Women of Their Time - August 7th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 7
Title: Women of Their Time
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 fields some questions and gets a chance to spread her wings.
Notes: Part 7 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 1
Word Count: 2625
“I’m going to deck Bates,” Faith announced as she walked into the infirmary.
“That’s premeditation, lass,” Carson reminded her.
“Damnit,” she muttered.
“What has he done this time?”
“Well, apparently I’m non-base personnel, so I’m supposed to be confined to quarters and he still has someone following me around.” She looked at him. “And none of the Athosians are allowed in here without an escort.”
He grimaced. “I had heard.” He looked at her in curiosity. “How did you get here if you’re supposed to be confined to quarters?”
“I did break out of prison, this place is a cinch.”
Carson shook his head. “You’re making more work for yourself.”
“He’s a pain in the ass,” she argued.
“And more work for your brother,” he reminded her.
Faith deflated slightly at that. Since the Iratus bug, John had gone out of his way to see that she was getting what she needed to join Atlantis as a useful team member. She had sailed through Atlantis’s version of basic training and was getting a crash course as a combat medic. In a month she would test with Clare and Carson.
“So you’re saying I should go back to my room and beg permission to have Bates allow me to come and study?”
Carson’s lips quirked. “I don’t think you’d lower yourself to begging, lass, but asking may be better than eloping.”
“Since I’m already here…”
“Go ahead, Clare has everything setup for you.”
88888888
John considered his two passengers in the Jumper. Aiden had asked to tagalong as he scouted the planet. Then he had casually suggested bringing Faith. He wondered for a moment if there was something there, but Faith was ill-at-ease around anyone except Carson and Radek. Even himself, Weir, and Teyla seemed to make her guarded.
“You know, we still haven’t name the planet yet,” Aiden noted.
“I’m sure the Ancients have a name for it,” John said.
“How about “Atlantica” or something like that?”
Faith raised an eyebrow.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to name anything anymore,” John reminded him.
“The planet is called Lantea,” Faith told them.
Both turned to look at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I found the solar system map for this region.”
“And you just kept it to yourself?” Aiden asked.
“I flagged it for review but there are thousands of flagged details and only a handful of scientists focused on each type.”
“Wait,” said Aiden, “I thought the problem was the database is still in Ancient.”
She shrugged. “I can read a few languages. Learned Latin when I was fourteen. Once someone explained how to translate…it was pretty easy.”
“Did you know this?” Aiden asked John.
“Not at all.”
There was a whole ninety seconds of comfortable silence.
“Was it bad - prison?”
“Ford,” John snapped.
Faith answered anyway. “Three square meals a day, the occasional movie and quiet.” She shrugged.
“Why’d you break out?”
“To stop a friend from doing something he couldn’t come back from - again. He saved me, I owed him.”
“Enough to risk life as a fugitive?”
She nodded. “In a second.”
John wondered what kind of loyalty it took to make her risk anything for someone else. Or what this friend had done to earn her trust.
The HUD chirped, distracting them.
“Is that land?” Ford asked John.
“Yes,” John said in amazement.
“I wonder how big it is.”
“Big.”
“Really big.”
88888888
Faith stood in the conference room with John and Aiden, as they explained to Weir and Bates about the land they had found.
“It’s huge,” Aiden said in summation.
“Define ‘huge,’” McKay requested.
“Fifteen million square miles,” John said. “Give or take.”
“That would make it approximately the size of…” McKay frowned.
“Asia,” Faith answered. They all looked at her in surprise.
“How long would it take to get there?” Weir asked.
“Twenty-five minutes by Jumper, ground to ground. I saw some sweet breakers on the south tip,” John said excitedly. “There may be surfing in our future.”
“We should send a team to get soil and water samples,” Bates suggested.
“He’s right,” McKay agreed. “If the land’s arable, it could solve a lot of our food production problems.”
“Actually, I was thinking of something else.”
“Not surfing?” John guessed.
“No, sir. We can’t resume off-world missions as long as the Athosians remain in the city.”
“So you want to dump ‘em on the mainland?”
“It looked pretty wild down there,” Aiden cautioned.
“A second ago,” Bates snapped, “we were going surfing.”
“Well, that was after we check for monsters and bugs and other space-related things,” John yelled.
“Actually,” Faith cut in, “the Athosians should be offered the mainland.”
He turned to look at her in disbelief.
“They’re farmers and skilled tradesmen. Here on Atlantis they can’t be either of those things.” She looked at Weir. “At least offering it to them as a home, with the protection of Atlantis and a trade agreement for whatever food they grow and supplies they need…it’s what they prefer to being held captive.”
“They aren’t being held captive,” John said.
“I had more freedom in prison than I or the Athosians have on Atlantis right now,” she told him.
88888888
“Slowly,” John cautioned, fighting every instinct to grab the controls. Faith was taking her first test flight in the Puddle Jumper.
She grinned, telling the Jumper to travel straight along the path they had marked from the previous trip. She looked at John out of the corner of her eye. “Why the Air Force?”
“People who don’t want to fly are nuts,” he replied.
Faith nodded. “I think I’m going to have to agree.”
“Really?”
“I’ve always been earthbound.”
“Surely you’ve been on a plane.”
She shook her head. “Nope. I grew up in Boston, my mom barely made enough to keep the lights on. And her boyfriends were never terribly bright or helpful, so the parade of men never made a difference in her finances. My Watcher took me to New York.”
“You’ve been to California and Cleveland and Colorado Springs.”
“Hitchhiked to California,” she admitted. “We drove a bus to Cleveland. And I got to Denver by portal and then bus to Cheyenne Mountain.”
“You hitchhiked to California?”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she told him. “I was seventeen and alone.”
“I thought you were in jail in California.”
“I was, that’s where everything happened. Boston was where a vampire killed my Watcher - and I ran.”
“Hitchhiking couldn’t have been safe.”
“John,” she said, looking over at him, “you don’t want to know.” Her eyes quickly darted back to the sky.
The more he learned about her past, the more he wanted to beat the hell out of every man who had ever come into contact with her. The more he wanted to shake his father and ask why he hadn’t done something. She would have been born months after John’s mom died. Even if he had waited a year or two, anything had to be better than the life she had been left to.
“Are you the Slayer because of all the things that happened to you?” John asked.
Faith chuckled. “That would be too easy, only the damaged being Slayers. But we’ve been everything through time: paupers, queens, slaves, explorers, warriors, and everyday women of their time.”
He nodded. “Landing site is coming up,” he said.
“I see it,” she assured him. She maneuvered the Jumper expertly, landing without a problem. It shut down under her command. She moved to the back and opened the door. Athosians were already waiting to receive their supplies.
“This should be the last trip of supplies,” Halling said as he approached them.
“It is,” John assured. “If Faith’s flight back is as smooth as the flight here, we’ll both start flying your people out, should take less than two hours between the two of us.”
Halling nodded. “We are grateful.”
“Is the soil as rich as you suspected?” Faith asked as she hauled a heavy crate onto her shoulder.
“Yes. It should be superb farmland.” He frowned. “Your Lieutenant Cameron was most excited with the prospect of something called sweet potatoes.”
“Southern boys,” Faith said with a roll of her eyes.
88888888
John and Faith were halfway back to Atlantis when he looked at her. “Why do you trust Beckett and Zelenka, but you view every other person as a threat?”
Faith sighed. “Radek can’t hurt me. And sometimes I don’t think he even realizes that I’m female.” She tilted her head. “Cason reminds me of B’s Watcher, he loved her like a daughter and he treated me fairly - better than any other Watcher I met from the old Council.”
“And you don’t trust anyone else.”
“I have very ingrained trust issues,” she replied, her eyes glued to the ocean ahead of them. “The kind that have as much to do with me as they do with other people.”
The need to destroy the people who hurt her flared in his chest again. She wore her scars without shame. Not just the physical ones, but the psychological ones. She owned all of her pain as part of the shield that kept everyone at a safe distance from her.
Everyone could sense it. Though, Aiden didn’t seem to realize her sarcasm and flat replies were not charming but a way to deflect others.
“I’m sorry,” burst from him.
“You didn’t do anything,” Faith said.
He reached out, hesitating a moment before placing a hand on her forearm. “I’d have taken you over Dave any day.” Just as quickly he removed his hand.
“Dave?” she asked.
“My - Our brother. He’s two years younger than me.”
“What’s he like?” she asked, the words a breathy request.
“Actually, exactly like Dad. When I didn’t go to Harvard and finish a business program so I could take over the family business, Dave did.”
“Did you get into Harvard?”
“Yes,” he said indignantly. “I chose to go to Stanford.”
“And graduated.”
“Yes.”
“So both my brothers are nerds?”
“Hey!”
“Stanford - computers, mathematics, engineering…”
“How do you know that?”
“Willow has a bad habit - she collects college brochures. She swears they’re work related but I think it’s because she feels like she missed out.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Willow finished number one at her high school, she was in the top one percent of California testing. Because of what we deal with, she went to a sub-par college and only finished a couple of semesters.”
“Was she a Slayer?”
“A witch.”
“A witch…”
“Magic is as real as I am,” she replied, but she had relaxed a bit. “I’ve got two Mary Poppins bags to prove it.”
“Really?”
“Can’t take my favorite sword through checkpoints without it.”
88888888
“So this was the source of all our problems?” Faith asked as she looked at a picture of Teyla’s necklace on the computer screen.
Radek nodded. “Seems Major Sheppard activated it when he found it on Teyla’s home world.”
“Likely going to be a problem with everything we come across,” she observed. “Wait…Teyla’s home world, it was attacked not long after John and Teyla went to the…”
Radek looked up when she trailed off. “What is it, Faith?”
“The Wraith came because this was activated.”
“Yes.”
“And took Teyla and Halling and Colonel Sumner.”
Radek paused in his movements. “Oh.”
“Yeah…”
“Perhaps best not to point that out.”
Except she knew John was no slouch in the brains department, even if he pretended otherwise. She had no doubt that he had come to the same conclusion she had. “I’m gonna go.”
Radek nodded. “Lunch?”
“I’ll see you at fifteen hundred,” she assured.
He smiled and returned to his work.
Faith left the lab and made her way to the gym. She had found that many of the military guys exercised and challenged each other during their off-time. She was pretty sure John wasn’t on-duty yet.
At the gym she found him on a makeshift bench being spotted by Aiden. She didn’t pause as she crossed to the bench.
“Faith,” Aiden greeted with a smile.
“I’ll takeover,” she said.
“That’s not-”
“Its fine, Ford,” John told him.
Aiden looked between the two of them before nodding.
John did several reps before speaking. “What’s on your mind, Faith?”
She looked down at him from the head of the bench, an eyebrow raised in annoyance.
“You figured it out,” he realized.
“Yeah. And since I know you’re smarter than you let on, I figured you had worked it out too.”
“And you came to tell me it’s not my fault?”
She shrugged. “I came because sometimes it’s not the words, it’s that someone understands.”
He set the weight on the bar. “You think you understand?”
“A hundred and sixteen.”
“What?”
“That’s how many people died do to my action or inaction. Eight of those were girls who I had taught and trained - literally had a trap blow up in our faces.”
“You think I feel guilty?”
“You’re not as smart as I give you credit for if you think you don’t feel guilty.” She walked from the gym.
John saw several of the Marines had stopped in their exercises to watch him. He huffed in irritation and left the gym.
88888888
“What did the rations do to you?” McKay asked, watching as John stabbed his mash.
“Nothing,” he grunted.
“You do seem…upset,” Teyla noted.
“Just an argument with Faith,” he replied.
McKay nodded. “My sister is the same,” he said with a moment of sympathy. “Of course, mine is a galaxy away,” he continued cheerfully.
“Athosian children are taught that conflicts with siblings prepare us to handle other conflicts in life,” Teyla told them.
“They probably mean as children,” Aiden suggested. “You’d hope at your age, you know how to handle conflict.”
“At my age?” John said slowly.
“Over the age of twelve,” he offered slyly.
Teyla grinned.
“Just don’t apologize,” McKay said between bites. “Then everything is your fault even when she is being unreasonable and short-sighted.”
John stood.
“Where are you going?” Aiden asked.
“To apologize to Faith.”
John left the cafeteria and made a judgement call, deciding to try the infirmary first.
“Major,” Carson greeted. “What can I do for you?”
“Seen Faith?”
He pointed to the corner where she was at a desk, books laid out in front of her, headphones on.
“When’s her test?” John asked.
“Next week.”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’ll do well.” Carson smiled. “Touch the edge of the desk, not her.”
John approached and tapped the edge of the desk. Faith looked up. She paused what she was listening to and dropped her headphones to her neck. “Hey.”
“Hey. You-you were right. I do feel guilty. It wasn’t intentional, but I activated the necklace.”
She nodded. “I helped a snake eat B and Willow’s senior class at graduation.”
He frowned. “A snake?”
“Demon snake - and politician.” She shrugged. “I was in a bad place and he offered me what I wanted.”
“Which was?”
“A pat on the head,” Faith replied sardonically. “He was the first person in months who didn’t look at me like I was wrong or broken…it didn’t occur to me that was because he was evil.”
“At some point I’m going to have you tell me the whole story in order.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll let you get back to studying.”
“You didn’t have to tell me I was right,” Faith said. “I don’t hold grudges. And I’ve got a much thicker skin than that.”
John lifted one shoulder in a partial shrug. “Teyla’s people believe that having a sibling teaches us how to to solve conflicts. McKay said the worst thing I could do is apologize.” He grinned impishly. “And I’ve decided that unless it’s life-and-death listening to McKay is a bad idea.”
She chuckled.
Title: Women of Their Time
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 fields some questions and gets a chance to spread her wings.
Notes: Part 7 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 1
Word Count: 2625
“I’m going to deck Bates,” Faith announced as she walked into the infirmary.
“That’s premeditation, lass,” Carson reminded her.
“Damnit,” she muttered.
“What has he done this time?”
“Well, apparently I’m non-base personnel, so I’m supposed to be confined to quarters and he still has someone following me around.” She looked at him. “And none of the Athosians are allowed in here without an escort.”
He grimaced. “I had heard.” He looked at her in curiosity. “How did you get here if you’re supposed to be confined to quarters?”
“I did break out of prison, this place is a cinch.”
Carson shook his head. “You’re making more work for yourself.”
“He’s a pain in the ass,” she argued.
“And more work for your brother,” he reminded her.
Faith deflated slightly at that. Since the Iratus bug, John had gone out of his way to see that she was getting what she needed to join Atlantis as a useful team member. She had sailed through Atlantis’s version of basic training and was getting a crash course as a combat medic. In a month she would test with Clare and Carson.
“So you’re saying I should go back to my room and beg permission to have Bates allow me to come and study?”
Carson’s lips quirked. “I don’t think you’d lower yourself to begging, lass, but asking may be better than eloping.”
“Since I’m already here…”
“Go ahead, Clare has everything setup for you.”
88888888
John considered his two passengers in the Jumper. Aiden had asked to tagalong as he scouted the planet. Then he had casually suggested bringing Faith. He wondered for a moment if there was something there, but Faith was ill-at-ease around anyone except Carson and Radek. Even himself, Weir, and Teyla seemed to make her guarded.
“You know, we still haven’t name the planet yet,” Aiden noted.
“I’m sure the Ancients have a name for it,” John said.
“How about “Atlantica” or something like that?”
Faith raised an eyebrow.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to name anything anymore,” John reminded him.
“The planet is called Lantea,” Faith told them.
Both turned to look at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I found the solar system map for this region.”
“And you just kept it to yourself?” Aiden asked.
“I flagged it for review but there are thousands of flagged details and only a handful of scientists focused on each type.”
“Wait,” said Aiden, “I thought the problem was the database is still in Ancient.”
She shrugged. “I can read a few languages. Learned Latin when I was fourteen. Once someone explained how to translate…it was pretty easy.”
“Did you know this?” Aiden asked John.
“Not at all.”
There was a whole ninety seconds of comfortable silence.
“Was it bad - prison?”
“Ford,” John snapped.
Faith answered anyway. “Three square meals a day, the occasional movie and quiet.” She shrugged.
“Why’d you break out?”
“To stop a friend from doing something he couldn’t come back from - again. He saved me, I owed him.”
“Enough to risk life as a fugitive?”
She nodded. “In a second.”
John wondered what kind of loyalty it took to make her risk anything for someone else. Or what this friend had done to earn her trust.
The HUD chirped, distracting them.
“Is that land?” Ford asked John.
“Yes,” John said in amazement.
“I wonder how big it is.”
“Big.”
“Really big.”
88888888
Faith stood in the conference room with John and Aiden, as they explained to Weir and Bates about the land they had found.
“It’s huge,” Aiden said in summation.
“Define ‘huge,’” McKay requested.
“Fifteen million square miles,” John said. “Give or take.”
“That would make it approximately the size of…” McKay frowned.
“Asia,” Faith answered. They all looked at her in surprise.
“How long would it take to get there?” Weir asked.
“Twenty-five minutes by Jumper, ground to ground. I saw some sweet breakers on the south tip,” John said excitedly. “There may be surfing in our future.”
“We should send a team to get soil and water samples,” Bates suggested.
“He’s right,” McKay agreed. “If the land’s arable, it could solve a lot of our food production problems.”
“Actually, I was thinking of something else.”
“Not surfing?” John guessed.
“No, sir. We can’t resume off-world missions as long as the Athosians remain in the city.”
“So you want to dump ‘em on the mainland?”
“It looked pretty wild down there,” Aiden cautioned.
“A second ago,” Bates snapped, “we were going surfing.”
“Well, that was after we check for monsters and bugs and other space-related things,” John yelled.
“Actually,” Faith cut in, “the Athosians should be offered the mainland.”
He turned to look at her in disbelief.
“They’re farmers and skilled tradesmen. Here on Atlantis they can’t be either of those things.” She looked at Weir. “At least offering it to them as a home, with the protection of Atlantis and a trade agreement for whatever food they grow and supplies they need…it’s what they prefer to being held captive.”
“They aren’t being held captive,” John said.
“I had more freedom in prison than I or the Athosians have on Atlantis right now,” she told him.
88888888
“Slowly,” John cautioned, fighting every instinct to grab the controls. Faith was taking her first test flight in the Puddle Jumper.
She grinned, telling the Jumper to travel straight along the path they had marked from the previous trip. She looked at John out of the corner of her eye. “Why the Air Force?”
“People who don’t want to fly are nuts,” he replied.
Faith nodded. “I think I’m going to have to agree.”
“Really?”
“I’ve always been earthbound.”
“Surely you’ve been on a plane.”
She shook her head. “Nope. I grew up in Boston, my mom barely made enough to keep the lights on. And her boyfriends were never terribly bright or helpful, so the parade of men never made a difference in her finances. My Watcher took me to New York.”
“You’ve been to California and Cleveland and Colorado Springs.”
“Hitchhiked to California,” she admitted. “We drove a bus to Cleveland. And I got to Denver by portal and then bus to Cheyenne Mountain.”
“You hitchhiked to California?”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she told him. “I was seventeen and alone.”
“I thought you were in jail in California.”
“I was, that’s where everything happened. Boston was where a vampire killed my Watcher - and I ran.”
“Hitchhiking couldn’t have been safe.”
“John,” she said, looking over at him, “you don’t want to know.” Her eyes quickly darted back to the sky.
The more he learned about her past, the more he wanted to beat the hell out of every man who had ever come into contact with her. The more he wanted to shake his father and ask why he hadn’t done something. She would have been born months after John’s mom died. Even if he had waited a year or two, anything had to be better than the life she had been left to.
“Are you the Slayer because of all the things that happened to you?” John asked.
Faith chuckled. “That would be too easy, only the damaged being Slayers. But we’ve been everything through time: paupers, queens, slaves, explorers, warriors, and everyday women of their time.”
He nodded. “Landing site is coming up,” he said.
“I see it,” she assured him. She maneuvered the Jumper expertly, landing without a problem. It shut down under her command. She moved to the back and opened the door. Athosians were already waiting to receive their supplies.
“This should be the last trip of supplies,” Halling said as he approached them.
“It is,” John assured. “If Faith’s flight back is as smooth as the flight here, we’ll both start flying your people out, should take less than two hours between the two of us.”
Halling nodded. “We are grateful.”
“Is the soil as rich as you suspected?” Faith asked as she hauled a heavy crate onto her shoulder.
“Yes. It should be superb farmland.” He frowned. “Your Lieutenant Cameron was most excited with the prospect of something called sweet potatoes.”
“Southern boys,” Faith said with a roll of her eyes.
88888888
John and Faith were halfway back to Atlantis when he looked at her. “Why do you trust Beckett and Zelenka, but you view every other person as a threat?”
Faith sighed. “Radek can’t hurt me. And sometimes I don’t think he even realizes that I’m female.” She tilted her head. “Cason reminds me of B’s Watcher, he loved her like a daughter and he treated me fairly - better than any other Watcher I met from the old Council.”
“And you don’t trust anyone else.”
“I have very ingrained trust issues,” she replied, her eyes glued to the ocean ahead of them. “The kind that have as much to do with me as they do with other people.”
The need to destroy the people who hurt her flared in his chest again. She wore her scars without shame. Not just the physical ones, but the psychological ones. She owned all of her pain as part of the shield that kept everyone at a safe distance from her.
Everyone could sense it. Though, Aiden didn’t seem to realize her sarcasm and flat replies were not charming but a way to deflect others.
“I’m sorry,” burst from him.
“You didn’t do anything,” Faith said.
He reached out, hesitating a moment before placing a hand on her forearm. “I’d have taken you over Dave any day.” Just as quickly he removed his hand.
“Dave?” she asked.
“My - Our brother. He’s two years younger than me.”
“What’s he like?” she asked, the words a breathy request.
“Actually, exactly like Dad. When I didn’t go to Harvard and finish a business program so I could take over the family business, Dave did.”
“Did you get into Harvard?”
“Yes,” he said indignantly. “I chose to go to Stanford.”
“And graduated.”
“Yes.”
“So both my brothers are nerds?”
“Hey!”
“Stanford - computers, mathematics, engineering…”
“How do you know that?”
“Willow has a bad habit - she collects college brochures. She swears they’re work related but I think it’s because she feels like she missed out.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Willow finished number one at her high school, she was in the top one percent of California testing. Because of what we deal with, she went to a sub-par college and only finished a couple of semesters.”
“Was she a Slayer?”
“A witch.”
“A witch…”
“Magic is as real as I am,” she replied, but she had relaxed a bit. “I’ve got two Mary Poppins bags to prove it.”
“Really?”
“Can’t take my favorite sword through checkpoints without it.”
88888888
“So this was the source of all our problems?” Faith asked as she looked at a picture of Teyla’s necklace on the computer screen.
Radek nodded. “Seems Major Sheppard activated it when he found it on Teyla’s home world.”
“Likely going to be a problem with everything we come across,” she observed. “Wait…Teyla’s home world, it was attacked not long after John and Teyla went to the…”
Radek looked up when she trailed off. “What is it, Faith?”
“The Wraith came because this was activated.”
“Yes.”
“And took Teyla and Halling and Colonel Sumner.”
Radek paused in his movements. “Oh.”
“Yeah…”
“Perhaps best not to point that out.”
Except she knew John was no slouch in the brains department, even if he pretended otherwise. She had no doubt that he had come to the same conclusion she had. “I’m gonna go.”
Radek nodded. “Lunch?”
“I’ll see you at fifteen hundred,” she assured.
He smiled and returned to his work.
Faith left the lab and made her way to the gym. She had found that many of the military guys exercised and challenged each other during their off-time. She was pretty sure John wasn’t on-duty yet.
At the gym she found him on a makeshift bench being spotted by Aiden. She didn’t pause as she crossed to the bench.
“Faith,” Aiden greeted with a smile.
“I’ll takeover,” she said.
“That’s not-”
“Its fine, Ford,” John told him.
Aiden looked between the two of them before nodding.
John did several reps before speaking. “What’s on your mind, Faith?”
She looked down at him from the head of the bench, an eyebrow raised in annoyance.
“You figured it out,” he realized.
“Yeah. And since I know you’re smarter than you let on, I figured you had worked it out too.”
“And you came to tell me it’s not my fault?”
She shrugged. “I came because sometimes it’s not the words, it’s that someone understands.”
He set the weight on the bar. “You think you understand?”
“A hundred and sixteen.”
“What?”
“That’s how many people died do to my action or inaction. Eight of those were girls who I had taught and trained - literally had a trap blow up in our faces.”
“You think I feel guilty?”
“You’re not as smart as I give you credit for if you think you don’t feel guilty.” She walked from the gym.
John saw several of the Marines had stopped in their exercises to watch him. He huffed in irritation and left the gym.
88888888
“What did the rations do to you?” McKay asked, watching as John stabbed his mash.
“Nothing,” he grunted.
“You do seem…upset,” Teyla noted.
“Just an argument with Faith,” he replied.
McKay nodded. “My sister is the same,” he said with a moment of sympathy. “Of course, mine is a galaxy away,” he continued cheerfully.
“Athosian children are taught that conflicts with siblings prepare us to handle other conflicts in life,” Teyla told them.
“They probably mean as children,” Aiden suggested. “You’d hope at your age, you know how to handle conflict.”
“At my age?” John said slowly.
“Over the age of twelve,” he offered slyly.
Teyla grinned.
“Just don’t apologize,” McKay said between bites. “Then everything is your fault even when she is being unreasonable and short-sighted.”
John stood.
“Where are you going?” Aiden asked.
“To apologize to Faith.”
John left the cafeteria and made a judgement call, deciding to try the infirmary first.
“Major,” Carson greeted. “What can I do for you?”
“Seen Faith?”
He pointed to the corner where she was at a desk, books laid out in front of her, headphones on.
“When’s her test?” John asked.
“Next week.”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’ll do well.” Carson smiled. “Touch the edge of the desk, not her.”
John approached and tapped the edge of the desk. Faith looked up. She paused what she was listening to and dropped her headphones to her neck. “Hey.”
“Hey. You-you were right. I do feel guilty. It wasn’t intentional, but I activated the necklace.”
She nodded. “I helped a snake eat B and Willow’s senior class at graduation.”
He frowned. “A snake?”
“Demon snake - and politician.” She shrugged. “I was in a bad place and he offered me what I wanted.”
“Which was?”
“A pat on the head,” Faith replied sardonically. “He was the first person in months who didn’t look at me like I was wrong or broken…it didn’t occur to me that was because he was evil.”
“At some point I’m going to have you tell me the whole story in order.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll let you get back to studying.”
“You didn’t have to tell me I was right,” Faith said. “I don’t hold grudges. And I’ve got a much thicker skin than that.”
John lifted one shoulder in a partial shrug. “Teyla’s people believe that having a sibling teaches us how to to solve conflicts. McKay said the worst thing I could do is apologize.” He grinned impishly. “And I’ve decided that unless it’s life-and-death listening to McKay is a bad idea.”
She chuckled.