FanFic100: #043 Square
Title: For the world to see
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Cadman/Lorne
Prompt: #043 Square
Word Count: 1.220
Rating: K+
Summary: Just when Samantha Carter thought she'd finally worked through her mail day stack, she gets another e-mail...
Author's Notes: Okay, so, before I'll be gone for about a week (it's this darn RL again that's keeping on screwing up everything), I thought I'd give you another Twiniverse piece (you didn't think "These small hours" was the last one, right?), taking place a few weeks after the last one. It's not the reaction at the SGC... but at another institution ;) mackenziesmomma did like it, because of certain overtones, so I hope you'll like it as well. And here's the LDT.
For the world to see
“Pictures of you, pictures of me
hung up on your wall for the world to see
pictures of you, pictures of me
remind us all of what we used to be.”
The Last Goodnight, “Pictures of You”
She really hates mail day because it usually means an additional load of paper work for her. There’s tons of mail from the I.O.A., the SGC, Homeworld Security, the DoD… and it also means that the mood in the city is even stranger than usual. There are always some inhabitants that receive exceedingly good news - a baby, a scholarship, a published paper - and who are giddy the whole day… and there are always inhabitants who receive horrible news - a death in the family, divorce papers, a rejected paper - who need counseling and consoling.
So she’s glad when she has finally worked through all the e-mails, demands, refusals and the calls of distressed personnel or their bosses and all the other hassle that comes with mail day. With a sigh she’s about to shut down her computer when the beeping signaling a new e-mail goes off again. She’s just this close to simply ignoring it and going ahead and calling it a day but then her sense of duty wins and she opens her mail box again.
It’s a message from Colonel Sheppard, saying Trust me, you’re gonna love this, in the subject line and well… that does make her curious. So she clicks on the subject and the mail opens… to reveal that it’s a forwarded message… from a certain e.lorne@sgc.mil.gov. Oh, that is quite a surprise. Ever since Major Lorne left a couple of months ago quite unexpectedly, she hasn’t heard much of him… in fact; she hasn’t heard anything of him at all, even though he’s still at the SGC.
She scrolls down and Lorne’s subject line only adds to her curiosity, even though it’s quite simple: Twin pictures. There’s only a short text beneath it, no more than a few lines. Remember you asked for pictures, sir? Here they are… though Laura will probably kill me for at least one of them. Laura? Lorne never mentioned a Laura when they were talking about friends and family on Earth. His mother and his sister definitely are not named Laura and aside from that… oh well, she’ll just have to wait and see, then.
Not really knowing what to expect, she scrolls further down and now sees the attachments’ file names: aislinn.jpg, christopher.jpg and family.jpg. That’s… pretty obvious but… there wasn’t anything in his files about any dependents, and he never talked about either one. Did she miss something here? Shaking her head, she clicks on aislinn.jpg.
What she gets is… a newborn girl in the arms of a Major Lorne that looks positively like he just spent an hour jogging through an Atlantis rainstorm and… practically bursting with pride and joy. Good God. She can’t remember ever having seen him like that… and now she can’t wait to see the mother of this little girl so she clicks on christopher.jpg, in the hope she’ll get to…
Wham. Holy Hannah. She actually just gasped. This is a joke, right? Someone please tell her that this is not Laura Cadman there, looking very disheveled and exhausted and just as proud as Major Lorne, holding a newborn boy. Someone please tell her this is some trick, some glitch, some… oh, who is she kidding anyway?
Actually… she’d known about this as far back as about nine months ago, when Cadman had resigned because of her pregnancy. Cadman refused to tell them who the father was but the moment she requested no one to get told about this, not even Major Lorne was what had sparked her suspicions. The way Cadman and Lorne had been treating each other since some party a week or so before Cadman’s resignation had also given her another clue. She’d rejected those thoughts, though, because she’d refused to believe either Cadman or Lorne would be stupid enough to risk their careers like that.
She’d tried to talk about this with Colonel Sheppard shortly after Cadman had disclosed her pregnancy to them but he had been genuinely clueless about any connection other than professionally between Cadman and Lorne. He hadn't even seemed like he knew anything and was just holding out on her - he really simply didn’t know and didn’t suspect anything. But she… she should have said something. She’d seen a bond developing between Cadman and Lorne and she hadn't done anything about it.
It still irritates her because that just isn't like her… but Cadman and Lorne had somehow reminded her of someone else and… maybe, deep down… she’d wanted them to have the chance she and Jack had never allowed themselves. Resisting a frown because of this very unprofessional way to deal with possible feelings between a CO and one of his soldiers, she opens the last file… and finds herself suddenly being glad about this unprofessionalism.
It shows Cadman and Lorne in a hospital room, obviously a day or two after the actual birth, with Cadman still in bed and one of the twins in her arms, looking down at the baby with a smile that’s a little disbelieving on her face while Lorne sits on the edge beside her with the other twin in his arms, leaning down and giving Cadman a kiss on her hair. The whole picture speaks of love and joy and also a considerable bit of pride.
She feels tears prick in her eyes and absentmindedly wipes them away. What she sees… is what she could have had with Jack and never did because they simply missed the point where they could have become that but besides a certain amount of jealousy she mostly feels touched by the picture and a bit like watching the happy ending to a Lifetime drama.
However… there’s still the slightly disadvantageous matter of Cadman and Lorne having violated non-frat regs, and on a forward operating base at that. Anyone who could recognize them on the pictures could do the math and see very fast that the birth date says very clearly that the twins were not conceived when Cadman wasn’t serving on Atlantis anymore.
She knows she should do something about this, report it to the I.O.A., to the SGC… just anything. But she just… can’t. And she doesn’t want to either. In a way… this is her chance to give someone else what she never had and like hell she’ll screw this up. So all she does is close the files, delete the message and its attachments and write a new one to Colonel Sheppard, saying You were right, I did. However, I’ll take care to make sure nothing of this will resurface ever again. I trust you to keep your trap shut about this and delete this message as well.
Satisfied, she leans back in her chair… and hopes that Major Lorne will still be at the SGC when she goes on leave in four months because she’d love to see the twins for real… and tease him and Cadman endlessly about everything. And maybe… she should finally answer that one personal message Jack sent her three weeks ago and she hadn’t even opened until now…
~*~
TBC in The Kids Are Fast Asleep
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Cadman/Lorne
Prompt: #043 Square
Word Count: 1.220
Rating: K+
Summary: Just when Samantha Carter thought she'd finally worked through her mail day stack, she gets another e-mail...
Author's Notes: Okay, so, before I'll be gone for about a week (it's this darn RL again that's keeping on screwing up everything), I thought I'd give you another Twiniverse piece (you didn't think "These small hours" was the last one, right?), taking place a few weeks after the last one. It's not the reaction at the SGC... but at another institution ;) mackenziesmomma did like it, because of certain overtones, so I hope you'll like it as well. And here's the LDT.
For the world to see
“Pictures of you, pictures of me
hung up on your wall for the world to see
pictures of you, pictures of me
remind us all of what we used to be.”
The Last Goodnight, “Pictures of You”
She really hates mail day because it usually means an additional load of paper work for her. There’s tons of mail from the I.O.A., the SGC, Homeworld Security, the DoD… and it also means that the mood in the city is even stranger than usual. There are always some inhabitants that receive exceedingly good news - a baby, a scholarship, a published paper - and who are giddy the whole day… and there are always inhabitants who receive horrible news - a death in the family, divorce papers, a rejected paper - who need counseling and consoling.
So she’s glad when she has finally worked through all the e-mails, demands, refusals and the calls of distressed personnel or their bosses and all the other hassle that comes with mail day. With a sigh she’s about to shut down her computer when the beeping signaling a new e-mail goes off again. She’s just this close to simply ignoring it and going ahead and calling it a day but then her sense of duty wins and she opens her mail box again.
It’s a message from Colonel Sheppard, saying Trust me, you’re gonna love this, in the subject line and well… that does make her curious. So she clicks on the subject and the mail opens… to reveal that it’s a forwarded message… from a certain e.lorne@sgc.mil.gov. Oh, that is quite a surprise. Ever since Major Lorne left a couple of months ago quite unexpectedly, she hasn’t heard much of him… in fact; she hasn’t heard anything of him at all, even though he’s still at the SGC.
She scrolls down and Lorne’s subject line only adds to her curiosity, even though it’s quite simple: Twin pictures. There’s only a short text beneath it, no more than a few lines. Remember you asked for pictures, sir? Here they are… though Laura will probably kill me for at least one of them. Laura? Lorne never mentioned a Laura when they were talking about friends and family on Earth. His mother and his sister definitely are not named Laura and aside from that… oh well, she’ll just have to wait and see, then.
Not really knowing what to expect, she scrolls further down and now sees the attachments’ file names: aislinn.jpg, christopher.jpg and family.jpg. That’s… pretty obvious but… there wasn’t anything in his files about any dependents, and he never talked about either one. Did she miss something here? Shaking her head, she clicks on aislinn.jpg.
What she gets is… a newborn girl in the arms of a Major Lorne that looks positively like he just spent an hour jogging through an Atlantis rainstorm and… practically bursting with pride and joy. Good God. She can’t remember ever having seen him like that… and now she can’t wait to see the mother of this little girl so she clicks on christopher.jpg, in the hope she’ll get to…
Wham. Holy Hannah. She actually just gasped. This is a joke, right? Someone please tell her that this is not Laura Cadman there, looking very disheveled and exhausted and just as proud as Major Lorne, holding a newborn boy. Someone please tell her this is some trick, some glitch, some… oh, who is she kidding anyway?
Actually… she’d known about this as far back as about nine months ago, when Cadman had resigned because of her pregnancy. Cadman refused to tell them who the father was but the moment she requested no one to get told about this, not even Major Lorne was what had sparked her suspicions. The way Cadman and Lorne had been treating each other since some party a week or so before Cadman’s resignation had also given her another clue. She’d rejected those thoughts, though, because she’d refused to believe either Cadman or Lorne would be stupid enough to risk their careers like that.
She’d tried to talk about this with Colonel Sheppard shortly after Cadman had disclosed her pregnancy to them but he had been genuinely clueless about any connection other than professionally between Cadman and Lorne. He hadn't even seemed like he knew anything and was just holding out on her - he really simply didn’t know and didn’t suspect anything. But she… she should have said something. She’d seen a bond developing between Cadman and Lorne and she hadn't done anything about it.
It still irritates her because that just isn't like her… but Cadman and Lorne had somehow reminded her of someone else and… maybe, deep down… she’d wanted them to have the chance she and Jack had never allowed themselves. Resisting a frown because of this very unprofessional way to deal with possible feelings between a CO and one of his soldiers, she opens the last file… and finds herself suddenly being glad about this unprofessionalism.
It shows Cadman and Lorne in a hospital room, obviously a day or two after the actual birth, with Cadman still in bed and one of the twins in her arms, looking down at the baby with a smile that’s a little disbelieving on her face while Lorne sits on the edge beside her with the other twin in his arms, leaning down and giving Cadman a kiss on her hair. The whole picture speaks of love and joy and also a considerable bit of pride.
She feels tears prick in her eyes and absentmindedly wipes them away. What she sees… is what she could have had with Jack and never did because they simply missed the point where they could have become that but besides a certain amount of jealousy she mostly feels touched by the picture and a bit like watching the happy ending to a Lifetime drama.
However… there’s still the slightly disadvantageous matter of Cadman and Lorne having violated non-frat regs, and on a forward operating base at that. Anyone who could recognize them on the pictures could do the math and see very fast that the birth date says very clearly that the twins were not conceived when Cadman wasn’t serving on Atlantis anymore.
She knows she should do something about this, report it to the I.O.A., to the SGC… just anything. But she just… can’t. And she doesn’t want to either. In a way… this is her chance to give someone else what she never had and like hell she’ll screw this up. So all she does is close the files, delete the message and its attachments and write a new one to Colonel Sheppard, saying You were right, I did. However, I’ll take care to make sure nothing of this will resurface ever again. I trust you to keep your trap shut about this and delete this message as well.
Satisfied, she leans back in her chair… and hopes that Major Lorne will still be at the SGC when she goes on leave in four months because she’d love to see the twins for real… and tease him and Cadman endlessly about everything. And maybe… she should finally answer that one personal message Jack sent her three weeks ago and she hadn’t even opened until now…
~*~
TBC in The Kids Are Fast Asleep