FanFic100: #019 White
She has no idea why she’s here and what she’s doing here. Or at least she likes to pretend that it’s like that. If she’s honest she liked to pretend a lot of things in the last few weeks… months. In reality, though, she knows exactly why she’s here. He invited her. No… they invited her. It’s as simple as that. As simple yet complicated as that, more like.
Her hands are sitting atop her knees, wound tightly together and she forces herself to relax, unwind them; she also forces the tension to leave her neck and shoulders, concentrates on willfully making all her muscles relax. It’s a joyful occasion, this wedding, and she should be celebrating it as everybody else celebrates it, maybe even more so.
She knows that and it’s what makes her somehow feel ashamed of herself. Both Evan Lorne and Kate Heightmeyer are her friends and there’s no reason for her to be all wound up, toes waving up and down in nervous little moves while she’s sitting in her pew beside Carson, waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle on the arm of her father.
Except… except that there is. A year ago… she’d been so close to be the one to walk down the aisle at the arm of her father, towards the man who’s now standing at the altar, trying to look like his usual stoic self. And maybe everyone else accepts this ruse but she knows him better. She sees all the little signs that Evan’s nervous as hell.
When he smiles at one of Colonel Sheppard’s good natured jibes, there’s a tightness around his eyes that betrays his inner tension. He also can’t help glancing at the church’s entrance every other moment, as if he’s still afraid that Kate will have second thoughts and leave him standing at the altar. There are also a few tensed looks he shot her and she did her best to be encouraging and calming. She is, after all, still one of his best friends, even if they didn’t work out as a couple in the end.
So why can’t she put out this tiny little spark of hope that Kate will leave him standing at the altar? Because, a treacherous little voice whispers, you never really got over him. She hates this voice that makes her feel weak and idiotic and pushes her towards regret that will inevitably lead to heartache - renewed heartache - and probably very stupid decisions like getting ready to jump up the moment that priest asks the obligatory question of anyone having reason why this couple shouldn’t be wed.
All by themselves, her fingers have wound up again and she feels a headache develop because of the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders. Or at least she thinks that’s what’s causing the headache.
She simply refuses to attribute it to tears of regret, anger and a broken heart that have to go unshed because of a million reasons, the first and foremost of them the fact that she never… she never fought for their love, for him. Instead she agreed with him that they should quit it because they were both at a point in their career they couldn’t risk a false step or it would all go down the drain and that they worked better as friends anyway.
But back then… it had seemed to make sense, for some long forgotten reason. They’d been arguing even because of small things and at the same time it had made her insane every time she waited for him to come back from a difficult mission or saw him fighting for his life in the infirmary and couldn’t be as close to him as she wanted to or at least talk to someone about it because it had all to be secret. The tension of the day to day secrecy had made her thin-skinned and that had led to the arguments and the fighting… and in the end to agreeing with him that it all didn’t make any sense and they were better off as friends and fellow officers.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why the hell didn’t she fight, like she had always fought for everything she wanted? She had fought for the Marine Corps, she had fought for her commission, she had fought for her Atlantis posting. She just never… fought for him. And then, when she had still tried to make herself believe that it was good being Evan’s friend - so much better than being his lover, in fact - Kate had happened.
She still doesn’t know when exactly Evan and Kate had become more than friends and co-workers, mainly because she never asked and Evan never told her - probably sensing earlier than herself that in reality she didn’t really want to know anyway - but she really did her best to be happy for them when they announced to her that they were engaged. She also still hopes Kate never realized that her grumbling while she helped her prepare the wedding had nothing to do with weddings being “girl stuff”, like she told her…
Suddenly the wedding march sounds and Kate and her father step into the church and Evan turns around and is obviously mesmerized by the radiant beauty of his bride. And yes, she looks so lovely in that white dress, with the veil over her eyes and her blond curls piled up in an intricate style, a few of them framing her face that beams with happiness and joy… and deep down in the pit of her stomach, a lump forms that seems to be made of all the tears she swallowed down since she broke up with Evan and the words she never said to him and the chances she let go by.
When Kate passes her, she’s very, very close to jumping up and running out of the church to find a bathroom to throw up but suddenly she feels a warm, firm hand on top of hers. She turns to Carson who’d been sitting beside her the whole time, seemingly unaware of what was going through the head of the woman beside him. For a moment, they look at each other and then he says, low enough the only she can hear it, “Don’t waste your time with regret, love. It’ll only make you bitter.”
She swallows and doesn’t really know what to say - maybe for the first time ever in her life. Carson… Carson of all people telling her not to sink into regret and bitterness over a lost lover… well, maybe she should take him by his word. He sure knows what he’s talking about. Without a word she nods and tries a little smile, telling him she understood… and all through the service, his hand stays on hers, even when her fingers have long let go of the tension born of disappointment, grief and anger and have turned to loosely entwine themselves with his.