese firecrackers at him, which elicited a major freak out. And really, she should feel bad about that, but she figured that it would make him see he’s got an issue he needs to work out, but instead it made him get really rather surly towards her. So by lunchtime rolled around, both he and Kate were strung out and frustrated, and Kate was thirty seconds from smacking him around the head with her clipboard when the buzzer went off.
So Kate was in an understandably horrid mood, and therefore wasn’t overly shocked when Dr. Weir came over the intercom and let them all knew- no joke- that the Ancients had returned to claim their home and they had forty-eight hours to pack up and leave.
Kate wasn’t much for the idea of karma, but she thought she might ought to consider it.
*
The day that Kate was called back to Atlantis, she was having one of those days. Not one of the days where everything goes wrong, but one of those days where everything is sickeningly right. Everyone had just heard about the successful reestablishment of an SGC controlled Atlantis, courtesy of the Dream Team, and now everybody was anxiously waiting for a call back home, or not. Rumors flew about people not going back, and since Kate had been having a really good day so far, she was really starting to worry about that. As she successfully made her toast burn-free, avoided getting scratched from a really pissed off Jubes, made it to work on time, doubts began to creep up in her head. She wasn’t all that of an important person - there were three other psychologists that were just as good as she was, and goodness knows most of the people in Atlantis had some sort of support group built up out of necessity. Plus, she had a sneaking suspicion that Weir didn’t like her all too much, and Kate ended up staring at her sandwich at abject horror at lunch because she had avoided being scratched by Jubes; Jubes, who is fast like a freak and she is so not going back home ever again, and just before she broke into tears, someone came on the intercom and asked for all Atlantis medical personnel to please report to the boardroom. So Kate glumly abandoned her sandwich, and headed towards the boardroom, feeling a cloud of misery settle over her when something utterly fantastic happened. Just inside the boardroom, her heel snapped and she fell flat on her face. So when everybody stared at her when she had to bite her lip to keep from busting out laughing when Landry told them they were all going back to Atlantis, she just shrugged, smiled, and said, "It’s just been one of those days."