Ignore the Possibility - August 5th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 5
Title: Ignore the Possibility
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Faith gets into a fight.
Notes: Part 5 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 1
Word Count: 2260
Faith looked out onto the city. She had never had to tell anyone the truth about being the Slayer. No one had ever needed to know and no one had ever really cared. In six years…people had just known her as the dark Slayer. They had judged her for her past, her crimes. And she had taken that role for what it was. It was easier to be seen as dark, to embrace the shadows. Which was better than her mother labeling her a mistake and the string of abusive men…
She shook her head, to rid herself of the thoughts.
Someone walked out onto the balcony, then paused.
“I’m sorry,” a voice said suddenly. “I didn’t know anyone was out here.”
“I don’t object to sharing,” Faith said, not willing to admit she was sick of her own thoughts.
The woman gave a small smile. “I am Teyla Emmagan.”
“I’ve seen you around. You’re one of the leaders alongside Halling.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Faith.”
Teyla seemed to recognize the name and nodded slowly.
“Heard of me?”
“I heard someone saying that you are the sister of Major Sheppard.”
Faith’s lips flattened. “We didn’t know until the other day,” she admitted. “Good to know that scientists and military gossip as much as Slayers.”
“You do not seem pleased.”
“It’s not that. I don’t have much luck with family or guys. He’s both.”
“I don’t understand.”
Faith tilted her head. “In the course of my duties, I killed someone, and I was imprisoned for it.”
“For what reason?” Teyla asked, still curious and nonjudgmental.
“On my planet, there are things like the Wraith.”
“Your brother said he had never heard of anything like the Wraith.”
“They aren’t Wraith exactly, but there are a lot of different demons. Most humans…they go their whole lives without ever knowing about them.”
“And yet, you do.”
“I was destined to fight the demons. I have powers that make me stronger and faster, so that I was a match for them.” She shrugged. “I thought someone was a demon and I killed him. It was an accident, but I was in the wrong and I went to prison for it.”
“Yet you are here, on Atlantis.”
Faith nodded. That was the important thing, the President did believe she deserved to be pardoned. Enough that he sent her to Atlantis instead of just demanding her arrest. So maybe what she had accomplished meant…something good.
“Do you spar?” Teyla asked.
“I love to spar,” Faith admitted.
“There is an area that has been designated as a practice space. I believe we could spar there.”
88888888
John hated reports. Writing them, reading them, deciphering the science. He wasn’t a stupid man, but sometimes he really wished he was. He had spent the last two days getting guard rotations going. The planet they were on had a twenty-eight hour day. They were seeing some issues with that. Fourteen hour shifts were too long, but seven hours was too many shifts.
Not to mention, Weir was determined that by the end of the month they would start missions. He needed to assign teams and work out issues between military and science members. Unluckily for him, Doctor Rodney McKay was going to be on his team…maybe he could play on some of their sympathy of having to put up with McKay and his constant negativity and whining.
There was also Teyla and the Athosians. They were a spiritual people, farmers and traders who had little to do on Atlantis. So far they were packed off to one side. They tried to keep them out from underfoot, but it was not nearly as successful as Weir had hoped.
Then there was Faith, she seemed to have taken to Beckett and Zelenka, often found in the infirmary or the labs. He was pretty sure she spoke Czech or something similar, given what she and Zelenka had been discussing at dinner the other night. The Athosian Halling had gifted her a black tunic for her help setting up their camps. It was sleeveless, lacing in the front and riding above her belly button. It showed off her very muscular arms and several tattoos. She wore if often. One night, he had overheard her telling the Athosian children a story about one of the tattoos.
A commotion outside of his door made him give up on his reports and check it out. He walked down the hall, following the sound. John waded through the gathered crowd to reach the front of the spectators. Two women were fighting, fast and furious. Their sticks hitting with such force that it made his hands ache in sympathy. But they did not stop or even slow. In fact, it seemed they were speeding up.
Then one of them got in a direct hit.
The dark haired woman spun with the force of it and landed on the far side of the space. He recognized Teyla as the woman still standing. Her chest was heaving and sweat glistened over her face and arms.
“Fuck,” the fallen party muttered from the floor.
Teyla relaxed her stance and approached. “Are you okay?”
Faith nodded as she got to her feet. “You’re good. I haven’t had my clock cleaned like that in a fair fight since B and I were enemies.”
“You’re bleeding,” Teyla noted, unconcerned.
Faith dabbed her right eyebrow.
“You should go to the infirmary,” John found himself saying.
“Nah,” Faith replied, still hopped up from the fight. “It’ll heal in a few hours.”
“Are you certain?” Teyla asked.
“We have to do that again,” Faith said.
Teyla smiled. “It was a vigorous workout. I would be pleased to spar with you again.”
Faith grabbed her messenger bag and left the gym. John and Teyla watched her go.
“Your sister is a skilled fighter,” Teyla told him as she put away her rods.
“Don’t call her that,” John said with distaste.
“She is an impressive young woman.”
“You don’t know anything about her,” he said.
Teyla studied him. “It was an accident, one that could have happened to anyone.”
John took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m handling this right.”
“Then at least you have that in common,” Teyla said serenely. “Perhaps, it is a place to start.”
He gave her a tight smile.
88888888
When John found Faith, she was seated at a table with two scientists and four Marines. The men were talking over each other, telling her about something that had happened at the SGC. Faith was grinning but it did not look anything like what he had seen her give Beckett or Zelenka. In fact, her body language was all wrong. He would bet she wanted another bantos rod to make them go away.
“Gentlemen,” John said, “clear out.”
There was a moment where the men looked at Faith, but she did not fight his order. Slowly, they all took their trays and left the table. She relaxed a fraction.
John stepped forward. “Mind if I sit?”
She waved to the seat. He saw the tension return to her frame. This must have been how she ended up with so much company she clearly didn’t want. She just didn’t object.
He set his tray down and sat down across from her. He did not speak, just focusing on his food. After a minute, she did the same. They were nearly done when John straightened. “That was an interesting fight with Teyla.”
Faith smiled genuinely. “She’s amazing. And I’ve fought a lot of women who know how to fight.”
“In prison?” he asked.
She let the smile fall away. “Had a few fights in prison. But mostly I was talking about the girls I taught and the ones I learned from.”
“You taught girls to fight?”
Faith set her silverware down. “I’m going to owe B an apology after this, it’s harder to do than I thought.” She looked John in the eye. “Earth is lousy with demons and vampires. Since before the pyramids, there has been a girl who fought against them. One girl at a time for thousands of years. They were fast, they were strong, and they alone possessed the power and the destiny to stop the darkness. All the way down to me.”
He frowned. “Demons and vampires.”
“You asked.” She did not wait, picking up her tray and leaving the table.
John stared after her. Was she crazy? Then again Wraith…
88888888
Carson looked up as John entered the infirmary just before lunch. “Major, what can I do for you?”
John opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. His jaw clenched and then he managed, “Has Faith had a psych eval?”
“No.” Carson set down the tablet. “Why?”
“She said something…I just wondered.”
“Did Faith tell you about the Slayer?”
John frowned. “She told you?”
“Yes. Some of her history didn’t line up with her scans. She said it was because she healed so fast since she was seventeen.” Carson grabbed his tablet and changed the patient file. “So here,” he zoomed in. “She had a knife injury that resulted in the loss of her ovary and fallopian tube. Thing it, externally, there is no sign of the injury or the surgery. She has dozens of scars and remodeling that comes from all manner of other injuries but all of them from before she hit puberty.”
John slowly looked over the scans, the noted calcification of bones, documented scars. There were so many of them. “Was she in a lot of fights? Taekwondo?”
Carson’s lips pressed together in anger. “No.”
“Abuse,” John concluded.
“Yes. And not limited to physical.”
John took a deep breath through his nose and set it down. “What does this have to do with her claim of being this Slayer?”
“I was skeptical too, Major. But she can lift hundreds of pounds like it weighs nothing and she moves at speeds only recorded during SG-1’s Tok’ra bracelet mission. She’s extraordinary. Though she claims its all part of the supernatural abilities, gained without training or augmentation. The scans conclude no symbiote, no nanites, nothing that would explain her abilities. Even her bloodwork says she should heal at a rate equal to other healthy twenty-three year olds, but she heals in a few hours. I’ve seen it.”
John nodded and left the infirmary.
88888888
“You knew,” John said.
“Carson and I had discussed,” Weir informed him. “We decided that as much as the head of military personnel needed to know, this may have been better handled at the family level first.”
“It’s…”
“She’s been through a lot.” Weir set the folder on the edge of the desk. “The President was going to try and expunge this, he believed she had done something that meant her murder of a man should be forgiven. The question is, do we believe that it matters here?”
“She killed someone.”
“Yes. In the context of a war no one talks about on Earth. A war fought by girls who can’t even legally drink.” She laced her fingers together on her desk. “The person I was when I was seventeen, I can’t imagine that I would know what to do with that power, or even be able to control myself.”
John had been angry at seventeen, counting the days until he could get out from under his father’s roof. Planning to go to Stanford…but that was normal people stuff, not demons and vampires. He grabbed the file off the desk and opened it, reading it again with the new knowledge he had of Faith.
“Doctor Beckett started a file on Faith, I’ve been waiting to add that to it.”
He snapped the folder shut. “I am sorry to report that the only known copy of this file was destroyed without ever being added to her records.”
Weir grinned. “I’m not terribly worried. I’m sure it wasn’t anything important.”
He stood. “Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for, John.”
He gave her a nod and left her office with the file.
88888888
Faith laughed, listening to Radek complain in Czech about Doctor McKay.
“Wait,” she said, “I missed that.” She repeated the word she had not understood.
He translated it, ducking his head back into the computer he was working on.
Her laugh echoed off the walls. “Well said,” she told him in Russian.
Someone cleared their throat from the door. Radek started, hitting his head on the console. He adjusted his glasses. “Major Sheppard.”
“I need to talk to Faith,” John said.
“We’ll pick this up later,” Radek assured her.
Faith stood and followed him out of the potential lab. They walked for a while in one direction, coming out at one of the piers.
“You know Czech?”
“I know Russian, which shares a fair amount of lexicon with Czech. Radek is teaching me.”
“Where did you learn Russian?”
She debated being vague but replied. “Prison. My cellmate was Russian mob.”
He nodded. “Speaking of you serving time…” He held out the folder to her. “Weir and I have decided, in light of what we know and what we weren’t told before we left Earth, and the reason the President sent you here…this file never made it here. The file Beckett created will be the official word on you.”
Faith look the folder and opened it. It was nothing but basic info, her mugshot, rap sheet, and fugitive flyer.
He started past her.
“Major, why?” she asked.
“I may not believe in the supernatural, but I’d be a fool to ignore the possibility,” he told her. “And call me John.”
Title: Ignore the Possibility
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Faith gets into a fight.
Notes: Part 5 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 1
Word Count: 2260
Faith looked out onto the city. She had never had to tell anyone the truth about being the Slayer. No one had ever needed to know and no one had ever really cared. In six years…people had just known her as the dark Slayer. They had judged her for her past, her crimes. And she had taken that role for what it was. It was easier to be seen as dark, to embrace the shadows. Which was better than her mother labeling her a mistake and the string of abusive men…
She shook her head, to rid herself of the thoughts.
Someone walked out onto the balcony, then paused.
“I’m sorry,” a voice said suddenly. “I didn’t know anyone was out here.”
“I don’t object to sharing,” Faith said, not willing to admit she was sick of her own thoughts.
The woman gave a small smile. “I am Teyla Emmagan.”
“I’ve seen you around. You’re one of the leaders alongside Halling.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Faith.”
Teyla seemed to recognize the name and nodded slowly.
“Heard of me?”
“I heard someone saying that you are the sister of Major Sheppard.”
Faith’s lips flattened. “We didn’t know until the other day,” she admitted. “Good to know that scientists and military gossip as much as Slayers.”
“You do not seem pleased.”
“It’s not that. I don’t have much luck with family or guys. He’s both.”
“I don’t understand.”
Faith tilted her head. “In the course of my duties, I killed someone, and I was imprisoned for it.”
“For what reason?” Teyla asked, still curious and nonjudgmental.
“On my planet, there are things like the Wraith.”
“Your brother said he had never heard of anything like the Wraith.”
“They aren’t Wraith exactly, but there are a lot of different demons. Most humans…they go their whole lives without ever knowing about them.”
“And yet, you do.”
“I was destined to fight the demons. I have powers that make me stronger and faster, so that I was a match for them.” She shrugged. “I thought someone was a demon and I killed him. It was an accident, but I was in the wrong and I went to prison for it.”
“Yet you are here, on Atlantis.”
Faith nodded. That was the important thing, the President did believe she deserved to be pardoned. Enough that he sent her to Atlantis instead of just demanding her arrest. So maybe what she had accomplished meant…something good.
“Do you spar?” Teyla asked.
“I love to spar,” Faith admitted.
“There is an area that has been designated as a practice space. I believe we could spar there.”
88888888
John hated reports. Writing them, reading them, deciphering the science. He wasn’t a stupid man, but sometimes he really wished he was. He had spent the last two days getting guard rotations going. The planet they were on had a twenty-eight hour day. They were seeing some issues with that. Fourteen hour shifts were too long, but seven hours was too many shifts.
Not to mention, Weir was determined that by the end of the month they would start missions. He needed to assign teams and work out issues between military and science members. Unluckily for him, Doctor Rodney McKay was going to be on his team…maybe he could play on some of their sympathy of having to put up with McKay and his constant negativity and whining.
There was also Teyla and the Athosians. They were a spiritual people, farmers and traders who had little to do on Atlantis. So far they were packed off to one side. They tried to keep them out from underfoot, but it was not nearly as successful as Weir had hoped.
Then there was Faith, she seemed to have taken to Beckett and Zelenka, often found in the infirmary or the labs. He was pretty sure she spoke Czech or something similar, given what she and Zelenka had been discussing at dinner the other night. The Athosian Halling had gifted her a black tunic for her help setting up their camps. It was sleeveless, lacing in the front and riding above her belly button. It showed off her very muscular arms and several tattoos. She wore if often. One night, he had overheard her telling the Athosian children a story about one of the tattoos.
A commotion outside of his door made him give up on his reports and check it out. He walked down the hall, following the sound. John waded through the gathered crowd to reach the front of the spectators. Two women were fighting, fast and furious. Their sticks hitting with such force that it made his hands ache in sympathy. But they did not stop or even slow. In fact, it seemed they were speeding up.
Then one of them got in a direct hit.
The dark haired woman spun with the force of it and landed on the far side of the space. He recognized Teyla as the woman still standing. Her chest was heaving and sweat glistened over her face and arms.
“Fuck,” the fallen party muttered from the floor.
Teyla relaxed her stance and approached. “Are you okay?”
Faith nodded as she got to her feet. “You’re good. I haven’t had my clock cleaned like that in a fair fight since B and I were enemies.”
“You’re bleeding,” Teyla noted, unconcerned.
Faith dabbed her right eyebrow.
“You should go to the infirmary,” John found himself saying.
“Nah,” Faith replied, still hopped up from the fight. “It’ll heal in a few hours.”
“Are you certain?” Teyla asked.
“We have to do that again,” Faith said.
Teyla smiled. “It was a vigorous workout. I would be pleased to spar with you again.”
Faith grabbed her messenger bag and left the gym. John and Teyla watched her go.
“Your sister is a skilled fighter,” Teyla told him as she put away her rods.
“Don’t call her that,” John said with distaste.
“She is an impressive young woman.”
“You don’t know anything about her,” he said.
Teyla studied him. “It was an accident, one that could have happened to anyone.”
John took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m handling this right.”
“Then at least you have that in common,” Teyla said serenely. “Perhaps, it is a place to start.”
He gave her a tight smile.
88888888
When John found Faith, she was seated at a table with two scientists and four Marines. The men were talking over each other, telling her about something that had happened at the SGC. Faith was grinning but it did not look anything like what he had seen her give Beckett or Zelenka. In fact, her body language was all wrong. He would bet she wanted another bantos rod to make them go away.
“Gentlemen,” John said, “clear out.”
There was a moment where the men looked at Faith, but she did not fight his order. Slowly, they all took their trays and left the table. She relaxed a fraction.
John stepped forward. “Mind if I sit?”
She waved to the seat. He saw the tension return to her frame. This must have been how she ended up with so much company she clearly didn’t want. She just didn’t object.
He set his tray down and sat down across from her. He did not speak, just focusing on his food. After a minute, she did the same. They were nearly done when John straightened. “That was an interesting fight with Teyla.”
Faith smiled genuinely. “She’s amazing. And I’ve fought a lot of women who know how to fight.”
“In prison?” he asked.
She let the smile fall away. “Had a few fights in prison. But mostly I was talking about the girls I taught and the ones I learned from.”
“You taught girls to fight?”
Faith set her silverware down. “I’m going to owe B an apology after this, it’s harder to do than I thought.” She looked John in the eye. “Earth is lousy with demons and vampires. Since before the pyramids, there has been a girl who fought against them. One girl at a time for thousands of years. They were fast, they were strong, and they alone possessed the power and the destiny to stop the darkness. All the way down to me.”
He frowned. “Demons and vampires.”
“You asked.” She did not wait, picking up her tray and leaving the table.
John stared after her. Was she crazy? Then again Wraith…
88888888
Carson looked up as John entered the infirmary just before lunch. “Major, what can I do for you?”
John opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. His jaw clenched and then he managed, “Has Faith had a psych eval?”
“No.” Carson set down the tablet. “Why?”
“She said something…I just wondered.”
“Did Faith tell you about the Slayer?”
John frowned. “She told you?”
“Yes. Some of her history didn’t line up with her scans. She said it was because she healed so fast since she was seventeen.” Carson grabbed his tablet and changed the patient file. “So here,” he zoomed in. “She had a knife injury that resulted in the loss of her ovary and fallopian tube. Thing it, externally, there is no sign of the injury or the surgery. She has dozens of scars and remodeling that comes from all manner of other injuries but all of them from before she hit puberty.”
John slowly looked over the scans, the noted calcification of bones, documented scars. There were so many of them. “Was she in a lot of fights? Taekwondo?”
Carson’s lips pressed together in anger. “No.”
“Abuse,” John concluded.
“Yes. And not limited to physical.”
John took a deep breath through his nose and set it down. “What does this have to do with her claim of being this Slayer?”
“I was skeptical too, Major. But she can lift hundreds of pounds like it weighs nothing and she moves at speeds only recorded during SG-1’s Tok’ra bracelet mission. She’s extraordinary. Though she claims its all part of the supernatural abilities, gained without training or augmentation. The scans conclude no symbiote, no nanites, nothing that would explain her abilities. Even her bloodwork says she should heal at a rate equal to other healthy twenty-three year olds, but she heals in a few hours. I’ve seen it.”
John nodded and left the infirmary.
88888888
“You knew,” John said.
“Carson and I had discussed,” Weir informed him. “We decided that as much as the head of military personnel needed to know, this may have been better handled at the family level first.”
“It’s…”
“She’s been through a lot.” Weir set the folder on the edge of the desk. “The President was going to try and expunge this, he believed she had done something that meant her murder of a man should be forgiven. The question is, do we believe that it matters here?”
“She killed someone.”
“Yes. In the context of a war no one talks about on Earth. A war fought by girls who can’t even legally drink.” She laced her fingers together on her desk. “The person I was when I was seventeen, I can’t imagine that I would know what to do with that power, or even be able to control myself.”
John had been angry at seventeen, counting the days until he could get out from under his father’s roof. Planning to go to Stanford…but that was normal people stuff, not demons and vampires. He grabbed the file off the desk and opened it, reading it again with the new knowledge he had of Faith.
“Doctor Beckett started a file on Faith, I’ve been waiting to add that to it.”
He snapped the folder shut. “I am sorry to report that the only known copy of this file was destroyed without ever being added to her records.”
Weir grinned. “I’m not terribly worried. I’m sure it wasn’t anything important.”
He stood. “Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for, John.”
He gave her a nod and left her office with the file.
88888888
Faith laughed, listening to Radek complain in Czech about Doctor McKay.
“Wait,” she said, “I missed that.” She repeated the word she had not understood.
He translated it, ducking his head back into the computer he was working on.
Her laugh echoed off the walls. “Well said,” she told him in Russian.
Someone cleared their throat from the door. Radek started, hitting his head on the console. He adjusted his glasses. “Major Sheppard.”
“I need to talk to Faith,” John said.
“We’ll pick this up later,” Radek assured her.
Faith stood and followed him out of the potential lab. They walked for a while in one direction, coming out at one of the piers.
“You know Czech?”
“I know Russian, which shares a fair amount of lexicon with Czech. Radek is teaching me.”
“Where did you learn Russian?”
She debated being vague but replied. “Prison. My cellmate was Russian mob.”
He nodded. “Speaking of you serving time…” He held out the folder to her. “Weir and I have decided, in light of what we know and what we weren’t told before we left Earth, and the reason the President sent you here…this file never made it here. The file Beckett created will be the official word on you.”
Faith look the folder and opened it. It was nothing but basic info, her mugshot, rap sheet, and fugitive flyer.
He started past her.
“Major, why?” she asked.
“I may not believe in the supernatural, but I’d be a fool to ignore the possibility,” he told her. “And call me John.”