Five Moments of a Life He Doesn't Let Himself Think About, Sheppard/Nancy, 'Pre-Canon'
Title: Five Moments of a Life He Doesn’t Let Himself Think About
Summary: John Sheppard’s not proud of the life he had with Nancy.
Characters: John Sheppard, Nancy Estevez & Patrick Sheppard
Pairing: John/Nancy
Rating: PG-15
A/N: Pre-Canon. The shaping of John Sheppard.
Twenty-Three Years Old
“John, don’t do this,” she whispered pleadingly in the dark room. Her warm hand touched his cool chest and he shivered at the contact. He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling of the room he’d shared with Nancy for nearly a year now. They’d bought a flat together (much to his father’s delight) and Sheppard still hadn’t moved his stuff there from the hotel room. “It’s not...”
John closed his eyes again and tried to pretend he was asleep. It was a conversation he did not want to have with her; he hadn’t two months ago when he’d thought of signing up and he didn’t now that he was lying in bed with her, trying to sleep and didn’t think he would anytime in the near future. It was the first choice he’d made that went against his father’s wishes (apart from not joining MENSA when he was nine and again when he twenty one). In the past five weeks, Nancy had seen more of John’s father than John had; Patrick Sheppard had strategically avoided his son since he’d told him he was leaving the business and that he was joining the Air Force. John knew it was only a matter of time before she found out.
“What do you mean you’re leaving the business?” The words, spoken so calmly, chilled John to the bone and he felt his resolve slip away. For twenty three years he’d lived by his father’s rules, relatively unquestioning and he’d only ever been privy to this voice once - only when his father had told him that their mother was dead. He looked away at the sudden memory but his father’s voice snapped his attention back to him. “What do you mean?”
John closed his eyes for a moment but knew his father wouldn’t appreciate the sign of weakness. John had made his choice; if there was any sign of weakness, his father would pick at it and pull John’s reasoning apart.
“This isn’t what I want to do.” He took a breath, deep and heavy and levelled his father with a stare.
“This business... I built this business for you, John.”
John looked down to his hands at the confession; it was the closest to an admission of care that John had ever had from his father. He found he didn’t really care for it.
“I know but...” He looked back up to his father who had risen from his chair and was leaning against the edge of his table, the late afternoon sun streaming in from behind, casting him in shadow. “Dave wants this; he’s interested - I’m... not.”
Patrick Sheppard pushed off from the desk and moved to the window, staring out at the city spread eagled beneath him. The opulent office had never appealed to John and he found now that the atmosphere was oppressive and warm and entirely unwelcoming. John had never been made for offices; big as his father’s was or small like the cubicles in the call centre his friend had worked in throughout college.
“Dave isn’t my oldest son.” John sighed at that. Patrick Sheppard was, surprisingly, a man of tradition. To him, the family business should pass to the oldest son and the second son would be slotted in somewhere along the lines. The old man had never had favourites - he’d had the same level of disdain for both sons as they’d been growing up - but if his preference lay with anyone it was with John. “I put you through school to do this job, John - I even let you go to Princeton instead of Harvard. I let you have my house in New Jersey but you chose to stay in a hotel like some god forsaken rock-star.”
“And Dave is at Harvard, living in your house in Boston, he’s trying his hardest to be the top of his class so that you might consider him for this over me.” John stood too and couldn’t help but prop his hands on his hips. “He wants this; I don’t.”
“You’ve spoken to Dave about this?”
John shook his head and let out a mirthless laugh.
“Don’t try and blame him for any of this. I made my decision; I told him.” John shook his head again, lifting a hand to his hair to run through it.
Patrick Sheppard let out a laugh, spinning from the window, pinning John with a glare.
“And what are you going to do?” He took a step towards John, his extra two inches allowing him to tower over his son but John would not be intimidated. “What about that little apartment you’ve bought with Nancy?” Another step and John could feel his breath on his face; stale coffee covered by mint. “You wouldn’t know what to do without money, John. Because if you do this, if you quit, you will be ex-communicated. You will not be my son.”
John had known that this was a possibility and despite the fact that he’d tried to prepare himself for it, he found that he wasn’t. That his father would choose tradition - his business - over his son was more cutting than John could ever have expected.
He cleared his throat and took a step back from his father, not defeated, simply resigned.
“I’m joining the Air Force.”
Patrick spun away, laughing.
“The Air Force? You’ll never handle it - you’ve had everything handed to you on a plate, John, you wouldn’t know how to work for anything.”
John shrugged.
“It’s what I want to do. I want to do this and nothing you say will stop me. If I fail, I fail. I have a Masters Degree from Princeton - I’m sure I can find something to do.”
“Not in any business in America. I will see to that.”
John shrugged again, picking up his discarded jacket as he moved to the door.
“Then I’ll leave America.” He opened the door and glanced back at his father. “But I won’t fail.”
Patrick sneered at him, unkindly.
“You will. And you’ll be back here begging for my pardon.”
John shook his head but didn’t respond. He didn’t look back as he stepped over the threshold.
“Goodbye, Patrick.”
“Why, John?” Nancy sprung from the bed suddenly, grabbing John’s shirt, pulling it over her head. She looked fierce standing above him when he did eventually open his eyes, the sigh escaping his lips uncensored. “To prove a point?” She half yelled as she pulled a long robe on with great fierce. Her hair swung from side to side in a way that used to do so many bad things to his body. “Because I think you proved your point! You don’t need-“
“Is it so hard for you to believe that I want to do the right thing?”
Nancy glared at him, laughing in indignation, tossing her head back in a motion most unbecoming.
“The right thing? John, joining the Air Force isn’t doing the right thing!” She kneeled on the edge of the bed, bracing herself with her hands near his thigh. He looked up from her arms to her eyes but they were hidden in the blackness of the room.
“Being patriotic isn’t the right thing?”
She scoffed and stood, turning from him. He could hear her deep breaths, could see the outline of her hand reach for her hair, tugging at the tresses. He rolled from the bed, sliding his jeans up his legs, allowing them to hang loose around his hips as he stood, equally as frustrated.
He waited for long minutes and when she turned to him, the moon light glistening against her face John could see tear stains on her cheeks.
“There is nothing patriotic about war, John,” she said quietly, her voice small and tired. He heard her sniff, saw her wipe her nose on her sleeve and he felt a small smile creep across his face. “All this ‘for God and Country’ is a load of crap - it’s justification for killing people; there is no justification for that. There is no justification for killing someone whether at war, or in walking down the street.” She kneeled against the bed again and John felt his shoulder deflate at her vulnerable stance. “Before God, a killer is a killer, whether your government sanctioned it or not.” She looked away and John wanted to reach out to her. “I know you, John. You won’t be able to live like that.”
John swallowed, his eyes restless as they danced from one dark object to the next.
“I have to do this,” he stated simply, his voice flat. “This is the only thing I’ve ever felt like I had to do.”
The words stung her, he could tell, as her shoulders shifted.
“What about me, John?” He frowned at the question. “What do I do if...” There was a sound, somewhere between a sob and a wail and it almost broke him.
He mirrored her stance, his hands steadying him as he leaned against the mattress.
“Marry me.”
She looked up, her eyes void of any emotion. He kept his face equally as neutral as he watched her for any flicker, any sign of emotion.
“What?” The question, so quietly asked, so low in the room went almost unheard by him.
He hobbled across the bed on his knees until he was eye level with her, his hand rising to touch her jaw for a moment before he pulled back, leaning back to look at her.
“Marry me.”
She nodded, just once and John pulled her back to bed with him. In the quiet darkness, they moved together fluidly, familiar - almost emotionless.
John knew there was something not right in their lack of fanfare.
But he was content with the way it was.
--
Part One: Twenty-One Years Old