fic: just a little late (stargate: atlantis)
swficathon ficathon: lone_pyramid requested earthside, post s5 finale; five years after SGC refused to send any of the Atlantis people back to Pegasus, John has settled on the west coast for the "quiet life" -- then Elizabeth Weir comes knocking on his door; reasonably optimistic ending.
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: He starts to wonder.
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATIONS: Sheppard/Weir
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
THANKS TO: mylittleredgirl for the betaing. *smooch*
WORDS: 1,903
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; August 2009.
* * * * *
Just a Little Late by anr
* * * * *
"Please," she says.
Behind him, the TV cuts to a commercial; frost-brewed Coors Light, the world's most refreshing beer.
"I have nowhere else to go," she says.
There's a car -- a taxi -- parked at the end of his driveway, registration number 9V68. Shauna Williams, his neighbour, walks over and opens the door.
"John?"
Every day is an adventure, Jeep! To his left, he counts two people on the beach -- one in the water, paddling on a surfboard, and one running on the sand, dog in tow. The dog barks.
He blinks.
She's still there.
"Elizabeth," he manages.
She nods.
*
He makes them a cup of tea.
"Nobody knows I'm here," she says, sitting at his kitchen bench. She's wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, military issue boots, no makeup. Her hair is loose, past her shoulders. He remembers the freckles on her neck. "But if you want to call in, I'll understand."
In the other room, the 49ers score a touchdown. "I'm retired."
"Oh." She looks surprised. "When --"
He shrugs.
The kettle boils.
*
She drinks her tea. He doesn't.
*
He has no idea what to say to her.
"Do you know what happened to my mother? To Sedge?" she asks.
He's making another cup of tea. "Sedge?"
"My dog."
He lies. "No."
Elizabeth's mother died last year of cancer; the last time he saw her, spoke with her, he told her about Atlantis, and the Pegasus galaxy, and how her daughter really died. She fell asleep before he could tell her better things, his memories of her daughter smiling and laughing and saving the day, and he'd promised himself he would come back and see her again, tell her more, but he never did.
He rips the tag off the tea bag by accident, and wraps the string around his finger. When he pours the boiling water into the cup, the steam is hot against his knuckles, a welcome discomfort.
"Rodney? Ronon? Teyla?" She pauses. "Our people?"
He shrugs.
*
"Oberoth kept me."
He changes channels. Next on Survivor...
"I still don't know where, not exactly. I must have escaped several dozen times, been rescued twice that amount. I can't tell you how many times I 'woke' to your face, or the sound of Ronon's pulse pistol, or even to Zelenka furiously typing away on a data-pad."
... and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling, and when it hits it's gonna be the shit-storm of all time...
"Even now, years after his last hallucination unexpectedly stopped, I'm still not sure I'm free of him." From the corner of his eye, he watches her tuck her feet up underneath her. "I don't know that I ever will be."
In local news, the state budget crisis could take a further $1.7 billion from this year's...
"Because this? Mundane and ordinary as it is, sitting on your couch, watching TV... even this could be nothing more than my imagination. Something I've subconsciously expected or thought of in the past."
He glances at her briefly. "McKay married Todd a couple of years ago. Sunset ceremony in BC, very tasteful."
She frowns. "Janet Todd? The climatologist?"
"Todd the Wraith."
"Who? I mean, what? I mean, how would that even be possib... oh. Oh." She smiles at him. "Thank you."
He shouldn't have said anything. Grimacing, he changes channels again.
*
The movie is almost over when she says, quietly, "I understand your apprehension, John. More than you could ever know."
Flinching, he gets up and walks away.
*
He heads down to the beach, to the water, grateful to find himself alone on the stretch. Behind him, he knows she's watching him, can feel her gaze on the back of his neck, but he doesn't turn around. He can't. Not when there's no point, when there's nothing to see.
Because she's not real.
She can't be real.
She can't.
Stripping off his shirt, he wades into the ocean.
*
He lets the current pull him away from the shore, the sun setting on the horizon in front of him, blinding, whiting out the image of her sitting on his couch, standing on his doorstep, sitting in his kitchen...
When he looks back, the beach is empty.
Strangely, that doesn't make him feel any better.
*
He swims back in with the fading light, his house silent in front of him. Grabbing his shirt from the sand, he dries off roughly as he walks up and inside.
There's a light on in his kitchen.
Breaching the doorway, he finds her standing at the counter, sandwich fixings spread out in front of her, a butter knife half-raised. "I was hungry," she says, hesitantly. "Are you hungry? I could...?"
He drops his shirt onto the back of the chair beside him. "Okay."
*
He watches her make the sandwiches, and pour them a glass of water each, and sit down opposite him at the table. Staring at the way she sits, eats, drinks, breathes. He can't stop comparing her against his memories.
"Damn it, John," she snaps eventually. "Would you give it a rest? You're creeping me out."
"No."
He starts to wonder if maybe --
*
When he's finished eating, he grabs a bread knife from the block on the counter and lays it down in front of her, hilt first.
"Cut yourself."
She flinches back, her chair legs scraping on the tiles. "No."
Gripping the edge of the table, he leans in. "Do it, or I will."
A look he remembers all too well crosses her features. Picking up the knife, she places her arm on the table and drags the knife up the inside of her forearm, slicing the flesh. Blood wells immediately, running down her skin.
He watches and waits.
And waits.
Looking up, he finds her biting her bottom lip, and he knows it's not from pain. "You're controlling them."
She closes her eyes. "Yes."
"Stop it."
When he looks down again, the cut is healing, the pooled blood beginning to congeal.
"I thought so," he says. He disarms her and walks away to toss the knife into the sink, turning back only to find her using his shirt to clean up the blood.
She glares at him. "You could have just asked."
*
She wanders out onto his deck while he washes up after them, leaning against the railing like she used to, a hundred times or more, back on Atlantis.
He follows her outside. "How'd you get here?"
Glancing over her shoulder, she raises an eyebrow, as if to say, really? that's the best you can come up with? "I was in the neighbourhood," she answers smartly.
When he doesn't say anything, when he crosses his arms and leans against the wall, staring at her, she sighs and loses the smirk.
"I woke up to nothing. No people. No Asurans. Nothing. I was on a planet I didn't recognise, surrounded by technology I could only understand in an abstract, subconscious way. It took me days just to figure out I was on a grounded ship; weeks to get it airborne. If there was a Stargate on that planet, it was too well-hidden for my sensors."
"Why didn't you fly yourself back to Atlantis?"
She nods. "I did. Or, at least, I tried to. The hyperdrive system was beyond me initially, and by the time I'd figured it out, and gotten myself to the planet, the city was gone."
"Maybe we were cloaked?"
"I thought of that."
"And?"
"And, if you were, then you were for over a year."
He tries to imagine that. Tries to picture her alone, surviving in an empty spaceship on an empty planet, waiting for a city that may or may not reappear.
Waiting for him.
Nausea wells, and he fights it. "Then what?"
"Then I came here."
"Five, six years later."
"Yes."
"What, you get lost or something?"
Irritation flashes across her face. "As a matter of fact."
He smiles before he can stop himself. "Seriously?"
"Yes," she says testily. "You try flying a spaceship across galaxies without directions."
He wipes the smile of his face. "So where's your ship now?"
"Destroyed. I set the self-destruct before I beamed myself down to the planet." Turning away, she stares back out over the water, a shudder rolling across her shoulders and her next words an echo. "I have nowhere else to go."
*
He watches her grab his copy of today's LA Times and sit cross-legged on his floor to read it.
"You're doing it again," she says, turning a page.
He knows he is. "Sedge is at the vet's."
She freezes.
"I'm picking her up tomorrow." He brushes dried sand off his shin absently. "She cut a foot during our morning run, and needed some stitches, but other than that she's fine."
She says nothing for the longest time, and he finds himself counting her breaths, unsteady and uneven as she digests his words.
Then, "thank you."
He shrugs.
*
"You're not the first Elizabeth Weir I've met since," he says eventually.
She looks up, surprised and curious and maybe a little horrified. "They made a copy?"
"No." He watches her carefully. "They made copies."
He knows that expression too.
*
He thinks about grabbing her hand.
He thinks about grabbing her hand and pressing her fingers into his forehead, the hot, painful slide of microscopic technology through flesh and bone.
He thinks about grabbing her hand and pulling it out of his head.
Then he thinks, maybe tomorrow.
*
When he gets up to turn off the TV, to start checking the windows and the locks on the doors, flicking off lights, she follows. It's her turn to watch.
"What can I do?" she asks.
He stops in the hallway outside his bedroom. "Prove to me you're real. That you're not a hallucination or a dream."
She crosses her arms. "How can I prove what I'm not sure I believe myself?"
That's not his problem. "Try."
There's a pause, a weighted silence while she studies him. He keeps his eyes on hers, waiting, hoping.
Hesitantly, she uncrosses her arms and steps forward, leaning up to press her mouth against his.
When he doesn't react, she pulls back.
"Sorry," he says, not bothering to hide his disappointment. "I've dreamt that."
Without warning, she slaps him across the face. Hard.
Hissing, he reaches up to touch his cheek. "That too," he manages.
Exasperated, she drops her hands to her hips. "Fine, you tell me how to prove it then."
"Stay." The word is out of his mouth before he even knows what he's said.
She blinks. "That's it?" she asks dubiously.
That's everything, he thinks. "It's a start."
*
He leaves the windows open in his bedroom, the smell of sea salt heavy in the air, the rush of waves on the shore a familiar white noise. His back is against the wall, arms draped around his knees; she's curled up in the middle of his bed, hair spreading across his pillow.
He doesn't remember this.
"Not going anywhere," he says, watching her watch him.
She nods. "Either of us."
*
They stay.
* * * * *
The End.
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: He starts to wonder.
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATIONS: Sheppard/Weir
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
THANKS TO: mylittleredgirl for the betaing. *smooch*
WORDS: 1,903
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; August 2009.
* * * * *
Just a Little Late by anr
* * * * *
"Please," she says.
Behind him, the TV cuts to a commercial; frost-brewed Coors Light, the world's most refreshing beer.
"I have nowhere else to go," she says.
There's a car -- a taxi -- parked at the end of his driveway, registration number 9V68. Shauna Williams, his neighbour, walks over and opens the door.
"John?"
Every day is an adventure, Jeep! To his left, he counts two people on the beach -- one in the water, paddling on a surfboard, and one running on the sand, dog in tow. The dog barks.
He blinks.
She's still there.
"Elizabeth," he manages.
She nods.
*
He makes them a cup of tea.
"Nobody knows I'm here," she says, sitting at his kitchen bench. She's wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, military issue boots, no makeup. Her hair is loose, past her shoulders. He remembers the freckles on her neck. "But if you want to call in, I'll understand."
In the other room, the 49ers score a touchdown. "I'm retired."
"Oh." She looks surprised. "When --"
He shrugs.
The kettle boils.
*
She drinks her tea. He doesn't.
*
He has no idea what to say to her.
"Do you know what happened to my mother? To Sedge?" she asks.
He's making another cup of tea. "Sedge?"
"My dog."
He lies. "No."
Elizabeth's mother died last year of cancer; the last time he saw her, spoke with her, he told her about Atlantis, and the Pegasus galaxy, and how her daughter really died. She fell asleep before he could tell her better things, his memories of her daughter smiling and laughing and saving the day, and he'd promised himself he would come back and see her again, tell her more, but he never did.
He rips the tag off the tea bag by accident, and wraps the string around his finger. When he pours the boiling water into the cup, the steam is hot against his knuckles, a welcome discomfort.
"Rodney? Ronon? Teyla?" She pauses. "Our people?"
He shrugs.
*
"Oberoth kept me."
He changes channels. Next on Survivor...
"I still don't know where, not exactly. I must have escaped several dozen times, been rescued twice that amount. I can't tell you how many times I 'woke' to your face, or the sound of Ronon's pulse pistol, or even to Zelenka furiously typing away on a data-pad."
... and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling, and when it hits it's gonna be the shit-storm of all time...
"Even now, years after his last hallucination unexpectedly stopped, I'm still not sure I'm free of him." From the corner of his eye, he watches her tuck her feet up underneath her. "I don't know that I ever will be."
In local news, the state budget crisis could take a further $1.7 billion from this year's...
"Because this? Mundane and ordinary as it is, sitting on your couch, watching TV... even this could be nothing more than my imagination. Something I've subconsciously expected or thought of in the past."
He glances at her briefly. "McKay married Todd a couple of years ago. Sunset ceremony in BC, very tasteful."
She frowns. "Janet Todd? The climatologist?"
"Todd the Wraith."
"Who? I mean, what? I mean, how would that even be possib... oh. Oh." She smiles at him. "Thank you."
He shouldn't have said anything. Grimacing, he changes channels again.
*
The movie is almost over when she says, quietly, "I understand your apprehension, John. More than you could ever know."
Flinching, he gets up and walks away.
*
He heads down to the beach, to the water, grateful to find himself alone on the stretch. Behind him, he knows she's watching him, can feel her gaze on the back of his neck, but he doesn't turn around. He can't. Not when there's no point, when there's nothing to see.
Because she's not real.
She can't be real.
She can't.
Stripping off his shirt, he wades into the ocean.
*
He lets the current pull him away from the shore, the sun setting on the horizon in front of him, blinding, whiting out the image of her sitting on his couch, standing on his doorstep, sitting in his kitchen...
When he looks back, the beach is empty.
Strangely, that doesn't make him feel any better.
*
He swims back in with the fading light, his house silent in front of him. Grabbing his shirt from the sand, he dries off roughly as he walks up and inside.
There's a light on in his kitchen.
Breaching the doorway, he finds her standing at the counter, sandwich fixings spread out in front of her, a butter knife half-raised. "I was hungry," she says, hesitantly. "Are you hungry? I could...?"
He drops his shirt onto the back of the chair beside him. "Okay."
*
He watches her make the sandwiches, and pour them a glass of water each, and sit down opposite him at the table. Staring at the way she sits, eats, drinks, breathes. He can't stop comparing her against his memories.
"Damn it, John," she snaps eventually. "Would you give it a rest? You're creeping me out."
"No."
He starts to wonder if maybe --
*
When he's finished eating, he grabs a bread knife from the block on the counter and lays it down in front of her, hilt first.
"Cut yourself."
She flinches back, her chair legs scraping on the tiles. "No."
Gripping the edge of the table, he leans in. "Do it, or I will."
A look he remembers all too well crosses her features. Picking up the knife, she places her arm on the table and drags the knife up the inside of her forearm, slicing the flesh. Blood wells immediately, running down her skin.
He watches and waits.
And waits.
Looking up, he finds her biting her bottom lip, and he knows it's not from pain. "You're controlling them."
She closes her eyes. "Yes."
"Stop it."
When he looks down again, the cut is healing, the pooled blood beginning to congeal.
"I thought so," he says. He disarms her and walks away to toss the knife into the sink, turning back only to find her using his shirt to clean up the blood.
She glares at him. "You could have just asked."
*
She wanders out onto his deck while he washes up after them, leaning against the railing like she used to, a hundred times or more, back on Atlantis.
He follows her outside. "How'd you get here?"
Glancing over her shoulder, she raises an eyebrow, as if to say, really? that's the best you can come up with? "I was in the neighbourhood," she answers smartly.
When he doesn't say anything, when he crosses his arms and leans against the wall, staring at her, she sighs and loses the smirk.
"I woke up to nothing. No people. No Asurans. Nothing. I was on a planet I didn't recognise, surrounded by technology I could only understand in an abstract, subconscious way. It took me days just to figure out I was on a grounded ship; weeks to get it airborne. If there was a Stargate on that planet, it was too well-hidden for my sensors."
"Why didn't you fly yourself back to Atlantis?"
She nods. "I did. Or, at least, I tried to. The hyperdrive system was beyond me initially, and by the time I'd figured it out, and gotten myself to the planet, the city was gone."
"Maybe we were cloaked?"
"I thought of that."
"And?"
"And, if you were, then you were for over a year."
He tries to imagine that. Tries to picture her alone, surviving in an empty spaceship on an empty planet, waiting for a city that may or may not reappear.
Waiting for him.
Nausea wells, and he fights it. "Then what?"
"Then I came here."
"Five, six years later."
"Yes."
"What, you get lost or something?"
Irritation flashes across her face. "As a matter of fact."
He smiles before he can stop himself. "Seriously?"
"Yes," she says testily. "You try flying a spaceship across galaxies without directions."
He wipes the smile of his face. "So where's your ship now?"
"Destroyed. I set the self-destruct before I beamed myself down to the planet." Turning away, she stares back out over the water, a shudder rolling across her shoulders and her next words an echo. "I have nowhere else to go."
*
He watches her grab his copy of today's LA Times and sit cross-legged on his floor to read it.
"You're doing it again," she says, turning a page.
He knows he is. "Sedge is at the vet's."
She freezes.
"I'm picking her up tomorrow." He brushes dried sand off his shin absently. "She cut a foot during our morning run, and needed some stitches, but other than that she's fine."
She says nothing for the longest time, and he finds himself counting her breaths, unsteady and uneven as she digests his words.
Then, "thank you."
He shrugs.
*
"You're not the first Elizabeth Weir I've met since," he says eventually.
She looks up, surprised and curious and maybe a little horrified. "They made a copy?"
"No." He watches her carefully. "They made copies."
He knows that expression too.
*
He thinks about grabbing her hand.
He thinks about grabbing her hand and pressing her fingers into his forehead, the hot, painful slide of microscopic technology through flesh and bone.
He thinks about grabbing her hand and pulling it out of his head.
Then he thinks, maybe tomorrow.
*
When he gets up to turn off the TV, to start checking the windows and the locks on the doors, flicking off lights, she follows. It's her turn to watch.
"What can I do?" she asks.
He stops in the hallway outside his bedroom. "Prove to me you're real. That you're not a hallucination or a dream."
She crosses her arms. "How can I prove what I'm not sure I believe myself?"
That's not his problem. "Try."
There's a pause, a weighted silence while she studies him. He keeps his eyes on hers, waiting, hoping.
Hesitantly, she uncrosses her arms and steps forward, leaning up to press her mouth against his.
When he doesn't react, she pulls back.
"Sorry," he says, not bothering to hide his disappointment. "I've dreamt that."
Without warning, she slaps him across the face. Hard.
Hissing, he reaches up to touch his cheek. "That too," he manages.
Exasperated, she drops her hands to her hips. "Fine, you tell me how to prove it then."
"Stay." The word is out of his mouth before he even knows what he's said.
She blinks. "That's it?" she asks dubiously.
That's everything, he thinks. "It's a start."
*
He leaves the windows open in his bedroom, the smell of sea salt heavy in the air, the rush of waves on the shore a familiar white noise. His back is against the wall, arms draped around his knees; she's curled up in the middle of his bed, hair spreading across his pillow.
He doesn't remember this.
"Not going anywhere," he says, watching her watch him.
She nods. "Either of us."
*
They stay.
* * * * *
The End.
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*