FanFic100: #082 If
Title: One without a permanent scar
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Cadman/Lorne
Prompt: 082 If
Word Count: 1.614
Rating: K+
Summary: If Fate had any sense of justice, Evan Lorne would have gotten what he deserved for breaking up with Laura Cadman.
Author's Notes: Obviously another Berlin-story and a companion piece/sequel to "You move me". Of course betaed by the wonderful mackenziesmomma. If you get confused by the tenses I use in this story... don't blame it on her. She did her best to clean up the mess I made while writing and every mistake still in the story happened because I didn't listen to her. Oh, and I forgot with "And", so I'll say it now: Everything having to do with Berlin and German history is accurate, as far as I can tell. If anyone wants some deeper information, just ask :) And here's the LDT (to which I made a few alterations, BTW... and I found someone to help me out with the whole scrolling down issue!).
One without a permanent scar
“Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?”
Train, “Drops of Jupiter”
He still wonders what he did to deserve this. If Fate had any sense of justice, the last evening of this trip would have never gone like it did. Instead, she would be kissing her German officer goodbye and promising him to call as soon as she has touched American soil. He just would have been forced to watch them and have send them dark looks, if there was any poetic justice in this world.
The way he behaved… he really would have deserved it. Just for breaking it up alone he would have deserved this special kind of hell… and for the reason he gave her for breaking up he should have been forced to watch her and the German make out in public. For hours. Telling her there wasn’t anything there for her anymore… to put it mildly, one could say it had been bending the truth. A lot. And without euphemisms it had been plain lying. But back then, he’d had the feeling that sometimes love just wasn’t enough.
After that he’d tried to convince himself that he’d done the right thing for at least six months. Six months of seeing her in the SGC nearly every day, six months of passing the infirmary by and being tempted to go in every time she’d gotten herself in some scrape and had to pass time there, six months of feeling more like an idiot with every day. And then someone had had the strange idea to make him part of a delegation to Berlin, giving him the somewhat wishy-washy designation of “Advisor USAF”.
He’d seen the order, shrugged and accepted it, much like he had simply shrugged and accepted just about everything those days. It hadn’t been until Captain Hawkins had caught some virus that the whole thing had started to become… interesting. Just a few days before they had been scheduled to take off, the replacement for Hawkins had come through. The moment he’d seen the name Laura Cadman on the list he’d just known that Fate hated him and wanted to make it very plain to him that he was a damn coward.
The shock of seeing her name there had been intense enough to make him seriously consider asking to be taken off the delegation. Making her - and himself - believe he was fully over her and had indeed broken it all up because there was nothing there anymore had been comparatively easy in the SGC, where he could keep out of her way, but managing the same thing with her presence constantly nearby? It had seemed impossible, but his sense of duty had prevailed and he’d bucked up, packed a bag and gone along with the rest.
At first it had been going okay - ignoring her and the feelings she stirred up in him again - but the moment they’d touched German soil he’d found he simply couldn’t stop looking at her whenever she was looking another way. The wish he was someone else - someone who hadn’t seen so much death and destruction, who wasn’t so damaged, who was whole enough for her - had been burning inside of him again, even brighter than in the weeks before he’d finally succumbed to the doubts and fears inside of him and ended it, to make a clean cut, give her the chance to find someone else.
He just hadn’t counted on the fact that the moment she did - or was at least close to - would be even more painful than letting her go. And of course it had had to be a man younger, bolder and more open than himself. It had happened right before his eyes and he’d seriously cursed his decision to go on the tour the German DOD had organized for them about a million times. Dühring and Laura had hit it off right from the start, with Laura needing little time to warm up to the German… but when she had, she’d been her usual flirtatious, charming self and the jealousy that had been simmering the whole time had suddenly been burning hot deep inside of him.
He still doesn’t remember much of the tour… he only remembers he managed to chase off Laura again on top of the Reichstag building when he just had to go and try and intimidate Dühring just a bit. The Hauptmann had been polite all throughout the exchange, but it did give him some satisfaction that he had managed to unsettle him, if even only a little. The only thing diminishing it had been the look Laura had thrown him before excusing herself and determinedly walking over to the other side. It had been… a mixture of annoyance, disappointment and confusion.
Somehow all of that - that look and the growing attraction between Dühring and Laura and a million other things - had thrown him off-course enough that he’d needed a day completely on his own, far away from the conference, Dühring, Laura and everyone else. Luckily they all had been given their last day off. He’d wanted to get as far away as possible from the DOD in the city center, because he knew that most of them would stay there and so he’d decided to do something he’d wanted to do for almost an eternity: Visit Tempelhof Airport.
His family has a long Air Force tradition. There have been Lornes serving in the USAF even before it officially existed. And one of them had been stationed in Berlin, on Tempelhof Airbase, from the end of WWII until 1950. His grandfather had seen how the USAAF and the RAF bombed the city to oblivion but he had also been in the thick of the Berlin Airlift in 1948, had heard Ernst Reuter’s famous speech - didn’t understand a word of it, but he’d tell his children and grandchildren again and again about the people standing on the devastated grounds in front of the destroyed Reichstag and how hope had been soaring again on that September day - and had helped to keep a city from starving.
He’d simply wanted to see how the imposing building from his grandfather’s old yellowed pictures really looked. And when he’d arrived there… he had been impressed. He’d done a little research on Tempelhof before going to Berlin and so he knew that Tempelhof Airfield had been where Orville Wright had shown his flying apparatus to the world. He also knew it had been a prestige airport for the Nazis - the massive and somewhat exaggerated architecture spoke volumes of that - and that the last Wehrmacht airport commander had been brave enough to refuse the order to defend the airport, which was ultimately surrendered to the Red Army.
He’d been a little disappointed to see that today Tempelhof wasn’t much more than a mediocre airport for a few charter planes and a few business travelers, since Tegel and Schönefeld now handled most of Berlin’s national and international air traffic. But standing on the visitors platform and still being able to find traces of war, destruction and the Herculanean efforts the Air Force pulled in 1948 and 1949 to feed a city that had been fighting them viciously only three years prior had been worth the long, lonely trip to Tempelhof.
He’d also realized a few fundamental things. For example that scars are something that comes with living and something that one shouldn’t be ashamed or afraid of. Theoretically he had always known that, but being with Laura had always made him feel like his own scars had somehow made him incomplete, not enough. He’d just never told her. Coming to Tempelhof - to Berlin - made him see very clearly that it was all just bullshit. Berlin is a city full of scars and ugliness and remains of a past not exactly glorious and yet the people living there love it fiercely, like everyone loves their home town.
It had also taught him that everyone can get a second chance if they allow others to give it to them. On the trip back from Tempelhof to their hotel, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d messed up royally because he had been too blind to see Fate opening a way for him to get back. There surely had been enough opportunities for that and he hadn’t taken any of them, mostly because he simply wouldn’t let himself believe she’d want him back. When he’d arrived at the hotel, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he had to give up his beautiful, intelligent, fiery Marine to a German, and somehow that had irked him to no end.
But then… she’d stood in front of his door, just like that, telling him she missed him. It had taken him a long moment to fully process everything and to see that this was maybe the last second chance he’d ever get and he’d given himself a kick and let her in. And now he’s standing here at Tegel Airport, watching her exchange a few parting words with Hauptmann Christian Dühring, and he has to try very hard not to look smug.
At least he doesn’t have to throw any dark looks anymore. Of course he doesn’t like the way Dühring just doesn’t want to let her go, but last night had taught him to put a little more trust in her priorities. She has made her choice, given him a second chance and like hell is he ever going to mess it up again.
~*~
TBC in To The Other Side.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Cadman/Lorne
Prompt: 082 If
Word Count: 1.614
Rating: K+
Summary: If Fate had any sense of justice, Evan Lorne would have gotten what he deserved for breaking up with Laura Cadman.
Author's Notes: Obviously another Berlin-story and a companion piece/sequel to "You move me". Of course betaed by the wonderful mackenziesmomma. If you get confused by the tenses I use in this story... don't blame it on her. She did her best to clean up the mess I made while writing and every mistake still in the story happened because I didn't listen to her. Oh, and I forgot with "And", so I'll say it now: Everything having to do with Berlin and German history is accurate, as far as I can tell. If anyone wants some deeper information, just ask :) And here's the LDT (to which I made a few alterations, BTW... and I found someone to help me out with the whole scrolling down issue!).
One without a permanent scar
“Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?”
Train, “Drops of Jupiter”
He still wonders what he did to deserve this. If Fate had any sense of justice, the last evening of this trip would have never gone like it did. Instead, she would be kissing her German officer goodbye and promising him to call as soon as she has touched American soil. He just would have been forced to watch them and have send them dark looks, if there was any poetic justice in this world.
The way he behaved… he really would have deserved it. Just for breaking it up alone he would have deserved this special kind of hell… and for the reason he gave her for breaking up he should have been forced to watch her and the German make out in public. For hours. Telling her there wasn’t anything there for her anymore… to put it mildly, one could say it had been bending the truth. A lot. And without euphemisms it had been plain lying. But back then, he’d had the feeling that sometimes love just wasn’t enough.
After that he’d tried to convince himself that he’d done the right thing for at least six months. Six months of seeing her in the SGC nearly every day, six months of passing the infirmary by and being tempted to go in every time she’d gotten herself in some scrape and had to pass time there, six months of feeling more like an idiot with every day. And then someone had had the strange idea to make him part of a delegation to Berlin, giving him the somewhat wishy-washy designation of “Advisor USAF”.
He’d seen the order, shrugged and accepted it, much like he had simply shrugged and accepted just about everything those days. It hadn’t been until Captain Hawkins had caught some virus that the whole thing had started to become… interesting. Just a few days before they had been scheduled to take off, the replacement for Hawkins had come through. The moment he’d seen the name Laura Cadman on the list he’d just known that Fate hated him and wanted to make it very plain to him that he was a damn coward.
The shock of seeing her name there had been intense enough to make him seriously consider asking to be taken off the delegation. Making her - and himself - believe he was fully over her and had indeed broken it all up because there was nothing there anymore had been comparatively easy in the SGC, where he could keep out of her way, but managing the same thing with her presence constantly nearby? It had seemed impossible, but his sense of duty had prevailed and he’d bucked up, packed a bag and gone along with the rest.
At first it had been going okay - ignoring her and the feelings she stirred up in him again - but the moment they’d touched German soil he’d found he simply couldn’t stop looking at her whenever she was looking another way. The wish he was someone else - someone who hadn’t seen so much death and destruction, who wasn’t so damaged, who was whole enough for her - had been burning inside of him again, even brighter than in the weeks before he’d finally succumbed to the doubts and fears inside of him and ended it, to make a clean cut, give her the chance to find someone else.
He just hadn’t counted on the fact that the moment she did - or was at least close to - would be even more painful than letting her go. And of course it had had to be a man younger, bolder and more open than himself. It had happened right before his eyes and he’d seriously cursed his decision to go on the tour the German DOD had organized for them about a million times. Dühring and Laura had hit it off right from the start, with Laura needing little time to warm up to the German… but when she had, she’d been her usual flirtatious, charming self and the jealousy that had been simmering the whole time had suddenly been burning hot deep inside of him.
He still doesn’t remember much of the tour… he only remembers he managed to chase off Laura again on top of the Reichstag building when he just had to go and try and intimidate Dühring just a bit. The Hauptmann had been polite all throughout the exchange, but it did give him some satisfaction that he had managed to unsettle him, if even only a little. The only thing diminishing it had been the look Laura had thrown him before excusing herself and determinedly walking over to the other side. It had been… a mixture of annoyance, disappointment and confusion.
Somehow all of that - that look and the growing attraction between Dühring and Laura and a million other things - had thrown him off-course enough that he’d needed a day completely on his own, far away from the conference, Dühring, Laura and everyone else. Luckily they all had been given their last day off. He’d wanted to get as far away as possible from the DOD in the city center, because he knew that most of them would stay there and so he’d decided to do something he’d wanted to do for almost an eternity: Visit Tempelhof Airport.
His family has a long Air Force tradition. There have been Lornes serving in the USAF even before it officially existed. And one of them had been stationed in Berlin, on Tempelhof Airbase, from the end of WWII until 1950. His grandfather had seen how the USAAF and the RAF bombed the city to oblivion but he had also been in the thick of the Berlin Airlift in 1948, had heard Ernst Reuter’s famous speech - didn’t understand a word of it, but he’d tell his children and grandchildren again and again about the people standing on the devastated grounds in front of the destroyed Reichstag and how hope had been soaring again on that September day - and had helped to keep a city from starving.
He’d simply wanted to see how the imposing building from his grandfather’s old yellowed pictures really looked. And when he’d arrived there… he had been impressed. He’d done a little research on Tempelhof before going to Berlin and so he knew that Tempelhof Airfield had been where Orville Wright had shown his flying apparatus to the world. He also knew it had been a prestige airport for the Nazis - the massive and somewhat exaggerated architecture spoke volumes of that - and that the last Wehrmacht airport commander had been brave enough to refuse the order to defend the airport, which was ultimately surrendered to the Red Army.
He’d been a little disappointed to see that today Tempelhof wasn’t much more than a mediocre airport for a few charter planes and a few business travelers, since Tegel and Schönefeld now handled most of Berlin’s national and international air traffic. But standing on the visitors platform and still being able to find traces of war, destruction and the Herculanean efforts the Air Force pulled in 1948 and 1949 to feed a city that had been fighting them viciously only three years prior had been worth the long, lonely trip to Tempelhof.
He’d also realized a few fundamental things. For example that scars are something that comes with living and something that one shouldn’t be ashamed or afraid of. Theoretically he had always known that, but being with Laura had always made him feel like his own scars had somehow made him incomplete, not enough. He’d just never told her. Coming to Tempelhof - to Berlin - made him see very clearly that it was all just bullshit. Berlin is a city full of scars and ugliness and remains of a past not exactly glorious and yet the people living there love it fiercely, like everyone loves their home town.
It had also taught him that everyone can get a second chance if they allow others to give it to them. On the trip back from Tempelhof to their hotel, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d messed up royally because he had been too blind to see Fate opening a way for him to get back. There surely had been enough opportunities for that and he hadn’t taken any of them, mostly because he simply wouldn’t let himself believe she’d want him back. When he’d arrived at the hotel, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he had to give up his beautiful, intelligent, fiery Marine to a German, and somehow that had irked him to no end.
But then… she’d stood in front of his door, just like that, telling him she missed him. It had taken him a long moment to fully process everything and to see that this was maybe the last second chance he’d ever get and he’d given himself a kick and let her in. And now he’s standing here at Tegel Airport, watching her exchange a few parting words with Hauptmann Christian Dühring, and he has to try very hard not to look smug.
At least he doesn’t have to throw any dark looks anymore. Of course he doesn’t like the way Dühring just doesn’t want to let her go, but last night had taught him to put a little more trust in her priorities. She has made her choice, given him a second chance and like hell is he ever going to mess it up again.
~*~
TBC in To The Other Side.