Beyond The Sea, by Claire - Amnesty Challenge
Originally envisioned for the Enclosed Spaces challenge :-)
ETA: I must have been on the good crack when I posted this, because it was actually the Dangling challenge I started this for.
Title: Beyond The Sea
Author: Claire
Pairing: None, I actually wrote gen ;-)
Rating: G
Summary: She doesn't want to be here with the faces of the dead dancing in the shadows...
::smooches:: to temaris for the beta :-D
Spoilers for season one.
Beyond The Sea
By Claire
Elizabeth Weir stares at the box on her desk for long minutes, running a fingertip over the edge of the lid and tracing imaginary designs on the plain rigid black plastic. Whenever she sees it she's reminded of the jewellery box her father had bought her for her twelfth birthday, beautiful deep red flowers inlaid onto onyx. But there are no metallic roses in the Pegasus Galaxy, and the secrets hidden inside are nothing like the bangles and charms she'd loved so much.
She pulls herself out of her reverie before the past becomes too comfortable, too easy an escape. Her hands still momentarily as she breathes in, fingers tightening on the box's lid. She removes it and lays it carefully to one side. The flickering light from overhead, a victim of Atlantis's wavering power, glints off the revealed morass of metal and paper, the reflections chasing each other among the shadows that line the walls.
This ritual had started the first night on Atlantis. Started when Major Sheppard had handed over the tag inscribed with Colonel Sumner's name and told her a story of death. She'd held the short chain in her hand as she'd listened, fingers wrapped around the smooth metal that was burning Sumner's name into her skin.
When Sheppard had gone, Liz's first thought had been to take the tag and drop it deep into Atlantis's ocean so she never had to see it again, never had to be reminded that already her expedition was tainted with blood. But she couldn't. Because the people Marshall Sumner had left back on Earth deserved more than to have the only remaining thing of his discarded because of Liz's guilt. Instead, she had gone to one of the storerooms and found a box, abandoned in a corner and empty of whatever it had transported to this brave new world. The box had been taken back to her office and the tag placed inside, before it was tucked into the back of her desk drawer, there to remain until their return home.
Liz's desire to never see the box again hadn't been realised. Because Sumner might have been the first, but he was in no way the last.
Colonel Marshall Sumner, Doctor Jeanne-Marie Dumais, Doctor Brendan Gaul; the names ran on and on. A list of everyone who trusted her, everyone she had failed indelibly etched on her mind.
Some lack even the dignity of a small metal tag to mark their lives. Instead, they are simply names written on pieces of paper, either because they didn't have a tag to reclaim, or because there was nothing left to recover: Lieutenant David Markham, Lieutenant Michael Smith, Doctor Peter Grodin. The last name written in a shaky script; words she couldn't even see as she was writing them, too badly blurred by the tears that had been in her eyes.
Now she has more names to add. More people who came with her on the promise of a chance in a lifetime, and instead found a fight that should never have been theirs, with a race of monsters who shouldn't even know they exist.
It's only when she feels her nails digging into her palm that Liz realises her hands are clenched tightly, knuckles white and bloodless in a way that makes her think of her grandmother's funeral with its open coffin.
Slowly unclenching her hand and flexing her fingers, Liz forces a calm she doesn't want to feel to wash over her. She doesn't want her last act for these people to be tainted. There'll be enough time later for the anger that has no place here.
Picking up the first tag on her desk, she carefully runs a finger over the engraved writing. Lieutenant Jessica Tulip. Jess, who once gleefully admitted she never understood the rules of baseball but loved the game anyway. Jess, who regretted not being able to bring Max, her Border collie, as her personal item. Jess, whose boyfriend had proposed to her the night before Liz took her to another galaxy to die.
"I'm so sorry," Liz whispers, as Jess's ghost joins the others Liz carries with her.
Closing her eyes briefly, Liz adds the tag to the collection already inside the box, dull chink ringing out, abnormally loud in the silence. A minute passes before she can reach out for the next tag. She has too many to choose from. She doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to be here with the faces of the dead dancing in the shadows, but she has to. She has to because this is her penance, her price for being there.
And it's a price she will continue to pay, long after the box is finally full.
End.
ETA: I must have been on the good crack when I posted this, because it was actually the Dangling challenge I started this for.
Title: Beyond The Sea
Author: Claire
Pairing: None, I actually wrote gen ;-)
Rating: G
Summary: She doesn't want to be here with the faces of the dead dancing in the shadows...
::smooches:: to temaris for the beta :-D
Spoilers for season one.
Beyond The Sea
By Claire
Elizabeth Weir stares at the box on her desk for long minutes, running a fingertip over the edge of the lid and tracing imaginary designs on the plain rigid black plastic. Whenever she sees it she's reminded of the jewellery box her father had bought her for her twelfth birthday, beautiful deep red flowers inlaid onto onyx. But there are no metallic roses in the Pegasus Galaxy, and the secrets hidden inside are nothing like the bangles and charms she'd loved so much.
She pulls herself out of her reverie before the past becomes too comfortable, too easy an escape. Her hands still momentarily as she breathes in, fingers tightening on the box's lid. She removes it and lays it carefully to one side. The flickering light from overhead, a victim of Atlantis's wavering power, glints off the revealed morass of metal and paper, the reflections chasing each other among the shadows that line the walls.
This ritual had started the first night on Atlantis. Started when Major Sheppard had handed over the tag inscribed with Colonel Sumner's name and told her a story of death. She'd held the short chain in her hand as she'd listened, fingers wrapped around the smooth metal that was burning Sumner's name into her skin.
When Sheppard had gone, Liz's first thought had been to take the tag and drop it deep into Atlantis's ocean so she never had to see it again, never had to be reminded that already her expedition was tainted with blood. But she couldn't. Because the people Marshall Sumner had left back on Earth deserved more than to have the only remaining thing of his discarded because of Liz's guilt. Instead, she had gone to one of the storerooms and found a box, abandoned in a corner and empty of whatever it had transported to this brave new world. The box had been taken back to her office and the tag placed inside, before it was tucked into the back of her desk drawer, there to remain until their return home.
Liz's desire to never see the box again hadn't been realised. Because Sumner might have been the first, but he was in no way the last.
Colonel Marshall Sumner, Doctor Jeanne-Marie Dumais, Doctor Brendan Gaul; the names ran on and on. A list of everyone who trusted her, everyone she had failed indelibly etched on her mind.
Some lack even the dignity of a small metal tag to mark their lives. Instead, they are simply names written on pieces of paper, either because they didn't have a tag to reclaim, or because there was nothing left to recover: Lieutenant David Markham, Lieutenant Michael Smith, Doctor Peter Grodin. The last name written in a shaky script; words she couldn't even see as she was writing them, too badly blurred by the tears that had been in her eyes.
Now she has more names to add. More people who came with her on the promise of a chance in a lifetime, and instead found a fight that should never have been theirs, with a race of monsters who shouldn't even know they exist.
It's only when she feels her nails digging into her palm that Liz realises her hands are clenched tightly, knuckles white and bloodless in a way that makes her think of her grandmother's funeral with its open coffin.
Slowly unclenching her hand and flexing her fingers, Liz forces a calm she doesn't want to feel to wash over her. She doesn't want her last act for these people to be tainted. There'll be enough time later for the anger that has no place here.
Picking up the first tag on her desk, she carefully runs a finger over the engraved writing. Lieutenant Jessica Tulip. Jess, who once gleefully admitted she never understood the rules of baseball but loved the game anyway. Jess, who regretted not being able to bring Max, her Border collie, as her personal item. Jess, whose boyfriend had proposed to her the night before Liz took her to another galaxy to die.
"I'm so sorry," Liz whispers, as Jess's ghost joins the others Liz carries with her.
Closing her eyes briefly, Liz adds the tag to the collection already inside the box, dull chink ringing out, abnormally loud in the silence. A minute passes before she can reach out for the next tag. She has too many to choose from. She doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to be here with the faces of the dead dancing in the shadows, but she has to. She has to because this is her penance, her price for being there.
And it's a price she will continue to pay, long after the box is finally full.
End.