(no subject)
Title: The Color of Our Planet From Far, Far Away
Recipient: anuna_81
Prompt: ....Or, perhaps, you would write me Sparky/Bones crossover fic?
Rating: PG13
Author's Notes: Title from Regina Spektor's Blue Lips. / Lullaby lyrics from My Bed Is A Boat (Judy Collins & Ernie Troost). / Ancient Language Reference. / Familiarity with Bones is not necessary.
Betas: stop_theworld for the Bones beta and characterization help; speckleberry and antiqueskies for SGA & overall.
Summary: John begins all his stories with once upon a time.
John begins all his stories with once upon a time.
--
'Daddy,' Natalie whispers, tucked under pink blankets and protected by a small, white owl, 'tell me the story about the woman in the glass city.'
John sits on the edge of the bed and smoothes the comforter under her chin. 'Once upon a time,' he says softly, 'in a galaxy far, far away...'
--
There is no beginning, so he starts in the middle:
--
Hodgins is giving an animate hypothesis about the hydatophylax argus when his phone rings.
'Booth,' he answers, tilting his head away from the group.
The caller speaks.
The voices in the background fade.
'What?'
He's dimly aware of Brennan's gaze, flitting back and forth between her team and him. Listening with both ears; absorbing; understanding, but only in the abstract - the science, not the human. She sees his face pale, his eyes shadow; she sees the tension in his shoulders, the automatic reflex of his hand tightening around the mobile phone. But she doesn't feel it like he does, like Angela; even Hodgins slows, his enthusiasm lost in the sudden, deafening quiet.
'Are you sure?' Booth asks.
Brennan moves to his side, but she doesn't touch him. 'Booth?'
'I'm on my way,' he says.
The phone closes. He stares.
'Booth?'
He should say something. He searches her face for clues as to what.
'Bones-' he starts. The phone is so heavy. Someone says his name and Brennan's lips move, but the timing is off. It's Angela's voice that cuts through the static.
'Go.'
--
In actuality, it starts a long time ago: with a withered hand and long, sharp nails; with an ultimatum; a heartless laugh; a last breath; and then-
'John,' she breathes, her hands cold against the back of his neck and her eyelashes soft against his throat.
'It's okay,' he murmurs.
She holds on tighter.
It starts when she breaks, lips trembling against his cheek and his heartbeat strong under her palm.
--
He knows she's standing behind him, but it's like a shadow has passed between them - a transparent, dark wall dulling his senses and surrounding him; there's a small window in front of his eyes, and all he can see is the door, the curtain, the figure through the blinds. He doesn't really remember talking to the doctor or the nurse, or putting his hand on the cold doorknob, but he's in the room at the edge of the bed and she is so, so white, almost blue; see-through against the starched sheets. The monitors beep steadily and he stares.
Bones is in the background, reading from her chart. 'These can't be right,' she says, and he tears his eyes away. The shadow moves with him.
'Why not?'
She holds an x-ray up to the light streaming through the blinds. Booth thinks absently that it would make a good black-and-white photograph.
She says something about torture. About inconsistencies and impossible repairs. He hears her, understands her, but it isn't until she looks at him with wide, intrigued eyes and says, 'She should be dead,' that he really registers the message. Swallowing tightly, he turns back to the bed.
There's a long, angry scar from her temple to her jaw. He stares.
Brennan steps through the haze. 'Who is she?'
He knows what she means, but only one thing comes to mind:
'Her name is Elizabeth.'
--
The last thing she hears is his strangled cry - her name, broken over warm lips. She wishes she had something to show him other than fear.
--
Natalie rolls her eyes and pouts. 'Daddy!' she whines, 'that's cheating!'
John laughs, and shakes his head, and thinks of impossibilities: 'It isn't cheating if it's true.'
--
Brennan puts her hand awkwardly on his shoulder. Booth tries to smile, to thank her for the gesture, but the woman on the bed is so still.
'She saved my life once,' he says. Brennan waits, but he says nothing else; just remembers.
'Do you want me to go?' she asks.
He shakes his head. 'No.'
Brennan disappears, and a few moments later returns with another chair. They sit by the bed in silence.
--
'Love doesn't start, John,' his mother told him once, 'it builds.'
--
'How'd she get here?'
The nurse winces. 'Truck driver spotted her passed out along I-395; called it in. She looked familiar,' he shrugs, 'so I asked around.' He looks over his shoulder toward the dark room. 'Turns out she negotiated one of the largest shipments of HIV meds to Africa a few years back.'
Booth frowns. 'That doesn't explain how you found me.'
'The night janitor's from Uganda. He remembered her name, and your friend remembered that you'd worked together.' He shrugs again. 'Six degrees of separation and all that.'
Booth nods absently. 'Is she going to be alright?'
'Honestly? No idea. We don't even know what's happening to her. She was admitted three days ago with severe internal bleeding and inter-cranial swelling. The ER doc's a hair away from drilling into her skull when they realize she's dropped from a cranial pressure of thirty-nine to thirty-six in a matter of minutes, and we haven't done anything.'
'Isn't that impossible?'
'Should be. Now she's got nothin' but a few scars and some muscle weakness. There's no reason why she shouldn't be awake right now.' The nurse shakes the bewildered expression from his face. 'I wish I could explain it.'
--
Somewhere in the middle, the mission finally ends, and John is given a medal.
The first Earth doctor is holding a clipboard when she informs him that, due to the nerve and muscle damage, he's likely to have some pain for the rest of his life. The second one tells him to take two Tylenol twice a day. The third one smiles, thanks him for his service to the country, and reminds him gently that it's a miracle he can walk.
When the mission finally ends, he's given a Purple Heart that he stuffs in a box under his bed.
Rodney admits to him after one too many scotch-and-sodas that it should have been the Medal of Honor.
John doesn't tell him that he wouldn't accept it.
--
Natalie sighs dramatically. 'Please, Daddy?'
John grins, and starts again:
--
Two weeks pass.
When he's working, he almost manages to forget.
The Woman in the Bed, Booth thinks, and wonders when his life developed so many parallels.
And then she's awake.
Not only awake, but sitting up, staring out the window with her hands folded in her lap and a small pad of paper and a pencil to her left. She turns when the door opens; the scar on her face is barely visible, almost entirely healed.
'Elizabeth?'
She nods once. 'Hi, Seeley.' Her voice is laced with pain, and he forces a smile as he approaches.
'How are you?' he asks carefully.
'I'll be fine,' she says, but it isn't an answer. He doesn't know what to say. There's an IV in her hand connected to a bag of clear liquid, and he watches the drip, drip, drip. He almost starts when she speaks. 'The nurse said you've been here a lot.'
'In between cases,' he says casually, then adds, 'I work for the FBI now.'
She nods, but her gaze is unfocused, her thoughts distant. He wants to reach out and hold her, touch her hand, but she's so guarded that he's afraid to crack the shell. He looks down at the notepad instead. There's a nine-digit number scrawled across the page, and it looks like a child's writing; like her hand must have been shaking.
'What's this?' he asks softly.
Her reaction is slow. 'Not really sure.'
They sit in silence.
'Do you remember anything?' he asks finally, like the question might break her if he says it too loudly.
Elizabeth turns, then, and he can barely breathe under the weight of her stare. 'Yes.'
--
John buys a house.
He thinks about getting a dog.
About finding a new job.
About traveling.
Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, and watches the sun go down.
--
Booth runs the number.
'Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, USAF,' he tells her the next day. 'Ring a bell?'
She stares at the print-out blankly. 'Is there-' she starts. Her voice wavers. 'Is he alive?'
Booth nods. 'Retired in Maine.'
Her eyes fill with tears, but they don't fall. Booth shifts his weight. 'Do you want me to-'
'Yes,' she breathes. Then: 'He won't-' She clears her throat. 'He won't believe you.'
'Why not?'
She gives him a bitter almost-smile. 'He thinks I'm dead.'
--
'Once upon a time, there was an ancient city made entirely of glass. The city was ruled over by a beautiful princess, and-'
'Pro'e'ted by a hamsom solider!' Natalie grins. 'Mommy told me so.'
John raises an eyebrow at her teasingly. 'Do you want to tell this story?'
Natalie giggles and shakes her head and hides her smile beneath the blankets.
--
He saves her life in Baghdad:
A single shot to the back of the head of a man with a knife to her throat from two-thousand yards away.
'Line 'em up, knock 'em down,' he would tell her later, three sheets to the wind in a back-alley bar in Amsterdam.
'You could have killed me,' she'd said.
'If I'd thought I could miss,' he'd slurred, 'I wouldn't have fired.'
Elizabeth shook her head and swallowed her own drink, turning the shot-glass over on the counter with just enough force to make him wince. 'No one ever thinks they're going to miss,' she'd told him, 'they just do.'
Six years later, she returns the favor.
--
The house is small and neat and grey. Booth flashes his badge out of habit, but the man behind the door doesn't blink.
'How can I help you?' he asks, and Booth falters.
He knows, achingly, that this man in front of him, this stranger, has seen everything - war and peace, light and dark, weak and frail. He's seen cities fall and leaders rise and he's felt it, Booth is sure - every life and every guilt and he thinks of the woman in the bed, and how their expressions are echos of each other, mirror images of the same pain.
Brennan fills the gaps. 'You're Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard?' The man nods, and Brennan hands him a photograph. 'Do you recognize this woman?'
The movements occur in slow motion: John takes the picture from her hands and turns it over. His eyes fall on her face and freeze. His whole body tightens. A long moment passes. He hands the photo back.
'Never seen her before.'
Brennan turns to Booth. 'She said he wouldn't believe us.'
Booth glares slightly, but her lack of subtlety is familiar, almost comforting. 'Her name's Dr. Elizabeth Weir. She was admitted to George Washington University Hospital three weeks ago with massive internal injuries. She says she knows you.'
There's a beat too long, then John shrugs. 'Sorry to hear that,' he says, 'but I still don't know her.'
Booth 'hmms' in the back of his throat, and takes the photograph from Brennan's hand. He stares at it for a moment, and is almost unconvinced that the young, smiling face staring up at him belongs to the same woman lying in a hospital bed six hundred miles away.
He looks up just in time to see John tear his eyes away from the picture, and he knows; John catches his gaze and knows that he knows, but they play the game anyway - out of habit. Out of fear.
(Booth recognizes the haunted look, and knows it would take so very, very little for the man in front of him to break irreparably.)
He weighs his options, and after a brief moment clicks his tongue, and slides the photograph into his breast pocket. 'Okay then,' he shrugs. 'Sorry to have wasted your time. Come on, Bones.'
Brennan protests, but he grabs her elbow and steers her down the steps. He stops halfway down the walk and turns suddenly, snapping his fingers. 'I almost forgot.' He pulls a flash of silver from his pocket and tosses it to John. 'Maybe this'll jog your memory.'
John opens his palm and stares at the thin circle. The sides are smoother than he remembers, but the engraving is still visible - Ancient script gracefully carved into its surface - and his hands shake.
'Where did you get this?'
'She said you gave it to her for her birthday, four years ago.' His voice softens. 'She wore it under her clothes so people wouldn't ask.'
John looks up at him, and Booth watches the emotions flicker across his face even as he tries to hide them.
' 'Calium videre eessit, et eraos ad sidera tollere vultus',' he quotes, remembering her words even though the symbols make no sense. 'Your Latin's kinda bad.'
John looks back at the necklace. 'It's not Latin.'
'Colonel Sheppard-'
'Why are you here?' he asks suddenly, eyes wide and bare.
Booth doesn't answer. 'GW,' he reminds him, pulling his sunglasses from his pocket. 'Room 426. Don't take too long.'
--
Washington D.C. isn't as alive as he remembers.
The President spares a moment to shake his hand and congratulate him on a job well done. He responds with a forced smile, a proper salute, and doesn't mind when the aide ushers him out of the Oval Office a few minutes later.
He's on his way out when he hears her name.
'Elizabeth, could you help me with this?'
It feels like slow motion. Like a breaking down of particles and sound. He turns, and in the moment before he blinks she's there, red shirt and thin fingers as she brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and leans forward over the desk.
Someone bumps his shoulder and he stumbles; the pain in his leg flares and he hisses loudly. Several people look up, including her. He doesn't understand how he got confused.
--
'There was a beautiful city,' he tells her, 'with a beautiful princess. But one day the city was attacked, and the princess was captured, and no one saw her for a very, very long time.'
'Was the hamsom soldier sad?' Natalie asks on cue, and even after so many years and so many retellings, he can't bury the regret.
'Yes,' he murmurs. 'The soldier was very sad, and very lonely without her. He promised to protect the city and the people that she loved, so he stayed. But it wasn't his home any more.'
--
She's tying the laces on a pair of shoes Booth brought for her when she feels him. Standing. Staring. She raises her head and catches his gaze and they both just stare, wait. His eyes burn as he tries not to blink. Her muscles strain.
She swallows tightly, opens her mouth and reaches for absent words. She tries to breathe - inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale - and tries to remember. His eyes. His voice, unstrained by grief. She can almost feel his hands - rough callouses, smooth palms, warm and soft and safe and when he speaks, it's like bits of gravel in a scab.
'I've seen you before,' he says.
Relief and fear tangle together. The light is too bright. Someone outside the door coughs, loudly. So tired, she thinks. His weight favors his left leg, and she wants to ask; wants to know.
She's missed so much.
'How-?' he starts. His voice is too high.
'Ascended,' she manages, but hardly realizes she's spoken. 'Descended. Woke up here.'
He shifts. Stares. There's an aching silence. 'Nanites?' he asks.
She tries not to look away. 'I don't-' Her voice cracks. 'I don't know. I can't...feel them. But-'
John nods. 'The doctor says you're fine.'
Inhale: 'Yeah.'
Surreal, he thinks. Questions bounce and echo and disappear and he can't bring himself to care about the answers, only her. Standing. Staring. Too real.
He asks anyway.
'The FBI?'
She shakes her head. 'Seeley's an old friend.'
John shifts, and the motion is jarring. She wants to close her eyes against the nausea, but it's too much. She can feel him.
'Do you-'
She waits.
He stares.
Exhale: 'What?'
John tears his eyes away from her and looks down at his fist, at the chain curled around his knuckles. He looks at the charm, at the words, at his shoes and the floor and he counts to ten, to twenty, to thirty and prays -
When he looks back, she's standing straight. So still, so frail. She has one hand on the mattress for balance and the other at the hollow of her throat. His legs move on their own accord until he's standing in front of her; so close. She tilts her head to meet his gaze, and they wait; breathe.
She breaks first. 'Are you real?' she whispers, eyes searching his face for a reassurance, a proof.
John forces himself to blink, slowly. 'I think that's my line.'
'John-' she begs.
When he touches her, it's like hot water on cold glass. Cracks and splinters and he brushes a tear away with his thumb. She covers his hand with hers.
--
She remembers everything, and nothing.
From Asura, there are moments - cold hands, needles, light behind her eyes. She's washing dishes and drops the plate and the porcelain shattering sounds like windows, cracking breakingcrying; sounds like cities falling and people screaming and she covers her ears but it doesn't change, just repeats, drowns in itself. She hears his voice - rumbling, aching, scratching at her like nails. Hybrid, she hears, in the cold silence after dark. Not human, he whispers cruelly, and behind her eyes she sees silver - smooth, expressionless faces. Skin and bone.
It's a sharp contrast to how she wakes - calm. White. Warm. She remembers a peace that she can't explain, and while she knows she must have been there - seen and heard and spoken and understood - there are no real memories, just sense. Awe.
'Knowledge of the universe,' John says. 'Must have been pretty cool.'
She forces a smile. 'Probably was.'
--
For him, it begins in the middle:
Five months later, in the living room of his (their) small Portland cabin. The sun is streaming through the windows and echoing off the cherrywood coffee table, smoothing itself into long shapes across the wall. It reflects off the hanging mirror, and there's a bright light in his eye when he asks,
'So why did you come back?' She looks over at him with a frown. 'I'm assuming it was voluntary. They didn't kick you out, did they?'
Elizabeth smiles wryly over the rim of her mug. 'No, they didn't.'
John leans back into the sofa and stretches his leg out carefully. He takes a drag on his beer and aims for casual: 'Living with the Ancients seems like a pretty cushy way to spend eternity.'
It's a question - an insecurity laid so bare that she hesitates; breathes. It's so complicated, and yet so, so simple.
Staring blankly at the muted television, Elizabeth shrugs.
'Eternity didn't have you.'
--
'This isn't a very happy story,' Natalie sighs, and John laughs softly.
'It's okay,' he promises, and then leans in closer with a conspiratorial whisper. 'You know why?' Natalie covers her knowing grin with both hands and shakes her head. 'Because,' he murmurs, 'the princess escapes, and-'
'They find each other again!'
She laughs as John throws his hands in the air. 'She ruined it,' he moans, and turns to the figure he knows is standing in the doorway. He points his thumb over his shoulder at the giggling child. 'She ruined it,' he says again. 'Can you believe that? Skipped right to the end.'
--
Booth calls every few weeks to check up on her.
'I'm good,' she assures him, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter. 'Learning a new language.'
'As if you don't speak enough already,' he groans, and sighs mock-indulgently. 'What is it this time?'
'Croatian.'
Booth wrinkles his nose. 'Seriously?'
She laughs. 'It keeps my mind occupied,' she says. 'And it's a beautiful language. I want to go there someday.'
'You've never been?'
'Not even a layover.'
Booth smiles. 'You should.'
She nods to herself. 'We will.'
He takes the opportunity to pry: 'So. You and the good colonel...?'
'Taking it one day at a time,' she says. There's a pause. Elizabeth turns to stare out the window. 'I think he's still waiting for me to disappear again.'
'Again?' he coaxes.
She laughs softly. 'Maybe someday,' she tells him.
He shrugs. She can hear the grin in his voice, and feels lighter. 'It was worth a shot.'
--
He gives her a necklace he had made by one of their trading partners. It's thin and made of something cool that resembles silver but isn't; the charm is circular, with small, Ancient letters engraved on one side.
'It's beautiful,' she murmurs. He smiles hesitantly; waits. She translates the inscription: When you see her, you see the sky, and those on Earth must lift their faces toward the stars.
She looks up at him with wide eyes. 'John-'
He panics; shrugs. 'You said it was your favorite poem.'
'It is.' Elizabeth looks from him to the necklace and back again. 'I-' she starts. 'I don't know what to say.'
John shifts and resists the urge to ask her if she likes it. 'It seemed fitting,' he says finally, and takes a deep breath. 'Elizabeth, I-'
She lays two fingers over his lips. 'I know.' There are tears in her eyes, but she smiles and it's so, so bright. 'Believe me, John,' she murmurs. 'I know.'
--
There are so many little beginnings:
They tell Rodney not long after she wakes up, and he looks from one to the other and back again with his jaw on the floor. 'Elizabeth?' he squeaks, and she smiles. 'I'm real,' she assures him. He blinks. 'Pinch me,' he says. John smacks him. She laughs into his shoulder; his arms around her back, almost crushing. 'It's good to see you, Rodney. I've missed you.'
There's the first time she cuts herself with a kitchen knife by accident, and the blood doesn't stop. The wound doesn't heal. John stares at her and she stares at her hand and neither of them know what to do or say.
There's the time he admits, in a voice so quiet and so scared that she hardly recognizes it, that he didn't try hard enough. 'We should have come back,' he says, and the light from the television casts harsh shadows on his face.
(She doesn't tell him that she forgives him.)
It begins with a nightmare, the first he's seen her have. She slaps his face so hard his jaw aches into the morning, but he holds her and shakes her and calls her name and when she finally comes back she crumbles; her body trembles in his arms and he doesn't know what to do except hold on. 'I've got you,' he whispers, and brushes his fingers through her hair to soothe and calm and quiet. 'I've got you.'
In the morning, it's like the fever has broken. She traces the edges of the bruise she left; he rubs his palm gently over her back. 'I've got you,' he says, and she curls tighter against his chest.
--
'Daddy,' Natalie asks, tugging on his shirt to get his attention. 'Did you really fly spaceships like the ones on the telemision?'
He grins. 'I really did.'
Her face brightens. 'Can I fly them too?'
'Someday,' he promises.
--
When SGC finds out, they demand her return. There are forms to fill out, reports to file, tests to run.
John glares at a spot on the wall and barks into the phone, 'She's fine. No nanites.'
'We can't be sure of that until-'
'I'm sure,' he snaps.
There's a shuffling of papers and Daniel's voice in the background - 'You know, it's very possible that the Ancients-' and Landry, drowning him out.
They want her statement, her experience, her knowledge; they want to verify it's her and verify she's real and 'You have to come back, Dr. Weir,' General Hammond says over the phone. 'For your own sense of closure.'
Elizabeth pauses. John watches her. Hammond calls her name.
'How's this for closure?' she says, 'I quit.'
--
They have to rediscover everything.
Tones, glances, simple motions. They relearn to work together and relearn their lines; they have to remind themselves of where the boundaries are, and when they should be crossed. They relearn how to think, how to anticipate, how to read each other's minds.
Trust is built, his mother used to say.
They have to remember how to touch. How to feel. She traces the veins in his arms and he rubs his thumb over the pulse point on her wrist. They're both too thin and they're both too scared, but she grips his hand like she's staying and that's all that really matters - simple touches, small moments.
Slowly, they remember.
--
Slowly, they unravel.
They know it's inevitable, but it still catches them both by surprise - the heat, the bitterness; far-flung words that they'll later regret. Blame and guilt and Elizabeth cracks first, slamming the door when she leaves.
Booth finds her on his doorstep a day later, picking at a seam in her coat. She stays for a weekend, and if he notices tear stains on her pillow he says nothing, just waits.
It takes three days and a glass, broken by trembling hands, for her to talk - a patchwork of reasons and arguments and emotions that he doesn't really follow. As much as he knows her and knows people and knows love, there's a gap between her words and her pain that he doesn't quite understand.
'Do you love him?' he asks.
She shakes her head, but it isn't a negation. 'It's not that simple.'
'Why not?'
Her fingers tangle in the chain around her neck, and he wants to ask - wants to know where she goes when her eyes shadow and her head bows.
'What can I do?' he asks instead, and Elizabeth smiles wryly.
'Got a time machine?'
He chuckles. 'Nope,' he apologizes, then adds gently: 'But I've got a phone.'
--
'I'm sorry,' she breathes.
John nods. 'Me too.'
--
He looks up when she lays a hand on his shoulder. Natalie grins and holds out her arms and Elizabeth smiles, leaning over to return the small embrace. She kisses her forehead and brushes her hair and fusses with the blankets under her chin.
'Time for sleep,' she murmurs.
Natalie burrows deeper into the bed and yawns. 'Not tired,' she protests. John hides a smile.
--
In June of 2013, the President of the United States tells the world about a little program called Stargate; two days later she gets a phone call.
'I heard the most fascinating thing in the men's room yesterday,' he says without preamble.
Elizabeth blinks. 'Seeley?'
'Apparently, there's some legendary famous doctor lady involved in this whole alien thing. A Doctor Weird?'
'Funny,' she drawls.
'No, what's funny is that I think I know this lady. And in the twenty-two and half years that I've known her, not once has she ever mentioned to me the existence of extra-terrestrials.' Booth makes a tsk-tsk sound. 'And here I was, thinking we were friends! But I mean, come on - how can you not spill the beans on that one?'
'Seeley-'
'Even a little hint like, 'Oh, so you know Star Wars? Not that far-fetched. Or, here - talk to my foreign ally. He's from outer-space.'
'Okay, okay,' she laughs, 'point made.'
'I just have one question.'
Elizabeth sighs. 'What is it?'
'These aliens,' Booth says seriously. 'Do they play basketball?'
--
It doesn't take the press long to find them. The cameras make her anxious and the reporters make him bitter and they sneak out in the dead of night and don't tell anyone. John knows a guy who knows a guy and six hours later they're on a red-eye flight to Paris, and from there to Zagreb, and then on to Dubrovnik.
John gets them a room at a small, family-run hotel ten minutes from the Old City Walls. It's white and quaint and peaceful and they smile more, worry less.
When he kisses her for the first time (in a long time) three days later, it's on their hotel balcony overlooking the sea.
--
He doesn't think about it, ever, but he remembers the last time. Her skin was hot under his palms and his teeth left marks along her shoulder as he begged her - too harsh, too rough, too terrified for spoken words - to stay. The last time, three days before, and he swears sometimes when she looks at him, he can hear the glass shatter.
But for now, there's only calm. John draws light patterns against her stomach and trails soft kisses across her collarbone and wonders how he lived without this; her heartbeat is quick and firm and for a long moment he stills, listens. Like music, he thinks, and turns his lips to her skin; she shivers.
'You okay?'
Elizabeth closes her eyes. 'Yeah, just...haven't done this in a while.' She laughs breathlessly. 'A long, long while.'
John smiles, and it's even warmer than his touch. 'Slow?' he asks. Their legs tangle.
'Slow,' she murmurs.
He nods and kisses her deeply, his weight over her like a shield; his skin is soft, a balm on invisible wounds, improperly healed. Her arms hold him close, palms against his back, running her fingers along his spine, tangling in his hair.
'Elizabeth,' he breathes.
'Don't let go.'
He shakes his head and presses his lips to hers. 'Never.'
--
It's another close call, another end of the world, another daring stunt. He can hear Elizabeth's voice in his head as the 'jumper shudders and begins to fall. He tries not to think as he loses gravity, loses blood. The pain is nearly blinding and he tries not to think about Rodney and Ronon the city and just five more minutes, just five more-
And then she's there, leaning against the rear hatch, her arms folded across her chest. 'Always the hero,' she scolds affectionately.
John struggles with the controls as the compartment heats up.
'Does it ever occur to you to let someone else take the fall?'
'Funny,' he grunts.
She shrugs. 'Ironic.' In the next moment she's at his side, a soft hand on his shoulder that he swears he can feel. 'John, do you trust me?' she asks.
He glares sideways at her. 'You know, this really isn't a good time to-'
'Do you trust me?'
He hesitates. 'You know the answer to that.'
She smiles. 'Good.'
--
'You saved my life,' he tells her.
She shakes her head. 'I don't remember.'
He shrugs. 'You were in the 'jumper. You did something to the navigational systems that crashed me on a planet not far from Atlantis. The sensors picked up the signal a few days later.'
She swallows tightly, but it's an instinctual reaction to his life in jeopardy, not a memory. 'That was a close call.'
'Yeah.'
'John-'
He kisses her gently. 'You saved my life.'
--
'Sing to me?'
John rises and Elizabeth takes his place on the edge of the bed. He stands behind her silently and listens as she hums, a gentle, familiar melody. 'At night I go on board and say goodnight to all my friends on shore. I shut my eyes and sail away, and see and hear no more...'
Natalie turns her cheek into Elizabeth's hand, her eyes fighting to stay open. 'Volim te, mama,' she mumbles.
Elizabeth kisses her temple. 'Love you more.'
--
'Are we-' she tries; her voice wavers. She stares at her hands. 'Are we ready for this?'
John leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. 'I don't know.'
Elizabeth nods absently. 'Do you-'
He turns. 'What?'
'-want...this?'
The question is stilted and vulnerable. John looks at the floor. 'I always wanted kids,' he says honestly.
Elizabeth stares at him. 'But?'
He shakes his head. 'No buts, just...' He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. 'What do you want?' he asks, and tries to hold her gaze.
She bites her lip and looks away. 'I don't-'
'Yes,' he says, softer this time. 'You do. Elizabeth.'
'I want to be a good mother,' she admits.
'Then you will be,' he says, and his confidence makes her short of breath. He takes her hand. 'One day at a time.'
--
It begins with a ring.
A house in West Virginia.
The first snowfall of the year.
It begins in January, with her hand against her abdomen and the bathroom tiles stained red; it begins in July, with her first day teaching a university summer course on international affairs (with John slouched in the back-row, a secret she lets him keep); it begins in fall, with new students; in the following spring, with second chances.
It begins eight and a half months later, with ten fingers and ten toes and she isn't born on Christmas Day, but John says it fits, regardless, and knows his grandmother would be proud.
--
Booth's face splits into a huge grin as he leans in closer. 'Hey there, gorgeous!'
Elizabeth smiles. 'You want to hold her?'
'Is that even a question?' he asks distractedly, already in the process of prying the small bundle from her arms. Cradling her against his elbow, he bounces gently on his heels. 'Hi, Natalie,' he murmurs. 'I'm your God-dad. Pretty awesome, huh?'
Natalie blinks up at him.
'I bet you just have the cutest toes,' he fusses. 'You're gonna be a knock-out, just like Mom.'
At his left, Brennan tilts her head curiously. 'I didn't realize you were sexually attracted to Dr. Weir.'
Booth chokes slightly and glares. 'Bones,' he hisses, avoiding Elizabeth's amused gaze by focusing on making funny faces in attempt to get Natalie to laugh.
Brennan continues undeterred. 'What? She has a very symmetrical bone-' She stops abruptly and turns to Elizabeth. 'You have a very symmetrical bone structure.'
Elizabeth raises an eyebrow. 'Thank you?'
'It's very flattering,' she assures her, and Booth rolls his eyes. Brennan looks confused. 'What? I was simply pointing out that Dr. Weir's hip-to waist-ratio is probably very close to the average 0.7 that a majority of men find most sexually appealing.' She turns to Elizabeth. 'WHR conveys to males information about overall health and fertility. Given your age and your husband's war record and potential exposure to radiation and other toxins, it's really very impressive that you managed to conceive.'
'Bones,' Booth warns.
She pays no attention. 'And, given Mr. Sheppard's physical strength and obvious resilience, you and your husband probably have exceptionally satisfying intercourse.'
Elizabeth blinks, torn between blushing and laughing, and Booth glares at Brennan sharply. 'Bones!'
'What?'
He opens his mouth to explain, but decides it isn't worth the effort. Instead, he turns into her space and holds Natalie up in front of her. 'Here, look at the baby.'
'Why? I've seen babies before, Booth.'
'Yeah,' he grins, pretending to prop his chin up on Natalie's shoulder, 'but isn't this one really pretty?'
Brennan narrows her eyes. 'You're trying to distract me from harmless scientific observation.'
'Harmless and embarrassing,' he mutters, carefully bringing the baby back against his chest.
'Why is it embarrassing? Just because you have insecurity issues with your sexuality doesn't mean that-'
Booth's eyes widen and Elizabeth smothers a laugh. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, I am not sexually insecure, okay? We're talking about an entirely different - just - do that phalanxes thing,' he groans.
'Phalanges,' she corrects calmly.
'Whatever.'
Booth turns back to Elizabeth with an exasperated sigh. 'You see what I have to put up with?' he grouses, at the same time that Brennan wiggles her fingers, and Natalie laughs.
--
John begins all his stories with once upon a time.
He ends them with a kiss, and turns off the light.
Recipient: anuna_81
Prompt: ....Or, perhaps, you would write me Sparky/Bones crossover fic?
Rating: PG13
Author's Notes: Title from Regina Spektor's Blue Lips. / Lullaby lyrics from My Bed Is A Boat (Judy Collins & Ernie Troost). / Ancient Language Reference. / Familiarity with Bones is not necessary.
Betas: stop_theworld for the Bones beta and characterization help; speckleberry and antiqueskies for SGA & overall.
Summary: John begins all his stories with once upon a time.
John begins all his stories with once upon a time.
--
'Daddy,' Natalie whispers, tucked under pink blankets and protected by a small, white owl, 'tell me the story about the woman in the glass city.'
John sits on the edge of the bed and smoothes the comforter under her chin. 'Once upon a time,' he says softly, 'in a galaxy far, far away...'
--
There is no beginning, so he starts in the middle:
--
Hodgins is giving an animate hypothesis about the hydatophylax argus when his phone rings.
'Booth,' he answers, tilting his head away from the group.
The caller speaks.
The voices in the background fade.
'What?'
He's dimly aware of Brennan's gaze, flitting back and forth between her team and him. Listening with both ears; absorbing; understanding, but only in the abstract - the science, not the human. She sees his face pale, his eyes shadow; she sees the tension in his shoulders, the automatic reflex of his hand tightening around the mobile phone. But she doesn't feel it like he does, like Angela; even Hodgins slows, his enthusiasm lost in the sudden, deafening quiet.
'Are you sure?' Booth asks.
Brennan moves to his side, but she doesn't touch him. 'Booth?'
'I'm on my way,' he says.
The phone closes. He stares.
'Booth?'
He should say something. He searches her face for clues as to what.
'Bones-' he starts. The phone is so heavy. Someone says his name and Brennan's lips move, but the timing is off. It's Angela's voice that cuts through the static.
'Go.'
--
In actuality, it starts a long time ago: with a withered hand and long, sharp nails; with an ultimatum; a heartless laugh; a last breath; and then-
'John,' she breathes, her hands cold against the back of his neck and her eyelashes soft against his throat.
'It's okay,' he murmurs.
She holds on tighter.
It starts when she breaks, lips trembling against his cheek and his heartbeat strong under her palm.
--
He knows she's standing behind him, but it's like a shadow has passed between them - a transparent, dark wall dulling his senses and surrounding him; there's a small window in front of his eyes, and all he can see is the door, the curtain, the figure through the blinds. He doesn't really remember talking to the doctor or the nurse, or putting his hand on the cold doorknob, but he's in the room at the edge of the bed and she is so, so white, almost blue; see-through against the starched sheets. The monitors beep steadily and he stares.
Bones is in the background, reading from her chart. 'These can't be right,' she says, and he tears his eyes away. The shadow moves with him.
'Why not?'
She holds an x-ray up to the light streaming through the blinds. Booth thinks absently that it would make a good black-and-white photograph.
She says something about torture. About inconsistencies and impossible repairs. He hears her, understands her, but it isn't until she looks at him with wide, intrigued eyes and says, 'She should be dead,' that he really registers the message. Swallowing tightly, he turns back to the bed.
There's a long, angry scar from her temple to her jaw. He stares.
Brennan steps through the haze. 'Who is she?'
He knows what she means, but only one thing comes to mind:
'Her name is Elizabeth.'
--
The last thing she hears is his strangled cry - her name, broken over warm lips. She wishes she had something to show him other than fear.
--
Natalie rolls her eyes and pouts. 'Daddy!' she whines, 'that's cheating!'
John laughs, and shakes his head, and thinks of impossibilities: 'It isn't cheating if it's true.'
--
Brennan puts her hand awkwardly on his shoulder. Booth tries to smile, to thank her for the gesture, but the woman on the bed is so still.
'She saved my life once,' he says. Brennan waits, but he says nothing else; just remembers.
'Do you want me to go?' she asks.
He shakes his head. 'No.'
Brennan disappears, and a few moments later returns with another chair. They sit by the bed in silence.
--
'Love doesn't start, John,' his mother told him once, 'it builds.'
--
'How'd she get here?'
The nurse winces. 'Truck driver spotted her passed out along I-395; called it in. She looked familiar,' he shrugs, 'so I asked around.' He looks over his shoulder toward the dark room. 'Turns out she negotiated one of the largest shipments of HIV meds to Africa a few years back.'
Booth frowns. 'That doesn't explain how you found me.'
'The night janitor's from Uganda. He remembered her name, and your friend remembered that you'd worked together.' He shrugs again. 'Six degrees of separation and all that.'
Booth nods absently. 'Is she going to be alright?'
'Honestly? No idea. We don't even know what's happening to her. She was admitted three days ago with severe internal bleeding and inter-cranial swelling. The ER doc's a hair away from drilling into her skull when they realize she's dropped from a cranial pressure of thirty-nine to thirty-six in a matter of minutes, and we haven't done anything.'
'Isn't that impossible?'
'Should be. Now she's got nothin' but a few scars and some muscle weakness. There's no reason why she shouldn't be awake right now.' The nurse shakes the bewildered expression from his face. 'I wish I could explain it.'
--
Somewhere in the middle, the mission finally ends, and John is given a medal.
The first Earth doctor is holding a clipboard when she informs him that, due to the nerve and muscle damage, he's likely to have some pain for the rest of his life. The second one tells him to take two Tylenol twice a day. The third one smiles, thanks him for his service to the country, and reminds him gently that it's a miracle he can walk.
When the mission finally ends, he's given a Purple Heart that he stuffs in a box under his bed.
Rodney admits to him after one too many scotch-and-sodas that it should have been the Medal of Honor.
John doesn't tell him that he wouldn't accept it.
--
Natalie sighs dramatically. 'Please, Daddy?'
John grins, and starts again:
--
Two weeks pass.
When he's working, he almost manages to forget.
The Woman in the Bed, Booth thinks, and wonders when his life developed so many parallels.
And then she's awake.
Not only awake, but sitting up, staring out the window with her hands folded in her lap and a small pad of paper and a pencil to her left. She turns when the door opens; the scar on her face is barely visible, almost entirely healed.
'Elizabeth?'
She nods once. 'Hi, Seeley.' Her voice is laced with pain, and he forces a smile as he approaches.
'How are you?' he asks carefully.
'I'll be fine,' she says, but it isn't an answer. He doesn't know what to say. There's an IV in her hand connected to a bag of clear liquid, and he watches the drip, drip, drip. He almost starts when she speaks. 'The nurse said you've been here a lot.'
'In between cases,' he says casually, then adds, 'I work for the FBI now.'
She nods, but her gaze is unfocused, her thoughts distant. He wants to reach out and hold her, touch her hand, but she's so guarded that he's afraid to crack the shell. He looks down at the notepad instead. There's a nine-digit number scrawled across the page, and it looks like a child's writing; like her hand must have been shaking.
'What's this?' he asks softly.
Her reaction is slow. 'Not really sure.'
They sit in silence.
'Do you remember anything?' he asks finally, like the question might break her if he says it too loudly.
Elizabeth turns, then, and he can barely breathe under the weight of her stare. 'Yes.'
--
John buys a house.
He thinks about getting a dog.
About finding a new job.
About traveling.
Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, and watches the sun go down.
--
Booth runs the number.
'Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, USAF,' he tells her the next day. 'Ring a bell?'
She stares at the print-out blankly. 'Is there-' she starts. Her voice wavers. 'Is he alive?'
Booth nods. 'Retired in Maine.'
Her eyes fill with tears, but they don't fall. Booth shifts his weight. 'Do you want me to-'
'Yes,' she breathes. Then: 'He won't-' She clears her throat. 'He won't believe you.'
'Why not?'
She gives him a bitter almost-smile. 'He thinks I'm dead.'
--
'Once upon a time, there was an ancient city made entirely of glass. The city was ruled over by a beautiful princess, and-'
'Pro'e'ted by a hamsom solider!' Natalie grins. 'Mommy told me so.'
John raises an eyebrow at her teasingly. 'Do you want to tell this story?'
Natalie giggles and shakes her head and hides her smile beneath the blankets.
--
He saves her life in Baghdad:
A single shot to the back of the head of a man with a knife to her throat from two-thousand yards away.
'Line 'em up, knock 'em down,' he would tell her later, three sheets to the wind in a back-alley bar in Amsterdam.
'You could have killed me,' she'd said.
'If I'd thought I could miss,' he'd slurred, 'I wouldn't have fired.'
Elizabeth shook her head and swallowed her own drink, turning the shot-glass over on the counter with just enough force to make him wince. 'No one ever thinks they're going to miss,' she'd told him, 'they just do.'
Six years later, she returns the favor.
--
The house is small and neat and grey. Booth flashes his badge out of habit, but the man behind the door doesn't blink.
'How can I help you?' he asks, and Booth falters.
He knows, achingly, that this man in front of him, this stranger, has seen everything - war and peace, light and dark, weak and frail. He's seen cities fall and leaders rise and he's felt it, Booth is sure - every life and every guilt and he thinks of the woman in the bed, and how their expressions are echos of each other, mirror images of the same pain.
Brennan fills the gaps. 'You're Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard?' The man nods, and Brennan hands him a photograph. 'Do you recognize this woman?'
The movements occur in slow motion: John takes the picture from her hands and turns it over. His eyes fall on her face and freeze. His whole body tightens. A long moment passes. He hands the photo back.
'Never seen her before.'
Brennan turns to Booth. 'She said he wouldn't believe us.'
Booth glares slightly, but her lack of subtlety is familiar, almost comforting. 'Her name's Dr. Elizabeth Weir. She was admitted to George Washington University Hospital three weeks ago with massive internal injuries. She says she knows you.'
There's a beat too long, then John shrugs. 'Sorry to hear that,' he says, 'but I still don't know her.'
Booth 'hmms' in the back of his throat, and takes the photograph from Brennan's hand. He stares at it for a moment, and is almost unconvinced that the young, smiling face staring up at him belongs to the same woman lying in a hospital bed six hundred miles away.
He looks up just in time to see John tear his eyes away from the picture, and he knows; John catches his gaze and knows that he knows, but they play the game anyway - out of habit. Out of fear.
(Booth recognizes the haunted look, and knows it would take so very, very little for the man in front of him to break irreparably.)
He weighs his options, and after a brief moment clicks his tongue, and slides the photograph into his breast pocket. 'Okay then,' he shrugs. 'Sorry to have wasted your time. Come on, Bones.'
Brennan protests, but he grabs her elbow and steers her down the steps. He stops halfway down the walk and turns suddenly, snapping his fingers. 'I almost forgot.' He pulls a flash of silver from his pocket and tosses it to John. 'Maybe this'll jog your memory.'
John opens his palm and stares at the thin circle. The sides are smoother than he remembers, but the engraving is still visible - Ancient script gracefully carved into its surface - and his hands shake.
'Where did you get this?'
'She said you gave it to her for her birthday, four years ago.' His voice softens. 'She wore it under her clothes so people wouldn't ask.'
John looks up at him, and Booth watches the emotions flicker across his face even as he tries to hide them.
' 'Calium videre eessit, et eraos ad sidera tollere vultus',' he quotes, remembering her words even though the symbols make no sense. 'Your Latin's kinda bad.'
John looks back at the necklace. 'It's not Latin.'
'Colonel Sheppard-'
'Why are you here?' he asks suddenly, eyes wide and bare.
Booth doesn't answer. 'GW,' he reminds him, pulling his sunglasses from his pocket. 'Room 426. Don't take too long.'
--
Washington D.C. isn't as alive as he remembers.
The President spares a moment to shake his hand and congratulate him on a job well done. He responds with a forced smile, a proper salute, and doesn't mind when the aide ushers him out of the Oval Office a few minutes later.
He's on his way out when he hears her name.
'Elizabeth, could you help me with this?'
It feels like slow motion. Like a breaking down of particles and sound. He turns, and in the moment before he blinks she's there, red shirt and thin fingers as she brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and leans forward over the desk.
Someone bumps his shoulder and he stumbles; the pain in his leg flares and he hisses loudly. Several people look up, including her. He doesn't understand how he got confused.
--
'There was a beautiful city,' he tells her, 'with a beautiful princess. But one day the city was attacked, and the princess was captured, and no one saw her for a very, very long time.'
'Was the hamsom soldier sad?' Natalie asks on cue, and even after so many years and so many retellings, he can't bury the regret.
'Yes,' he murmurs. 'The soldier was very sad, and very lonely without her. He promised to protect the city and the people that she loved, so he stayed. But it wasn't his home any more.'
--
She's tying the laces on a pair of shoes Booth brought for her when she feels him. Standing. Staring. She raises her head and catches his gaze and they both just stare, wait. His eyes burn as he tries not to blink. Her muscles strain.
She swallows tightly, opens her mouth and reaches for absent words. She tries to breathe - inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale - and tries to remember. His eyes. His voice, unstrained by grief. She can almost feel his hands - rough callouses, smooth palms, warm and soft and safe and when he speaks, it's like bits of gravel in a scab.
'I've seen you before,' he says.
Relief and fear tangle together. The light is too bright. Someone outside the door coughs, loudly. So tired, she thinks. His weight favors his left leg, and she wants to ask; wants to know.
She's missed so much.
'How-?' he starts. His voice is too high.
'Ascended,' she manages, but hardly realizes she's spoken. 'Descended. Woke up here.'
He shifts. Stares. There's an aching silence. 'Nanites?' he asks.
She tries not to look away. 'I don't-' Her voice cracks. 'I don't know. I can't...feel them. But-'
John nods. 'The doctor says you're fine.'
Inhale: 'Yeah.'
Surreal, he thinks. Questions bounce and echo and disappear and he can't bring himself to care about the answers, only her. Standing. Staring. Too real.
He asks anyway.
'The FBI?'
She shakes her head. 'Seeley's an old friend.'
John shifts, and the motion is jarring. She wants to close her eyes against the nausea, but it's too much. She can feel him.
'Do you-'
She waits.
He stares.
Exhale: 'What?'
John tears his eyes away from her and looks down at his fist, at the chain curled around his knuckles. He looks at the charm, at the words, at his shoes and the floor and he counts to ten, to twenty, to thirty and prays -
When he looks back, she's standing straight. So still, so frail. She has one hand on the mattress for balance and the other at the hollow of her throat. His legs move on their own accord until he's standing in front of her; so close. She tilts her head to meet his gaze, and they wait; breathe.
She breaks first. 'Are you real?' she whispers, eyes searching his face for a reassurance, a proof.
John forces himself to blink, slowly. 'I think that's my line.'
'John-' she begs.
When he touches her, it's like hot water on cold glass. Cracks and splinters and he brushes a tear away with his thumb. She covers his hand with hers.
--
She remembers everything, and nothing.
From Asura, there are moments - cold hands, needles, light behind her eyes. She's washing dishes and drops the plate and the porcelain shattering sounds like windows, cracking breakingcrying; sounds like cities falling and people screaming and she covers her ears but it doesn't change, just repeats, drowns in itself. She hears his voice - rumbling, aching, scratching at her like nails. Hybrid, she hears, in the cold silence after dark. Not human, he whispers cruelly, and behind her eyes she sees silver - smooth, expressionless faces. Skin and bone.
It's a sharp contrast to how she wakes - calm. White. Warm. She remembers a peace that she can't explain, and while she knows she must have been there - seen and heard and spoken and understood - there are no real memories, just sense. Awe.
'Knowledge of the universe,' John says. 'Must have been pretty cool.'
She forces a smile. 'Probably was.'
--
For him, it begins in the middle:
Five months later, in the living room of his (their) small Portland cabin. The sun is streaming through the windows and echoing off the cherrywood coffee table, smoothing itself into long shapes across the wall. It reflects off the hanging mirror, and there's a bright light in his eye when he asks,
'So why did you come back?' She looks over at him with a frown. 'I'm assuming it was voluntary. They didn't kick you out, did they?'
Elizabeth smiles wryly over the rim of her mug. 'No, they didn't.'
John leans back into the sofa and stretches his leg out carefully. He takes a drag on his beer and aims for casual: 'Living with the Ancients seems like a pretty cushy way to spend eternity.'
It's a question - an insecurity laid so bare that she hesitates; breathes. It's so complicated, and yet so, so simple.
Staring blankly at the muted television, Elizabeth shrugs.
'Eternity didn't have you.'
--
'This isn't a very happy story,' Natalie sighs, and John laughs softly.
'It's okay,' he promises, and then leans in closer with a conspiratorial whisper. 'You know why?' Natalie covers her knowing grin with both hands and shakes her head. 'Because,' he murmurs, 'the princess escapes, and-'
'They find each other again!'
She laughs as John throws his hands in the air. 'She ruined it,' he moans, and turns to the figure he knows is standing in the doorway. He points his thumb over his shoulder at the giggling child. 'She ruined it,' he says again. 'Can you believe that? Skipped right to the end.'
--
Booth calls every few weeks to check up on her.
'I'm good,' she assures him, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter. 'Learning a new language.'
'As if you don't speak enough already,' he groans, and sighs mock-indulgently. 'What is it this time?'
'Croatian.'
Booth wrinkles his nose. 'Seriously?'
She laughs. 'It keeps my mind occupied,' she says. 'And it's a beautiful language. I want to go there someday.'
'You've never been?'
'Not even a layover.'
Booth smiles. 'You should.'
She nods to herself. 'We will.'
He takes the opportunity to pry: 'So. You and the good colonel...?'
'Taking it one day at a time,' she says. There's a pause. Elizabeth turns to stare out the window. 'I think he's still waiting for me to disappear again.'
'Again?' he coaxes.
She laughs softly. 'Maybe someday,' she tells him.
He shrugs. She can hear the grin in his voice, and feels lighter. 'It was worth a shot.'
--
He gives her a necklace he had made by one of their trading partners. It's thin and made of something cool that resembles silver but isn't; the charm is circular, with small, Ancient letters engraved on one side.
'It's beautiful,' she murmurs. He smiles hesitantly; waits. She translates the inscription: When you see her, you see the sky, and those on Earth must lift their faces toward the stars.
She looks up at him with wide eyes. 'John-'
He panics; shrugs. 'You said it was your favorite poem.'
'It is.' Elizabeth looks from him to the necklace and back again. 'I-' she starts. 'I don't know what to say.'
John shifts and resists the urge to ask her if she likes it. 'It seemed fitting,' he says finally, and takes a deep breath. 'Elizabeth, I-'
She lays two fingers over his lips. 'I know.' There are tears in her eyes, but she smiles and it's so, so bright. 'Believe me, John,' she murmurs. 'I know.'
--
There are so many little beginnings:
They tell Rodney not long after she wakes up, and he looks from one to the other and back again with his jaw on the floor. 'Elizabeth?' he squeaks, and she smiles. 'I'm real,' she assures him. He blinks. 'Pinch me,' he says. John smacks him. She laughs into his shoulder; his arms around her back, almost crushing. 'It's good to see you, Rodney. I've missed you.'
There's the first time she cuts herself with a kitchen knife by accident, and the blood doesn't stop. The wound doesn't heal. John stares at her and she stares at her hand and neither of them know what to do or say.
There's the time he admits, in a voice so quiet and so scared that she hardly recognizes it, that he didn't try hard enough. 'We should have come back,' he says, and the light from the television casts harsh shadows on his face.
(She doesn't tell him that she forgives him.)
It begins with a nightmare, the first he's seen her have. She slaps his face so hard his jaw aches into the morning, but he holds her and shakes her and calls her name and when she finally comes back she crumbles; her body trembles in his arms and he doesn't know what to do except hold on. 'I've got you,' he whispers, and brushes his fingers through her hair to soothe and calm and quiet. 'I've got you.'
In the morning, it's like the fever has broken. She traces the edges of the bruise she left; he rubs his palm gently over her back. 'I've got you,' he says, and she curls tighter against his chest.
--
'Daddy,' Natalie asks, tugging on his shirt to get his attention. 'Did you really fly spaceships like the ones on the telemision?'
He grins. 'I really did.'
Her face brightens. 'Can I fly them too?'
'Someday,' he promises.
--
When SGC finds out, they demand her return. There are forms to fill out, reports to file, tests to run.
John glares at a spot on the wall and barks into the phone, 'She's fine. No nanites.'
'We can't be sure of that until-'
'I'm sure,' he snaps.
There's a shuffling of papers and Daniel's voice in the background - 'You know, it's very possible that the Ancients-' and Landry, drowning him out.
They want her statement, her experience, her knowledge; they want to verify it's her and verify she's real and 'You have to come back, Dr. Weir,' General Hammond says over the phone. 'For your own sense of closure.'
Elizabeth pauses. John watches her. Hammond calls her name.
'How's this for closure?' she says, 'I quit.'
--
They have to rediscover everything.
Tones, glances, simple motions. They relearn to work together and relearn their lines; they have to remind themselves of where the boundaries are, and when they should be crossed. They relearn how to think, how to anticipate, how to read each other's minds.
Trust is built, his mother used to say.
They have to remember how to touch. How to feel. She traces the veins in his arms and he rubs his thumb over the pulse point on her wrist. They're both too thin and they're both too scared, but she grips his hand like she's staying and that's all that really matters - simple touches, small moments.
Slowly, they remember.
--
Slowly, they unravel.
They know it's inevitable, but it still catches them both by surprise - the heat, the bitterness; far-flung words that they'll later regret. Blame and guilt and Elizabeth cracks first, slamming the door when she leaves.
Booth finds her on his doorstep a day later, picking at a seam in her coat. She stays for a weekend, and if he notices tear stains on her pillow he says nothing, just waits.
It takes three days and a glass, broken by trembling hands, for her to talk - a patchwork of reasons and arguments and emotions that he doesn't really follow. As much as he knows her and knows people and knows love, there's a gap between her words and her pain that he doesn't quite understand.
'Do you love him?' he asks.
She shakes her head, but it isn't a negation. 'It's not that simple.'
'Why not?'
Her fingers tangle in the chain around her neck, and he wants to ask - wants to know where she goes when her eyes shadow and her head bows.
'What can I do?' he asks instead, and Elizabeth smiles wryly.
'Got a time machine?'
He chuckles. 'Nope,' he apologizes, then adds gently: 'But I've got a phone.'
--
'I'm sorry,' she breathes.
John nods. 'Me too.'
--
He looks up when she lays a hand on his shoulder. Natalie grins and holds out her arms and Elizabeth smiles, leaning over to return the small embrace. She kisses her forehead and brushes her hair and fusses with the blankets under her chin.
'Time for sleep,' she murmurs.
Natalie burrows deeper into the bed and yawns. 'Not tired,' she protests. John hides a smile.
--
In June of 2013, the President of the United States tells the world about a little program called Stargate; two days later she gets a phone call.
'I heard the most fascinating thing in the men's room yesterday,' he says without preamble.
Elizabeth blinks. 'Seeley?'
'Apparently, there's some legendary famous doctor lady involved in this whole alien thing. A Doctor Weird?'
'Funny,' she drawls.
'No, what's funny is that I think I know this lady. And in the twenty-two and half years that I've known her, not once has she ever mentioned to me the existence of extra-terrestrials.' Booth makes a tsk-tsk sound. 'And here I was, thinking we were friends! But I mean, come on - how can you not spill the beans on that one?'
'Seeley-'
'Even a little hint like, 'Oh, so you know Star Wars? Not that far-fetched. Or, here - talk to my foreign ally. He's from outer-space.'
'Okay, okay,' she laughs, 'point made.'
'I just have one question.'
Elizabeth sighs. 'What is it?'
'These aliens,' Booth says seriously. 'Do they play basketball?'
--
It doesn't take the press long to find them. The cameras make her anxious and the reporters make him bitter and they sneak out in the dead of night and don't tell anyone. John knows a guy who knows a guy and six hours later they're on a red-eye flight to Paris, and from there to Zagreb, and then on to Dubrovnik.
John gets them a room at a small, family-run hotel ten minutes from the Old City Walls. It's white and quaint and peaceful and they smile more, worry less.
When he kisses her for the first time (in a long time) three days later, it's on their hotel balcony overlooking the sea.
--
He doesn't think about it, ever, but he remembers the last time. Her skin was hot under his palms and his teeth left marks along her shoulder as he begged her - too harsh, too rough, too terrified for spoken words - to stay. The last time, three days before, and he swears sometimes when she looks at him, he can hear the glass shatter.
But for now, there's only calm. John draws light patterns against her stomach and trails soft kisses across her collarbone and wonders how he lived without this; her heartbeat is quick and firm and for a long moment he stills, listens. Like music, he thinks, and turns his lips to her skin; she shivers.
'You okay?'
Elizabeth closes her eyes. 'Yeah, just...haven't done this in a while.' She laughs breathlessly. 'A long, long while.'
John smiles, and it's even warmer than his touch. 'Slow?' he asks. Their legs tangle.
'Slow,' she murmurs.
He nods and kisses her deeply, his weight over her like a shield; his skin is soft, a balm on invisible wounds, improperly healed. Her arms hold him close, palms against his back, running her fingers along his spine, tangling in his hair.
'Elizabeth,' he breathes.
'Don't let go.'
He shakes his head and presses his lips to hers. 'Never.'
--
It's another close call, another end of the world, another daring stunt. He can hear Elizabeth's voice in his head as the 'jumper shudders and begins to fall. He tries not to think as he loses gravity, loses blood. The pain is nearly blinding and he tries not to think about Rodney and Ronon the city and just five more minutes, just five more-
And then she's there, leaning against the rear hatch, her arms folded across her chest. 'Always the hero,' she scolds affectionately.
John struggles with the controls as the compartment heats up.
'Does it ever occur to you to let someone else take the fall?'
'Funny,' he grunts.
She shrugs. 'Ironic.' In the next moment she's at his side, a soft hand on his shoulder that he swears he can feel. 'John, do you trust me?' she asks.
He glares sideways at her. 'You know, this really isn't a good time to-'
'Do you trust me?'
He hesitates. 'You know the answer to that.'
She smiles. 'Good.'
--
'You saved my life,' he tells her.
She shakes her head. 'I don't remember.'
He shrugs. 'You were in the 'jumper. You did something to the navigational systems that crashed me on a planet not far from Atlantis. The sensors picked up the signal a few days later.'
She swallows tightly, but it's an instinctual reaction to his life in jeopardy, not a memory. 'That was a close call.'
'Yeah.'
'John-'
He kisses her gently. 'You saved my life.'
--
'Sing to me?'
John rises and Elizabeth takes his place on the edge of the bed. He stands behind her silently and listens as she hums, a gentle, familiar melody. 'At night I go on board and say goodnight to all my friends on shore. I shut my eyes and sail away, and see and hear no more...'
Natalie turns her cheek into Elizabeth's hand, her eyes fighting to stay open. 'Volim te, mama,' she mumbles.
Elizabeth kisses her temple. 'Love you more.'
--
'Are we-' she tries; her voice wavers. She stares at her hands. 'Are we ready for this?'
John leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. 'I don't know.'
Elizabeth nods absently. 'Do you-'
He turns. 'What?'
'-want...this?'
The question is stilted and vulnerable. John looks at the floor. 'I always wanted kids,' he says honestly.
Elizabeth stares at him. 'But?'
He shakes his head. 'No buts, just...' He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. 'What do you want?' he asks, and tries to hold her gaze.
She bites her lip and looks away. 'I don't-'
'Yes,' he says, softer this time. 'You do. Elizabeth.'
'I want to be a good mother,' she admits.
'Then you will be,' he says, and his confidence makes her short of breath. He takes her hand. 'One day at a time.'
--
It begins with a ring.
A house in West Virginia.
The first snowfall of the year.
It begins in January, with her hand against her abdomen and the bathroom tiles stained red; it begins in July, with her first day teaching a university summer course on international affairs (with John slouched in the back-row, a secret she lets him keep); it begins in fall, with new students; in the following spring, with second chances.
It begins eight and a half months later, with ten fingers and ten toes and she isn't born on Christmas Day, but John says it fits, regardless, and knows his grandmother would be proud.
--
Booth's face splits into a huge grin as he leans in closer. 'Hey there, gorgeous!'
Elizabeth smiles. 'You want to hold her?'
'Is that even a question?' he asks distractedly, already in the process of prying the small bundle from her arms. Cradling her against his elbow, he bounces gently on his heels. 'Hi, Natalie,' he murmurs. 'I'm your God-dad. Pretty awesome, huh?'
Natalie blinks up at him.
'I bet you just have the cutest toes,' he fusses. 'You're gonna be a knock-out, just like Mom.'
At his left, Brennan tilts her head curiously. 'I didn't realize you were sexually attracted to Dr. Weir.'
Booth chokes slightly and glares. 'Bones,' he hisses, avoiding Elizabeth's amused gaze by focusing on making funny faces in attempt to get Natalie to laugh.
Brennan continues undeterred. 'What? She has a very symmetrical bone-' She stops abruptly and turns to Elizabeth. 'You have a very symmetrical bone structure.'
Elizabeth raises an eyebrow. 'Thank you?'
'It's very flattering,' she assures her, and Booth rolls his eyes. Brennan looks confused. 'What? I was simply pointing out that Dr. Weir's hip-to waist-ratio is probably very close to the average 0.7 that a majority of men find most sexually appealing.' She turns to Elizabeth. 'WHR conveys to males information about overall health and fertility. Given your age and your husband's war record and potential exposure to radiation and other toxins, it's really very impressive that you managed to conceive.'
'Bones,' Booth warns.
She pays no attention. 'And, given Mr. Sheppard's physical strength and obvious resilience, you and your husband probably have exceptionally satisfying intercourse.'
Elizabeth blinks, torn between blushing and laughing, and Booth glares at Brennan sharply. 'Bones!'
'What?'
He opens his mouth to explain, but decides it isn't worth the effort. Instead, he turns into her space and holds Natalie up in front of her. 'Here, look at the baby.'
'Why? I've seen babies before, Booth.'
'Yeah,' he grins, pretending to prop his chin up on Natalie's shoulder, 'but isn't this one really pretty?'
Brennan narrows her eyes. 'You're trying to distract me from harmless scientific observation.'
'Harmless and embarrassing,' he mutters, carefully bringing the baby back against his chest.
'Why is it embarrassing? Just because you have insecurity issues with your sexuality doesn't mean that-'
Booth's eyes widen and Elizabeth smothers a laugh. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, I am not sexually insecure, okay? We're talking about an entirely different - just - do that phalanxes thing,' he groans.
'Phalanges,' she corrects calmly.
'Whatever.'
Booth turns back to Elizabeth with an exasperated sigh. 'You see what I have to put up with?' he grouses, at the same time that Brennan wiggles her fingers, and Natalie laughs.
--
John begins all his stories with once upon a time.
He ends them with a kiss, and turns off the light.