FanFic100: #059 Food
She’s doing it again. He’s not imagining it anymore, of that he’s sure now. Three times in a row he has seen Lieutenant Cadman sitting all by herself in the mess hall and staring at her food before simply taking the tray with a kind of annoyed look on her face and dumping all of it into the trash can and he’s positive that this is going to be the fourth time.
He does dread it a little but he knows he has to do something against this. A few days ago he already hinted a little about this at Sheppard and the Colonel had agreed that if she really wasn’t eating it was their duty to change it. He looks at her again, silently making a bargain with himself that if she would start eating in the next few seconds, he would leave her alone and not go and pester her.
Unfortunately… she doesn’t do him the favor and stands up… to do the exact same thing she did the last three times he saw her in the mess hall. Dammit, he needs to do something about it but he has this feeling that she would give him a standard answer if he’d follow her now and try to pry it from her why she isn't eating. So… he continues eating his lunch, staring at the sea a little absentmindedly, trying to come up with a way of a) finding out what made Cadman stop eating and b) how to stop her doing that to herself.
He knows he could just ask Carson Beckett about it - seeing as he’s her boyfriend - but he just has this feeling that Cadman wouldn’t be too overjoyed if she caught him snooping around behind her back. So… the forward approach it has to be. Only… how?
He looks at his own food again… to hear Rodney McKay’s voice behind him, saying, “No, I’m not taking this food with me in my lab, John. I’m taking it to Katie’s lab.” Sheppard laughs and replies something he doesn’t hear and Rodney grumbles something about “the food having to come to the botanist if the botanist can’t come to the food”… That’s it. Only… he shouldn’t go and visit Cadman in her lab. That could raise some strange… suspicions.
But then again… he is her CO. Grinning, he gets up, grabs a sandwich, some fruit and a bottle of water. Heading out of the mess hall and towards one of the open air platforms, he taps his headset and calls her to order her to the platform. As she answers, she does sound a little flustered… and a little beside herself.
After a few minutes, she arrives at the platform… and the moment she sees him sitting on the bench with the food beside him, she turns around without another word to flee the scene. But he certainly won’t have that. “Sit down, Lieutenant.” It stops her dead in her tracks because he used this commanding voice he usually only uses on really difficult cases. Slowly, she turns around and walks up to him.
She clears her throat and gives him a little wary look. “Sir?”
Okay… that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. For a second or two he’s about to lose his determination at her half-inquisitive, half-disbelieving look. “Like I said. Sit down. And eat.”
She does a double-take. “What? No!” Well, he hasn’t anticipated this. But he isn't Sheppard’s 2IC for nothing.
“It’s an order, Lieutenant.” However, Cadman doesn’t seem much impressed by it.
“With all due respect, sir, I don’t think…” Before she can go on talking, he has shaken his head because he has realized he should stop the bullying approach and resort to reasonable.
“Look… you’re not eating.” She crosses her arms, as if to say, “Yeah, so?” and he has a hard time not to fall into a defensive tone. “And officers who aren’t eating… are not taking care of themselves. And officers who aren’t taking care of themselves…” He doesn’t finish the sentence because he’s sure that she knows what he wants to say. Instead, he simply says, “I’m just doing what’s necessary for the Expedition.”
Still not quite trusting him, she eyes the food between him and the empty spot on the bench. Then, slowly and still a little wary, she sits down, saying, “Uh-huh. Of course you would do this for every other officer, huh?”
Dammit. She wasn’t supposed to ask that. “Uh…”
“Okay… you know what? I eat and you don’t answer.” Well… that was easy. Wasn’t it? Almost too easy, and so he half expects her to turn tail at any minute. But she is a good little Marine and starts nibbling at the sandwich he brought. Well, it’s a start. And maybe… if he can distract her a little from eating… she’ll just do it and not eye the food like it’s her enemy.
He clears his throat. “So… what happened?”
At first he thinks she’s going to pretend she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but obviously she has given up on trying to evade him. “Hey, you never said that interrogating me was part of the deal as well, sir.” Or maybe… not.
It doesn’t change the fact, though; that he really wants to know what has someone like her - easygoing, enjoying life, unfeasible - so tied in knots that she finds eating impossible. He takes a deep breath. “I… wasn’t trying to interrogate you, Lieutenant. Honestly. I’m just trying to understand what makes you of all people… you know…”
Taking a slightly larger bite of the sandwich she looks at him with her eyebrow raised. “Me of all people?” But before he can say something, she has already held her hand up. “Wait, don’t… answer that either, sir.”
Mh, she doesn’t really seem to be in a chatty mood today. But maybe this is his only chance of finding out what’s on her mind… and maybe he should better shut up that little voice inside of him nagging him with the question why the hell he’s so interested in it. “Come on. I won’t tell anyone. Humor me?”
She rolls her eyes. “I am already humoring you, sir.” Okay, maybe he really should stop… “Oh well… no telling, right?” Oh. He sighs and nods. A promise is a promise. “Okay… uh… I… broke up with Carson. Or rather… we broke up with each other. A few days ago.”
That… is something surprising. He can’t remember having noticed any tensions between the two of them… but then again, he hasn’t seen them much together in public at all. He takes a short look at her and she has stopped eating again, the remaining half of the sandwich in her hand and looking out at the sea. “I’m… sorry to hear that.”
For a moment, she doesn’t react, but then she seems to remember who is sitting beside her and shakes her head, as if to shrug it all off. “It just didn’t work.” But she doesn’t continue to eat… almost looks like she has forgotten the sandwich. It’s pretty evident that even if she tries to pretend there’s nothing wrong with her, the whole thing doesn’t leave her unaffected.
Even though he knows he better shouldn’t offer it, he says, “Cadman, if you want to talk…”
“And my application for a PhD scholarship at the MIT was rejected.” Alright… that obviously means she does not want to talk about Carson. And anyway… what she just said sounds almost as bad as breaking up.
“What? Why?” Honestly, he can’t believe it. He knows she’s top in her field. Even Rodney once admitted she is.
She shrugs again, a little regretful smile on her face. “Well… they said I haven’t published enough papers. Turns out… I have, but unfortunately none of the reviewers have a security clearance high enough to read them.” That… must suck. And he can see that again it gets more to her than she likes to admit. Something inside of him… wants her to eat again and laugh again, and not just because Marines are supposed to keep their strength up.
“You know… if you want me to… we could go and talk to Dr. Weir…”
She holds up her hand again, determinedly shaking her head. “No, no, it’s okay, sir. Because, you know… taking up that scholarship would have meant leaving Atlantis in two months. And… I guess I’m not quite ready to do that yet.” She doesn’t look at him when she says that, and that answer does surprise him. Choosing Atlantis even when she just has broken up with Carson and deciding against a promising scientific career… whatever it is, something in Atlantis must be strong enough to keep her here.
But then again… he also could have left a few times already, getting out of the shadow of his CO and taking up a command all of his own. And he never did. Suddenly… he realizes that as different as that Lieutenant beside him might be from him, they still share something very important. He smiles, deciding to give the difficult topics a rest and give them both a chance to enjoy the remainder of this little encounter, “You still want to eat that apple?”
She snatches the apple away from him and replies while munching on her sandwich again, “Since when did you turn into Rodney McKay? Of course I do.” Well… finally the old Cadman is back, giving him the satisfaction that another plan of his worked. Maybe… he should even thank Rodney for giving him the right idea.