My slightly late entry in femslash06.
Title: Venn Diagram
Author: C. L. Finn
Recipient: sarren
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Weir/Cadman
Summary: Sometimes she felt she was a circle of one.
It started after the Phoebus and Thelan incident. Being taken over by another consciousness, watching helplessly and silent as Phoebus had attacked her people and tried to kill John, was a horrific experience. But a part of Elizabeth had been fascinated to watch and feel her body move with such ease and take down highly trained Marines. That part of it had felt good, made her feel powerful, and she wanted more of that feeling.
When they returned from Earth, John had requested that all the civilians on Atlantis take some basic training in self-defense. He’d wanted Elizabeth to do it as well, but she’d managed to put it off indefinitely, never having enough time between one crisis and another to devote any time to it. So he was surprised when, a day after they got out of the infirmary, she asked him to set it up for her.
She’d been expecting Teyla or possibly Major Lorne as an instructor, but John had just grinned and told her Teyla taught the advanced class. And so it was that Elizabeth found herself in one of the gyms with Laura Cadman early every morning.
The first morning she showed up to find Laura dressed in sweat pants and a tank-top, hair in a tight braid, leaning against the opposite wall to stretch out her calves. She stopped and watched for a moment, impressed with the movement of muscles across Laura’s back and shoulders as she pushed back against the wall.
“Oh, Dr. Weir!” Laura startled when she caught sight of Elizabeth and lost her balance briefly, before catching herself and laughing. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry to startle you.” Elizabeth moved into the room and set her towel aside. “I appreciate you giving up your mornings to help me out, Lieutenant.”
“No problem, ma’am. It gets me out of helping Colonel Sheppard with his requisition forms, since my team’s grounded right now.”
Elizabeth nodded. Major Lorne’s team had been caught in a mudslide two days earlier and he’d dislocated his shoulder keeping Dr. Parrish from falling off a cliff.
“So, Colonel Sheppard said to start you off with some basics, then we can work on some more specialized hand-to-hand. Have you ever had any martial arts training, Dr. Weir?” Laura pulled off her dogtags and watch and tossed them on top of her towel.
“Yoga and a little tai chi years ago. And please, call me Elizabeth. If we’re going to be tossing each other around, we might as well be on a first name basis.”
It turned out that Elizabeth wasn’t as hopeless as she’d feared. The yoga she did every morning had kept her strong and limber and years of ballet had made it easy for her to break movement down to its components and imitate it. That didn’t keep her from ending up on the mat more times than not, but by the end of the first session she felt like it was something she could get a handle on.
*
Atlantis was a classic closed society, but within the expedition’s tight-knit group there were circles within circles, overlapping and intersecting, creating complex patterns of hierarchy and culture. Not just military and civilian, Marine and Air Force, hard science and soft science, but also ATA gene carriers and non-gene carriers, original expedition members and those who had come on the Daedalus.
Elizabeth was a part of several groups and she’d formed friendships with Teyla and Kate Heightmeyer, but sometimes she felt she was a circle of one. She didn’t suit up and go through the gate and she wasn’t helping make scientific breakthroughs down in the labs. She felt closest to John and Rodney, but their team, with Teyla and Ronon, had become a closed society unto itself. She’d always known that being in charge necessitated a certain amount of distance, but it didn’t stop her from occasional and brief bouts of jealousy at what they had.
The thing about her sessions with Laura was that they reminded her that not only did she feel a certain amount of emotional isolation in Atlantis, but that she also missed physical intimacy. Not just sex, but touch, contact with human flesh. She got plenty of that in her sessions and it was waking a need in her that she’d successfully ignored since she said goodbye to Simon.
It didn’t help that Laura was patient and funny and usually smelled like a combination of vanilla soap and gun oil. She’d started to really have fun in the gym and more mornings than not, they’d sprawl out on the floor while catching their breaths and cooling down afterward, and talk. They didn’t talk about the Wraith or the city, just chatted about random subjects, such as childhood dance classes.
It took almost two weeks, but the first time Elizabeth managed to knock Laura flat on her back and pin her to the floor, she laughed with joy at the accomplishment.
Laura grinned up at her and just said, “Nice,” and Elizabeth was instantly aware of the body under her, the breasts she was pressed against, and the thigh pressed up between her legs. They were both panting and it was loud in the quiet room, but neither of them moved. There was a loose strand of hair in Laura’s face and she blew a puff of air to get rid of it. Elizabeth felt the cool air on her cheek and it made her shiver and she let go of Laura’s hand, grazing her hand along the inside of Laura’s arm as she brought it down to brace herself.
Laura sucked in a breath and then was sliding out from under Elizabeth, moving away. Elizabeth sat up and watched her pace a circle around the room, looking at anything but her.
“You’re really getting the hang of it now,” Laura said finally, and picked up her watch, dogtags and towel. She turned back to look at Elizabeth and smiled nervously. “Major Lorne wants me on the gun range this morning, so I’ve got to run. I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.”
And she was gone before Elizabeth could say anything.
*
Once a month on Atlantis, they held a birthday party for all the people who’d had a birthday that month. It was an attempt at a measure of normality and an excuse to socialize as a whole group and let loose a little bit. There was usually cake and Athosian wine or ale procured from one of the planet’s they traded with. Sometimes there was music and dancing or movies on a jury-rigged giant screen. Last month there’d been an impromptu ping-pong tournament in one corner of the mess hall.
This month it was swing-dancing on one side of the room and poker on the other. Elizabeth always enjoyed the parties, but John had a habit of sneaking out early to relieve the Marines on duty. This time he’d taken Rodney with him and Elizabeth was left feeling a bit adrift., so she wandered out onto one of the city’s many balconies and watched the lights of the city reflect and move on the ocean’s surface.
She hadn’t seen Laura since she’d bolted from the gym that morning, and she was feeling unsettled and a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. When it came to women, Elizabeth had a knack for being attracted to the unattainable and inappropriate. There’d only been a few women in her past, but they’d included a married friend and Aminah, a Pakistani woman she’d worked with at the UN and fallen in love with. None of them had turned out well, and Laura Cadman was likely an even worse idea.
As if conjured by her thoughts, Elizabeth looked up at a sound to find Laura stepping outside and closing the balcony doors behind her. Elizabeth didn’t say anything, just watched her as she came over and leaned against the railing next to Elizabeth, close enough for their arms touch. She mirrored Elizabeth’s pose and looked out over the water.
“Nice night,” she said, and, “How’s it going?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath and turned towards her. “Laura, I’m incredibly sorry about this morning. I was inappropriate and. Well, I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.” Laura shook her head and laughed. “Well, you did, but that was my own little freak out. You have nothing to apologize for.” She turned her head then and looked Elizabeth in the eyes. “Really. Nothing at all.”
They looked at each other for a moment and Elizabeth tried to read Laura, tried to weigh her next words, but Laura must have seen what she wanted in Elizabeth’s face because she smiled and turned to look at the water again.
“There’s a minefield here,” Laura said, her voice low and intimate. “There are things that I can’t say and things I’m sure you shouldn’t do. But my grandfather used to tell me that occasionally foolishness is worth the trouble.”
“Laura.”
“No.” Laura moved her hand to stroke along Elizabeth’s hand once before standing up straight. “What I’m saying is this. My reaction this morning should not be taken as my answer to any proposition one might want to make. I would very much like a second opportunity. And I think it would be worth the trouble.” She stepped away and turned to look into the mess hall and then back to Elizabeth. “Right, so. I’m turning in early.”
With that, Laura turned around and walked back inside without a second glance. Elizabeth laughed. She was astounded and delighted at the charming and awkward offer and it made the laughter just bubble up inside of her. She turned back to the water, grinning.
Elizabeth stood there for another half an hour and cataloged all of the reasons that sex with Laura was a bad idea, all of the rules they’d be breaking, and the ways it could go horribly wrong. But she also thought about Laura’s pretty smile and pale skin, the smell of vanilla and gun oil and the feel of a muscular thigh between Elizabeth’s legs. She turned and looked into the mess hall, saw that John and Rodney had come back and were sitting around a table with Ronon and Teyla, laughing, leaning in towards each other like co-conspirators.
Most of Elizabeth’s life was about rules and protocol and compromise, but she thought for once she wanted to be just a little selfish, just a little out of control. She slipped out of the party easily and went back to her quarters to retrieve a bottle of red wine she’d brought from Earth and had been saving, then went to knock on Laura’s door.
Elizabeth didn’t think she’d have anything to be thankful to Phoebus for, but it seemed, in the end, that she did.
Author: C. L. Finn
Recipient: sarren
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Weir/Cadman
Summary: Sometimes she felt she was a circle of one.
It started after the Phoebus and Thelan incident. Being taken over by another consciousness, watching helplessly and silent as Phoebus had attacked her people and tried to kill John, was a horrific experience. But a part of Elizabeth had been fascinated to watch and feel her body move with such ease and take down highly trained Marines. That part of it had felt good, made her feel powerful, and she wanted more of that feeling.
When they returned from Earth, John had requested that all the civilians on Atlantis take some basic training in self-defense. He’d wanted Elizabeth to do it as well, but she’d managed to put it off indefinitely, never having enough time between one crisis and another to devote any time to it. So he was surprised when, a day after they got out of the infirmary, she asked him to set it up for her.
She’d been expecting Teyla or possibly Major Lorne as an instructor, but John had just grinned and told her Teyla taught the advanced class. And so it was that Elizabeth found herself in one of the gyms with Laura Cadman early every morning.
The first morning she showed up to find Laura dressed in sweat pants and a tank-top, hair in a tight braid, leaning against the opposite wall to stretch out her calves. She stopped and watched for a moment, impressed with the movement of muscles across Laura’s back and shoulders as she pushed back against the wall.
“Oh, Dr. Weir!” Laura startled when she caught sight of Elizabeth and lost her balance briefly, before catching herself and laughing. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry to startle you.” Elizabeth moved into the room and set her towel aside. “I appreciate you giving up your mornings to help me out, Lieutenant.”
“No problem, ma’am. It gets me out of helping Colonel Sheppard with his requisition forms, since my team’s grounded right now.”
Elizabeth nodded. Major Lorne’s team had been caught in a mudslide two days earlier and he’d dislocated his shoulder keeping Dr. Parrish from falling off a cliff.
“So, Colonel Sheppard said to start you off with some basics, then we can work on some more specialized hand-to-hand. Have you ever had any martial arts training, Dr. Weir?” Laura pulled off her dogtags and watch and tossed them on top of her towel.
“Yoga and a little tai chi years ago. And please, call me Elizabeth. If we’re going to be tossing each other around, we might as well be on a first name basis.”
It turned out that Elizabeth wasn’t as hopeless as she’d feared. The yoga she did every morning had kept her strong and limber and years of ballet had made it easy for her to break movement down to its components and imitate it. That didn’t keep her from ending up on the mat more times than not, but by the end of the first session she felt like it was something she could get a handle on.
*
Atlantis was a classic closed society, but within the expedition’s tight-knit group there were circles within circles, overlapping and intersecting, creating complex patterns of hierarchy and culture. Not just military and civilian, Marine and Air Force, hard science and soft science, but also ATA gene carriers and non-gene carriers, original expedition members and those who had come on the Daedalus.
Elizabeth was a part of several groups and she’d formed friendships with Teyla and Kate Heightmeyer, but sometimes she felt she was a circle of one. She didn’t suit up and go through the gate and she wasn’t helping make scientific breakthroughs down in the labs. She felt closest to John and Rodney, but their team, with Teyla and Ronon, had become a closed society unto itself. She’d always known that being in charge necessitated a certain amount of distance, but it didn’t stop her from occasional and brief bouts of jealousy at what they had.
The thing about her sessions with Laura was that they reminded her that not only did she feel a certain amount of emotional isolation in Atlantis, but that she also missed physical intimacy. Not just sex, but touch, contact with human flesh. She got plenty of that in her sessions and it was waking a need in her that she’d successfully ignored since she said goodbye to Simon.
It didn’t help that Laura was patient and funny and usually smelled like a combination of vanilla soap and gun oil. She’d started to really have fun in the gym and more mornings than not, they’d sprawl out on the floor while catching their breaths and cooling down afterward, and talk. They didn’t talk about the Wraith or the city, just chatted about random subjects, such as childhood dance classes.
It took almost two weeks, but the first time Elizabeth managed to knock Laura flat on her back and pin her to the floor, she laughed with joy at the accomplishment.
Laura grinned up at her and just said, “Nice,” and Elizabeth was instantly aware of the body under her, the breasts she was pressed against, and the thigh pressed up between her legs. They were both panting and it was loud in the quiet room, but neither of them moved. There was a loose strand of hair in Laura’s face and she blew a puff of air to get rid of it. Elizabeth felt the cool air on her cheek and it made her shiver and she let go of Laura’s hand, grazing her hand along the inside of Laura’s arm as she brought it down to brace herself.
Laura sucked in a breath and then was sliding out from under Elizabeth, moving away. Elizabeth sat up and watched her pace a circle around the room, looking at anything but her.
“You’re really getting the hang of it now,” Laura said finally, and picked up her watch, dogtags and towel. She turned back to look at Elizabeth and smiled nervously. “Major Lorne wants me on the gun range this morning, so I’ve got to run. I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.”
And she was gone before Elizabeth could say anything.
*
Once a month on Atlantis, they held a birthday party for all the people who’d had a birthday that month. It was an attempt at a measure of normality and an excuse to socialize as a whole group and let loose a little bit. There was usually cake and Athosian wine or ale procured from one of the planet’s they traded with. Sometimes there was music and dancing or movies on a jury-rigged giant screen. Last month there’d been an impromptu ping-pong tournament in one corner of the mess hall.
This month it was swing-dancing on one side of the room and poker on the other. Elizabeth always enjoyed the parties, but John had a habit of sneaking out early to relieve the Marines on duty. This time he’d taken Rodney with him and Elizabeth was left feeling a bit adrift., so she wandered out onto one of the city’s many balconies and watched the lights of the city reflect and move on the ocean’s surface.
She hadn’t seen Laura since she’d bolted from the gym that morning, and she was feeling unsettled and a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. When it came to women, Elizabeth had a knack for being attracted to the unattainable and inappropriate. There’d only been a few women in her past, but they’d included a married friend and Aminah, a Pakistani woman she’d worked with at the UN and fallen in love with. None of them had turned out well, and Laura Cadman was likely an even worse idea.
As if conjured by her thoughts, Elizabeth looked up at a sound to find Laura stepping outside and closing the balcony doors behind her. Elizabeth didn’t say anything, just watched her as she came over and leaned against the railing next to Elizabeth, close enough for their arms touch. She mirrored Elizabeth’s pose and looked out over the water.
“Nice night,” she said, and, “How’s it going?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath and turned towards her. “Laura, I’m incredibly sorry about this morning. I was inappropriate and. Well, I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.” Laura shook her head and laughed. “Well, you did, but that was my own little freak out. You have nothing to apologize for.” She turned her head then and looked Elizabeth in the eyes. “Really. Nothing at all.”
They looked at each other for a moment and Elizabeth tried to read Laura, tried to weigh her next words, but Laura must have seen what she wanted in Elizabeth’s face because she smiled and turned to look at the water again.
“There’s a minefield here,” Laura said, her voice low and intimate. “There are things that I can’t say and things I’m sure you shouldn’t do. But my grandfather used to tell me that occasionally foolishness is worth the trouble.”
“Laura.”
“No.” Laura moved her hand to stroke along Elizabeth’s hand once before standing up straight. “What I’m saying is this. My reaction this morning should not be taken as my answer to any proposition one might want to make. I would very much like a second opportunity. And I think it would be worth the trouble.” She stepped away and turned to look into the mess hall and then back to Elizabeth. “Right, so. I’m turning in early.”
With that, Laura turned around and walked back inside without a second glance. Elizabeth laughed. She was astounded and delighted at the charming and awkward offer and it made the laughter just bubble up inside of her. She turned back to the water, grinning.
Elizabeth stood there for another half an hour and cataloged all of the reasons that sex with Laura was a bad idea, all of the rules they’d be breaking, and the ways it could go horribly wrong. But she also thought about Laura’s pretty smile and pale skin, the smell of vanilla and gun oil and the feel of a muscular thigh between Elizabeth’s legs. She turned and looked into the mess hall, saw that John and Rodney had come back and were sitting around a table with Ronon and Teyla, laughing, leaning in towards each other like co-conspirators.
Most of Elizabeth’s life was about rules and protocol and compromise, but she thought for once she wanted to be just a little selfish, just a little out of control. She slipped out of the party easily and went back to her quarters to retrieve a bottle of red wine she’d brought from Earth and had been saving, then went to knock on Laura’s door.
Elizabeth didn’t think she’d have anything to be thankful to Phoebus for, but it seemed, in the end, that she did.