Guises in Four Seasons: Summer, by Sophonisba [not dead yet challenge]
-title- Guises in Four Seasons: Summer
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-warnings- Some strong language. Takes place in my pet diverging-reality AU, where Sheppard isn't quite Sheppard. Does it ever. Part of a loose series; it shouldn't be necessary to read the other parts, but they're here, here, and here should one wish to do so.
-timeframe- About the end of second year.
-spoilers- Through the beginning of third year, just to be safe.
-characters- Sheppard, Ford
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. Nor are any of the tales I have drawn on, although most of them are public domain by now. Certain turns of phrase are directly borrowed from C. S. Lewis, A. A. Milne, and E. Nesbit; another, more loosely, from Robert E. Howard.
-word count- 1408
-summary- Even for the most necessary of conversations, Sheppard still finds it easier to talk about something peripherally related to the subject. At least this time it isn't football.
Guises in Four Seasons
-summer-
"It's a myth, you know, that getting drunk keeps you from feeling down." Sheppard sits on the steps of the sea-level observation room, behind Ford and to his right, not too far away.
"Oh?" Ford says bitterly, staring out at their dim reflection and the city lights on the waves that interrupt it. The waves smack against the window with quiet regularity, the lack of surface beneath them giving it more the effect of giant lapping than of the crashing they do on the shore. He reaches for the bottle of methaz -- one, his superior officer thinks, of the ones the Manarians pressed on them as part of their 'please don't kill us for letting the Genii through, no, seriously, please' program before the Atlanteans decided it the better part of interorbital relations to cut ties -- turning it around and around in his hand before refilling the dented regulation mug.
"Getting drunk mostly gets you feeling more of the same," Sheppard continues mildly. "Sometimes people remember how much better they felt when they drank when in a good mood, and think if they only drink enough they'll feel that way again; and sometimes people think if they drink enough they'll forget why they're feeling down, so they'll feel like shit but have no clue why." His shrug is reflected in the window before them. "Which has never improved my mood, but..."
"If I had split the team up differently." Ford's eyes drop to his methaz. "If I'd insisted on checking back every four minutes instead of every ten. If I'd had the sense to look for any instructions first before turning something on to see what it did..."
"And if you'd done thus and such and this and that, maybe it would have been better, and maybe you wouldn't have gotten Hackenschleimer and Franklin and Eldon back alive, or Dr. Kusanagi without a scratch on her."
"And me without a scratch on me," Ford snarls, "but I couldn't even get Corporal Koehner's body back."
"It sucks."
"Yeah." Ford tosses back a gulp of the methaz. "It really sucks."
Some time later, his mug is empty, and Ford opens his mouth again. "It was my fault, anyway. Even with the solidarity we're all keeping, still..."
"It wasn't as bad as it could have been," Sheppard repeats, knowing that it is unlikely to make any difference, knowing that it would not have for him. "Teyla's sure the Wraith didn't get that Atlantis is still up and running, and they may not even have managed to report back that they followed you to the world on which they'd found us before. They didn't get the Milky Way's location, and they already knew we had the Daedalus as an ally. Another hive ship is gone. We didn't lose more lives." We didn't lose you.
"And still I brought the Wraith down on us again, and the mainland invaded, and one of the men you gave me killed. I should have -- "
"Even if, in some other world, you made the move and it turned out well, that doesn't mean that it would have here. It might have gone worse."
"Sir?"
"There's a story my great-aunt used to tell us," he tries to explain, realizing that what was clear in his head once again came tangled out of his mouth. "A long time ago, the wizards of Atlantis built mirrors that showed what might have happened, in worlds where their choices were different."
"So they made quantum mirrors." Ford jerks his head up and around, suddenly. "How did your folks know the Ancients made quantum mirrors?"
"It's not as if the idea's never been in any other story," Sheppard points out hastily, sure nevertheless that the mirrors were meant to be quantum mirrors. "So they hung this flying tower with them and flew off into the sky to do something, only everyone was so busy looking into the mirrors instead of where they were going that they crashed into the morning star, and the mirrors burst into a gabillion pieces that fell all over the place."
"On the morning star?"
"Well, mostly back down to Earth." Sheppard shoves his fingers through his hair, trying to bring the exact words of the story to mind and mostly failing. "Every now and then a piece would fall in someone's eye, and then they'd see a world that might have been out of that eye, instead of the one that was there."
"I think I might have heard this story before somewhere."
"Maybe." It might be that old, surely; the stories of King Arthur, for example, had been told long before his great-aunt and his grandparents had told them stories of Artor-the-king. "So one day, when the duke of Atlantis was staring into the wind dry-eyed and unable to mourn for his friend, who had been a mortal human and a common man of good will among all the really incredible people that lived in Atlantis and had been enchanceried by vampires -- "
"And had been what?"
"Enchanceried."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think it's like being put under an enchantment and stolen away, only more so. Anyway, so when he was standing there kicking himself for not having been able to save his comrade and his friend, a piece of mirror blew into his eye -- the duke's, that is -- and he saw something he might have done before it got into the bloodstream and fetched up in his heart. Then -- uh, I forget the bit that came right after that, but then the duke's great-aunts or maybe cousins some times removed Zala and Gana took him to the crashed tower, and told him that somebody needed to build the Gem of Science, infinite power infinitely renewable, out of the pieces of mirror, and it might as well be him. Only he kept getting distracted by looking into the pieces and seeing all the worlds that might have been instead of the world that was, so he never really got started."
"Why a duke? I've heard stories about the king or queen of Atlantis, and everything we found says that the real one had a council and maybe a senate."
Sheppard shrugs. "Well, it does come from a word meaning 'military leader.'" Even in English, although it's rather far removed there. "So in our case, that would be Dr. General Jackson, unless it's gone back to me now that they're running the place."
"I didn't get the chance to ask when Colonel Caldwell wasn't there; Dr. Weir still isn't better?"
"She's improved." Somewhat. They think. She seems reasonable, but she seemed reasonable before, especially during the stable periods when her decisions were as good as ever they'd been. "We're going to try having her and Teyla stand in when the Jacksons take their vacation back on Te-- Earth and see how that goes."
"Will things be all right with Teyla then, sir?"
"I think we can manage. If not, she will have the right to knock me on my ass for being a dick while we're in the city."
Well, and offworld as well, although there the buck did stop with him -- did Teyla agree that it stopped with him? Maybe they should clear that up; it might explain one or two of the things that had happened over the last two years. Huh. Something to think about.
"I don't suppose you've ever looked into a quantum mirror, though?" Ford asks.
"Not unless you count this really bizarre dream I had months back -- which, come to think of it, might have been because of this story getting mixed up with remembering the siege. Huh. But the one in the story was, and then the wizard and the princess came to the tower after him."
"There was a wizard and a princess."
"Well, yeah, they were there, didn't I mention them? Anyway, so he was part of their fellowship, so they went looking for him and found him, and asked him to come back and be duke again, because they were fighting all sorts of monsters and humans and everything. But Djón said that he had to build the Gem of Science, so he couldn't."
"So who said?"
"Uh, that was his name. The duke's. Djón."
"His name was Joan."
"Uh, sort of. Actually, I was named after him, kind of, although my mother wanted to call me Meredith. It's almost too bad I can't tell them, because they'd probably get a kick out of it, except for the part where I suck at it."
"You do not," Ford retorts, and then hastily adds, "sir."
"Considering my track record... "
"We survived, we stuck it to the Wraith, the rest of them didn't figure out how to get to Earth. I'd say that's a great track record."
"I lost General Jackson."
"And found him. We nearly found him before his team jumped all over us, too. You shouldn't pay attention to what they say when they're worried, sir."
"It was you guys who nearly found him; you were suiting up to go there when we all arrived from Earth." Sheppard notes the intransigence in his subordinate's jaw, and hastily goes back to his story. "So, uh, anyway, that Djón said he couldn't go, so the princess laid her head against his and wept, and the tears moistened his eyes and fell on the pieces of mirror and washed them around. And the wizard picked up the wet pieces of mirror and fit them together into white bekora stones, but none of them embodied the Gem of Science."
"Into what?"
"It's a sort of crystal thing. I knew somebody who used to grow them. They can get pretty big, and they ought to be able to be used for a battery. So the princess and the wizard argued with him: the wizard said that he had had from his sainted cousin, who had had it from no less than -- " the Nameless God, he nearly said, but managed to correct himself in time -- "God Himself, that no one is ever told what would have happened, so that all he was doing was letting himself get distracted by possibiities when he ought to be dealing with realities, and the princess said that he could always come back to the tower afterwards and build the Gem of Science, but there were people fighting and in danger now; but he still wouldn't, and so the wizard tried to build the pieces of mirror and a white bekora stone into a red bekora stone. He cut his fingers and he cut his palms, and the princess wept for him and bled for him, but all he could manage was to build a citrinity. So the princess took the citrinity because at least it would warm their halls and fire their weapons, and gave Djón a sandwich; and the wizard shuddered and took his scarf, which he had worn because it was a very cold sort of tower with the coldest sort of snow and icicles hanging off it, and put it around Djón's neck; and then the two of them left to go back to Atlantis, because they were fighting all sorts of monsters and humans and everything and needed to help."
"That's kind of a depressing story."
"Well, it isn't done yet. So then a man-at-arms came to stand esquire to Djon, which meant he sat down next to him with a telescope and every so often reported on what was going on in Atlantis. So the esquire reported that Atlantis was being invaded by vampires, and Djón was so distracted that he started eating his sandwich."
"Was it a nice turkey sandwich?"
"Well, it depended on who asked for the story. If I asked for it, it was a nice turkey sandwich, and if my sister asked for it, it was a nice almond-butter-and-jam sandwich, and if my uncle asked for it, it was a nice marmite sandwich. My uncle had a cast-iron stomach."
"I'll say. I had that stuff once when someone brought in a ton of imports, and bleagh."
"Exactly. So then the esquire reported that the wizard had been thrown down and defeated, and Djón began to shake, and the tears she had cried into his eyes began to trickle down his cheeks, and wash the dried blood out, and fall onto the white bekora stones.
"And then he reported that the princess had been taken and was about to be drained by vampires," and his voice is even, please heaven his voice is even, please let the memories of what it had been to watch Sumner drained have stayed out of his voice, even if Ford would understand exactly what had overwrought him, "and Djón reached into his heart and tore out the mirror shard, and fitted it with his heart's blood into where three of the white bekora stones had frozen together and then been tearstained, and so built it into a red bekora stone, which can be used to draw on the Gem of Science, which is infinite power infinitely renewable. And he whipped off the wizard's scarf, and looped it about the red bekora stone, which embodied the red bekora stone, and stood up; and crying 'By this stone I command!' he slung it at the vampires, and it flew to them and struck them all down before they could touch the princess. So then his esquire caught him as he fell and stuffed a handful of the very coldest sort of snow and ice into the hole in Djón's heart, and threw him over his shoulder and ran back to Atlantis."
"Was he dead?"
"Well, they revived him. This was Atlantis. They could do that."
"Probably in the emergency sarcophagus, I take it."
"If you say so. So then, the princess yelled at him for not binding up the wound in his heart at once and killing himself for it, and the wizard -- "
"He wasn't drained by the vampires either?"
"Nah, he was of the accurs...ed.... " and oh shit, oh shit, he did not want to bring this up, it wasn't his secret to bring up, not even with Ford... "well, anyway, he was from a family vampires couldn't eat, long story, kind of like Ronon's thing, or Grey on the Daedalus." Who was more than a little nervous about the samples Carson wanted to take, since the Wraith who'd attacked her on the mainland had not only recoiled but clearly been adversely affected in mind if not body, but if he only went looking for similarities between Grey, Ronon, and the Hoffan data it shouldn't put her in too precarious a position, even if her reasons were what he was beginning to suspect they were...
"I didn't think vampires were that much like Wraith," Ford says thoughtfully.
"I suppose it depends on how you define vampire." He shrugs. "Anyway, so the wizard yelled at him for staying out where he could have got all of them killed and for using a red bekora stone, the living embodiment of the Gem of Science, to clonk vampires in the head and wind up in a corner of the floor where it could have been lost forever if the wizard hadn't recognized it and picked it up."
That surprises a laugh out of Ford. "Like using a ZPM to hit somebody over the head."
"Would that even work? I think skulls might be harder, so you'd break it over whoever's head and then McKay would kill us. With battery acid."
"Probably. Unless it was a depleted ZPM."
"Aren't they rechargeable? I thought I heard somewhere they were rechargeable."
"Wait, you figured out how? I -- "
"Not yet we haven't. Sigh." Sheppard sighs, to illustrate.
"Guess that would be too good to be true," Ford sighs, shoulders slumping again.
"So once all the yelling was out of the way, they promised each other to always keep in mind what was, no matter what might be, and they did so and defeated their enemies and filled Atlantis with citrinities and red bekora stones. And also they rescued their other friend from his enchancerment."
"...I think there were about five different stories in that one, sir."
"It is the way my great-aunt told it to me."
"It runs in the family, then, sir?"
"I suppose so."
"The story itself was very uplifting."
"I know."
"A lot to live up to."
"I know." And he's glad, in a small selfish part of himself he wishes didn't exist, that Ford knows it too, because he's always known what a crummy, gawky, clumsy substitute he is for Djón the Fair.
"I should have done better."
And that wasn't what he meant, that wasn't what he meant at all -- "I wasn't there. I can only judge by the reports, and everyone else thinks you did the best you could."
"Maybe so -- but always before, even when I was a kid, even when I was in school and first lost buddies, I never lost anyone that was mine to take care of. Not forever. I shouldn't have done it now."
Various responses ran through Sheppard's head, from the patronly 'It's always that way, even the hundredth time' to the sarcastic 'I didn't know you were perfect, Lieutenant.'
"Your hat," he said instead, taking it out of his pocket and setting it, gently, on his former second's head before sitting back down, a step closer.
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-warnings- Some strong language. Takes place in my pet diverging-reality AU, where Sheppard isn't quite Sheppard. Does it ever. Part of a loose series; it shouldn't be necessary to read the other parts, but they're here, here, and here should one wish to do so.
-timeframe- About the end of second year.
-spoilers- Through the beginning of third year, just to be safe.
-characters- Sheppard, Ford
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. Nor are any of the tales I have drawn on, although most of them are public domain by now. Certain turns of phrase are directly borrowed from C. S. Lewis, A. A. Milne, and E. Nesbit; another, more loosely, from Robert E. Howard.
-word count- 1408
-summary- Even for the most necessary of conversations, Sheppard still finds it easier to talk about something peripherally related to the subject. At least this time it isn't football.
Guises in Four Seasons
-summer-
"It's a myth, you know, that getting drunk keeps you from feeling down." Sheppard sits on the steps of the sea-level observation room, behind Ford and to his right, not too far away.
"Oh?" Ford says bitterly, staring out at their dim reflection and the city lights on the waves that interrupt it. The waves smack against the window with quiet regularity, the lack of surface beneath them giving it more the effect of giant lapping than of the crashing they do on the shore. He reaches for the bottle of methaz -- one, his superior officer thinks, of the ones the Manarians pressed on them as part of their 'please don't kill us for letting the Genii through, no, seriously, please' program before the Atlanteans decided it the better part of interorbital relations to cut ties -- turning it around and around in his hand before refilling the dented regulation mug.
"Getting drunk mostly gets you feeling more of the same," Sheppard continues mildly. "Sometimes people remember how much better they felt when they drank when in a good mood, and think if they only drink enough they'll feel that way again; and sometimes people think if they drink enough they'll forget why they're feeling down, so they'll feel like shit but have no clue why." His shrug is reflected in the window before them. "Which has never improved my mood, but..."
"If I had split the team up differently." Ford's eyes drop to his methaz. "If I'd insisted on checking back every four minutes instead of every ten. If I'd had the sense to look for any instructions first before turning something on to see what it did..."
"And if you'd done thus and such and this and that, maybe it would have been better, and maybe you wouldn't have gotten Hackenschleimer and Franklin and Eldon back alive, or Dr. Kusanagi without a scratch on her."
"And me without a scratch on me," Ford snarls, "but I couldn't even get Corporal Koehner's body back."
"It sucks."
"Yeah." Ford tosses back a gulp of the methaz. "It really sucks."
Some time later, his mug is empty, and Ford opens his mouth again. "It was my fault, anyway. Even with the solidarity we're all keeping, still..."
"It wasn't as bad as it could have been," Sheppard repeats, knowing that it is unlikely to make any difference, knowing that it would not have for him. "Teyla's sure the Wraith didn't get that Atlantis is still up and running, and they may not even have managed to report back that they followed you to the world on which they'd found us before. They didn't get the Milky Way's location, and they already knew we had the Daedalus as an ally. Another hive ship is gone. We didn't lose more lives." We didn't lose you.
"And still I brought the Wraith down on us again, and the mainland invaded, and one of the men you gave me killed. I should have -- "
"Even if, in some other world, you made the move and it turned out well, that doesn't mean that it would have here. It might have gone worse."
"Sir?"
"There's a story my great-aunt used to tell us," he tries to explain, realizing that what was clear in his head once again came tangled out of his mouth. "A long time ago, the wizards of Atlantis built mirrors that showed what might have happened, in worlds where their choices were different."
"So they made quantum mirrors." Ford jerks his head up and around, suddenly. "How did your folks know the Ancients made quantum mirrors?"
"It's not as if the idea's never been in any other story," Sheppard points out hastily, sure nevertheless that the mirrors were meant to be quantum mirrors. "So they hung this flying tower with them and flew off into the sky to do something, only everyone was so busy looking into the mirrors instead of where they were going that they crashed into the morning star, and the mirrors burst into a gabillion pieces that fell all over the place."
"On the morning star?"
"Well, mostly back down to Earth." Sheppard shoves his fingers through his hair, trying to bring the exact words of the story to mind and mostly failing. "Every now and then a piece would fall in someone's eye, and then they'd see a world that might have been out of that eye, instead of the one that was there."
"I think I might have heard this story before somewhere."
"Maybe." It might be that old, surely; the stories of King Arthur, for example, had been told long before his great-aunt and his grandparents had told them stories of Artor-the-king. "So one day, when the duke of Atlantis was staring into the wind dry-eyed and unable to mourn for his friend, who had been a mortal human and a common man of good will among all the really incredible people that lived in Atlantis and had been enchanceried by vampires -- "
"And had been what?"
"Enchanceried."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think it's like being put under an enchantment and stolen away, only more so. Anyway, so when he was standing there kicking himself for not having been able to save his comrade and his friend, a piece of mirror blew into his eye -- the duke's, that is -- and he saw something he might have done before it got into the bloodstream and fetched up in his heart. Then -- uh, I forget the bit that came right after that, but then the duke's great-aunts or maybe cousins some times removed Zala and Gana took him to the crashed tower, and told him that somebody needed to build the Gem of Science, infinite power infinitely renewable, out of the pieces of mirror, and it might as well be him. Only he kept getting distracted by looking into the pieces and seeing all the worlds that might have been instead of the world that was, so he never really got started."
"Why a duke? I've heard stories about the king or queen of Atlantis, and everything we found says that the real one had a council and maybe a senate."
Sheppard shrugs. "Well, it does come from a word meaning 'military leader.'" Even in English, although it's rather far removed there. "So in our case, that would be Dr. General Jackson, unless it's gone back to me now that they're running the place."
"I didn't get the chance to ask when Colonel Caldwell wasn't there; Dr. Weir still isn't better?"
"She's improved." Somewhat. They think. She seems reasonable, but she seemed reasonable before, especially during the stable periods when her decisions were as good as ever they'd been. "We're going to try having her and Teyla stand in when the Jacksons take their vacation back on Te-- Earth and see how that goes."
"Will things be all right with Teyla then, sir?"
"I think we can manage. If not, she will have the right to knock me on my ass for being a dick while we're in the city."
Well, and offworld as well, although there the buck did stop with him -- did Teyla agree that it stopped with him? Maybe they should clear that up; it might explain one or two of the things that had happened over the last two years. Huh. Something to think about.
"I don't suppose you've ever looked into a quantum mirror, though?" Ford asks.
"Not unless you count this really bizarre dream I had months back -- which, come to think of it, might have been because of this story getting mixed up with remembering the siege. Huh. But the one in the story was, and then the wizard and the princess came to the tower after him."
"There was a wizard and a princess."
"Well, yeah, they were there, didn't I mention them? Anyway, so he was part of their fellowship, so they went looking for him and found him, and asked him to come back and be duke again, because they were fighting all sorts of monsters and humans and everything. But Djón said that he had to build the Gem of Science, so he couldn't."
"So who said?"
"Uh, that was his name. The duke's. Djón."
"His name was Joan."
"Uh, sort of. Actually, I was named after him, kind of, although my mother wanted to call me Meredith. It's almost too bad I can't tell them, because they'd probably get a kick out of it, except for the part where I suck at it."
"You do not," Ford retorts, and then hastily adds, "sir."
"Considering my track record... "
"We survived, we stuck it to the Wraith, the rest of them didn't figure out how to get to Earth. I'd say that's a great track record."
"I lost General Jackson."
"And found him. We nearly found him before his team jumped all over us, too. You shouldn't pay attention to what they say when they're worried, sir."
"It was you guys who nearly found him; you were suiting up to go there when we all arrived from Earth." Sheppard notes the intransigence in his subordinate's jaw, and hastily goes back to his story. "So, uh, anyway, that Djón said he couldn't go, so the princess laid her head against his and wept, and the tears moistened his eyes and fell on the pieces of mirror and washed them around. And the wizard picked up the wet pieces of mirror and fit them together into white bekora stones, but none of them embodied the Gem of Science."
"Into what?"
"It's a sort of crystal thing. I knew somebody who used to grow them. They can get pretty big, and they ought to be able to be used for a battery. So the princess and the wizard argued with him: the wizard said that he had had from his sainted cousin, who had had it from no less than -- " the Nameless God, he nearly said, but managed to correct himself in time -- "God Himself, that no one is ever told what would have happened, so that all he was doing was letting himself get distracted by possibiities when he ought to be dealing with realities, and the princess said that he could always come back to the tower afterwards and build the Gem of Science, but there were people fighting and in danger now; but he still wouldn't, and so the wizard tried to build the pieces of mirror and a white bekora stone into a red bekora stone. He cut his fingers and he cut his palms, and the princess wept for him and bled for him, but all he could manage was to build a citrinity. So the princess took the citrinity because at least it would warm their halls and fire their weapons, and gave Djón a sandwich; and the wizard shuddered and took his scarf, which he had worn because it was a very cold sort of tower with the coldest sort of snow and icicles hanging off it, and put it around Djón's neck; and then the two of them left to go back to Atlantis, because they were fighting all sorts of monsters and humans and everything and needed to help."
"That's kind of a depressing story."
"Well, it isn't done yet. So then a man-at-arms came to stand esquire to Djon, which meant he sat down next to him with a telescope and every so often reported on what was going on in Atlantis. So the esquire reported that Atlantis was being invaded by vampires, and Djón was so distracted that he started eating his sandwich."
"Was it a nice turkey sandwich?"
"Well, it depended on who asked for the story. If I asked for it, it was a nice turkey sandwich, and if my sister asked for it, it was a nice almond-butter-and-jam sandwich, and if my uncle asked for it, it was a nice marmite sandwich. My uncle had a cast-iron stomach."
"I'll say. I had that stuff once when someone brought in a ton of imports, and bleagh."
"Exactly. So then the esquire reported that the wizard had been thrown down and defeated, and Djón began to shake, and the tears she had cried into his eyes began to trickle down his cheeks, and wash the dried blood out, and fall onto the white bekora stones.
"And then he reported that the princess had been taken and was about to be drained by vampires," and his voice is even, please heaven his voice is even, please let the memories of what it had been to watch Sumner drained have stayed out of his voice, even if Ford would understand exactly what had overwrought him, "and Djón reached into his heart and tore out the mirror shard, and fitted it with his heart's blood into where three of the white bekora stones had frozen together and then been tearstained, and so built it into a red bekora stone, which can be used to draw on the Gem of Science, which is infinite power infinitely renewable. And he whipped off the wizard's scarf, and looped it about the red bekora stone, which embodied the red bekora stone, and stood up; and crying 'By this stone I command!' he slung it at the vampires, and it flew to them and struck them all down before they could touch the princess. So then his esquire caught him as he fell and stuffed a handful of the very coldest sort of snow and ice into the hole in Djón's heart, and threw him over his shoulder and ran back to Atlantis."
"Was he dead?"
"Well, they revived him. This was Atlantis. They could do that."
"Probably in the emergency sarcophagus, I take it."
"If you say so. So then, the princess yelled at him for not binding up the wound in his heart at once and killing himself for it, and the wizard -- "
"He wasn't drained by the vampires either?"
"Nah, he was of the accurs...ed.... " and oh shit, oh shit, he did not want to bring this up, it wasn't his secret to bring up, not even with Ford... "well, anyway, he was from a family vampires couldn't eat, long story, kind of like Ronon's thing, or Grey on the Daedalus." Who was more than a little nervous about the samples Carson wanted to take, since the Wraith who'd attacked her on the mainland had not only recoiled but clearly been adversely affected in mind if not body, but if he only went looking for similarities between Grey, Ronon, and the Hoffan data it shouldn't put her in too precarious a position, even if her reasons were what he was beginning to suspect they were...
"I didn't think vampires were that much like Wraith," Ford says thoughtfully.
"I suppose it depends on how you define vampire." He shrugs. "Anyway, so the wizard yelled at him for staying out where he could have got all of them killed and for using a red bekora stone, the living embodiment of the Gem of Science, to clonk vampires in the head and wind up in a corner of the floor where it could have been lost forever if the wizard hadn't recognized it and picked it up."
That surprises a laugh out of Ford. "Like using a ZPM to hit somebody over the head."
"Would that even work? I think skulls might be harder, so you'd break it over whoever's head and then McKay would kill us. With battery acid."
"Probably. Unless it was a depleted ZPM."
"Aren't they rechargeable? I thought I heard somewhere they were rechargeable."
"Wait, you figured out how? I -- "
"Not yet we haven't. Sigh." Sheppard sighs, to illustrate.
"Guess that would be too good to be true," Ford sighs, shoulders slumping again.
"So once all the yelling was out of the way, they promised each other to always keep in mind what was, no matter what might be, and they did so and defeated their enemies and filled Atlantis with citrinities and red bekora stones. And also they rescued their other friend from his enchancerment."
"...I think there were about five different stories in that one, sir."
"It is the way my great-aunt told it to me."
"It runs in the family, then, sir?"
"I suppose so."
"The story itself was very uplifting."
"I know."
"A lot to live up to."
"I know." And he's glad, in a small selfish part of himself he wishes didn't exist, that Ford knows it too, because he's always known what a crummy, gawky, clumsy substitute he is for Djón the Fair.
"I should have done better."
And that wasn't what he meant, that wasn't what he meant at all -- "I wasn't there. I can only judge by the reports, and everyone else thinks you did the best you could."
"Maybe so -- but always before, even when I was a kid, even when I was in school and first lost buddies, I never lost anyone that was mine to take care of. Not forever. I shouldn't have done it now."
Various responses ran through Sheppard's head, from the patronly 'It's always that way, even the hundredth time' to the sarcastic 'I didn't know you were perfect, Lieutenant.'
"Your hat," he said instead, taking it out of his pocket and setting it, gently, on his former second's head before sitting back down, a step closer.