jeez, world's longest title
Right under the wire!! *breathes*
TITLE: Five Secrets That Were Kept By the Leaders of the Atlantis Expedition
AUTHOR: daygloparker
FANDOM: Stargate: Atlantis
PAIRING/CHARACTER: Sheppard/Weir
SPOILERS: "Before I Sleep," "The Intruder," and "The Long Goodbye"
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: A little something for everyone: the burden of command, time travel, a post-ep... not to mention, some futurefic and, of course, a slight case of an apocafic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for duskwings in anr's 2nd annual swficathon. The requests were five secrets and time as a recurring theme. I'm 99% sure I covered at least one in each piece. taylorkate rocks the beta, because she lives in the future.
---
i.
Two months into the expedition
Everyone in the jumper came back alive, just in the nick of time - scratched, a little battered and bruised, but alive. It all turned out all right, except the decision still stuck in the back of Elizabeth's throat, still tasted funny when she swallowed. The decision she had made and almost had to live with... the one that didn’t matter in the end and that she will have to live with, in spite of it all.
She'd been forced to make this kind of decision before - a suicide mission, a sacrifice; no Stargate Command to relieve her burden - but for some reason, no particular reason at all, it didn't sit right today. Today, it wasn't, "This is life"; today, she felt like she wanted to vomit.
But Elizabeth put on a brave smile, after visiting her people in the infirmary, retired quietly for the night. Everyone was still too relieved to notice that she was faking it the whole time, except for Major Sheppard, who caught her eye just as she was leaving.
Instead, the Major follow her to her quarters, first covertly and then on the pretense of going somewhere nearby. Because he could see right through her, she invited him in.
Elizabeth lounged at her personal desk. The Major leaned against the pillar in the center of the room. She didn't say a word, but he still cut her off, knowing exactly the litany her mind was running through: "Don’t."
Elizabeth wanted to be the impenetrable leader of this expedition; she wanted to be the unemotional negotiator that she once was; the cool, calming person that she projected herself to be. But it only took one word. "I can’t."
Sheppard didn’t waver. He didn’t comfort her. "They’re alive. That’s what matters."
"But I-" She thought of trying to take it all back, but she couldn’t. "I ordered them to their deaths."
They're soldiers, she thought he was going to say. "They're alive."
"They shouldn't be."
"But they are. Elizabeth," and when he said her name, his military posture softened, if ever so slightly, "if it had been my call, I wouldn't have done a damn thing different, and you know that."
She was dying a little inside, and he was completely right.
There was a moment when she felt like the Major might suddenly open up to her, might admit that he was as scared shitless as she felt right then. She looked him in the eye and could see it on his face. But then Sheppard ran his hands over his legs, making that familiar sound against the fabric of his uniform, and said, "Well, I should go," withdrawing once more into his own self. She understood that feeling.
So when she asked him to stay for a minute longer, it was shocking for them both.
In the bottom drawer of her desk, there was a bottle of whiskey - another present from General O'Neill, and never more appropriate than at this very moment. Maybe that had been the General's point. She took out two glasses from the drawer, too, and poured them each a drink.
They toasted to the survivors in the puddle-jumper, the ones who weren't supposed to live. They did not take small sips, and the whiskey was gone soon enough. Elizabeth poured herself a second drink immediately; Sheppard declined, but didn't protest hers.
"I could have been an ambassador," she said, finally, two drinks later. "A Presidential appointment."
Sheppard was still holding his empty cup. He shrugged. "I could have been a high school math teacher."
It didn't really matter that he wasn't serious. Elizabeth smiled.
He returned his glass, thanking her politely for the drink. "You deserve it," she said, not sure why it had suddenly occurred to her. She gestured around the room, but means all of Atlantis. "This can't be easy for you." It was no secret to him that Sumner's protests to his assignment had been numerous and on the record.
"We're alive," he repeated. "That's what matters."
She only half-believed him. "I suppose."
At the door, he thanked her again. She returned it. He started to say, "I won't, ah, I won't-" but he didn't have to say out loud, because she knew that Sheppard was a loyal soldier.
When he was gone, she watched the moon's reflection in the ocean for a while from her window, and then collapsed in bed, exhausted and still fully clothed.
*
ii.
1943
Elizabeth stayed at the table while John got up to order her a gin martini from the bar. There was a drunk sitting on the stool beside him, and he slurred something in German about the accent in John's French.
When John ignored him, he said, "Where you from, son?" but in English this time. He spoke with a Midwestern accent, completely out of place, and John was reminded again how much the universe was already crumbling around them.
The bartender told the guy, whose name was now Karl, to shove off, again in English. Then he tapped the stirrer on the side of the martini glass and slid it across to John.
At the table, they sat close, shoulder to shoulder but never making eye contact, he in a perfectly pressed suit and she in a wool-blend that looked expensive enough to make them seem like collaborators. Elizabeth watched the patrons at the bar and John kept his eye on the door. John drummed his hand on the table, once, twice, and the bandleader switched to a rendition of "In the Mood."
At precisely 8:04, Janus arrived. There was a brunette on his arm; maybe she was local color, or maybe she was an Ancient, too. It didn't matter. John and Elizabeth had given up trying to figure that one out a long time ago. Literally, it had been centuries ago. Janus didn't seem them watching him, their table sufficiently hidden behind a large potted palm.
Elizabeth's French was much better; it was cleaner, smoother. She smiled at the man guarding the door to the backroom that their mark had slipped into, she touched his arm lightly, and then they were being ushered inside. The door swung shut again and the room was lit low, full of cigarette smoke and the sound of a dozen different conversations. A woman laughed. A waiter brushed in front of them and John grabbed a flute of champagne.
Janus was at the rounded booth in the back. His companion enjoyed laughing, which gave them the element of surprise when they slipped in the other side. Immediately, he was startled, frightened, cornered. When he moved, John was quicker; "Don't even," and suddenly there was the butt of an Ancient weapon pointed at him under the table.
Janus had his hands flat on the table, like John had requested. "I don't know who you think I am-"
"Drop the act," John replied.
His composure changed. His shoulders relaxed and he suddenly looked out of place and uncomfortable in his Earth clothing. "You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you, if I'm remembering correctly," Elizabeth quipped. "You're a tough man to pin down, Janus."
"I try. And I did save your lives once, you know," and he shifted his position, but John kept the weapon aimed right at his gut. "Your weapon is hardly necessary, Major."
"That's Colonel now, thank you."
"Oh, wonderful! The last I saw of you, you were a corpse floating in a jumper at the bottom of the ocean, so this is definitely a step up for you."
His companion looked confused, and a bit nervous. She said something quietly to Janus in Russian, and he started to reply, but Elizabeth interrupted them. She told the woman to leave, also in Russian, and the poor thing looked more relieved than anything else. From the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw her retreating into the embrace of one of the trombone players.
Janus smiled smugly. "An entire council of ascended Ancients couldn't stop me for having a little fun. What exactly are you two planning to do?" He leaned across the table. "And more to the point, why do you care? Don't you have an 'expedition' to run?"
John stared at him for a long while, not quite believing that he didn't know what he was doing. "You're destroying the universe, Janus!"
He laughed. He laughed long and hard. "Wasn't that a bit dramatic?" Their faces were blank, and eventually Janus realized that they weren't kidding. "You're serious."
"Deadly," said Elizabeth, "Look." In the corner, two Japanese businessmen were typing away on their laptops, oblivious. "Time is folding in on itself, and it gets worse every time you jump in that new ship of yours."
He looked positively dismayed. "I hadn't considered that."
"Really?" John said sarcastically. Janus ignored him.
"I suppose I'll have to reverse of my calculations..." and the Ancient began fumbling around in his jacket pocket for something, the way a person tries to find their keys. John put the weapon above the table, not willing to take any chances that his 'keys' might end up to be a way to defend himself. Janus didn't notice, or maybe didn't care. He stopped. He looked up at John and Elizabeth. "Wait."
"We know," replied John.
"You'll be stranded."
"We know," said Elizabeth.
"It's not exactly like we have much to go back to," added John. "I'm fairly sure the entire Milky Way Galaxy in our time was swallowed by a very large black hole."
Janus winced. "Sorry about that."
From his pants pocket, Janus retrieved a small palm-sized device. "I'm going back to my ship and stopping this."
John finally put his weapon down on the table. "How'll we know it worked?"
"You'll live."
*
iii.
A year and a half into the expedition
So for about a week, they did a very good job of pretending that absolutely nothing had happened at all. John only spoke to her in an extremely professional capacity, and they were never alone.
Phebus was still an echo in Elizabeth's mind: an itch she couldn't scratch, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. During the day, when she could focus, it was only distracting from time to time, the way someone's voice would remember her of people she had never met, or the way her chest tightened just at the level of perception whenever she saw the ocean. Carson called it 'cognitive dissonance.'
At night, though, when she was alone, it was different. It was like a waking dream, as her mind pushed aside her day by clinging to the last remnants of Phebus' neural imprint. Elizabeth could close her eyes and feel the sand between her toes on a planet she had never visited. She could feel the heat of a fire as her (Phebus') ship burned around her; she could know the endless feeling of being trapped as the pod closed around her. Elizabeth knew the weight and the coldness of alien weaponry, and if she tried hard enough, she could know how to reload their ammunition. She knew what it was like to fight an endless war. She knew what it was like to blindly hate.
At night, she took the pills that Carson had prescribed her, but it only even led her to a dream world that was also not her own. In the morning, when John brought her up to speed on the expeditions into the city's uninhabited areas, Elizabeth could see the bags under his eyes, too. She knew he wasn't sleeping well either.
Tonight, it was past midnight, and she was tired of pacing her quarters from end to end. She didn't want to be out in the city, where she might encounter people and be forced to be only Elizabeth Weir, yet how she ended up in John's quarters, leaning against the window frame as he gazed out at the ocean, she will never quite explain.
When she knocked, he let her in. His bed was unmade, but not slept in, and there was a light on at his desk.
"Do you know?" he asked, as if this were reason for her arrival.
Elizabeth was confused. "Know what?"
John looked at her a long time, and then shook his head. "Never mind." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't... sometimes, I'm not myself," he admitted.
Elizabeth nodded. "Carson told me it would go away eventually."
"Yeah, he told me the same thing." He pushed himself away from the window.
After deciding and changing her mind and doubting herself, Elizabeth dove head first into her confession. "I can't stop thinking about her and it's driving me crazy."
John scoffed. "Tell me about it."
"At least you have some kind of point of reference for it all." When he looked up at her, she backtracked. "I meant... you're a soldier, John. You fight wars. I... don't."
He nodded. And then he shrugged. "Still... those were some pretty badass moves."
For the first time in a week, Elizabeth allowed herself to laugh about their situation. "Muscles hurt in my legs that I never knew even existed."
John laughed, too. And then, pulling himself together, he said, calmly but seriously, "You should talk to Teyla. About, you know, self-defense. Or whatever. It might come in handy one day."
His concern moved her, and she smiled. "You mean, in case I decide to kick your ass again?"
"I believe that I distinctly remember Teyla kicking my ass."
She laughed. Again. Elizabeth was grateful that they had somehow found a way to laugh about all this.
"Hey..." and before she knew what she was doing, she was continuing her thought, "I think I should apologize."
"For Teyla kicking my ass?"
"No, for-for…" She couldn't finish. She had brokered a peace treaty between Goa'uld system lords, for Christ's sake, but the thought of saying this out loud turned her in a nervous schoolgirl.
Thankfully, John was quick. "Oh. Uh. Don't-don't worry about that. It's fine."
"Good!" Elizabeth was smiling and nodding emphatically. "Good."
"Even Rodney agreed to be discreet."
And for that, she was insanely grateful.
Elizabeth was suddenly acutely aware of her own presence in the room, not to mention that of John. Her mind was flooded with emotion: the memory of her own voice, screaming for control as Phebus manipulated her body by her own will; the onslaught of hate that Phebus had for Thalen, and the contempt she felt resorting to such a cheap ploy as husband-and-wife just to get one last shot at him... her dissatisfaction with the inadequacies of Elizabeth's body... her interest in the one Thalen had taken, despite every fiber of her being... It was almost too much, and Elizabeth had to squeeze her eyes shut and force herself into the meditation exercises that Carson had taught her, just to control it.
But it was hard, too hard. Phebus had reached into Elizabeth's consciousness, stolen things from her in order to pass herself off, and maybe that was why it was so hard to be rid of her. Phebus had stolen mannerisms, emotions; she had reached into secret parts of Elizabeth's mind to perfect her charade, right down to the moment when they both sprinted for the guards-
And then suddenly Elizabeth was reliving it, trapped in her own mind, remembering the sensation of kissing John, remembering that Phebus had used those hidden kernels of desire to push herself through the experience. Feeling desire in Phebus, too. Faintly, Elizabeth heard John saying her name, and the pressure of someone holding her arm (although still unsure if that was in her head), and then experience suddenly became intensely more real.
Because it was.
Elizabeth opened her eyes and John was cupping the sides of her face. She didn't recognize him. When he kissed her again, it felt different; the same sensations, but a different perspective. Her perspective. And then suddenly, she understood.
"Do you know?" John whispered in her ear, and she did. Suddenly she was Phebus again, all of her, not quite twenty years old: there was a ruckus festival, there was no war, not yet, and Thalen was just as young as her. He kissed her a third time, this time with more intensity, and in her mind it was raining and they were soaking wet and she still didn't know that her boyfriend was the enemy.
He didn't stop and she was touching him and he was pulling her, pushing her, out of control and they weren't themselves, but they were, they were. She came up for air and he pushed her back against the wall, aggressively, passionately, kissing her over and over, and she had to use the belt of his pants to steady her. His hands were all over her, under her shirt and on her skin, and she didn't want it to end, ever, just wanted to keep kissing him over and over and-
Something tipped the balance in her head. Elizabeth came crashing back to reality.
They were both gasping for air and her body was tense against the wall, and John's hand was still on her face, their noses still inches apart. "We," she tried to say, "We can't," and John knew it, because he put his forehead against hers and nodded.
They didn't have to say it out loud, their mutual decision to blame this incident on the neural imprints.
Eventually, the insomnia subsided.
*
iv.
The future
The president had offered her a permanent position in the Stargate project, as the chair of the SGC's new negotiating council, but when everything was over and done with, the only thing that Elizabeth wanted to do was teach. So she politely declined, and instead quietly packed up her belongings on the base. Ronon and Teyla were leaving for Pegasus in the morning, and since some things about military protocol never change, they were all forced to say their goodbyes in the mess of Cheyenne Mountain.
She moved back to Washington, D.C.; in the fall, she taught a seminar on the dynamics of globalization. On the first day, the room was packed, dozens of undergraduates sitting Indian-style in the aisles; afterwards, she heard them whispering, trying to decide if she'd been in India or Iran for the past five years. They have no reason to suspect intergalactic space travel as her explanation.
She bought a house on the Chesapeake, but still kept a small apartment in the district for nights when she didn't want to make the hour-long commute (and even with that she had been picky, insisting on a place with a view of the Potomac, needing the comfort of water in whatever form she could get). She fell back into the old, Earth-bound routine rather easily: faculty dinners and coffee bars and crowded shopping malls at Christmas time. Hailing a cab, waiting for a Metro; carrying a briefcase and a cell phone. Gridlock on 295 during rush hour. Sometimes she would go for days at a time just being ordinary, and then a student would comment on the pendant that she wore, forcing Elizabeth to stammer together a response that didn't include the Athosian craftsmen and tea ceremonies.
And sometimes, there were SGC functions, too. There was one for the inauguration of the negotiating council, when the President asked her to give the keynote speech and she knew she couldn't turn him down a second time. She controlled the ever expanding compartmentalizing of her mind by slipping into lecture-mode, imagining the sea of uniformed faces in front of her as sleepy-eyed undergraduates at 10AM on a Friday. Afterwards, she shook hands with colonels and generals alike, even the aide to the President; she made idle small talk with Rodney's sister and introduced herself politely to John's date, Mindy (whose personality fit her bubbly, blonde name).
By February, she began to feel that familiar sense of lose again. No longer able to belong to either world, military or civilian. General O'Neill retired (for good, he said) in May, and the event was held in a banquet hall in the district. Elizabeth moved through the evening in a distant fog, not even paying much attention to Colonel Carter, who still made trips to Pegasus from time to time with the (now retired) General. John didn't bring Mindy, but Rodney had a date, a very personable scientist named Marla, whom, Elizabeth was sure of it, had been in Atlantis briefly. At the buffet table, General O'Neill - no, Jack - casually remarked on the woman's resemblance to one Samantha Carter, which earned an emphatic, "Yes, absolutely," from John, and a glare that could break men from Sam.
Elizabeth excused herself early, claiming to have finals to wade through, but when she got into her car she drove all the way home to Chesapeake Beach.
Simon had a conference at the Hyatt in July; they had lunch. She could have told him anything and everything about the Pegasus Galaxy; could have relieved some of her stress by just talking. Instead, they traded memories about Kosovo and Doctors Without Borders. His wedding ring was distracting.
One day in early September, she was late for her class and the phone was ringing. She couldn't explain why it was that she decided not to ignore it. On the other hand, it was General Hammond, a man she had only met a few occasions. He told her to sit down, and when it was over, she called her T.A. and told her to cancel class. She spent the day watching CNN and waiting.
Over the years as a negotiator, Elizabeth had gotten used to being behind the headlines, but this time, it was completely different. They were the headline. At first, though, she managed to slip beneath the radar of reporters, who were evidently still combing through the first chapter of the Stargate disclosure report (even she tuned in for SG-1's exclusive interview on Dateline). She was able to give three whole lectures before the questions started from students. On that afternoon, there was an armed military escort and a throng of reporters waiting outside of the building for her, and she was barely conscious of being funneled into a waiting black sedan, too crushed by the sensory overload of shouts and flashes and microphones shoved in her face. They drove her to Chesapeake Beach and she called in sick to the university until further notice.
Eventually it was Christmas again, and it felt strange to think that the year had slipped by so quickly.
John was in town for some meetings at the Pentagon and on the Hill (though he wouldn't tell her for what, saying only enough to tell her he was sitting on active duty), and they agreed to have dinner. She wore a red cardigan, and he had on a sweater that made her think Mindy had left for good and John's mother had sent her son an early Christmas gift. It felt strange to see him without the trappings of the SGC or the military; it was as if they might have once been just ordinary co-workers, rather the leaders of an intergalactic space expedition.
"I suppose all of this means I can finally write my memoir," Elizabeth joked, after they had ordered.
John nodded his head. "I'd certainly buy it. And then I would use the index to only read the parts that are about me."
"Of course."
Elizabeth laughed. It felt good to laugh; it felt good to spend time with John, even if he wasn't the only person in the world right now who knew how she felt about the sudden celebrity of their old jobs. Their waiter came back, and he carried with him a bottle of very expensive wine that they hadn't ordered; he pointed to a table in the back, and the random couple waved at them emphatically.
"We shouldn't take it," she said, lowering her voice as they might able to hear.
But John was already beginning to fill her glass. "I think we should enjoy these perks while we still can, before someone tells them about the time Rodney blew up an entire solar system."
She laughed again, feeling a tad dizzy and lighter.
The DoD had given John a car service for his stay in D.C., so after dinner he offered her a "free taxi" home. The Christmas lights of downtown looked muted but calm through its tinted windows, and suddenly Elizabeth thought she felt extremely at her peace herself and her life at the moment. She sighed and rested her head on John's shoulder, the wool of his jacket scratching her cheek, and when they turned a corner he put his arm around her. She closed her eyes and they stayed like that unlike she was home.
She invited him upstairs, first for a drink and then for coffee. He put his coat on the back of her armchair and idly skimmed the titles on her bookshelf while she brewed a pot. When she handed him a mug, he was studying the picture of them and Rodney and Ronon and Teyla that was sitting on the fireplace. They sat at opposite ends of her small couch, and Elizabeth tucked her feet comfortably under herself.
"So why are you here?" she asked him, meaning D.C.
John replied, mid-sip, "I'm testifying to Congress on the existence of extra-terrestrial life."
"I'd buy that."
Her coffee was bitter - in her slightly tipsy state, she had brewed it too strongly. Their conversation lulled, until John finally spoke again: "I thought it was going to get a little easier, you know?" He spoke frankly.
"I do," she replied, nodding. "Sometimes I miss just being an anonymous contributing lecturer at George Washington."
"Elizabeth, if I remember correctly, you were hardly an anonymous anything to begin with."
He said it warmly, and the compliment sat with her for a while. "You know what I mean."
"I do," he said, and then his hand was lightly touching her knee, almost by accidental. It felt like it was burning, the sensation radiating all through her body, and Elizabeth had to take a deliberate sip of coffee to hide how flustered it made her feel. The wine, she reminded herself; it's the wine at dinner that's making you feel this way.
They stayed like that for a minute or so, not saying a word. Elizabeth turned in place to set her mug down on the table behind her, and as she turned back it happened in an instant: John's hand slid all the way over her knee, the other reached out to hold her face; he kissed her, tasting like coffee when she parted her lips. She sighed and leaned into it, remembering what it was like to kiss him like this years ago, and his hand started moving down her thigh. She felt him everywhere, all over her.
She wanted him. Badly.
A year ago, this would have still been inappropriate, but now they had no more secrets to keep. It felt like forever until he said, "I should go," whispering into jaw line below her ear. She answered by grabbing part of his sweater and kissing him again, and he helped to slide off her cardigan.
In the morning he was gone, five apologies on one note in the kitchen, as well as an invitation to lunch on the Hill. There, he apologized twice more, but Elizabeth understood perfectly about keeping early appointments with members of Congress. He didn't kiss her in public, but kept a hand on her leg under the table that made it extremely hard to concentrate when a Senator approached them to shake hands and thank them for their years of service.
He was in town for the rest of the week, leaving just as Congress recessed for the holiday. One afternoon he slipped into the back of her lecture hall, his long wool coat covering his full dress uniform, and in the middle of a sentence, he raised his hand to ask about the morals of interrogation techniques. A few of the female students whispered and stared, recognizing his face.
It was brisk and cold, smelling like it could snow at any moment, but they walked outside anyway: from her class, past the White House, along the reflecting pool, and ending up at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They didn't talk much. The vendors selling roasted peanuts smelled delicious, and he bought her some; they tasted like Atlantis, for reasons she couldn't explain.
"Going back soon?"
John rubbed her hands together for warmth, and then shrugged. "Going to visit my mom for the holidays, but afterwards, yeah."
He didn't elaborate further, and Elizabeth didn't push it. They still had their secrets.
*
v.
One year into the expedition
The President had given General Landry the go-ahead to show them the file. Major - no, that was Colonel Sheppard now, and Dr. Weir were due to leave the base at 0900 to head to the Daedalus' loading site, so at 0830 they answered his summons and appeared, albeit confused, in the doorway of his office.
"Shut the door."
The file was small, but it was enough. He gave it to Dr. Weir first. "I feel that I don't need to remind you that the information I'm sharing with you is of an extremely classified nature."
She nodded, and then opened it to scan its contents. Her face was a continuum of emotion: shock, confusion, and even a shade of amusement. When she was done, she handed it to Sheppard, whose reactions mirrored her own.
"This was… in the ship's database?" Weir asked.
"Yes," replied Landry. "Part of the information is corrupted, but from what we've been able to gather, you - or, rather, versions of you, I should say - parked it there several thousands of years ago before slipping into a time vortex that landed you in, of all places, 1943."
Sheppard riffled through the file once more. "Is there anything about this that makes sense to anyone in this room?"
"Not in the least," replied Landry.
"Good. Just so that's clear."
"1943," Elizabeth repeated, "How did you-"
"We looked you up," Landry replied with a slight grin. "Your great-grandchildren are adorable."
[fin.]
TITLE: Five Secrets That Were Kept By the Leaders of the Atlantis Expedition
AUTHOR: daygloparker
FANDOM: Stargate: Atlantis
PAIRING/CHARACTER: Sheppard/Weir
SPOILERS: "Before I Sleep," "The Intruder," and "The Long Goodbye"
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: A little something for everyone: the burden of command, time travel, a post-ep... not to mention, some futurefic and, of course, a slight case of an apocafic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for duskwings in anr's 2nd annual swficathon. The requests were five secrets and time as a recurring theme. I'm 99% sure I covered at least one in each piece. taylorkate rocks the beta, because she lives in the future.
---
i.
Two months into the expedition
Everyone in the jumper came back alive, just in the nick of time - scratched, a little battered and bruised, but alive. It all turned out all right, except the decision still stuck in the back of Elizabeth's throat, still tasted funny when she swallowed. The decision she had made and almost had to live with... the one that didn’t matter in the end and that she will have to live with, in spite of it all.
She'd been forced to make this kind of decision before - a suicide mission, a sacrifice; no Stargate Command to relieve her burden - but for some reason, no particular reason at all, it didn't sit right today. Today, it wasn't, "This is life"; today, she felt like she wanted to vomit.
But Elizabeth put on a brave smile, after visiting her people in the infirmary, retired quietly for the night. Everyone was still too relieved to notice that she was faking it the whole time, except for Major Sheppard, who caught her eye just as she was leaving.
Instead, the Major follow her to her quarters, first covertly and then on the pretense of going somewhere nearby. Because he could see right through her, she invited him in.
Elizabeth lounged at her personal desk. The Major leaned against the pillar in the center of the room. She didn't say a word, but he still cut her off, knowing exactly the litany her mind was running through: "Don’t."
Elizabeth wanted to be the impenetrable leader of this expedition; she wanted to be the unemotional negotiator that she once was; the cool, calming person that she projected herself to be. But it only took one word. "I can’t."
Sheppard didn’t waver. He didn’t comfort her. "They’re alive. That’s what matters."
"But I-" She thought of trying to take it all back, but she couldn’t. "I ordered them to their deaths."
They're soldiers, she thought he was going to say. "They're alive."
"They shouldn't be."
"But they are. Elizabeth," and when he said her name, his military posture softened, if ever so slightly, "if it had been my call, I wouldn't have done a damn thing different, and you know that."
She was dying a little inside, and he was completely right.
There was a moment when she felt like the Major might suddenly open up to her, might admit that he was as scared shitless as she felt right then. She looked him in the eye and could see it on his face. But then Sheppard ran his hands over his legs, making that familiar sound against the fabric of his uniform, and said, "Well, I should go," withdrawing once more into his own self. She understood that feeling.
So when she asked him to stay for a minute longer, it was shocking for them both.
In the bottom drawer of her desk, there was a bottle of whiskey - another present from General O'Neill, and never more appropriate than at this very moment. Maybe that had been the General's point. She took out two glasses from the drawer, too, and poured them each a drink.
They toasted to the survivors in the puddle-jumper, the ones who weren't supposed to live. They did not take small sips, and the whiskey was gone soon enough. Elizabeth poured herself a second drink immediately; Sheppard declined, but didn't protest hers.
"I could have been an ambassador," she said, finally, two drinks later. "A Presidential appointment."
Sheppard was still holding his empty cup. He shrugged. "I could have been a high school math teacher."
It didn't really matter that he wasn't serious. Elizabeth smiled.
He returned his glass, thanking her politely for the drink. "You deserve it," she said, not sure why it had suddenly occurred to her. She gestured around the room, but means all of Atlantis. "This can't be easy for you." It was no secret to him that Sumner's protests to his assignment had been numerous and on the record.
"We're alive," he repeated. "That's what matters."
She only half-believed him. "I suppose."
At the door, he thanked her again. She returned it. He started to say, "I won't, ah, I won't-" but he didn't have to say out loud, because she knew that Sheppard was a loyal soldier.
When he was gone, she watched the moon's reflection in the ocean for a while from her window, and then collapsed in bed, exhausted and still fully clothed.
*
ii.
1943
Elizabeth stayed at the table while John got up to order her a gin martini from the bar. There was a drunk sitting on the stool beside him, and he slurred something in German about the accent in John's French.
When John ignored him, he said, "Where you from, son?" but in English this time. He spoke with a Midwestern accent, completely out of place, and John was reminded again how much the universe was already crumbling around them.
The bartender told the guy, whose name was now Karl, to shove off, again in English. Then he tapped the stirrer on the side of the martini glass and slid it across to John.
At the table, they sat close, shoulder to shoulder but never making eye contact, he in a perfectly pressed suit and she in a wool-blend that looked expensive enough to make them seem like collaborators. Elizabeth watched the patrons at the bar and John kept his eye on the door. John drummed his hand on the table, once, twice, and the bandleader switched to a rendition of "In the Mood."
At precisely 8:04, Janus arrived. There was a brunette on his arm; maybe she was local color, or maybe she was an Ancient, too. It didn't matter. John and Elizabeth had given up trying to figure that one out a long time ago. Literally, it had been centuries ago. Janus didn't seem them watching him, their table sufficiently hidden behind a large potted palm.
Elizabeth's French was much better; it was cleaner, smoother. She smiled at the man guarding the door to the backroom that their mark had slipped into, she touched his arm lightly, and then they were being ushered inside. The door swung shut again and the room was lit low, full of cigarette smoke and the sound of a dozen different conversations. A woman laughed. A waiter brushed in front of them and John grabbed a flute of champagne.
Janus was at the rounded booth in the back. His companion enjoyed laughing, which gave them the element of surprise when they slipped in the other side. Immediately, he was startled, frightened, cornered. When he moved, John was quicker; "Don't even," and suddenly there was the butt of an Ancient weapon pointed at him under the table.
Janus had his hands flat on the table, like John had requested. "I don't know who you think I am-"
"Drop the act," John replied.
His composure changed. His shoulders relaxed and he suddenly looked out of place and uncomfortable in his Earth clothing. "You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you, if I'm remembering correctly," Elizabeth quipped. "You're a tough man to pin down, Janus."
"I try. And I did save your lives once, you know," and he shifted his position, but John kept the weapon aimed right at his gut. "Your weapon is hardly necessary, Major."
"That's Colonel now, thank you."
"Oh, wonderful! The last I saw of you, you were a corpse floating in a jumper at the bottom of the ocean, so this is definitely a step up for you."
His companion looked confused, and a bit nervous. She said something quietly to Janus in Russian, and he started to reply, but Elizabeth interrupted them. She told the woman to leave, also in Russian, and the poor thing looked more relieved than anything else. From the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw her retreating into the embrace of one of the trombone players.
Janus smiled smugly. "An entire council of ascended Ancients couldn't stop me for having a little fun. What exactly are you two planning to do?" He leaned across the table. "And more to the point, why do you care? Don't you have an 'expedition' to run?"
John stared at him for a long while, not quite believing that he didn't know what he was doing. "You're destroying the universe, Janus!"
He laughed. He laughed long and hard. "Wasn't that a bit dramatic?" Their faces were blank, and eventually Janus realized that they weren't kidding. "You're serious."
"Deadly," said Elizabeth, "Look." In the corner, two Japanese businessmen were typing away on their laptops, oblivious. "Time is folding in on itself, and it gets worse every time you jump in that new ship of yours."
He looked positively dismayed. "I hadn't considered that."
"Really?" John said sarcastically. Janus ignored him.
"I suppose I'll have to reverse of my calculations..." and the Ancient began fumbling around in his jacket pocket for something, the way a person tries to find their keys. John put the weapon above the table, not willing to take any chances that his 'keys' might end up to be a way to defend himself. Janus didn't notice, or maybe didn't care. He stopped. He looked up at John and Elizabeth. "Wait."
"We know," replied John.
"You'll be stranded."
"We know," said Elizabeth.
"It's not exactly like we have much to go back to," added John. "I'm fairly sure the entire Milky Way Galaxy in our time was swallowed by a very large black hole."
Janus winced. "Sorry about that."
From his pants pocket, Janus retrieved a small palm-sized device. "I'm going back to my ship and stopping this."
John finally put his weapon down on the table. "How'll we know it worked?"
"You'll live."
*
iii.
A year and a half into the expedition
So for about a week, they did a very good job of pretending that absolutely nothing had happened at all. John only spoke to her in an extremely professional capacity, and they were never alone.
Phebus was still an echo in Elizabeth's mind: an itch she couldn't scratch, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. During the day, when she could focus, it was only distracting from time to time, the way someone's voice would remember her of people she had never met, or the way her chest tightened just at the level of perception whenever she saw the ocean. Carson called it 'cognitive dissonance.'
At night, though, when she was alone, it was different. It was like a waking dream, as her mind pushed aside her day by clinging to the last remnants of Phebus' neural imprint. Elizabeth could close her eyes and feel the sand between her toes on a planet she had never visited. She could feel the heat of a fire as her (Phebus') ship burned around her; she could know the endless feeling of being trapped as the pod closed around her. Elizabeth knew the weight and the coldness of alien weaponry, and if she tried hard enough, she could know how to reload their ammunition. She knew what it was like to fight an endless war. She knew what it was like to blindly hate.
At night, she took the pills that Carson had prescribed her, but it only even led her to a dream world that was also not her own. In the morning, when John brought her up to speed on the expeditions into the city's uninhabited areas, Elizabeth could see the bags under his eyes, too. She knew he wasn't sleeping well either.
Tonight, it was past midnight, and she was tired of pacing her quarters from end to end. She didn't want to be out in the city, where she might encounter people and be forced to be only Elizabeth Weir, yet how she ended up in John's quarters, leaning against the window frame as he gazed out at the ocean, she will never quite explain.
When she knocked, he let her in. His bed was unmade, but not slept in, and there was a light on at his desk.
"Do you know?" he asked, as if this were reason for her arrival.
Elizabeth was confused. "Know what?"
John looked at her a long time, and then shook his head. "Never mind." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't... sometimes, I'm not myself," he admitted.
Elizabeth nodded. "Carson told me it would go away eventually."
"Yeah, he told me the same thing." He pushed himself away from the window.
After deciding and changing her mind and doubting herself, Elizabeth dove head first into her confession. "I can't stop thinking about her and it's driving me crazy."
John scoffed. "Tell me about it."
"At least you have some kind of point of reference for it all." When he looked up at her, she backtracked. "I meant... you're a soldier, John. You fight wars. I... don't."
He nodded. And then he shrugged. "Still... those were some pretty badass moves."
For the first time in a week, Elizabeth allowed herself to laugh about their situation. "Muscles hurt in my legs that I never knew even existed."
John laughed, too. And then, pulling himself together, he said, calmly but seriously, "You should talk to Teyla. About, you know, self-defense. Or whatever. It might come in handy one day."
His concern moved her, and she smiled. "You mean, in case I decide to kick your ass again?"
"I believe that I distinctly remember Teyla kicking my ass."
She laughed. Again. Elizabeth was grateful that they had somehow found a way to laugh about all this.
"Hey..." and before she knew what she was doing, she was continuing her thought, "I think I should apologize."
"For Teyla kicking my ass?"
"No, for-for…" She couldn't finish. She had brokered a peace treaty between Goa'uld system lords, for Christ's sake, but the thought of saying this out loud turned her in a nervous schoolgirl.
Thankfully, John was quick. "Oh. Uh. Don't-don't worry about that. It's fine."
"Good!" Elizabeth was smiling and nodding emphatically. "Good."
"Even Rodney agreed to be discreet."
And for that, she was insanely grateful.
Elizabeth was suddenly acutely aware of her own presence in the room, not to mention that of John. Her mind was flooded with emotion: the memory of her own voice, screaming for control as Phebus manipulated her body by her own will; the onslaught of hate that Phebus had for Thalen, and the contempt she felt resorting to such a cheap ploy as husband-and-wife just to get one last shot at him... her dissatisfaction with the inadequacies of Elizabeth's body... her interest in the one Thalen had taken, despite every fiber of her being... It was almost too much, and Elizabeth had to squeeze her eyes shut and force herself into the meditation exercises that Carson had taught her, just to control it.
But it was hard, too hard. Phebus had reached into Elizabeth's consciousness, stolen things from her in order to pass herself off, and maybe that was why it was so hard to be rid of her. Phebus had stolen mannerisms, emotions; she had reached into secret parts of Elizabeth's mind to perfect her charade, right down to the moment when they both sprinted for the guards-
And then suddenly Elizabeth was reliving it, trapped in her own mind, remembering the sensation of kissing John, remembering that Phebus had used those hidden kernels of desire to push herself through the experience. Feeling desire in Phebus, too. Faintly, Elizabeth heard John saying her name, and the pressure of someone holding her arm (although still unsure if that was in her head), and then experience suddenly became intensely more real.
Because it was.
Elizabeth opened her eyes and John was cupping the sides of her face. She didn't recognize him. When he kissed her again, it felt different; the same sensations, but a different perspective. Her perspective. And then suddenly, she understood.
"Do you know?" John whispered in her ear, and she did. Suddenly she was Phebus again, all of her, not quite twenty years old: there was a ruckus festival, there was no war, not yet, and Thalen was just as young as her. He kissed her a third time, this time with more intensity, and in her mind it was raining and they were soaking wet and she still didn't know that her boyfriend was the enemy.
He didn't stop and she was touching him and he was pulling her, pushing her, out of control and they weren't themselves, but they were, they were. She came up for air and he pushed her back against the wall, aggressively, passionately, kissing her over and over, and she had to use the belt of his pants to steady her. His hands were all over her, under her shirt and on her skin, and she didn't want it to end, ever, just wanted to keep kissing him over and over and-
Something tipped the balance in her head. Elizabeth came crashing back to reality.
They were both gasping for air and her body was tense against the wall, and John's hand was still on her face, their noses still inches apart. "We," she tried to say, "We can't," and John knew it, because he put his forehead against hers and nodded.
They didn't have to say it out loud, their mutual decision to blame this incident on the neural imprints.
Eventually, the insomnia subsided.
*
iv.
The future
The president had offered her a permanent position in the Stargate project, as the chair of the SGC's new negotiating council, but when everything was over and done with, the only thing that Elizabeth wanted to do was teach. So she politely declined, and instead quietly packed up her belongings on the base. Ronon and Teyla were leaving for Pegasus in the morning, and since some things about military protocol never change, they were all forced to say their goodbyes in the mess of Cheyenne Mountain.
She moved back to Washington, D.C.; in the fall, she taught a seminar on the dynamics of globalization. On the first day, the room was packed, dozens of undergraduates sitting Indian-style in the aisles; afterwards, she heard them whispering, trying to decide if she'd been in India or Iran for the past five years. They have no reason to suspect intergalactic space travel as her explanation.
She bought a house on the Chesapeake, but still kept a small apartment in the district for nights when she didn't want to make the hour-long commute (and even with that she had been picky, insisting on a place with a view of the Potomac, needing the comfort of water in whatever form she could get). She fell back into the old, Earth-bound routine rather easily: faculty dinners and coffee bars and crowded shopping malls at Christmas time. Hailing a cab, waiting for a Metro; carrying a briefcase and a cell phone. Gridlock on 295 during rush hour. Sometimes she would go for days at a time just being ordinary, and then a student would comment on the pendant that she wore, forcing Elizabeth to stammer together a response that didn't include the Athosian craftsmen and tea ceremonies.
And sometimes, there were SGC functions, too. There was one for the inauguration of the negotiating council, when the President asked her to give the keynote speech and she knew she couldn't turn him down a second time. She controlled the ever expanding compartmentalizing of her mind by slipping into lecture-mode, imagining the sea of uniformed faces in front of her as sleepy-eyed undergraduates at 10AM on a Friday. Afterwards, she shook hands with colonels and generals alike, even the aide to the President; she made idle small talk with Rodney's sister and introduced herself politely to John's date, Mindy (whose personality fit her bubbly, blonde name).
By February, she began to feel that familiar sense of lose again. No longer able to belong to either world, military or civilian. General O'Neill retired (for good, he said) in May, and the event was held in a banquet hall in the district. Elizabeth moved through the evening in a distant fog, not even paying much attention to Colonel Carter, who still made trips to Pegasus from time to time with the (now retired) General. John didn't bring Mindy, but Rodney had a date, a very personable scientist named Marla, whom, Elizabeth was sure of it, had been in Atlantis briefly. At the buffet table, General O'Neill - no, Jack - casually remarked on the woman's resemblance to one Samantha Carter, which earned an emphatic, "Yes, absolutely," from John, and a glare that could break men from Sam.
Elizabeth excused herself early, claiming to have finals to wade through, but when she got into her car she drove all the way home to Chesapeake Beach.
Simon had a conference at the Hyatt in July; they had lunch. She could have told him anything and everything about the Pegasus Galaxy; could have relieved some of her stress by just talking. Instead, they traded memories about Kosovo and Doctors Without Borders. His wedding ring was distracting.
One day in early September, she was late for her class and the phone was ringing. She couldn't explain why it was that she decided not to ignore it. On the other hand, it was General Hammond, a man she had only met a few occasions. He told her to sit down, and when it was over, she called her T.A. and told her to cancel class. She spent the day watching CNN and waiting.
Over the years as a negotiator, Elizabeth had gotten used to being behind the headlines, but this time, it was completely different. They were the headline. At first, though, she managed to slip beneath the radar of reporters, who were evidently still combing through the first chapter of the Stargate disclosure report (even she tuned in for SG-1's exclusive interview on Dateline). She was able to give three whole lectures before the questions started from students. On that afternoon, there was an armed military escort and a throng of reporters waiting outside of the building for her, and she was barely conscious of being funneled into a waiting black sedan, too crushed by the sensory overload of shouts and flashes and microphones shoved in her face. They drove her to Chesapeake Beach and she called in sick to the university until further notice.
Eventually it was Christmas again, and it felt strange to think that the year had slipped by so quickly.
John was in town for some meetings at the Pentagon and on the Hill (though he wouldn't tell her for what, saying only enough to tell her he was sitting on active duty), and they agreed to have dinner. She wore a red cardigan, and he had on a sweater that made her think Mindy had left for good and John's mother had sent her son an early Christmas gift. It felt strange to see him without the trappings of the SGC or the military; it was as if they might have once been just ordinary co-workers, rather the leaders of an intergalactic space expedition.
"I suppose all of this means I can finally write my memoir," Elizabeth joked, after they had ordered.
John nodded his head. "I'd certainly buy it. And then I would use the index to only read the parts that are about me."
"Of course."
Elizabeth laughed. It felt good to laugh; it felt good to spend time with John, even if he wasn't the only person in the world right now who knew how she felt about the sudden celebrity of their old jobs. Their waiter came back, and he carried with him a bottle of very expensive wine that they hadn't ordered; he pointed to a table in the back, and the random couple waved at them emphatically.
"We shouldn't take it," she said, lowering her voice as they might able to hear.
But John was already beginning to fill her glass. "I think we should enjoy these perks while we still can, before someone tells them about the time Rodney blew up an entire solar system."
She laughed again, feeling a tad dizzy and lighter.
The DoD had given John a car service for his stay in D.C., so after dinner he offered her a "free taxi" home. The Christmas lights of downtown looked muted but calm through its tinted windows, and suddenly Elizabeth thought she felt extremely at her peace herself and her life at the moment. She sighed and rested her head on John's shoulder, the wool of his jacket scratching her cheek, and when they turned a corner he put his arm around her. She closed her eyes and they stayed like that unlike she was home.
She invited him upstairs, first for a drink and then for coffee. He put his coat on the back of her armchair and idly skimmed the titles on her bookshelf while she brewed a pot. When she handed him a mug, he was studying the picture of them and Rodney and Ronon and Teyla that was sitting on the fireplace. They sat at opposite ends of her small couch, and Elizabeth tucked her feet comfortably under herself.
"So why are you here?" she asked him, meaning D.C.
John replied, mid-sip, "I'm testifying to Congress on the existence of extra-terrestrial life."
"I'd buy that."
Her coffee was bitter - in her slightly tipsy state, she had brewed it too strongly. Their conversation lulled, until John finally spoke again: "I thought it was going to get a little easier, you know?" He spoke frankly.
"I do," she replied, nodding. "Sometimes I miss just being an anonymous contributing lecturer at George Washington."
"Elizabeth, if I remember correctly, you were hardly an anonymous anything to begin with."
He said it warmly, and the compliment sat with her for a while. "You know what I mean."
"I do," he said, and then his hand was lightly touching her knee, almost by accidental. It felt like it was burning, the sensation radiating all through her body, and Elizabeth had to take a deliberate sip of coffee to hide how flustered it made her feel. The wine, she reminded herself; it's the wine at dinner that's making you feel this way.
They stayed like that for a minute or so, not saying a word. Elizabeth turned in place to set her mug down on the table behind her, and as she turned back it happened in an instant: John's hand slid all the way over her knee, the other reached out to hold her face; he kissed her, tasting like coffee when she parted her lips. She sighed and leaned into it, remembering what it was like to kiss him like this years ago, and his hand started moving down her thigh. She felt him everywhere, all over her.
She wanted him. Badly.
A year ago, this would have still been inappropriate, but now they had no more secrets to keep. It felt like forever until he said, "I should go," whispering into jaw line below her ear. She answered by grabbing part of his sweater and kissing him again, and he helped to slide off her cardigan.
In the morning he was gone, five apologies on one note in the kitchen, as well as an invitation to lunch on the Hill. There, he apologized twice more, but Elizabeth understood perfectly about keeping early appointments with members of Congress. He didn't kiss her in public, but kept a hand on her leg under the table that made it extremely hard to concentrate when a Senator approached them to shake hands and thank them for their years of service.
He was in town for the rest of the week, leaving just as Congress recessed for the holiday. One afternoon he slipped into the back of her lecture hall, his long wool coat covering his full dress uniform, and in the middle of a sentence, he raised his hand to ask about the morals of interrogation techniques. A few of the female students whispered and stared, recognizing his face.
It was brisk and cold, smelling like it could snow at any moment, but they walked outside anyway: from her class, past the White House, along the reflecting pool, and ending up at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They didn't talk much. The vendors selling roasted peanuts smelled delicious, and he bought her some; they tasted like Atlantis, for reasons she couldn't explain.
"Going back soon?"
John rubbed her hands together for warmth, and then shrugged. "Going to visit my mom for the holidays, but afterwards, yeah."
He didn't elaborate further, and Elizabeth didn't push it. They still had their secrets.
*
v.
One year into the expedition
The President had given General Landry the go-ahead to show them the file. Major - no, that was Colonel Sheppard now, and Dr. Weir were due to leave the base at 0900 to head to the Daedalus' loading site, so at 0830 they answered his summons and appeared, albeit confused, in the doorway of his office.
"Shut the door."
The file was small, but it was enough. He gave it to Dr. Weir first. "I feel that I don't need to remind you that the information I'm sharing with you is of an extremely classified nature."
She nodded, and then opened it to scan its contents. Her face was a continuum of emotion: shock, confusion, and even a shade of amusement. When she was done, she handed it to Sheppard, whose reactions mirrored her own.
"This was… in the ship's database?" Weir asked.
"Yes," replied Landry. "Part of the information is corrupted, but from what we've been able to gather, you - or, rather, versions of you, I should say - parked it there several thousands of years ago before slipping into a time vortex that landed you in, of all places, 1943."
Sheppard riffled through the file once more. "Is there anything about this that makes sense to anyone in this room?"
"Not in the least," replied Landry.
"Good. Just so that's clear."
"1943," Elizabeth repeated, "How did you-"
"We looked you up," Landry replied with a slight grin. "Your great-grandchildren are adorable."
[fin.]