Old Soul Song (For a New World Order) by amitee [Amnesty 2006, Earthside]
Title: Old Soul Song (For a New World Order)
Author: amitee
Rating: R (for language and war)
Spoilers: None
Pairing: Sheppard/Cadman (mostly UST), implied Beckett/Cadman and Sheppard/Weir
Word Count: 9,900
A/N: If North Korea ever was a war zone, I don't know what it would really be like. So here's hoping this story works. The title is from the Bright Eyes song of the same name. The story Carson tells Laura (with changes, of course) is from Parallel Myths. Many thanks to havocthecat.
They were boots on the ground in February. Laura wasn't sure what exactly she'd been expecting North Korea to be like, but this wasn't it. She'd seen the pictures of schoolgirls carrying rifles with them to and from class, and for awhile she'd had visions of shooting in the streets, but in the DMZ it was just cold. Their mission was to provide security to the nuclear inspection convoys, and there were less than a thousand troops deployed.
She was leading a team of five - Tall Guy, New Guy, Bogie, Minnesota, and herself. Tall Guy was from Texas, and towered over the rest of them even barefoot and with a shaved head. He’d been with Laura the longest out of the four, nine months, almost since the recall from Atlantis. New Guy was from California, and he’d been with her almost as long as Tall Guy, but the nickname had continued to stick. He was the most serious, and she was determined to drive it out of him and instill at least a semblance of a sense of humor.
Bogie had gotten his nickname when they’d found out that his mom had sent him Casablanca on DVD as a Christmas present. He’d been Baby before that, being fresh out of officer training school, and Laura was pretty sure he preferred what they were calling him now. Bogie was from Iowa, and he and Minnesota stuck like glue in their Midwestern-ness.
Minnesota was actually from Illinois but he’d gone to college in St. Paul and wore his Vikings sweatshirt at every possible opportunity. He got along the best with people out of all of them, and he was their translator on this mission. He was constantly getting teased that this was there majoring in Asian Studies had landed him, instead of still sitting in some basement office in the Pentagon doing translations, which is where he’d been before being transferred to her team.
They called her Captain most of the time, and Caddy the rest, and Laura knew she couldn’t have asked for - or even hand-picked - a better team. They took a lot of shit from the other guys for having a woman for a captain, but she’d heard them dish it back just as good, and wasn’t worried.
She’d been thrown right back into the mix after returning from Atlantis. It had been a little jarring, but she’d been glad for the work. It had taken her mind off all the circumstances surrounding the shutdown and most days she could usually make it a couple of hours without thinking about Carson, and it was getting a little easier to shove the memories away when they did surface. Sometimes she felt like she carried too much, but she knew she wasn’t the only one. It was funny, she thought, that had Atlantis had had it’s own staff psychiatrist; now that she almost thought she had a reason to see one, the Corps had not provided the exit counseling that she figured they probably should have. Once you were placed outside the Stargate program, you had to pretend the Stargate program didn’t exist. She hadn’t even seen anyone she’d known from Atlantis or the Daedalus since her reassignment. Her orders had arrived the day they’d all gotten back, along with everyone else’s.
It was almost ironic, she mused as they arrived at the already-established base camp, that the military offered counseling when you didn’t want it, and neglected it when you thought you might.
For the first two months back on Earth, she’d felt like she was having a hard time fitting in. It could have all been in her head, she realized, because no one had even looked at her sideways the few times she’d been afraid that all the pain inside was showing on her face.
Then, her team had been assembled and they’d gone first to Germany as part of a protective detail on a presidential visit, and then they’d done two months of training in Japan.
“You a lifer, Captain?” Tall Guy had asked her one day as they’d fixed whatever was wrong with their Humvee that week. It had always been something, she remembered.
“You bet,” she’d replied. “Nothing but the Corps all the way for me.”
He’d grinned and nodded. “Once a Marine, always a Marine, ma’m.”
“You said it.”
Now, as they unloaded their gear and dragged it towards the storage tent, she hoped and prayed that this mission would be over as quickly as possible and they could get out of this cold, gray place where the air smelled strange.
*
Their routines were quickly established, and Laura fell into them easily. Taking point in the Humvee at the end of the convoy wasn’t much different than point on the various security details she’d been assigned to out of Atlantis, watching out for the safety of some group of scientists who were more interested in the local plant life than in making sure the local population left them alone in their wildflower-gathering.
Missions out of Atlantis had felt real enough: blue sky above, solid ground under her feet, vegetation that usually kind of close to Earth’s, people who seemed pretty human to her. It was the Wraith darts, when they showed up screaming overhead, that gave it all a bizarre nightmarish quality. And when the Wraith themselves actually appeared, the nightmare feeling was even stronger. Like something out of a horror story. Last year, she’d volunteered to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters at a local mall during her one blessed week of leave, and there had been a little boy in a costume just close enough that she’d nearly had to turn away. But the feeling had passed; he was just a child, and she’d forced herself to smile as she’d dropped a packet of M&Ms into his pumpkin bag.
The nightmare had come again that night, the first reoccurrence in almost three months, and instead of going back to bed after she’d jerked awake, a scream dying foul-tasting in her throat, she’d turned on the television and flipped from one infomercial to another until the sun came up.
Now, here, the convoy rattling over the gravel road, her rifle ready in her hands, this felt solid. This was Earth and she wasn’t light years away anymore. Laura wished fiercely for someone, anyone to reassure her that her Pegasus tour of duty had been just as real, if not more. In the back of her mind she knew nothing else would ever come close to measuring up - she’d never have her consciousness trapped in someone else’s body on this planet, for sure - and that made her feel all the more like she’d dreamed the whole thing. And knowing for sure that life existed outside of Earth’s little blue sphere kept on tripping her up, made her feel small and insignificant when she thought about it too much.
Staying busy kept her from thinking about it too often, except for times like these when there was nothing to do but watch the road, watch the horizon, and think. She tried to clear her head and couldn’t. Next to her, Minnesota looked just as caught up in his thoughts as she felt, and while she was glad she wasn’t the only one, chances were that Minnesota wasn’t thinking about possible alien invasions or decommissioned spaceships stored away in North Dakota.
*
She ran into Lt. Col. Sheppard just south of Panmunjeom, at the base that wasn’t supposed to exist. They’d done two full convoys up into the North now, everyone on edge and nearly vibrating with nervousness until the nuclear inspectors were allowed inside the facilities at Yongbyon. It was their much needed day of rest, and Laura was walking towards her tent when she saw him coming from the opposite direction.
“Colonel,” she said, shocked. He grinned, weary-looking, and his familiar face was the best thing she’d seen in months. “I see it’s full Colonel now, sir; congratulations.”
His eyes flicked to her bars. “Captain Cadman, huh?” he asked.
“I’m fairly sure you had something to do with that, sir,” she replied, struggling not to smile. Her boots sank just a little in the cold mud. The snow was melting today, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Maybe.” His grin faded slightly as he looked over his shoulder, and she saw his fingers flex a little on his P-90. There were streaks of mud on his hands. He leaned forward a little, and his voice dropped a little quieter. “You know I’d love to catch up, on everything - but I’ve got to go.”
“I understand.”
“When I get back, I’ll see if I can find you, and we’ll talk,” he said, walking backwards towards the group of soldiers waiting for him. “When I get back.”
She smiled then, despite herself. “Yes, sir.”
2.
John had been in some pretty fucked-up situations in his life, but this one was starting to look like it might top the list. Even above being kidnapped by his former second in command. He was about ready to tell the Air Force to fuck off, this wasn’t his job, and go be a civilian bush pilot somewhere in Alaska or something. Haul the fucking mail back and forth. Jesus Christ. There was military, and then there was running a fucking spy squad. Not that he wasn’t good at hiding under a blanket of fake leaves, covered in mud, looking at supposed secret nuclear sites through a crazy-ass pair of binoculars. And not that it wasn’t kind of exciting. But goddamnit, he was still really pissed off about being pulled from the Stargate program for this shit. Plus, it was cold. Not to mention he was dead if he got caught, since he still wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Becker and Nelson to come save his life.
It had been nine months since the entire Atlantis expedition had been recalled and John felt like he’d been in absolute hell for nine months. He hadn’t known until it was over how freeing it was to be someplace where the only person looking over his shoulder was a civilian, and one he liked quite a bit the majority of the time, even if Elizabeth had made some interesting and ultimately wrong decisions. But hindsight was always twenty-twenty, and they had all made the best choices they could, given the options, right up until the end.
The recall had been swift, unarguable, and in the end a chaotic mess. People had died. People he cared deeply about, and their deaths had left an ache he thought would never leave him. He had stayed numb enough not to care very much if it did or not, and part of him didn’t want it to ease, because it reminded him that Atlantis had been real. He’d stood there, he’d slept there, he’d flown a fucking spaceship. More than once.
Earth, now, felt small. And even worse, it felt insignificant. He’d spent three and a half years discovering the bigger picture only to find himself on the fringes of an international squabble, and one that looked merely petty next to the intergalactic wars that he and the rest of the Stargate program had been witness to.
*
It was nearly midnight. Outside, pitch-black and the sea was still. It was unnerving. He was used to a breeze. There were no stars tonight and barely a sliver of a moon. There was no sound save the tread of his own boots, and even that was less. He felt like his breath hung strange in the air.
At quarter after, Elizabeth found him. “John?” she called out onto the balcony. “Is that you?”
“Who else would be up this late?”
“Point taken.” She leaned against the railing, looking out into the dark.
“The weather’s a little weird.”
“To say the least.”
“Maybe it knows,” he suggested. “Maybe the city will mourn us once we’re gone.”
“In another lifetime, I could have told you if it would have.”
He turned his head to look at her, but he could hardly make out her profile in this minimum of light. “What are we going to do now?” he asked.
“Funny,” she said strangely. “I was just about to ask you the same question.”
“I don’t have an answer for myself, Elizabeth, much less an answer for you.”
Elizabeth let out a noise that was part sigh, part laugh, part sob, and the one thing he could see clearly was the white of her knuckles as she clutched hard at the rail. He stepped forward and pried her hands away. “Damn it, you could hold on to me, you know,” he said harshly, and he knew his touch was rough as he pulled her close. Maybe it would wake them up.
But there was a long moment that passed before she yielded, and he was about to let go. He could barely make out the sound of her breathing over the beating of his own heart. “Is this really what’s become of us?” she murmured, finally relaxing somewhat into his embrace. “We can’t stand up and fight?”
They had done it before, and John knew she thought they could do it once again. “Not this time.”
“But there’s not going to be another time, John! It’s over. We give in and it’s over. All of this. Atlantis. The expedition. The whole Stargate program!”
He took her by the shoulders and held her so that he could look at her face. “What do you want to do, run? Gate out of here to some planet, and never go home?”
“This is my home,” she cried out. He’d known her for years now and he’d never seen her like this. She took a deep breath. “I don’t have anything to go back to, do you understand that?”
“You’ve got me.” There. He’d said it, finally. Laid it out there for her to see, like a jeweler bringing out the most expensive diamond he had to sell, hoping he wouldn’t be told to put it back into the safe. Months and months he’d wanted to say something and he’d held back. Now he felt like he had nothing to lose.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said quietly, and she smoothed his hair and brushed her fingertips over his cheek and trailed them over his lips like she was blind, and John breathed in her touch and spent one bright, shining moment thinking it would all turn out. Then she said again, “I’m sorry. But it’s not enough.”
She pulled back out of his arms. It felt the same as when the Wraith had fed on him, except this time he knew it was all emotional, and somehow that made it even worse. There wasn’t even a physical reason behind the nearly crippling ache, the scraping pain in his throat. He looked away from her, out into the dark, unmoving night, and when he’d finally felt like he could open his mouth past breathing, felt like he was ready to say something again, Elizabeth was gone.
*
He’d hiked it back alone, and found Becker and Nelson still waiting for him, still with the same disapproving looks on their faces. He’d half expected them to march back out, leave him in the cold and ugly stretch of woods, but they were too well trained. “Shut the hell up,” he grumbled at them, before anyone could say anything, and they stayed silent the whole way back to the secret Panmunjeom base.
John was stomping through the mud, the guys a few steps behind him, when he saw a flash of blond hair, and then a face he’d thought he’d probably never see again. If it wasn’t Lt. Cadman, in the flesh and walking in his direction. “Colonel!” she called, and he grinned, his first smile in months. It felt pretty good. “I see it’s full Colonel now, sir; congratulations.”
She’d been promoted as well, he saw. “Captain Cadman, huh?”
“I’m fairly sure you had something to do with that, sir,” she replied, and he saw a smile pulling at her mouth.
“Maybe.” At least the Pentagon had listened to most of the recommendations he’d given, even for the people who weren’t Air Force. He’d half expected them not to, just to spite him. He wanted to tell Cadman she looked good, that he was damned glad to see her, damned glad to see anyone that he’d known in what felt now like a past life. She was proof he hadn’t dreamed it all and he wanted to hang on to that at least for a few minutes. He leaned in just a little bit. “You know I’d love to catch upon everything,” he murmured, and he could feel his team glaring at him, “but I’ve got to go.”
“I understand,” she said firmly, and he figured she understood more than that.
He had to go. He didn’t want to go. “When I get back, I’ll see if I can find you, and we’ll talk,” he promised, starting to walk backwards in the direction of Becker and Nelson. The mud pulled at his boots. “When I get back,” he said again.
Cadman smiled at him. It was the best thing he’d seen in months. “Yes, sir.”
John watched her for another moment, then turned to his team. “That,” he told them, “is one of the best officers I have ever served with, and you bastards don’t even come close.” But he grinned a little as he said it, and Becker chuckled, and he thought maybe these guys would turn out okay. The ache in his chest was easing, just a little, and he was going to find Cadman the minute he got back. He hoped to God she’d still be around.
3.
Laura's mind was still spinning a little as she walked away, and she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to make sure he was real. Sheppard, here, in the godforsaken DMZ? It didn't make much sense to her - she'd figured he'd gone back to flying Blackhawks or Pavehawks or whatever it was he'd done before getting drafted into the Stargate program. Before Atlantis.
Seeing him hurt more than she thought it would, when it had been what she'd wanted so desperately, to see someone from the expedition. If only they hadn't been going in opposite directions. If only there were time. If only she knew he would actually come back.
A wave of sudden anger made her ears ring and she growled at herself, pushing it down and away. New Rule Number One: No more getting attached.
"Hey, Caddy!" Bogie called from behind her, and she turned slightly, composing herself. "How do you know Colonel Sheppard?" he asked, as he caught up to her outside her tent.
She decided to play dumb, at least for now. "Who?"
Bogie looked confused, his dark eyebrows drawing closer together. "Colonel John Sheppard. You were just talking to him. I saw you."
"Guess I met him someplace," she replied noncommittally. "How do you know him?"
"Didn't you pay attention at the debriefing?" She gave him a stern look and he stood up a little straighter. "I'm being honest, ma'm. You didn't hear the General say that Colonel Sheppard's the one who brought in nearly a quarter of our intelligence, and that he did it alone?"
"He's that Sheppard?" she asked, more to herself than to Bogie, who nodded enthusiastically. "Sweet Jesus. I guess I didn't connect the name."
Bogie seemed to take that for a good enough answer, and left immediately when she told him she'd see him in a few hours. She really hadn't realized that the guy the General had spent a good five minutes talking about, alternately singing his praises and damning his name, was the Sheppard she knew. The Sheppard she had known, just a little bit.
A quarter of their intelligence, all on his own. Maybe solo recon was how he'd gotten through it. Around it. Past it. It didn't quite make sense to her, but maybe Sheppard had been able to move on. If so, then she envied him. That was what she wanted most of all. To be able to move on, even a little. But the look on his face when he'd seen her - that wasn't the look of a man who'd been able to move past what had happened in Atlantis. Once she'd studied his face for more than a quick second, she'd seen it. He was just as broken as she was, but Sheppard was angry about it, whereas Laura knew she was just resigned to the idea.
The snow had started again, swirling thickly in a matter of minutes, and she shivered and dug out another hand-warmer before sitting down on her cot, trying to knock some of the mud off her boots. It was futile.
*
P35-X4B was a lot nicer than the last six planets she’d been on. That she had to admit. And being able to curl up next to Carson was even nicer. They had 48 hours of leave - shore leave, Colonel Sheppard had called it in that dry tone of voice - and Laura was determined to make the most of it. “Tell me a story,” she said to Carson, laying her head on his shoulder, wanting to hear him talk for awhile.
He thought for a moment. “Have I ever told you the myth of Angus the Young?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, Angus was the Gaelic god of love.”
“The Scottish Cupid!” she couldn’t help but tease.
“Something like that, except instead of arrows, Angus had four little birds that would hover about his had, and the birds represented his kisses.” He illustrated this with a kiss that she gladly returned.
“Anyone who heard the wee birds singing would fall hopelessly in love,” Carson continued. “Including Angus, so as you can imagine, the lad himself was constantly in love. One day, he fell dangerously, terribly ill. From love sickness, you see."
"Well, what else would it be?" she asked with a grin.
"He was in love with a young girl, and his mother searched all over Scotland to find her without success. So she called in Angus’ father, who was himself a god, the Good God, the Supreme Being. But even the Good God could not find her, so he asked the mystery-knower, Bov the Red. Bov didn’t know where the lass was either, but he found her eventually at the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth.
"So Angus went to see the mystery-keeper, and they had a feast that lasted three whole days. But Angus was eager to see the girl he loved, and begged Bov the Red to take him to the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth. So Bov took him there. And at the lake, Angus saw a hundred and fifty lovely maidens, the loveliest there were, all walking in pairs. Each pair was linked by a chain of pure gold. The tallest of all the maidens was the lass that Angus loved.
"The mystery keeper warned Angus that his maiden would not be separated from the others without difficulty. His love was named Caer, and she was the daughter of a prince.”
“Caer,” Laura whispered, rolling the name on her tongue. “Go on,” she urged Carson. “Her dad’s the prince - then what?”
“Angus went to see the King and Queen of the province Caer was from, to ask their help in winning her hand in marriage. But the King and Queen did not have the power to help, although they agreed to send a message to Caer’s father in Angus’ behalf.
"Caer’s father refused to see Angus, so the armies of the King and Angus’ own father besieged his home and took him as their prisoner. But Caer’s father explained after a great while that he lacked the power to give his daughter in marriage. Because, you see, her magic was much more powerful than his. He explained that she lived for six months out of the year as a woman, and the other six in the form of a swan. On Halloween, Caer would be at the lake again, with the other hundred and forty-nine maidens, all of them in the form of swans.
"So Angus went to the lake on the feast of Samhain and begged Caer, who was now a swan, to be his wife. She asked who he was, and he explained that he was Angus Og, the god of love. When he spoke his name, Angus was transformed into a swan, and he and Caer lived together forever after. And now, Angus appears to lovers as a swan, which is why lovers like to meet near lakes.”
Laura sighed. “That was sweet.”
“And fitting,” he chuckled.
She looked out at the lake they were camping on the shore of and smiled. “You wouldn’t have told that story if it wasn’t,” she said, and pulled him down into the sleeping bag with a kiss.
*
Laura was back in Panmunjeom no more than two hours when Sheppard found her, sitting outside her tent trying to decide if she wanted to trade her packet of candy for New Guy’s packet of crackers. They all saw him at the same time and hurried to their feet. Her heart was pounding.
“Relax, relax,” he said, but she couldn’t relax. “Cadman, you got a few minutes?”
“Of course, sir.” She handed New Guy her candy and followed Sheppard. “Where are we going?” she whispered.
“My tent,” he replied easily. “It’s slightly more private. Your team seems pretty okay, but they’re not ready to hear about the Wraith.”
“They’re excellent, sir, and you are definitely right about the second part.”
“So my tent it is.” He pushed aside the flap. “Have a seat.”
She sat down in the only place there was to sit, on the cot, and Sheppard rummaged in a bag for a minute before handing her a can of beer and sitting down as well. “Sorry it’s shitty beer.”
She hadn’t had a drink since Halloween. “It’s fine, sir,” she said and popped the tab.
“Cadman, you don’t have to call me ‘sir’ quite so much.”
“Sorry, sir,” she replied, and he gave her a look. Laura grinned at him, feeling her tension ease slightly.
Sheppard held up his beer. “Here’s to dying in a boring nuclear war on the boring planet Earth,” he announced.
“You know, Colonel, I always thought I’d die in some apocalyptic way, especially after I got assigned to Atlantis, but I never thought I’d be on Earth.”
Sheppard knocked his can against hers. “Welcome to the club,” he said, and they drank.
“So, uhm, a quarter of our North Korean intel, huh?”
He rolled the can slowly between his palms. “It’s not anywhere near that, really,” he said with a chuckle. Then, after a pause, “I thought maybe if did a good enough job here, they’d let me go back to where I want to be. It hasn’t happened yet.”
“See, now you’re doing too good a job,” she replied.
“I should revert to my old slacker ways.”
Laura took a long drink of the beer. It was awful, but it was cold, so she didn’t care. “I didn’t serve with you that long, Colonel, but I think we both know you’re only a slacker on the surface.”
Sheppard grinned. “Am I really that easy to read?”
“Depends on where people know you from,” she replied carefully, and he nodded. “You don’t know how glad I am to see someone from Atlantis,” she said after a moment.
“If feels like a dream now, doesn’t it.”
“When it doesn’t feel like a nightmare.”
Sheppard leaned his shoulder against hers briefly, and Laura sighed. “You dream about it too, Cadman?” he asked quietly.
“Not so much anymore, sir. I’m too tired to dream. But I did at first.” She looked up into his face. “I dreamed horrible things, Colonel.”
“Me, too.” He finished his beer and crumpled the can in his fist. “They make you go for counseling?” he asked in a casual voice.
“No. You?”
“No. But they will after this. I know they think I’m suicidal, but apparently I’m worth too much to send back to the States right now.”
Laura decided to test out her theory. “If I might, sir, I think the Pentagon is trying to sweep the whole Atlantis expedition under the rug.”
“You said it. Not to mention the lies they had to tell the families of everyone who died.” He looked down at his clasped hands. “I refused to do it, so they got Elizabeth to write all the official letters, not just for the civilians.”
“What was the final number?” she managed to ask.
“Forty-seven.”
They were quiet for awhile. Laura struggled to compose herself. “I was going to go see Carson’s mother,” she whispered, pain rising in her chest, making it hard to breathe. “But I couldn’t do it.”
Sheppard nodded. He squeezed her wrist for a moment as she tried to breathe easier and swallowed back her tears with the last of her beer. When it was gone, she stood up. “I should go.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you around, right?”
“When I’m here.”
“Thanks for the beer.”
He waved a hand. “We’ll find something to talk about next time that’s not so depressing,” he said, “or else I’ll find some harder liquor.”
“Good luck with that, sir,” she said dryly, and he smiled just a little.
*
For two days, Laura felt like she couldn’t get the taste of beer out of her mouth, no matter how much Tabasco she put on the never-ending spaghetti MREs. And now it was another day, another convoy that she couldn’t hold her thoughts together on. To her left, Tall Guy looked disapproving. All four of them had sensed something was wrong with her, and she’d shot them down the second they tried to ask. She figured she should be glad that they wanted to look out for her, but it wasn’t anything she could talk about. She kept her eyes on the road.
Minnesota was humming under his breath, a pop song that had been getting a lot of play on the radio when they were in Japan, and Tall Guy kicked his foot. Minnesota shut up, his lips pressed together in a firm line. Laura wiggled her toes inside her boots, trying to warm them, but nothing helped. The truck jostled over a rut in the muddy road and they all swayed. “Sorry,” she heard Bogie shout out of the window. “Couldn’t help that one!”
“Shut up and drive!” she shouted back, scanning the horizon. They hadn’t encountered any problems other than bad driving conditions on the last three convoys they’d accompanied, but that didn’t mean there weren’t problems still waiting to be encountered. And it was always on the days people were already tired and grouchy, which they all were today, even the lead team up in front, so that put her even more on edge.
Laura flexed her fingers slightly, trying to get her mind to stop replaying the conversation she’d had with Sheppard, a little embarrassed that she’d shown that much emotion. It didn’t seem like it had bothered him, but she was embarrassed just the same. Not to mention, she couldn’t believe he’d come right out and said that he’d refused to do the death notifications. She tried to imagine herself in his shoes and couldn’t.
“Captain,” Tall Guy said, and Laura looked where he was aiming. A shadow on the ground, off to the right.
“Could just be an animal,” she murmured.
“I’ll keep it in my sights all the same.”
“Good idea.”
“At least in the desert, it was easier to tell which things were the animals and which things were the humans acting like animals,” he muttered. Tall Guy had done a tour in Iraq, she knew. The shape moved. It was a deer. “What about you, Captain? I can’t believe I never asked you what you did before this.”
“It’s classified, Lieutenant,” she said crisply. “Suffice to say it was both dangerous and boring, all at the same time, and it was someplace you’ve probably never heard of.”
Those parts were all true, and leaving out the actual aliens was easy enough. Somehow, the guys had never asked her what she’d done before being promoted to Captain, most of their small talk was about home and the things they missed: Tall Guy missed his little brother, New Guy missed his girlfriend and had confessed he worried she’d leave him, Minnesota missed his folks and the farm he’d grown up on, and Bogie missed his mother’s apple pie. He could describe it in enough detail to make her mouth water. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had apple pie.
“Yes, ma’m.” Laura knew he wouldn’t ask again. “Is that where you met Colonel Sheppard?” was what he did ask, in the tone of voice that said he was surprised he was even asking.
“Yes.”
Tall Guy nodded and remained silent. Laura glanced at the sky and hoped it wouldn’t snow again today. The roads were even worse when it did.
4.
John looked over his shoulder. The corridor was dark, something he wasn’t used to. McKay was working on the power problem with Zelenka, and he could just imagine the two of them squabbling about the ZPM. He aimed the light on his P90 down the hall in the other direction and called for Teyla.
She didn’t respond. He called for Ronon. “I’m here,” Ronon replied.
“Where’s Teyla?”
Ronon moved out of a deep shadow and leaned against the wall next to him. “She went to find Dr. Weir.”
“Without saying anything?”
Ronon shrugged.
“Fine,” John snapped. “Let’s go.”
The darkness bothered him a little. You never knew what could be around the corner in Atlantis, particularly in the parts of the city that were rarely used and kept empty for power conservation reasons. The long range sensors showed three Wraith ships headed in the planet’s direction, and they had been unable to establish any contact with Earth. Adding to John’s unease was the information that one of Teyla’s contacts had provided: a group they had encountered two months ago had set their sights on Elizabeth, and while John didn’t think any of them would get close enough to actually kidnap her, the thought that someone wanted to take her left him vibrating with anger nearly all the time.
“Sheppard,” Ronon whispered, and they stopped moving for a moment. But there wasn’t anything to find and John gestured for them to continue. Their boots echoed as they went.
*
“So, does anyone ever ask what you did before this?” Cadman asked him the next time they were both in the same place. He hadn’t been able to get his hands on anything stronger than two more of the same cans of beer. She’d shrugged off his apology, dark circles under her eyes telling him just how tired she was.
“Not very often, and once I say it’s classified they usually give up on finding out.”
“What about the guys on your team?”
“They don’t talk much.” He’d been in the field with Beckett and Nelson all of last week. The temperature had dropped again, and the mud froze into hard ruts. “You know it’s snowed more here this month than it has in the last fifty years?” he asked her. “Apparently, the average snowfall is only thirty-seven days. There’s been forty-nine this winter so far.”
Cadman gave him a look that said she didn’t care what the average snowfall was. “All I know is that it’s cold. Therefore, I’m cold.”
“Close your eyes and think of someplace warm,” he suggested.
“It only works for about thirty seconds, Colonel,” she replied dryly. He held out the can.
“I heard the story of how you got asked to join the Atlantis expedition,” she said, taking the beer and sitting down. He watched as she held the can between he knees and leaned over to unlace her boots. “Sorry, sir,” she said when she saw him looking, “but my feet are killing me.”
“Stop calling me sir, Cadman.”
“I can’t help it.” She popped open the beer. “So do you ever think about the fact that if it hadn’t been you flying the General’s helicopter, you never would have joined the Stargate program?”
It was something he’d thought about a lot, actually. He shrugged. “Sometimes I think it would have been better if I’d turned it down,” he answered, but after what Carson told me about the Stargate, I wanted to know more. I’m sorry,” he added, having seen her slight wince at the mention of Beckett’s name.
“It’s all right. You were saying?”
“If I’d never been flying that helicopter, I never would have found out about the Stargate. Everything would have happened and I’d be none the wiser. I’d probably still be at McMurdo.”
John had thought about that a lot in the beginning. He’d been the extra man, another officer they hadn’t planned on taking, but Elizabeth had gotten O’Neill to give him the pep talk. The first few weeks after Sumner died, he’d gone through all the alternate possibilities he could think of - all the things that could have happened if he hadn’t come with. Then he’d realized thinking about it was futile, and that he was killing himself emotionally by doing it, and he forced himself to stop.
“Sometimes I think I could have been better off oblivious,” he told Cadman now. “But I’d been on every continent on Earth, and I was as far from civilization as I could get on this planet, so it seemed like a good idea.” To get even further away.
“For what it’s worth, sir, I’m glad you went.”
“Let’s make a deal,” he suggested. “I call you Laura, you call me John, and we don’t tell anyone.”
She grinned. “I’ll try. But no promises.”
“I’ll probably keep calling you Cadman anyway,” he sighed. “So what about you? Did they explain it before you decided to sign the papers?”
“Not really. I think the Commander’s words were something like ‘highly classified, highly dangerous, and capable of blowing your mind’. Needless to say, I signed on right away.”
“You went to the Naval Academy, right?” He’d read Cadman’s file once upon a time, and he’d be damned if he could remember any of the details now.
“Yes, sir. John. Sorry.”
“Didn’t quite prepare you for a war in another galaxy, did it,” he said, and she chuckled and shook her head.
“I can’t believe we had to leave like that,” she said after a moment.
“Elizabeth said the same thing.”
“There was a pool, you know. On whether or not you and Dr. Weir were a couple. It was up to nearly two hundred dollars at the end.”
John looked at her sideways. “What did you think?”
“To be honest - I didn’t think Dr. Weir was the kind of person who would want to get involved with someone she worked with.”
“Close enough,” he replied, and finished off his beer. “I thought we could have made a go of it, but she turned me down,” he confessed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why be sorry?”
“I think you’re a nice guy,” she murmured.
“I’m bitter and depressed, and we both know it,” he said, trying to sound casual.
Cadman gave him a look he couldn’t read and pulled her feet out of her boots with a grimace, reaching down to rub her ankles.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Apart from aching all over? Yeah.”
John figured he could do something about that, and pulled her feet up into his lap, ignoring her shocked look. The last woman he’d been this close to was Elizabeth, the night she’d turned him down. The night they’d abandoned the city.
5.
“You okay?” Sheppard asked her.
She raised an eyebrow and flexed her toes. “Apart from aching all over? Yeah.”
He grinned lazily and pulled her feet into his lap, dug his thumbs into her arches, right in the middle of her feet where the pain was the worst. Laura felt powerless immediately, and she was pretty sure her eyes rolled back into her head as she groaned. He chuckled and kept pushing, moving his thumbs in tiny circle, the rest of each of his hands cupped over the top of each of her feet. She felt the tension easing from her body and sighed. His hands were warm.
“That feels great,” she mumbled.
“Combat boots and cold aren’t exactly a great combination.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” She shifted, trying to find a slightly more comfortable position, and ended up propping herself up on hands.
“If it was up to me, there’d be a couch or something,” Sheppard said sympathetically. He pressed his fingertips against where her foot and ankle met, where she hadn’t even realized it hurt.
“You know this is incredibly inappropriate,” Laura muttered.
“I don’t hear you complaining.”
She opened one eye and saw the look he was giving her. It made her stomach flip and her shoulders tremble. Carson had been the last person to look at her like that, and where Carson had made it warm and comfortable, Sheppard made it… she didn’t know, exactly. Interesting and exotic and wrong all at the same time. And she was definitely turned on. His hands on her calves didn’t help, even with the material between his palms and her skin. But the pain was lessening and she thought maybe she’d be able to get her feet back into her boots without wanting to scream. “I’m not going to complain,” is what she finally said.
“Good.” He moved his hands back to her ankles. “How are the inspections going?”
“So far, so good. But the convoys can get kind of spooky, especially at night.” They’d come back from the last one just after the sun had gone down, and it was the middle of the night and pitch black by the time they’d reached camp. Night vision goggles grew tedious after about forty-five minutes, and when she’d finally gotten some sleep, she’d dreamed all in shades of green. “What’s it like out there on foot?”
“Cold. But at least the mud froze.”
“You know that’s probably the last freeze there will be this year.”
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Thought you didn’t care about the weather.”
“I care about being cold all the time.” She tipped her head from side to side, letting her neck crack a little.
“Want me to do your back next?”
“I should say no,” Laura told him, but it seemed like she was trying to convince herself. “I should. But okay.”
He grinned. She swung her feet down from his lap and eased her boots back on. Definitely not as bad as before. Sheppard nudged her. “I’ll probably fall asleep,” she warned, and moved to sit in front of him, taking off her heavy jacket. “And I should really show my face to my team in about twenty minutes before they come looking for me.”
“They know who I am?”
“Of course they know who you are,” she replied, incredulous. “After General Marsh spent fifteen minutes alternating between loving you and hating you, I’d say most of the soldiers here know who you are.”
“They ask where you know me from?” he asked, and pressed a thumb on either side of her spine, right between her shoulder blades. It took a minute before she could talk.
“I said I must have met you somewhere.” He moved his hands upward toward her neck. “Bogie didn’t seem convinced but he didn’t ask again. Christ, you’re really from the deep-tissue school of massage.” Laura clutched at her jacket, the only thing she could grab other than his knees on either side of her thighs. It would hurt if it didn’t feel so good.
“That’s because you’re like a rock, Laura,” he replied. “Relax.”
“I can’t relax in this place. We relax, people die.”
“True,” he murmured. He squeezed her upper arms. She sighed and let her head hang forward, finally warm enough to feel sleepy.
*
She woke up an hour later, tangled in his embrace. His thigh pressed firmly between her legs, and god, it felt great. She hadn’t been this close to a man since Carson. She had to get out of here, except Sheppard was holding on pretty tightly, and she could feel his arousal against her thigh. Her heart felt like it would beat right out of her chest, loud enough she thought the sound alone should wake him up. “John,” she hissed. “John.”
“What?” he mumbled, clearly not awake. Then his eyes opened. “Oh god, Laura, sorry.” He let go of her and she stood up. “I didn’t… do anything I shouldn’t have?”
Laura shook her head. “No. But I should have left a long time ago.”
She didn’t need another war zone. Sheppard sat up, straightening his BDUs. He cleared his throat. “I’ll understand if I don’t see you for awhile,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
Laura bent to lace her boots a little tighter. “You’ll be the one that’s gone longer,” she murmured quietly. She pulled her jacket on, zipped it up, and hurried from Sheppard’s tent without saying anything else. It was colder outside, and the sharpness of it cleared her mind. Her breath clouded in the air as she hurried across the camp. Bogie and Minnesota were leaning against the Humvee, smoking and eating crackers.
“Hey guys,” she greeted them, taking her gloves from her pocket and pulling them on.
“Captain.” Minnesota offered her a cigarette but she waved it away. They didn’t ask where she’d been.
*
The couch in Kate Heightmeyer’s office was incredibly comfortable, and Laura wondered if it had been here, or if it had been brought to Atlantis from Earth. She probably could have taken a nap on it. “You feeling okay?” Kate asked her, interrupting her line of thought about the couch.
“I’m great now that I’ve got my own body back,” Laura replied, tucking her bare feet up underneath her. “What, did you think I was going to have some sort of separation anxiety about McKay?”
Kate smiled. “Not really. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still concerned for your well-being. After all, you were ready to let go.”
“Death is preferable to being stuck in McKay’s head for the rest of my life,” Laura grumbled.
“Some people have a hard time coming back from that edge,” Kate said softly.
“You think I’m suicidal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I just got back into my own body, Kate, I don’t plan on giving it up again so soon.”
“Good.”
“Can we be done with the therapy talk now?”
“Sure. You know it’s just routine anyway.”
Laura scoffed. “There’s nothing routine about seeing McKay naked.” Kate groaned and covered her face with her hands. Laura couldn’t help but laugh. “You coming to poker night on Thursday?”
“As long as there aren’t any more bizarre crises to deal with,” Kate replied, surfacing.
“Didn’t know what you were getting into, did you?”
“None of us did.” Kate leaned back in her chair. “But people have been holding up remarkably well.”
“That’s got to be weird for you, knowing everyone’s problems.”
Kate shook her head. “Trust me, sometimes it’s best to just pretend that I’m listening to what they say. Besides, ninety percent of my job is getting people to say things out loud - here, especially, people just need to talk instead of holding it all inside. Most of them are extremely emotionally resourceful. They just need to realize something is wrong in the first place so that they can start to move on. Not to mention that people with serious problems wouldn’t be here anyway, because they never would have passed the psych evaluation.”
“Good to know.”
There was a knock on the door and Kate called for them to come in. Colonel Sheppard stuck his head into the room. “Hey, Doc, I need you to settle a bet for me - sorry, I didn’t know you were with someone.”
“I was just leaving, sir,” Laura replied, putting her shoes back on. “Dr. Heightmeyer says I am one hundred percent myself again.”
“Good to hear.”
Laura waved to Kate and slipped past the Colonel. She was on restricted duty for another three days, but taking a run before she went back to her quarters seemed like a good way to clear her head and relax.
*
With the thaw came the mist, obscuring nearly everything more than three meters away. Cold moisture hung heavy in the air, making everything they touched slippery with condensation. Laura figured she’d been wearing her gloves about three days straight so that her hands wouldn’t slide on her rifle.
The change in weather seemed to put everyone on edge, including her. They were on their way back to base camp from some place she couldn't even pronounce, Minnesota and Tall Guy in the cab of the Humvee, Bogie and New Guy in the back with her. Uneasiness curled heavy in her belly as she squinted into the mist. It was March now.
“Captain.” New Guy touched her shoulder and gestured. Up ahead, there was a rusted-out Jeep on the side of the road. They’d driven this road at least twice last week and she knew that vehicle hadn’t been there. It looked entirely too run-down to be drivable.
Brake lights flashed in front of them, making the fog glow red, and then the lead car swerved. She saw it skid into the right-hand ditch and then there was a terrible bang and a fireball where the first inspector’s car had been. She could feel the heat a hundred yards back. Bogie shouted something and fired at the human-shaped shadows near the old jeep, and then something clattered into the back of the Humvee with them.
Laura had enough time to look down and register that it was a small grenade, a kind she didn’t know, before Bogie shoved her into the furthest corner and covered her body with his, and the grenade exploded. Everything rattled as the Humvee went off the road.
The next thing she remembered was crawling out from under Bogie, soaked in blood, red running over her hands, wet enough to make her BDU pants stick to her legs. New Guy grabbed her under the arms and dragged her further away as she struggled, shouting at him that she wasn't hurt, to help Bogie instead. “It’s too late,” he shouted back.
Laura rolled out of his grasp and vomited, the realization what she was covered in like a kick to her chest. Where was her gun? Somewhere in the mess of their Humvee. She drew her sidearm and got up, wiping her mouth. “Who else is dead?” she said sharply to New Guy, who was two steps to her right.
“One of the inspector’s cars went up,” he replied, as pale as she’d ever seen him.
“I saw it. Who else?” She went carefully around the wreck of the vehicle, saw Tall Guy and Minnesota there, their rifles aimed at the rusted out Jeep. She dropped to her stomach and crawled up next to them. New Guy did the same. “Got anything?” she asked them.
“Nothing,” Minnesota replied. “There was one but he’s down. Where’s Bogie?”
“Dead.”
He looked at her and saw. Ahead, there was shouting.
*
The rumor was that there were more troops coming, but there had been no official word. Laura had washed the blood out of her hair with icy water, sobbing as she did so, and then she moved through the days like any other, all of them silent except when spoken to. She noticed the three of them stayed closer to her than normal, and they were hardly ever out of each other’s sight. It had been the first attack on any of the convoys, and the North Koreans had yet to acknowledge it. The tension was enough to make her teeth ache.
Quietly and fuming at herself, she wished for Sheppard, as if a familiar face could make her feel better. New Guy, Tall Guy and Minnesota were all just as depressed as she was, and they were no comfort to each other as they drifted through debriefings. She wrote a letter to Bogie’s parents with shaking hands, the phantom smell of apple pie haunting her. She’d never be able to eat it again.
She was coming back from the supply tent when she saw Sheppard talking to New Guy and Minnesota near the munitions tent. Tall Guy was standing a few feet away, smoking. “I need to talk to your Captain for a few minutes,” she heard Sheppard say as she approached. “Cadman,” he said to her.
“Sir.” He looked a little more worse for wear than he had the last time she’d seen him, a fresh scrape on his forehead, a livid bruise on his cheekbone. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I’m fine. Come on.” They walked a little ways away, into an alcove created by a number of tents. The wind whipped her ponytail against her face. “I heard about Sgt. Crossman,” Sheppard said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t stop shaking,” Laura heard herself say. “I feel like I’m going to be sick all the time.”
“Was it the first -”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
Sheppard shifted, restless, looking from side to side. “Look,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve got to tell you something.”
“What is it?” She hugged herself against the wind.
“I’m leaving again, and I’ll be gone a while this time,” he said. “I wanted - I needed you to know.”
Laura swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“Laura, if I don’t -”
“Shut up,” she said desperately. “Don’t say that.”
He leaned in and kissed her, amid the barbed wire and the spotlights, in the shadow of the world’s tallest flagpole. His lips were warm and Laura let herself cling to him for a moment, her hands on his shoulders. Then he let go and walked swiftly away, not looking back. She turned around and stared at the drab green of the tent for awhile, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth.
6.
Six weeks later and she was in Japan with New Guy, Tall Guy, and Minnesota. In the mess hall, Minnesota asked, “Are we really going back to the States this time?” and looked vaguely forlorn as he ate a jello cube.
“Hopefully,” she muttered.
“The first leave I get, I’m going to go see Bogie’s folks,” he announced, running a hand over his head. “I was the one he was closest to, you know? I miss him, ma’m.”
“I miss him too, Ryan.” It was probably the first time she’d ever used Minnesota’s first name. She sipped her coffee. They were the only people in the hall, New Guy and Tall Guy having begged off to sleep half an hour ago.
“He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“No, he didn’t.” That was what made it all so much more bitter. “He died protecting me. He didn’t have to.”
“I think he felt he did, ma’m.” Minnesota shoved his cup of jello away. “You know, before… I had already made up my mind that I was going to reenlist - I’m up in September - but I spent the last week and a half convinced I wasn’t. Thought maybe I’d go back to school, see if I couldn’t find something else I was good at.”
“And now?”
He shrugged. “I’m still not sure, but I’m no longer convinced.”
Laura leaned back in her chair, her hands wrapped around her cup. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re an excellent Marine, and it would be our loss if you decided not to reenlist.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time I got some sleep.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, ma’m.”
Minnesota took his tray and left. Laura put her feet up on the nearest chair with a sigh. They did the same thing day in and day out here, waiting for their next set of orders. The North Korean government had proclaimed the convoy bombing to be the work of terrorists, and had offered as many gestures of peace as they possibly could. Nearly everyone had been surprised by the way things had turned out - the expectation was that there would be a full-out air assault, followed by a ground war. But it hadn’t happened. The bombing remained the only use of force that had occurred.
Her nightmares now, instead of the Wraith, were of Bogie’s body. His remains had been flown back to the States, where they had been interred in his family’s plot. His mother had written her a letter full of sadness. At the end, she’d written that Laura would always be welcome to come and see her, and that she would like to meet the woman her son had always spoken highly of. Laura had carried the letter with her for days before replacing it carefully in its envelope and tucking it in her footlocker.
Maybe she would go, someday. Right now Bogie’s death was still too much of an ache in her chest, right alongside the ache that had bloomed when Carson had died, and hadn’t budged since. It had shrunk just a little bit when she’d given herself over to Sheppard’s touch for that hour of sleep, his hands on her skin a balm on her soul, but it hadn’t lasted long enough for the pain to really ease. She hadn’t seen Sheppard since the kiss, and she’d reverted to feeling like Atlantis was once again half dream, half nightmare.
She finished her coffee and started back to the barracks to put on some workout clothes and go for a run before she tried to fall asleep.
*
There was an envelope on her bunk. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it wasn’t civilian mail. Laura sat down and opened it carefully. Transfer papers to Cheyenne Mountain. A note slid out from between them.
I get to go back to what I’m good at, it read. There’s a place for you if you want it. If you need it like I do. I can’t guarantee it will make either of us better, but I know I want to give it a shot.
Her hand shook and she had to set the note down for a moment and take a deep breath before she could keep reading. Don’t make me come to Japan and drag you back here with me, ok? And please don't make me say please.
I need you on my team, Cadman. And maybe - hell, I'm bad at this. Come to Colorado. I want to promise you it'll be worth it but I've stopped making promises. Do the paperwork anyway. If you do, I'll see you in a few weeks.
Sheppard had signed it with his initials. She read the note again and then looked at the transfer papers. Here was her chance to get off this rock once more. He'd filled out most of the paperwork for her. All she had to do was sign it.
All she had to do was sign her name.
Author: amitee
Rating: R (for language and war)
Spoilers: None
Pairing: Sheppard/Cadman (mostly UST), implied Beckett/Cadman and Sheppard/Weir
Word Count: 9,900
A/N: If North Korea ever was a war zone, I don't know what it would really be like. So here's hoping this story works. The title is from the Bright Eyes song of the same name. The story Carson tells Laura (with changes, of course) is from Parallel Myths. Many thanks to havocthecat.
They were boots on the ground in February. Laura wasn't sure what exactly she'd been expecting North Korea to be like, but this wasn't it. She'd seen the pictures of schoolgirls carrying rifles with them to and from class, and for awhile she'd had visions of shooting in the streets, but in the DMZ it was just cold. Their mission was to provide security to the nuclear inspection convoys, and there were less than a thousand troops deployed.
She was leading a team of five - Tall Guy, New Guy, Bogie, Minnesota, and herself. Tall Guy was from Texas, and towered over the rest of them even barefoot and with a shaved head. He’d been with Laura the longest out of the four, nine months, almost since the recall from Atlantis. New Guy was from California, and he’d been with her almost as long as Tall Guy, but the nickname had continued to stick. He was the most serious, and she was determined to drive it out of him and instill at least a semblance of a sense of humor.
Bogie had gotten his nickname when they’d found out that his mom had sent him Casablanca on DVD as a Christmas present. He’d been Baby before that, being fresh out of officer training school, and Laura was pretty sure he preferred what they were calling him now. Bogie was from Iowa, and he and Minnesota stuck like glue in their Midwestern-ness.
Minnesota was actually from Illinois but he’d gone to college in St. Paul and wore his Vikings sweatshirt at every possible opportunity. He got along the best with people out of all of them, and he was their translator on this mission. He was constantly getting teased that this was there majoring in Asian Studies had landed him, instead of still sitting in some basement office in the Pentagon doing translations, which is where he’d been before being transferred to her team.
They called her Captain most of the time, and Caddy the rest, and Laura knew she couldn’t have asked for - or even hand-picked - a better team. They took a lot of shit from the other guys for having a woman for a captain, but she’d heard them dish it back just as good, and wasn’t worried.
She’d been thrown right back into the mix after returning from Atlantis. It had been a little jarring, but she’d been glad for the work. It had taken her mind off all the circumstances surrounding the shutdown and most days she could usually make it a couple of hours without thinking about Carson, and it was getting a little easier to shove the memories away when they did surface. Sometimes she felt like she carried too much, but she knew she wasn’t the only one. It was funny, she thought, that had Atlantis had had it’s own staff psychiatrist; now that she almost thought she had a reason to see one, the Corps had not provided the exit counseling that she figured they probably should have. Once you were placed outside the Stargate program, you had to pretend the Stargate program didn’t exist. She hadn’t even seen anyone she’d known from Atlantis or the Daedalus since her reassignment. Her orders had arrived the day they’d all gotten back, along with everyone else’s.
It was almost ironic, she mused as they arrived at the already-established base camp, that the military offered counseling when you didn’t want it, and neglected it when you thought you might.
For the first two months back on Earth, she’d felt like she was having a hard time fitting in. It could have all been in her head, she realized, because no one had even looked at her sideways the few times she’d been afraid that all the pain inside was showing on her face.
Then, her team had been assembled and they’d gone first to Germany as part of a protective detail on a presidential visit, and then they’d done two months of training in Japan.
“You a lifer, Captain?” Tall Guy had asked her one day as they’d fixed whatever was wrong with their Humvee that week. It had always been something, she remembered.
“You bet,” she’d replied. “Nothing but the Corps all the way for me.”
He’d grinned and nodded. “Once a Marine, always a Marine, ma’m.”
“You said it.”
Now, as they unloaded their gear and dragged it towards the storage tent, she hoped and prayed that this mission would be over as quickly as possible and they could get out of this cold, gray place where the air smelled strange.
*
Their routines were quickly established, and Laura fell into them easily. Taking point in the Humvee at the end of the convoy wasn’t much different than point on the various security details she’d been assigned to out of Atlantis, watching out for the safety of some group of scientists who were more interested in the local plant life than in making sure the local population left them alone in their wildflower-gathering.
Missions out of Atlantis had felt real enough: blue sky above, solid ground under her feet, vegetation that usually kind of close to Earth’s, people who seemed pretty human to her. It was the Wraith darts, when they showed up screaming overhead, that gave it all a bizarre nightmarish quality. And when the Wraith themselves actually appeared, the nightmare feeling was even stronger. Like something out of a horror story. Last year, she’d volunteered to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters at a local mall during her one blessed week of leave, and there had been a little boy in a costume just close enough that she’d nearly had to turn away. But the feeling had passed; he was just a child, and she’d forced herself to smile as she’d dropped a packet of M&Ms into his pumpkin bag.
The nightmare had come again that night, the first reoccurrence in almost three months, and instead of going back to bed after she’d jerked awake, a scream dying foul-tasting in her throat, she’d turned on the television and flipped from one infomercial to another until the sun came up.
Now, here, the convoy rattling over the gravel road, her rifle ready in her hands, this felt solid. This was Earth and she wasn’t light years away anymore. Laura wished fiercely for someone, anyone to reassure her that her Pegasus tour of duty had been just as real, if not more. In the back of her mind she knew nothing else would ever come close to measuring up - she’d never have her consciousness trapped in someone else’s body on this planet, for sure - and that made her feel all the more like she’d dreamed the whole thing. And knowing for sure that life existed outside of Earth’s little blue sphere kept on tripping her up, made her feel small and insignificant when she thought about it too much.
Staying busy kept her from thinking about it too often, except for times like these when there was nothing to do but watch the road, watch the horizon, and think. She tried to clear her head and couldn’t. Next to her, Minnesota looked just as caught up in his thoughts as she felt, and while she was glad she wasn’t the only one, chances were that Minnesota wasn’t thinking about possible alien invasions or decommissioned spaceships stored away in North Dakota.
*
She ran into Lt. Col. Sheppard just south of Panmunjeom, at the base that wasn’t supposed to exist. They’d done two full convoys up into the North now, everyone on edge and nearly vibrating with nervousness until the nuclear inspectors were allowed inside the facilities at Yongbyon. It was their much needed day of rest, and Laura was walking towards her tent when she saw him coming from the opposite direction.
“Colonel,” she said, shocked. He grinned, weary-looking, and his familiar face was the best thing she’d seen in months. “I see it’s full Colonel now, sir; congratulations.”
His eyes flicked to her bars. “Captain Cadman, huh?” he asked.
“I’m fairly sure you had something to do with that, sir,” she replied, struggling not to smile. Her boots sank just a little in the cold mud. The snow was melting today, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Maybe.” His grin faded slightly as he looked over his shoulder, and she saw his fingers flex a little on his P-90. There were streaks of mud on his hands. He leaned forward a little, and his voice dropped a little quieter. “You know I’d love to catch up, on everything - but I’ve got to go.”
“I understand.”
“When I get back, I’ll see if I can find you, and we’ll talk,” he said, walking backwards towards the group of soldiers waiting for him. “When I get back.”
She smiled then, despite herself. “Yes, sir.”
2.
John had been in some pretty fucked-up situations in his life, but this one was starting to look like it might top the list. Even above being kidnapped by his former second in command. He was about ready to tell the Air Force to fuck off, this wasn’t his job, and go be a civilian bush pilot somewhere in Alaska or something. Haul the fucking mail back and forth. Jesus Christ. There was military, and then there was running a fucking spy squad. Not that he wasn’t good at hiding under a blanket of fake leaves, covered in mud, looking at supposed secret nuclear sites through a crazy-ass pair of binoculars. And not that it wasn’t kind of exciting. But goddamnit, he was still really pissed off about being pulled from the Stargate program for this shit. Plus, it was cold. Not to mention he was dead if he got caught, since he still wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Becker and Nelson to come save his life.
It had been nine months since the entire Atlantis expedition had been recalled and John felt like he’d been in absolute hell for nine months. He hadn’t known until it was over how freeing it was to be someplace where the only person looking over his shoulder was a civilian, and one he liked quite a bit the majority of the time, even if Elizabeth had made some interesting and ultimately wrong decisions. But hindsight was always twenty-twenty, and they had all made the best choices they could, given the options, right up until the end.
The recall had been swift, unarguable, and in the end a chaotic mess. People had died. People he cared deeply about, and their deaths had left an ache he thought would never leave him. He had stayed numb enough not to care very much if it did or not, and part of him didn’t want it to ease, because it reminded him that Atlantis had been real. He’d stood there, he’d slept there, he’d flown a fucking spaceship. More than once.
Earth, now, felt small. And even worse, it felt insignificant. He’d spent three and a half years discovering the bigger picture only to find himself on the fringes of an international squabble, and one that looked merely petty next to the intergalactic wars that he and the rest of the Stargate program had been witness to.
*
It was nearly midnight. Outside, pitch-black and the sea was still. It was unnerving. He was used to a breeze. There were no stars tonight and barely a sliver of a moon. There was no sound save the tread of his own boots, and even that was less. He felt like his breath hung strange in the air.
At quarter after, Elizabeth found him. “John?” she called out onto the balcony. “Is that you?”
“Who else would be up this late?”
“Point taken.” She leaned against the railing, looking out into the dark.
“The weather’s a little weird.”
“To say the least.”
“Maybe it knows,” he suggested. “Maybe the city will mourn us once we’re gone.”
“In another lifetime, I could have told you if it would have.”
He turned his head to look at her, but he could hardly make out her profile in this minimum of light. “What are we going to do now?” he asked.
“Funny,” she said strangely. “I was just about to ask you the same question.”
“I don’t have an answer for myself, Elizabeth, much less an answer for you.”
Elizabeth let out a noise that was part sigh, part laugh, part sob, and the one thing he could see clearly was the white of her knuckles as she clutched hard at the rail. He stepped forward and pried her hands away. “Damn it, you could hold on to me, you know,” he said harshly, and he knew his touch was rough as he pulled her close. Maybe it would wake them up.
But there was a long moment that passed before she yielded, and he was about to let go. He could barely make out the sound of her breathing over the beating of his own heart. “Is this really what’s become of us?” she murmured, finally relaxing somewhat into his embrace. “We can’t stand up and fight?”
They had done it before, and John knew she thought they could do it once again. “Not this time.”
“But there’s not going to be another time, John! It’s over. We give in and it’s over. All of this. Atlantis. The expedition. The whole Stargate program!”
He took her by the shoulders and held her so that he could look at her face. “What do you want to do, run? Gate out of here to some planet, and never go home?”
“This is my home,” she cried out. He’d known her for years now and he’d never seen her like this. She took a deep breath. “I don’t have anything to go back to, do you understand that?”
“You’ve got me.” There. He’d said it, finally. Laid it out there for her to see, like a jeweler bringing out the most expensive diamond he had to sell, hoping he wouldn’t be told to put it back into the safe. Months and months he’d wanted to say something and he’d held back. Now he felt like he had nothing to lose.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said quietly, and she smoothed his hair and brushed her fingertips over his cheek and trailed them over his lips like she was blind, and John breathed in her touch and spent one bright, shining moment thinking it would all turn out. Then she said again, “I’m sorry. But it’s not enough.”
She pulled back out of his arms. It felt the same as when the Wraith had fed on him, except this time he knew it was all emotional, and somehow that made it even worse. There wasn’t even a physical reason behind the nearly crippling ache, the scraping pain in his throat. He looked away from her, out into the dark, unmoving night, and when he’d finally felt like he could open his mouth past breathing, felt like he was ready to say something again, Elizabeth was gone.
*
He’d hiked it back alone, and found Becker and Nelson still waiting for him, still with the same disapproving looks on their faces. He’d half expected them to march back out, leave him in the cold and ugly stretch of woods, but they were too well trained. “Shut the hell up,” he grumbled at them, before anyone could say anything, and they stayed silent the whole way back to the secret Panmunjeom base.
John was stomping through the mud, the guys a few steps behind him, when he saw a flash of blond hair, and then a face he’d thought he’d probably never see again. If it wasn’t Lt. Cadman, in the flesh and walking in his direction. “Colonel!” she called, and he grinned, his first smile in months. It felt pretty good. “I see it’s full Colonel now, sir; congratulations.”
She’d been promoted as well, he saw. “Captain Cadman, huh?”
“I’m fairly sure you had something to do with that, sir,” she replied, and he saw a smile pulling at her mouth.
“Maybe.” At least the Pentagon had listened to most of the recommendations he’d given, even for the people who weren’t Air Force. He’d half expected them not to, just to spite him. He wanted to tell Cadman she looked good, that he was damned glad to see her, damned glad to see anyone that he’d known in what felt now like a past life. She was proof he hadn’t dreamed it all and he wanted to hang on to that at least for a few minutes. He leaned in just a little bit. “You know I’d love to catch upon everything,” he murmured, and he could feel his team glaring at him, “but I’ve got to go.”
“I understand,” she said firmly, and he figured she understood more than that.
He had to go. He didn’t want to go. “When I get back, I’ll see if I can find you, and we’ll talk,” he promised, starting to walk backwards in the direction of Becker and Nelson. The mud pulled at his boots. “When I get back,” he said again.
Cadman smiled at him. It was the best thing he’d seen in months. “Yes, sir.”
John watched her for another moment, then turned to his team. “That,” he told them, “is one of the best officers I have ever served with, and you bastards don’t even come close.” But he grinned a little as he said it, and Becker chuckled, and he thought maybe these guys would turn out okay. The ache in his chest was easing, just a little, and he was going to find Cadman the minute he got back. He hoped to God she’d still be around.
3.
Laura's mind was still spinning a little as she walked away, and she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to make sure he was real. Sheppard, here, in the godforsaken DMZ? It didn't make much sense to her - she'd figured he'd gone back to flying Blackhawks or Pavehawks or whatever it was he'd done before getting drafted into the Stargate program. Before Atlantis.
Seeing him hurt more than she thought it would, when it had been what she'd wanted so desperately, to see someone from the expedition. If only they hadn't been going in opposite directions. If only there were time. If only she knew he would actually come back.
A wave of sudden anger made her ears ring and she growled at herself, pushing it down and away. New Rule Number One: No more getting attached.
"Hey, Caddy!" Bogie called from behind her, and she turned slightly, composing herself. "How do you know Colonel Sheppard?" he asked, as he caught up to her outside her tent.
She decided to play dumb, at least for now. "Who?"
Bogie looked confused, his dark eyebrows drawing closer together. "Colonel John Sheppard. You were just talking to him. I saw you."
"Guess I met him someplace," she replied noncommittally. "How do you know him?"
"Didn't you pay attention at the debriefing?" She gave him a stern look and he stood up a little straighter. "I'm being honest, ma'm. You didn't hear the General say that Colonel Sheppard's the one who brought in nearly a quarter of our intelligence, and that he did it alone?"
"He's that Sheppard?" she asked, more to herself than to Bogie, who nodded enthusiastically. "Sweet Jesus. I guess I didn't connect the name."
Bogie seemed to take that for a good enough answer, and left immediately when she told him she'd see him in a few hours. She really hadn't realized that the guy the General had spent a good five minutes talking about, alternately singing his praises and damning his name, was the Sheppard she knew. The Sheppard she had known, just a little bit.
A quarter of their intelligence, all on his own. Maybe solo recon was how he'd gotten through it. Around it. Past it. It didn't quite make sense to her, but maybe Sheppard had been able to move on. If so, then she envied him. That was what she wanted most of all. To be able to move on, even a little. But the look on his face when he'd seen her - that wasn't the look of a man who'd been able to move past what had happened in Atlantis. Once she'd studied his face for more than a quick second, she'd seen it. He was just as broken as she was, but Sheppard was angry about it, whereas Laura knew she was just resigned to the idea.
The snow had started again, swirling thickly in a matter of minutes, and she shivered and dug out another hand-warmer before sitting down on her cot, trying to knock some of the mud off her boots. It was futile.
*
P35-X4B was a lot nicer than the last six planets she’d been on. That she had to admit. And being able to curl up next to Carson was even nicer. They had 48 hours of leave - shore leave, Colonel Sheppard had called it in that dry tone of voice - and Laura was determined to make the most of it. “Tell me a story,” she said to Carson, laying her head on his shoulder, wanting to hear him talk for awhile.
He thought for a moment. “Have I ever told you the myth of Angus the Young?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, Angus was the Gaelic god of love.”
“The Scottish Cupid!” she couldn’t help but tease.
“Something like that, except instead of arrows, Angus had four little birds that would hover about his had, and the birds represented his kisses.” He illustrated this with a kiss that she gladly returned.
“Anyone who heard the wee birds singing would fall hopelessly in love,” Carson continued. “Including Angus, so as you can imagine, the lad himself was constantly in love. One day, he fell dangerously, terribly ill. From love sickness, you see."
"Well, what else would it be?" she asked with a grin.
"He was in love with a young girl, and his mother searched all over Scotland to find her without success. So she called in Angus’ father, who was himself a god, the Good God, the Supreme Being. But even the Good God could not find her, so he asked the mystery-knower, Bov the Red. Bov didn’t know where the lass was either, but he found her eventually at the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth.
"So Angus went to see the mystery-keeper, and they had a feast that lasted three whole days. But Angus was eager to see the girl he loved, and begged Bov the Red to take him to the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth. So Bov took him there. And at the lake, Angus saw a hundred and fifty lovely maidens, the loveliest there were, all walking in pairs. Each pair was linked by a chain of pure gold. The tallest of all the maidens was the lass that Angus loved.
"The mystery keeper warned Angus that his maiden would not be separated from the others without difficulty. His love was named Caer, and she was the daughter of a prince.”
“Caer,” Laura whispered, rolling the name on her tongue. “Go on,” she urged Carson. “Her dad’s the prince - then what?”
“Angus went to see the King and Queen of the province Caer was from, to ask their help in winning her hand in marriage. But the King and Queen did not have the power to help, although they agreed to send a message to Caer’s father in Angus’ behalf.
"Caer’s father refused to see Angus, so the armies of the King and Angus’ own father besieged his home and took him as their prisoner. But Caer’s father explained after a great while that he lacked the power to give his daughter in marriage. Because, you see, her magic was much more powerful than his. He explained that she lived for six months out of the year as a woman, and the other six in the form of a swan. On Halloween, Caer would be at the lake again, with the other hundred and forty-nine maidens, all of them in the form of swans.
"So Angus went to the lake on the feast of Samhain and begged Caer, who was now a swan, to be his wife. She asked who he was, and he explained that he was Angus Og, the god of love. When he spoke his name, Angus was transformed into a swan, and he and Caer lived together forever after. And now, Angus appears to lovers as a swan, which is why lovers like to meet near lakes.”
Laura sighed. “That was sweet.”
“And fitting,” he chuckled.
She looked out at the lake they were camping on the shore of and smiled. “You wouldn’t have told that story if it wasn’t,” she said, and pulled him down into the sleeping bag with a kiss.
*
Laura was back in Panmunjeom no more than two hours when Sheppard found her, sitting outside her tent trying to decide if she wanted to trade her packet of candy for New Guy’s packet of crackers. They all saw him at the same time and hurried to their feet. Her heart was pounding.
“Relax, relax,” he said, but she couldn’t relax. “Cadman, you got a few minutes?”
“Of course, sir.” She handed New Guy her candy and followed Sheppard. “Where are we going?” she whispered.
“My tent,” he replied easily. “It’s slightly more private. Your team seems pretty okay, but they’re not ready to hear about the Wraith.”
“They’re excellent, sir, and you are definitely right about the second part.”
“So my tent it is.” He pushed aside the flap. “Have a seat.”
She sat down in the only place there was to sit, on the cot, and Sheppard rummaged in a bag for a minute before handing her a can of beer and sitting down as well. “Sorry it’s shitty beer.”
She hadn’t had a drink since Halloween. “It’s fine, sir,” she said and popped the tab.
“Cadman, you don’t have to call me ‘sir’ quite so much.”
“Sorry, sir,” she replied, and he gave her a look. Laura grinned at him, feeling her tension ease slightly.
Sheppard held up his beer. “Here’s to dying in a boring nuclear war on the boring planet Earth,” he announced.
“You know, Colonel, I always thought I’d die in some apocalyptic way, especially after I got assigned to Atlantis, but I never thought I’d be on Earth.”
Sheppard knocked his can against hers. “Welcome to the club,” he said, and they drank.
“So, uhm, a quarter of our North Korean intel, huh?”
He rolled the can slowly between his palms. “It’s not anywhere near that, really,” he said with a chuckle. Then, after a pause, “I thought maybe if did a good enough job here, they’d let me go back to where I want to be. It hasn’t happened yet.”
“See, now you’re doing too good a job,” she replied.
“I should revert to my old slacker ways.”
Laura took a long drink of the beer. It was awful, but it was cold, so she didn’t care. “I didn’t serve with you that long, Colonel, but I think we both know you’re only a slacker on the surface.”
Sheppard grinned. “Am I really that easy to read?”
“Depends on where people know you from,” she replied carefully, and he nodded. “You don’t know how glad I am to see someone from Atlantis,” she said after a moment.
“If feels like a dream now, doesn’t it.”
“When it doesn’t feel like a nightmare.”
Sheppard leaned his shoulder against hers briefly, and Laura sighed. “You dream about it too, Cadman?” he asked quietly.
“Not so much anymore, sir. I’m too tired to dream. But I did at first.” She looked up into his face. “I dreamed horrible things, Colonel.”
“Me, too.” He finished his beer and crumpled the can in his fist. “They make you go for counseling?” he asked in a casual voice.
“No. You?”
“No. But they will after this. I know they think I’m suicidal, but apparently I’m worth too much to send back to the States right now.”
Laura decided to test out her theory. “If I might, sir, I think the Pentagon is trying to sweep the whole Atlantis expedition under the rug.”
“You said it. Not to mention the lies they had to tell the families of everyone who died.” He looked down at his clasped hands. “I refused to do it, so they got Elizabeth to write all the official letters, not just for the civilians.”
“What was the final number?” she managed to ask.
“Forty-seven.”
They were quiet for awhile. Laura struggled to compose herself. “I was going to go see Carson’s mother,” she whispered, pain rising in her chest, making it hard to breathe. “But I couldn’t do it.”
Sheppard nodded. He squeezed her wrist for a moment as she tried to breathe easier and swallowed back her tears with the last of her beer. When it was gone, she stood up. “I should go.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you around, right?”
“When I’m here.”
“Thanks for the beer.”
He waved a hand. “We’ll find something to talk about next time that’s not so depressing,” he said, “or else I’ll find some harder liquor.”
“Good luck with that, sir,” she said dryly, and he smiled just a little.
*
For two days, Laura felt like she couldn’t get the taste of beer out of her mouth, no matter how much Tabasco she put on the never-ending spaghetti MREs. And now it was another day, another convoy that she couldn’t hold her thoughts together on. To her left, Tall Guy looked disapproving. All four of them had sensed something was wrong with her, and she’d shot them down the second they tried to ask. She figured she should be glad that they wanted to look out for her, but it wasn’t anything she could talk about. She kept her eyes on the road.
Minnesota was humming under his breath, a pop song that had been getting a lot of play on the radio when they were in Japan, and Tall Guy kicked his foot. Minnesota shut up, his lips pressed together in a firm line. Laura wiggled her toes inside her boots, trying to warm them, but nothing helped. The truck jostled over a rut in the muddy road and they all swayed. “Sorry,” she heard Bogie shout out of the window. “Couldn’t help that one!”
“Shut up and drive!” she shouted back, scanning the horizon. They hadn’t encountered any problems other than bad driving conditions on the last three convoys they’d accompanied, but that didn’t mean there weren’t problems still waiting to be encountered. And it was always on the days people were already tired and grouchy, which they all were today, even the lead team up in front, so that put her even more on edge.
Laura flexed her fingers slightly, trying to get her mind to stop replaying the conversation she’d had with Sheppard, a little embarrassed that she’d shown that much emotion. It didn’t seem like it had bothered him, but she was embarrassed just the same. Not to mention, she couldn’t believe he’d come right out and said that he’d refused to do the death notifications. She tried to imagine herself in his shoes and couldn’t.
“Captain,” Tall Guy said, and Laura looked where he was aiming. A shadow on the ground, off to the right.
“Could just be an animal,” she murmured.
“I’ll keep it in my sights all the same.”
“Good idea.”
“At least in the desert, it was easier to tell which things were the animals and which things were the humans acting like animals,” he muttered. Tall Guy had done a tour in Iraq, she knew. The shape moved. It was a deer. “What about you, Captain? I can’t believe I never asked you what you did before this.”
“It’s classified, Lieutenant,” she said crisply. “Suffice to say it was both dangerous and boring, all at the same time, and it was someplace you’ve probably never heard of.”
Those parts were all true, and leaving out the actual aliens was easy enough. Somehow, the guys had never asked her what she’d done before being promoted to Captain, most of their small talk was about home and the things they missed: Tall Guy missed his little brother, New Guy missed his girlfriend and had confessed he worried she’d leave him, Minnesota missed his folks and the farm he’d grown up on, and Bogie missed his mother’s apple pie. He could describe it in enough detail to make her mouth water. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had apple pie.
“Yes, ma’m.” Laura knew he wouldn’t ask again. “Is that where you met Colonel Sheppard?” was what he did ask, in the tone of voice that said he was surprised he was even asking.
“Yes.”
Tall Guy nodded and remained silent. Laura glanced at the sky and hoped it wouldn’t snow again today. The roads were even worse when it did.
4.
John looked over his shoulder. The corridor was dark, something he wasn’t used to. McKay was working on the power problem with Zelenka, and he could just imagine the two of them squabbling about the ZPM. He aimed the light on his P90 down the hall in the other direction and called for Teyla.
She didn’t respond. He called for Ronon. “I’m here,” Ronon replied.
“Where’s Teyla?”
Ronon moved out of a deep shadow and leaned against the wall next to him. “She went to find Dr. Weir.”
“Without saying anything?”
Ronon shrugged.
“Fine,” John snapped. “Let’s go.”
The darkness bothered him a little. You never knew what could be around the corner in Atlantis, particularly in the parts of the city that were rarely used and kept empty for power conservation reasons. The long range sensors showed three Wraith ships headed in the planet’s direction, and they had been unable to establish any contact with Earth. Adding to John’s unease was the information that one of Teyla’s contacts had provided: a group they had encountered two months ago had set their sights on Elizabeth, and while John didn’t think any of them would get close enough to actually kidnap her, the thought that someone wanted to take her left him vibrating with anger nearly all the time.
“Sheppard,” Ronon whispered, and they stopped moving for a moment. But there wasn’t anything to find and John gestured for them to continue. Their boots echoed as they went.
*
“So, does anyone ever ask what you did before this?” Cadman asked him the next time they were both in the same place. He hadn’t been able to get his hands on anything stronger than two more of the same cans of beer. She’d shrugged off his apology, dark circles under her eyes telling him just how tired she was.
“Not very often, and once I say it’s classified they usually give up on finding out.”
“What about the guys on your team?”
“They don’t talk much.” He’d been in the field with Beckett and Nelson all of last week. The temperature had dropped again, and the mud froze into hard ruts. “You know it’s snowed more here this month than it has in the last fifty years?” he asked her. “Apparently, the average snowfall is only thirty-seven days. There’s been forty-nine this winter so far.”
Cadman gave him a look that said she didn’t care what the average snowfall was. “All I know is that it’s cold. Therefore, I’m cold.”
“Close your eyes and think of someplace warm,” he suggested.
“It only works for about thirty seconds, Colonel,” she replied dryly. He held out the can.
“I heard the story of how you got asked to join the Atlantis expedition,” she said, taking the beer and sitting down. He watched as she held the can between he knees and leaned over to unlace her boots. “Sorry, sir,” she said when she saw him looking, “but my feet are killing me.”
“Stop calling me sir, Cadman.”
“I can’t help it.” She popped open the beer. “So do you ever think about the fact that if it hadn’t been you flying the General’s helicopter, you never would have joined the Stargate program?”
It was something he’d thought about a lot, actually. He shrugged. “Sometimes I think it would have been better if I’d turned it down,” he answered, but after what Carson told me about the Stargate, I wanted to know more. I’m sorry,” he added, having seen her slight wince at the mention of Beckett’s name.
“It’s all right. You were saying?”
“If I’d never been flying that helicopter, I never would have found out about the Stargate. Everything would have happened and I’d be none the wiser. I’d probably still be at McMurdo.”
John had thought about that a lot in the beginning. He’d been the extra man, another officer they hadn’t planned on taking, but Elizabeth had gotten O’Neill to give him the pep talk. The first few weeks after Sumner died, he’d gone through all the alternate possibilities he could think of - all the things that could have happened if he hadn’t come with. Then he’d realized thinking about it was futile, and that he was killing himself emotionally by doing it, and he forced himself to stop.
“Sometimes I think I could have been better off oblivious,” he told Cadman now. “But I’d been on every continent on Earth, and I was as far from civilization as I could get on this planet, so it seemed like a good idea.” To get even further away.
“For what it’s worth, sir, I’m glad you went.”
“Let’s make a deal,” he suggested. “I call you Laura, you call me John, and we don’t tell anyone.”
She grinned. “I’ll try. But no promises.”
“I’ll probably keep calling you Cadman anyway,” he sighed. “So what about you? Did they explain it before you decided to sign the papers?”
“Not really. I think the Commander’s words were something like ‘highly classified, highly dangerous, and capable of blowing your mind’. Needless to say, I signed on right away.”
“You went to the Naval Academy, right?” He’d read Cadman’s file once upon a time, and he’d be damned if he could remember any of the details now.
“Yes, sir. John. Sorry.”
“Didn’t quite prepare you for a war in another galaxy, did it,” he said, and she chuckled and shook her head.
“I can’t believe we had to leave like that,” she said after a moment.
“Elizabeth said the same thing.”
“There was a pool, you know. On whether or not you and Dr. Weir were a couple. It was up to nearly two hundred dollars at the end.”
John looked at her sideways. “What did you think?”
“To be honest - I didn’t think Dr. Weir was the kind of person who would want to get involved with someone she worked with.”
“Close enough,” he replied, and finished off his beer. “I thought we could have made a go of it, but she turned me down,” he confessed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why be sorry?”
“I think you’re a nice guy,” she murmured.
“I’m bitter and depressed, and we both know it,” he said, trying to sound casual.
Cadman gave him a look he couldn’t read and pulled her feet out of her boots with a grimace, reaching down to rub her ankles.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Apart from aching all over? Yeah.”
John figured he could do something about that, and pulled her feet up into his lap, ignoring her shocked look. The last woman he’d been this close to was Elizabeth, the night she’d turned him down. The night they’d abandoned the city.
5.
“You okay?” Sheppard asked her.
She raised an eyebrow and flexed her toes. “Apart from aching all over? Yeah.”
He grinned lazily and pulled her feet into his lap, dug his thumbs into her arches, right in the middle of her feet where the pain was the worst. Laura felt powerless immediately, and she was pretty sure her eyes rolled back into her head as she groaned. He chuckled and kept pushing, moving his thumbs in tiny circle, the rest of each of his hands cupped over the top of each of her feet. She felt the tension easing from her body and sighed. His hands were warm.
“That feels great,” she mumbled.
“Combat boots and cold aren’t exactly a great combination.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” She shifted, trying to find a slightly more comfortable position, and ended up propping herself up on hands.
“If it was up to me, there’d be a couch or something,” Sheppard said sympathetically. He pressed his fingertips against where her foot and ankle met, where she hadn’t even realized it hurt.
“You know this is incredibly inappropriate,” Laura muttered.
“I don’t hear you complaining.”
She opened one eye and saw the look he was giving her. It made her stomach flip and her shoulders tremble. Carson had been the last person to look at her like that, and where Carson had made it warm and comfortable, Sheppard made it… she didn’t know, exactly. Interesting and exotic and wrong all at the same time. And she was definitely turned on. His hands on her calves didn’t help, even with the material between his palms and her skin. But the pain was lessening and she thought maybe she’d be able to get her feet back into her boots without wanting to scream. “I’m not going to complain,” is what she finally said.
“Good.” He moved his hands back to her ankles. “How are the inspections going?”
“So far, so good. But the convoys can get kind of spooky, especially at night.” They’d come back from the last one just after the sun had gone down, and it was the middle of the night and pitch black by the time they’d reached camp. Night vision goggles grew tedious after about forty-five minutes, and when she’d finally gotten some sleep, she’d dreamed all in shades of green. “What’s it like out there on foot?”
“Cold. But at least the mud froze.”
“You know that’s probably the last freeze there will be this year.”
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Thought you didn’t care about the weather.”
“I care about being cold all the time.” She tipped her head from side to side, letting her neck crack a little.
“Want me to do your back next?”
“I should say no,” Laura told him, but it seemed like she was trying to convince herself. “I should. But okay.”
He grinned. She swung her feet down from his lap and eased her boots back on. Definitely not as bad as before. Sheppard nudged her. “I’ll probably fall asleep,” she warned, and moved to sit in front of him, taking off her heavy jacket. “And I should really show my face to my team in about twenty minutes before they come looking for me.”
“They know who I am?”
“Of course they know who you are,” she replied, incredulous. “After General Marsh spent fifteen minutes alternating between loving you and hating you, I’d say most of the soldiers here know who you are.”
“They ask where you know me from?” he asked, and pressed a thumb on either side of her spine, right between her shoulder blades. It took a minute before she could talk.
“I said I must have met you somewhere.” He moved his hands upward toward her neck. “Bogie didn’t seem convinced but he didn’t ask again. Christ, you’re really from the deep-tissue school of massage.” Laura clutched at her jacket, the only thing she could grab other than his knees on either side of her thighs. It would hurt if it didn’t feel so good.
“That’s because you’re like a rock, Laura,” he replied. “Relax.”
“I can’t relax in this place. We relax, people die.”
“True,” he murmured. He squeezed her upper arms. She sighed and let her head hang forward, finally warm enough to feel sleepy.
*
She woke up an hour later, tangled in his embrace. His thigh pressed firmly between her legs, and god, it felt great. She hadn’t been this close to a man since Carson. She had to get out of here, except Sheppard was holding on pretty tightly, and she could feel his arousal against her thigh. Her heart felt like it would beat right out of her chest, loud enough she thought the sound alone should wake him up. “John,” she hissed. “John.”
“What?” he mumbled, clearly not awake. Then his eyes opened. “Oh god, Laura, sorry.” He let go of her and she stood up. “I didn’t… do anything I shouldn’t have?”
Laura shook her head. “No. But I should have left a long time ago.”
She didn’t need another war zone. Sheppard sat up, straightening his BDUs. He cleared his throat. “I’ll understand if I don’t see you for awhile,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
Laura bent to lace her boots a little tighter. “You’ll be the one that’s gone longer,” she murmured quietly. She pulled her jacket on, zipped it up, and hurried from Sheppard’s tent without saying anything else. It was colder outside, and the sharpness of it cleared her mind. Her breath clouded in the air as she hurried across the camp. Bogie and Minnesota were leaning against the Humvee, smoking and eating crackers.
“Hey guys,” she greeted them, taking her gloves from her pocket and pulling them on.
“Captain.” Minnesota offered her a cigarette but she waved it away. They didn’t ask where she’d been.
*
The couch in Kate Heightmeyer’s office was incredibly comfortable, and Laura wondered if it had been here, or if it had been brought to Atlantis from Earth. She probably could have taken a nap on it. “You feeling okay?” Kate asked her, interrupting her line of thought about the couch.
“I’m great now that I’ve got my own body back,” Laura replied, tucking her bare feet up underneath her. “What, did you think I was going to have some sort of separation anxiety about McKay?”
Kate smiled. “Not really. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still concerned for your well-being. After all, you were ready to let go.”
“Death is preferable to being stuck in McKay’s head for the rest of my life,” Laura grumbled.
“Some people have a hard time coming back from that edge,” Kate said softly.
“You think I’m suicidal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I just got back into my own body, Kate, I don’t plan on giving it up again so soon.”
“Good.”
“Can we be done with the therapy talk now?”
“Sure. You know it’s just routine anyway.”
Laura scoffed. “There’s nothing routine about seeing McKay naked.” Kate groaned and covered her face with her hands. Laura couldn’t help but laugh. “You coming to poker night on Thursday?”
“As long as there aren’t any more bizarre crises to deal with,” Kate replied, surfacing.
“Didn’t know what you were getting into, did you?”
“None of us did.” Kate leaned back in her chair. “But people have been holding up remarkably well.”
“That’s got to be weird for you, knowing everyone’s problems.”
Kate shook her head. “Trust me, sometimes it’s best to just pretend that I’m listening to what they say. Besides, ninety percent of my job is getting people to say things out loud - here, especially, people just need to talk instead of holding it all inside. Most of them are extremely emotionally resourceful. They just need to realize something is wrong in the first place so that they can start to move on. Not to mention that people with serious problems wouldn’t be here anyway, because they never would have passed the psych evaluation.”
“Good to know.”
There was a knock on the door and Kate called for them to come in. Colonel Sheppard stuck his head into the room. “Hey, Doc, I need you to settle a bet for me - sorry, I didn’t know you were with someone.”
“I was just leaving, sir,” Laura replied, putting her shoes back on. “Dr. Heightmeyer says I am one hundred percent myself again.”
“Good to hear.”
Laura waved to Kate and slipped past the Colonel. She was on restricted duty for another three days, but taking a run before she went back to her quarters seemed like a good way to clear her head and relax.
*
With the thaw came the mist, obscuring nearly everything more than three meters away. Cold moisture hung heavy in the air, making everything they touched slippery with condensation. Laura figured she’d been wearing her gloves about three days straight so that her hands wouldn’t slide on her rifle.
The change in weather seemed to put everyone on edge, including her. They were on their way back to base camp from some place she couldn't even pronounce, Minnesota and Tall Guy in the cab of the Humvee, Bogie and New Guy in the back with her. Uneasiness curled heavy in her belly as she squinted into the mist. It was March now.
“Captain.” New Guy touched her shoulder and gestured. Up ahead, there was a rusted-out Jeep on the side of the road. They’d driven this road at least twice last week and she knew that vehicle hadn’t been there. It looked entirely too run-down to be drivable.
Brake lights flashed in front of them, making the fog glow red, and then the lead car swerved. She saw it skid into the right-hand ditch and then there was a terrible bang and a fireball where the first inspector’s car had been. She could feel the heat a hundred yards back. Bogie shouted something and fired at the human-shaped shadows near the old jeep, and then something clattered into the back of the Humvee with them.
Laura had enough time to look down and register that it was a small grenade, a kind she didn’t know, before Bogie shoved her into the furthest corner and covered her body with his, and the grenade exploded. Everything rattled as the Humvee went off the road.
The next thing she remembered was crawling out from under Bogie, soaked in blood, red running over her hands, wet enough to make her BDU pants stick to her legs. New Guy grabbed her under the arms and dragged her further away as she struggled, shouting at him that she wasn't hurt, to help Bogie instead. “It’s too late,” he shouted back.
Laura rolled out of his grasp and vomited, the realization what she was covered in like a kick to her chest. Where was her gun? Somewhere in the mess of their Humvee. She drew her sidearm and got up, wiping her mouth. “Who else is dead?” she said sharply to New Guy, who was two steps to her right.
“One of the inspector’s cars went up,” he replied, as pale as she’d ever seen him.
“I saw it. Who else?” She went carefully around the wreck of the vehicle, saw Tall Guy and Minnesota there, their rifles aimed at the rusted out Jeep. She dropped to her stomach and crawled up next to them. New Guy did the same. “Got anything?” she asked them.
“Nothing,” Minnesota replied. “There was one but he’s down. Where’s Bogie?”
“Dead.”
He looked at her and saw. Ahead, there was shouting.
*
The rumor was that there were more troops coming, but there had been no official word. Laura had washed the blood out of her hair with icy water, sobbing as she did so, and then she moved through the days like any other, all of them silent except when spoken to. She noticed the three of them stayed closer to her than normal, and they were hardly ever out of each other’s sight. It had been the first attack on any of the convoys, and the North Koreans had yet to acknowledge it. The tension was enough to make her teeth ache.
Quietly and fuming at herself, she wished for Sheppard, as if a familiar face could make her feel better. New Guy, Tall Guy and Minnesota were all just as depressed as she was, and they were no comfort to each other as they drifted through debriefings. She wrote a letter to Bogie’s parents with shaking hands, the phantom smell of apple pie haunting her. She’d never be able to eat it again.
She was coming back from the supply tent when she saw Sheppard talking to New Guy and Minnesota near the munitions tent. Tall Guy was standing a few feet away, smoking. “I need to talk to your Captain for a few minutes,” she heard Sheppard say as she approached. “Cadman,” he said to her.
“Sir.” He looked a little more worse for wear than he had the last time she’d seen him, a fresh scrape on his forehead, a livid bruise on his cheekbone. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I’m fine. Come on.” They walked a little ways away, into an alcove created by a number of tents. The wind whipped her ponytail against her face. “I heard about Sgt. Crossman,” Sheppard said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t stop shaking,” Laura heard herself say. “I feel like I’m going to be sick all the time.”
“Was it the first -”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
Sheppard shifted, restless, looking from side to side. “Look,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve got to tell you something.”
“What is it?” She hugged herself against the wind.
“I’m leaving again, and I’ll be gone a while this time,” he said. “I wanted - I needed you to know.”
Laura swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“Laura, if I don’t -”
“Shut up,” she said desperately. “Don’t say that.”
He leaned in and kissed her, amid the barbed wire and the spotlights, in the shadow of the world’s tallest flagpole. His lips were warm and Laura let herself cling to him for a moment, her hands on his shoulders. Then he let go and walked swiftly away, not looking back. She turned around and stared at the drab green of the tent for awhile, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth.
6.
Six weeks later and she was in Japan with New Guy, Tall Guy, and Minnesota. In the mess hall, Minnesota asked, “Are we really going back to the States this time?” and looked vaguely forlorn as he ate a jello cube.
“Hopefully,” she muttered.
“The first leave I get, I’m going to go see Bogie’s folks,” he announced, running a hand over his head. “I was the one he was closest to, you know? I miss him, ma’m.”
“I miss him too, Ryan.” It was probably the first time she’d ever used Minnesota’s first name. She sipped her coffee. They were the only people in the hall, New Guy and Tall Guy having begged off to sleep half an hour ago.
“He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“No, he didn’t.” That was what made it all so much more bitter. “He died protecting me. He didn’t have to.”
“I think he felt he did, ma’m.” Minnesota shoved his cup of jello away. “You know, before… I had already made up my mind that I was going to reenlist - I’m up in September - but I spent the last week and a half convinced I wasn’t. Thought maybe I’d go back to school, see if I couldn’t find something else I was good at.”
“And now?”
He shrugged. “I’m still not sure, but I’m no longer convinced.”
Laura leaned back in her chair, her hands wrapped around her cup. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re an excellent Marine, and it would be our loss if you decided not to reenlist.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time I got some sleep.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, ma’m.”
Minnesota took his tray and left. Laura put her feet up on the nearest chair with a sigh. They did the same thing day in and day out here, waiting for their next set of orders. The North Korean government had proclaimed the convoy bombing to be the work of terrorists, and had offered as many gestures of peace as they possibly could. Nearly everyone had been surprised by the way things had turned out - the expectation was that there would be a full-out air assault, followed by a ground war. But it hadn’t happened. The bombing remained the only use of force that had occurred.
Her nightmares now, instead of the Wraith, were of Bogie’s body. His remains had been flown back to the States, where they had been interred in his family’s plot. His mother had written her a letter full of sadness. At the end, she’d written that Laura would always be welcome to come and see her, and that she would like to meet the woman her son had always spoken highly of. Laura had carried the letter with her for days before replacing it carefully in its envelope and tucking it in her footlocker.
Maybe she would go, someday. Right now Bogie’s death was still too much of an ache in her chest, right alongside the ache that had bloomed when Carson had died, and hadn’t budged since. It had shrunk just a little bit when she’d given herself over to Sheppard’s touch for that hour of sleep, his hands on her skin a balm on her soul, but it hadn’t lasted long enough for the pain to really ease. She hadn’t seen Sheppard since the kiss, and she’d reverted to feeling like Atlantis was once again half dream, half nightmare.
She finished her coffee and started back to the barracks to put on some workout clothes and go for a run before she tried to fall asleep.
*
There was an envelope on her bunk. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it wasn’t civilian mail. Laura sat down and opened it carefully. Transfer papers to Cheyenne Mountain. A note slid out from between them.
I get to go back to what I’m good at, it read. There’s a place for you if you want it. If you need it like I do. I can’t guarantee it will make either of us better, but I know I want to give it a shot.
Her hand shook and she had to set the note down for a moment and take a deep breath before she could keep reading. Don’t make me come to Japan and drag you back here with me, ok? And please don't make me say please.
I need you on my team, Cadman. And maybe - hell, I'm bad at this. Come to Colorado. I want to promise you it'll be worth it but I've stopped making promises. Do the paperwork anyway. If you do, I'll see you in a few weeks.
Sheppard had signed it with his initials. She read the note again and then looked at the transfer papers. Here was her chance to get off this rock once more. He'd filled out most of the paperwork for her. All she had to do was sign it.
All she had to do was sign her name.