FanFic100: #090 Home
“Welcome back, Captain Lorne.” She smiles at Cameron Mitchell.
“Thanks, sir. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Mitchell smiles back.
“Yeah. So… you really don’t want us to notify him?” She presses her lips together and shakes her head.
“No. I just bet he’s got his hands full with the little one at the moment.” And she’s also not sure how he will react to that call. Ever since she took the posting at the Alpha site half a year ago or maybe even earlier, things between them… had become a little difficult. She doesn’t want anyone here to know that there’s trouble in paradise, because that would just send the rumor mill into overdrive. Not that she isn’t used to it… but she knows how volatile rumors can become here when it’s about these things.
Mitchell shrugs. “Hope the Colonel likes surprises.” Mh… no, he doesn’t. But that’s just another thing she’d better keep to herself.
“Yeah, me too. Well then… have a nice Christmas, sir.” Mitchell just nods at her and gives her another friendly smile. For some reason… she has the feeling that he knows all’s not well between Captain and Lieutenant Colonel Lorne, but keeps from asking her because he knows that basically it’s not his business at all. They’re just two co-workers who happen to run into each other now and then, encounter each other at formal and informal gatherings… the usual.
“You, too, Captain. Give the Colonel my regards.” She just tips her forehead in a casual salute and then finally leaves the SGC. Back when she and her husband still served at the SGC together, they usually drove home together or called the other one to pick them up, but ever since she went away and left him behind with… no, better not think about that now. It’s Christmas Eve and she just came back from six months away from her husband and her daughter. With a sigh she takes the elevator up to the surface and when she arrives there, she calls a taxi.
After a drive through dark and frosty Colorado Springs that seems to take for ever, she arrives back at their home. Smiling, she takes in the decoration. True to his nature, it’s pretty understated, and she just bets that the glowing reindeer on their front lawn is a concession to their four-year old and her love for everything that sparkles.
Very quietly, she enters the house, assuming that she’ll find him alone in front of the fireplace since it’s past their daughters bedtime, but to her surprise, she can hear his story teller’s voice coming out of the living room. On tiptoes, she walks up to the half open living room door and spies him lying on the couch with their daughter in his arms and a book in his hands. Softly, she leans against the doorframe because she wants to savor this sight, just for a moment, before she is forced to intrude on this and face his probable disapproval.
Inside the living room, father and daughter are so focused on the book that they don’t notice her. He turns a page, gives Grace a short peck on her hair and continues reading. “Likewise at the game of How, When and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge’s nephew, beat her sisters hollow; though they were sharp girls, too, as Topper could have told you.” Mh… Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Not exactly the first choice of what she would read to a four-year old girl on Christmas Eve. However, Grace seems to be very content with it, because she gives a little giggle.
“Do you think mommy’s very clever, too?” Huh. Where does that come from? The look on Evan’s face says about the same, and it hurts her that for a moment, a frown appears. However, he gives great care not to let his discomfort at having to talk about her show.
“Of course. I wouldn’t have married her if she wasn’t.” Liar, she thinks. Because he actually told her about the exact opposite of what he just told their daughter when she had first told him she was thinking of actually taking up the offer of joining the crew at the Alpha site and getting her first real command in the course. Later he’d accepted her choice, but he’d never been happy with it.
“When is she coming back? I miss her.” She has to hold back a little sniffle at hearing that. Half a year ago, she’d tried to tell Grace very carefully that she would be away for a long time but that she would send letters and everything, but the little one had been too young to fully understand. She’d tried to tell herself that while she was doing something for her career she would also be doing something for her daughter and that three years are nothing, but… that had been a grave misconception.
But what really pushes her over the edge is Evan’s answer. “I know. I miss her too, penguin.” There’s so much earnestness in this that she’s positive he isn’t just saying it for the sake of their daughter. The genuine longing and sadness in his voice tug at her heartstrings. And what’s even more getting to her is that he tries to cover that up very fast, probably as not to upset Grace too much. “We’ll talk to her tomorrow, remember? Want me to read on?” Feebly, the girl nods, trying to be brave. “Okay. Where were we? Oh right… There might have been twenty people, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge…”
While he reads on about Scrooge’s secret visit to his nephew’s, she gets another good look at father and daughter, who look very much alike; Grace’s dark hair and her blue eyes are 100% Evan and even at such a young age, she shares a lot of facial expressions with her father. She’s also grown quite a bit. Dammit, which devil had been riding her when she had decided that it was a good idea to experience three years of her daughter’s life only through video conferences, letters and the occasional visits every few months? Why didn’t she listen to Evan in the first place? Would have spared her more than one serious fight with him.
As she sees him throwing a short look towards the fireplace and sees hurt and aching cross his face when he must have caught sight of one of her pictures, she decides she has hidden long enough and pushes the door fully open. “I really don’t know if the Christmas Carol is the right stuff to read to a four-year old.” Argh. Maybe not exactly the best thing to say for her, seeing as she missed out on six important months in the growth of her daughter, even if it’s devoid of any cutting or condescending undertone. But at least it got her both their attention in an instant.
For a moment, the only sound in the room is the crackling of the fireplace, but then Grace squeals, hops off the couch and almost throws herself on her. Laughing, she picks her daughter up. “Yeah, I’m happy to see you too, baby.” Not being able to hold back anymore, she hugs her daughter tightly to her and when Grace throws her arms around her neck she closes her eyes and buries her face in her daughter’s hair to breathe in the clean and slightly sweet scent she’s missed so much.
“Merry Christmas, mommy,” Grace whispers and she has to smile. She refuses to look at Evan, and so she never sees how his initial frown briefly changes into surprise, relief and wanting to do just as Grace did.
“Merry Christmas, baby.” Not willing to let go of her daughter so fast, she keeps the girl on her arm, even though she’s grown quite heavy over the last few months. And Grace seems to be quite okay with that as well.
She leans in to tell her something else. “You were my Christmas wish.” It nearly breaks her heart to hear this, but it’s also the best confirmation ever for deciding against her position as head of the Alpha site’s explosives lab and for coming back to be one officer among many at the SGC.
Smiling she replies, “So that’s why this big guy in a red coat kidnapped me.” Because she’s still concentrating on Grace, she misses Evan overhearing her and smothering a smile at that. The first thing from him she does notice is a cough bordering on impatient and reproachful.
“I think, young lady, that it’s time for bed now.” He says it to Grace, but he looks at her, as if to tell her that he isn’t exactly thrilled about her simply walking in. Okay, so she knew that he wouldn’t make it easy for her, but… why do things always have to be so complicated?
“Only if mommy tucks me in.” Grace, in her arms, turns her head towards her father, bringing the whole nine yards from big eyes to the little pout. No doubt it’s all unconsciously and without any intent, but it’s fulfilling its purpose anyway, as she can see his face softening, despite his attempts at looking not amused. Rolling his eyes a little, he just nods.
Chattering, whispering and giggling, they make their way up to Grace’s room. As she tucks her little girl in, she’s aware of Evan leaning against the doorframe, watching them silently with his arms crossed. She tries not to let it on, but it is bothering her, because it makes her feel scrutinized, like a guest that is only grudgingly allowed to break a ritual that has developed between Evan and Grace in the last few months.
After a little more bantering with Grace, she gives her a good night kiss on the forehead and then leaves the room, passing Evan by. He doesn’t say anything, just moves into the room to give her his own good night peck. Again, she feels oddly like intruding on something special between father and daughter. Not able to bear this feeling any longer, she turns around and goes back to the living room. For a moment at a loss of what do to, she sits down on the couch and stares into the dying flames in the fireplace.
Suddenly, she feels the urge to cry, because she feels the fear that she decided to come home permanently already too late and that she already lost Grace… and Evan creep up. Dammit, why did she have to go and screw this up? Other people don’t have any problems with being in Atlantis or at one of the outposts. They still have families, don’t alienate their spouses…
“So… this is how it’s going to be for the next three years?” She stops her musings and looks up to see Evan standing at the other end of the couch, feet slightly apart, arms crossed again. She wants to answer something, but obviously he has more to say to that, only being able to keep his voice level for the sake of Grace. “You appearing here out of nowhere, giving Grace some cuddling and then hurrying off-world again? Because, you know, if it is…”
“No, it’s not,” she simply says and that stops him dead in his tracks. For a moment, he’s too surprised for any reply, and she takes that chance. Standing up as well to face him eye to eye, she continues, “I handed in a request to be transferred back to the SGC.”
He presses his lips together and looks away, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Look, don’t get me wrong, but… didn’t you want this posting at all costs?” She nods. No use in denying that. “Then what the hell made you hand in that request?”
You, she wants to say. You and Grace and this house, where you always have to be careful as not to stumble over a carelessly dropped stuffed animal and where you can play the best games of Hide and Seek and where you can sit down in front of your fireplace and fall asleep in the arms of your husband after a day full of bullshit. But she’s afraid he’ll simply not believe her, given the fact that she fought so hard to get this posting - at the SGC and with him. “I…”
“You what? Laura? What’s going on here?” He becomes impatient, and she knows she should just answer him but now there isn’t only the dread that he might not believe her but also the feeling of shame, because she didn’t manage what countless of other soldiers and civilians off-world managed: Keep her family together and give a top-notch performance in her job. He knows her as someone being able to achieve whatever she wants - good soldier, good mother, good wife - and suddenly she screws up two things out of three? Not exactly the thing you want to admit to your husband who wouldn’t have made this mistake.
“Look, I…” He shakes his head, almost ready to give it up and simply go to bed. Dammit, can’t she do anything right? She takes another deep breath. “I know you won’t believe me but… I made a mistake. I had a choice and I made the wrong one. I’m… I handed in the request to correct that.” There. She practically admitted that she’s a loser.
He needs a moment to realize what she just said. And she finally realizes that he was afraid of being disappointed again… of being left behind again, of her not even noticing how much having to let her go again and again hurts him. She takes a few tentative steps towards him. Maybe… maybe she hasn’t lost her family yet. As the full impact of what she just told him reaches him, he closes the remaining gap between them and for the first time since she came here, his face isn’t showing any disapproval or anger.
In fact, there’s a mixture of relief and hope on it. He sighs and reaches out to cup her cheek. “About damn time, Captain.” She feels herself smiling at that. Then he bends down and shortly before he kisses her, he breathes, “Just so you know: You were my Christmas wish as well.” When he seals her lips with his, she can’t help thinking that it’s really better to be a loser with a family and a career on the hold than a career soldier without a family. She really should have thought of that earlier.
~*~
TBC in A Tale or Two.