Feathers, Fallings & Flights

"Little Things" V

2008-08-20T04:03:53Z

Title: To That Rock I'm Clinging
Rating: G
Pairing: Sheppard/Weir
Length: Drabble
Genre: Fluff
Summary: He, unlike Sedge, never learned to keep his nose out of trouble.

The Little Things I. II. III. IV. V.

It’s one thing to be afraid for yourself, and another entirely to be terrified on someone else’s behalf. She clearly remembers the gut-wrenching fear and coiling anxiety of Sedge’s first “adventure,” and how the thirty minutes spent looking for her had seemed like an eternity.

Circumstances may be wildly different here, but Elizabeth finds herself closing her eyes and sending up a prayer to St. Anthony as she had five years before, still groping for control and balance in a world gone mad.

Let them come back safely.

This isn’t one escapade, never repeated, and the toll is starting to wear on her. But she doesn’t say anything when he finally returns, and she never knows if he can tell the price she’s paying.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, For They Lie in the Path of Danger

2008-08-14T03:15:46Z

Title: Parade Rest
Rating: G
Warning: Spoilers for Stargate: Continuum
Character: Samantha Carter
Summary: And deep inside, the soldier waits until she's needed.

Author's Note: Had this kicking around in the back of my head since first watching Continuum. The other idea might join this soon... or not.

Something changes, in that year they spend out of time. Sam expects to be restless, resistive, enduring the agony of itchy fingers with nothing to fix or tinker with. When she finally settles into the life the Air Force has set up for her, though, no one could have been more surprised than she was when the urge to do something didn’t reappear.

They have been stranded in similar situations before, and each time she had been forced to deal with the compulsion to fix it fix it fix it. Waiting drove her mad, and the inability to create a solution rubbed her raw with each passing moment; on more than a handful of occasions, her teammates had had to isolate or sit on her to stop the inevitable self-destruction when the need to make things right pushed her past her breaking point.

But here, in the one place she should have been most helpless and driven to scheme, to find all the loopholes until they could set the timeline back the way it should have been, Carter is more at peace than she has been for the last ten years.

She settles into the mundane routine without a problem, letting the life of Emily Watkins become her own and finding a simple pleasure in going grocery shopping, tending her garden, buying a car. This was the normality she has sought for so long and here it is, offered on a silver platter with only the catch that she not attempt to repair the timeline. Samantha thinks that she should object to that last bit, or the threat of Ba’al’s existence should trouble her, but when she searches her heart for the seed of unhappiness, she doesn’t find it.

When she sits in a Starbucks and tries to draw a diagram of a naquadah generator, the numbers and images come easily enough – but without the intuitive building of a 3D design, listing of necessary materials, power usage computations, scenarios she needs it for. It’s then that she wonders if she’s lost the person she used to be, and whether or not she should try to find Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter.

And then the al’kesh screams overhead, and she pulls out her phone to dial a number she shouldn’t have known, and a voice inside her mind whispers, Let’s do this. She understands, then, that Sam Carter had been sleeping in anticipation of this moment, and welcomes the surge of brilliance and fix it fix it fix it that comes with the awakening of this other self, this true personality.

So she rises, and saves the world again.

-

“Carter?”

Sam blinks, taking her eyes off the waitress taking a smoke outside the window – Emily, according to her name tag - and glances at her former CO. Jack lifts an eyebrow, hand stilled halfway to his mouth with the requisite piece of cake on his fork as the others laugh and talk without noticing their silence.

“Hmm? Oh. It’s nothing.” And she takes another sip of her water, letting the warm feeling of déjà vu settle into her like a comforting promise.

You have been happy.

soapbox_solo38 @ 2008-07-29T23:22:00

2008-07-30T03:41:00Z

While cleaning out my hard drive and going through scattered memory sticks, I came across a flash drive that has a good number of fics saved on it. Only a handful are actually finished, and most of those have already been posted, but there are a few that haven't seen the light of a LJ post. For my lack of anything coherent to say after watching Continuum, I offer this typically "me" piece.

Title: Our Green-Eyed Mistress
Rating: PG-13
Characters: John Sheppard, Atlantis
Summary: Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. --Havelock Ellis

Atlantis realized they were leaving after three of the teams had managed to ‘gate out from under the city’s watchful eye with a pretense of visiting trading sites. When the teams did not return, it turned it’s focus inward and screamed at the sight of it’s dwellers, it's inhabitants, it's people subtly packing up everything they had come with, everything they could take.

Don’t go, don’t go, DON’T GO! It sobbed, trying everything it could think of to slow them – but they had anticipated this, and the computer viruses managed to distract it long enough for five more groups to run through the Gate. No orders, now, except that of “get out while you can,” and “go faster!”

The natural carriers predictably bore the brunt of Atlantis’ overwhelming anxiety the hardest, virtually crippled by the agonizing wails. A handful of those with the stronger genes managed to draw the worst of it to themselves, leaving everyone else free to fly down the dark hallways and past the glimmering event horizon, until only one man stood with the whole of Atlantis’ death throes slamming against his mind, unashamedly weeping as the beautiful city thrashed and clawed at the Stargate, begging him not to leave it lonely, lonely, so lonely-

But he was human, and it was not, and when the intangible connection forced him to lift a knife to his own throat, that made all the difference. Dredging up an unknown strength, he turned the blade and drove it into a pillar before stumbling through the wormhole, carrying forever with him the final scream of an insane city which would have killed him to make him stay.

If Atlantis could be said to have a heart, it has a heart that is broken around a knife embedded to its hilt in the sea-green city's walls.

Five Men She Trusts With Her Life

2008-07-23T13:37:33Z

Title: Five Men She Trusts With Her Life
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Five things - sga_flashfic
Summary: ...and for a whole variety of reasons, too.

Five Men She Trusts With Her Life

Physician of the Mind Diseased

2008-07-04T05:06:19Z

Title: Physician of the Mind Diseased
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: First aid - sga_flashfic
Character: Kate Heightmeyer
Summary: There is a reason they call her "Doctor."

Atlantis is her battleground.

"Little Things" IV

2008-06-12T01:10:11Z

Title: Chain of Command
Rating: G
Pairing: Sparky
Length: Drabble
Genre: Fluff
Summary: And his idea of "positive reinforcement" is quite different from Sedge's.

The Little Things I. II. III. IV.

Dogs listen. In fact, she’s quite sure that was why they’re called “man’s best friend.” A relationship built through hours and hours of work meant that Sedge would obey any order she understood; it was reassuring, and slightly terrifying at the same time, and Elizabeth had sworn to never abuse that trust.

Now, arms crossed, eyebrow lifted, she wishes she could drill a little of that obedience into the sheepish man standing in front of her. She doesn’t have to say anything; the partially demolished rooms behind her say enough.

Oh, John’s good, and she trusts him explicitly. But no playing with alien fireworks means no playing with alien fireworks, and she’s sure she was speaking English when she said it. He’ll be sleeping in the dog house tonight – and that’s a phrase she knows a woman coined.

"Little Things" III

2008-05-26T01:28:59Z

And a third one. :)

Title: Living in the Present
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sparky, Elizabeth/Simon
Genre: Fluff
Summary: She's learning to focus on the moment, on the "now."

The Little Things I. II. III. IV.

Her first long stay away had ended badly, with a return home to the shredded remains of an old, handmade quilt. Elizabeth remembers quite clearly the unreasonable anger and grief that had boiled up, standing over the pieces of the one thing she had left of her mother.

She's not sure what to feel now, though, watching a pool of water soak her mail.

John apologizes as he grabs a napkin and begins to mop up his spilled drink, but she fishes out the dripping envelopes in silence, and stares the spidery handwriting on one.

Elizabeth Weir

"It's okay," she tells him, and puts Simon's letter into the trash with her tray.

soapbox_solo38 @ 2008-05-18T23:36:00

2008-05-19T03:47:32Z

This randomly came back and bit me, like a boomerang I didn't know I had thrown. I now have several more ideas for the "Little Things" group sketched out, and more are coming up every day. So here's a series of drabbles about the differences - or remarkable similarities - between the man and the dog in Elizabeth's life. :)

Title: Cleanliness is Godliness
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sparky
Genre: Fluff (yes, I know. What am I on? (If I knew, I'd share.))
Summary: At least the dog has an excuse.

The Little Things I. II. III. IV.

She's used to dog hair, to the way it gets on all her best suits and makes everything white – or mostly so. During Sedge's shedding weeks, the vacuum got pulled out of the closet twice a day, and she waited until she was at the conference building to change. It was one of those things you did, at first because you had to, and then because it was routine.

Elizabeth thinks to herself that if it came down to her boyfriend or her dog, she knows which one she'd pick.

"John, I'm not putting your clothes in the hamper anymore," she warns, knowing that any complaints about his razor or towels will go unheeded.

"I would've, but I was somehow distracted on my way..."

"Hmm, with what?" Elizabeth asks as he comes closer, hands sliding around her hips, and John smiles.

The Virtues of A Queen

2008-05-15T00:15:04Z

Title: Grace and Good Aim
Rating: PG
Character: Elizabeth Weir
Summary: Now she gouges out hearts with bullets instead of words.

They understood the necessity of having every person in the city armed for the fight. So many were dead, and more were dying in the chaos of the Infirmary, that they couldn’t afford to leave any hands, calloused and rough or smooth and slender, empty.

This was war, they told themselves, this is a fight we have to win if we’re to survive. And ignoring the sickening feeling in their guts, they gave her a gun.

She took it from them, and the sight of their leader with a weapon, learning to kill, sent chills down their spines; but what terrified them was that she was good at it.

HoldoutTrout's Ficlet-A-Thon

2008-05-10T16:59:38Z

Since my comment exceeded the limit on comments by 96 characters, I figured I should post it over here. :) (And Sela, I'm getting around to your prompt. I'm just watching some of that old-school SG-1 for "research purposes". ) The other ficlet-a-thon comments can be found over thataway.

Savior, SGA, Elizabeth & Caldwell, "End this." PG-13

They hadn’t been friends, but they hadn’t been exactly enemies, either. It had been more of a give and take of power, a confrontation and the gradual acceptance that while they might not like each other, they were going to be working together for the foreseeable future.

He had wanted her position, true, and she had shut him down, closing the door on any hope of that happening until things changed. Time had proved to him that she was better suited to being a leader than he was, and while he hadn’t liked that, he had made his peace with that fact.

Then the unthinkable had happened.

After that, when the Daedalus cruised through space, he found himself glancing at the screens to see if the bright flare of a locator beacon appeared on the planet’s surface. While the locals were interviewed by his crew, a part of him expected to hear a report that a tall, dark-haired woman had been seen, found, cared for. He skimmed every sublight message they received from Atlantis as soon as it was decoded, looking for any hints that the city had new information on Elizabeth’s whereabouts.

It wasn’t that he thought they’d find something; her last known whereabouts had been in the Replicator stronghold, after all. But despite all their differences in opinions and arguments over courses of action, Caldwell respected the civilian, knew how desperate her people were to have her back. Truth be told, he’d be glad to see her returned home as well; there was something comforting in knowing who he’d be depending on for back-up if things went wrong in the Pegasus galaxy, as they so often did.

And then the unimaginable had happened again.

She stood across from him in the wreckage of the bridge and the bodies of his crew scattered around them, staring coldly down the barrel of his gun. The green eyes that met his weren’t those of the woman he had come to grudgingly accept, the leader who had faced him in the SGC, or the diplomat who had commanded the respect of every soldier and scientist he knew. They were those of an enemy; those of a Replicator.

Her breathing was even, only slightly faster for all the fighting she’d just come of out, the lives she had just taken. Cold radiated from her despite the fact that she was still alive and possessing a mostly-human body; they had learned that much before she had hacked their systems and beamed herself up, setting about slaughtering the men and women of the Daedalus without any hesitation. And Caldwell did not let his hand shake as he saw the code the nanites in her brain were running on fill the bridge’s screens, scroll rapidly downwards. Elizabeth was preparing to slice through the ship’s computers once more, but for what purpose, he didn’t know.

He didn’t want to know.

The Replicator held his stare, expression blank but for the touch of hatred filling the corners of her mouth, the killer’s mask holding even as he licked his lips, wondering if one shot would be enough to finish her. But before he pulled the trigger, she tensed, focus pulling inwards, away from him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a new line of code appear on the computer screen and attempt to insert itself into the lines that dictated their newest creation’s every move. The other Replicators, then, trying to command her to do- do what? And as he wondered what that meant, knew that he should take advantage of this distraction to try and kill her, she shuddered and met his gaze.

“End this.”

Something told him that it was Elizabeth who spoke then, who had clear green eyes again and asked this of him. And because he respected her, understood her to some small extent and knew why she made such a request of him, he did.

When she lay sprawled on the cool floor in a spreading pool of blood, eyes closed and face peaceful, as if she was sleeping, he holstered his empty gun with a trembling hand and went to check on the nearest body. He didn’t expect a pulse, having seen the deadly whirlwind that had been Atlantis’ former leader, but his fingers sought for one anyway… and found it.

As his lieutenant stirred and groaned, pressing a palm to his bruised forehead, Caldwell looked around and saw the others waking, pushing themselves up stiffly and painfully, but alive. And gratitude filled him, a thankful prayer for the extraordinary woman who had resisted her programming, held herself back just enough to keep from killing.

They hadn’t been friends, and he wished they could have been.

I Can Has Muse?

2008-05-09T03:05:41Z

Title: "Forever" Really Means "For Now"
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sparky
Spoilers: Speculation about 5x05, Ghost in the Machine

Summary:

and we don't say goodbye;
with all my love for you,
and what else we may do,
we don't say goodbye.

Author's Note: Musical inspiration/basis was Immortality, by Celine Dion.

There was an ocean below, blue and brilliant and bearing upon it a city that shone in the midday sun. Something terrible and painful erupted in her chest at the sight of the place she had been away from for so long; something that grabbed her heart and pulled.

Home, Elizabeth thought as she sank downwards, and for a moment, she was.

“Hello, John.” She stood in the corner of his room with a view of the ocean, more relaxed than he had seen her in years. There was a hint of a shy smile on her lips, a touch of rustiness in her voice, but he noticed the warmth in her eyes first.

“’’Lizabeth.” The name that hadn’t passed his lips in months came too easily, too freely, too breathlessly. For a moment he wondered if he was hallucinating, or if he had fallen asleep and was now in a dream. Then she opened her mouth, closed it, and glanced around his room as if to find lost words; that was when he knew this was, to some unknown extent, real.

“It’s good to see you.” He said finally. She beamed at him, almost glowing in the afternoon sunlight, and he liked the way it lit up her face.

“And you too.” A hesitation, then, as she turned serious. “I have to do this. They need someone who can lead them; someone who can teach and mother and befriend and guide them.” Lost children, only wanting to go home.

“You.” John studied her, saw the conflict and the decision and the slow agony of yet another separation tearing her apart.

“I’ll see this through,” she told him, not knowing why it felt like she was swearing an oath.

“For however long it takes?”

“To eternity.” A small, helpless smile as she glanced again out the window, wistful expression barely hidden. “I can’t come back here again.”

That wasn’t quite true, and they both knew it; as she had proven, she was able to retake her human body here, was able to live and laugh and love once more. But everything came with a price, and she would never be rid of the suspicion, the doubts, the whispers of maybe she’s not really her. This city wasn’t safe for one touched by the Replicators; it’s people weren’t ready.

“One day.” She looked at him, startled by the determination in his voice. “One day.” And she knew that he, too, was making a promise to hold himself to: that some undeterminably far away time in the future, she would be free to return. And she didn’t say she’d never come back to see if he had succeeded, and he didn’t ask.

“Take care of yourself, ‘Lizabeth.”

She started to respond, realized what words were on the tip of her tongue, and shut her eyes.

“But you’ll always have my back, won’t you?”

This was not his path, and she could not be selfish enough to pull him away from the people they both cared for, both fought to protect.

“I will. Watch out for them, for me?”

John nodded, once, and Elizabeth gave him a last crooked grin before drifting apart into a thousand glittering pieces of dust. Then he sat on the edge of his bed and propped his head on his folded hands, and watched the silver motes be carried by the wind out over the sea, leaving nothing behind.

She severed herself from the city, cutting her heart out of her chest and hemorrhaging pain and blood and memories. No news of the struggles of the mortals below reached her ears, no members of the expedition who may have risen to their new level of existence showed their faces to her. Isolated, separated, apart from that world, Elizabeth left her human life behind her.

She did not think Atlantis for the two hundred years they spent exploring and learning about these new planes. She did not think of ocean waves and sunrises for the next five thousand as they gradually climbed higher and higher, teaching each other and always testing their boundaries. She did not think home for four thousand, eight hundred and seventy three years after that, until all her children were gone and she was finally alone.

Then she once more took human form and looked around, seeing the destruction and glory all this time had brought to the universe; saw that mankind had surpassed itself and merged, meshed, split from a hundred different courses. And after handing unfamiliar coins to an even stranger vendor, she stepped into a booth and closed her eyes.

When she rematerialized ten thousand and some years in the past, it was the smell of salt air and the warmth of sunlight and the sight of John waiting that dragged her into the present. And as he wrapped his arms around her and she pressed her face into his chest, there was only one word for the moment.

Home.

soapbox_solo38 @ 2008-05-06T20:47:00

2008-05-07T01:03:13Z

Now accepting any and all prompts, which will be written with the utmost care in a heroic effort to overcome the worst case of Writer's Block in existence.

Why We Will Survive Today (And Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)

2008-04-21T04:22:00Z

Title: Why We Will Survive Today (And Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: "First Strike", 3x20 - notjustclosets
Pairing: Sparky
Character: Colonel Ellis
Summary: He knows a good thing, a miracle when he sees one.

Author's Note: So. Watched First Strike for the first time yesterday. Procrastinator? Yes. Thank you.

Note II: My first reaction upon learning that I had First Strike as an episode? Dear Deity-of-Choice, the hardcore smut fans are going to flay me alive for this! Still, I stupidly stuck to my guns and wrote my answer for the challenge. With about ten minutes to spare until midnight, to boot. Say what you will, but I don't regret a thing. (Okay, wait, maybe I do. Damn. Oh well.)

Note III: "Sparkily" is the new nickname for this 'shipping. Gotta love typos. ;)

Colonel Ellis was a military man, sculpted head to toe exactly as the regulations dictated. He had as his personal Bible the regulations manual, and the deepest faith in what he had been taught as a young man fresh out of one of the roughest neighborhoods in America. The Air Force had given him direction and purpose, things he had lacked growing up; seizing onto them with all the force of a drowning man, Ellis had absorbed everything the Academy had to offer and sworn his life to the Alma Mater institution, to the flight that had become his saving grace.

Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard was not a military man, that much was sure. Ellis had read everything he could on the man, knowing that he was going to be a problem, and what he had found did not make him confident in the other man’s ability to understand what the Apollo’s mission meant. Black marks were everywhere in his record, with the only good commendations coming from Dr. Elizabeth Weir and General O’Neill – the two people whose judgment he knew he could not trust.

He had to admit the man had done good; given the circumstances and the situations Sheppard had been faced with, saving the city’s ass so many times certainly counted as a miracle. That didn’t mean he approved or liked the black sheep, however. Nor did it mean that he was going to be willing to give Sheppard have a say in what was going on if there was a possibility he would try to sabotage this crucial step in the war against the Replicators. And something told him that the Colonel wouldn’t roll over and let him through without some sort of pissing contest; he didn’t need the unofficial briefing from the IOA to understand that.

The warning had been appreciated, though. Despite his gut reaction to the slimy man’s secretive attitude and hostile view of the Atlantis expedition, Ellis believed in going into a conflict armed with every weapon possible. The heads-up warning about a perceived, very possible relationship between Atlantis’ leader and second-in-command was all he needed to vow to watch how much influence this Doctor Weir exerted on Sheppard. He had been on a few long-duration missions in his time, though none anywhere near as along as four years, and knew that when things began to fall apart, one of the first things to go was the fraternization rule.

So Colonel Ellis spent the three weeks in hyperspace preparing himself to deal with a civilian who somehow believed that peace was an option and a pilot who had all the earmarks of a rogue barely under control.

The Control Room technician had given him an odd look when he had asked for Weir’s whereabouts, but checked whatever system they had and informed him that she was currently “off-line”. From the way he said it, Ellis had guessed that they meant something along the lines of turning a radio off, not anything to do with a computer or the internet. Four years, another galaxy, who wouldn’t expect slang to appear?

It was, though, just another reminder that the Lanteans had been isolated for almost a year, and then dealt with as if they were distant subjects instead of long-lost travelers. He hadn’t understood O’Neill’s quiet warning to tread carefully when the old General had stopped him after the last official briefing, brown eyes drilling into with a deadly intensity; now, too late, he did. With his decision to run over Weir and Sheppard he had kicked the proverbial beehive and been stung for it. Even he could see the ranks of Lanteans turning against him, signaled by the silence and carefully blank looks that spread whenever he entered a room.

Considering the analogy as he walked down the winding Ancient hallways (refusing to admit that yes, he might be lost – again), Ellis decided that it was appropriate. The innocent-looking bees quietly going about their duties that turned deadly when provoked; the intricate and almost foreign dance they engaged in, a language no one from “outside” could understand; the queen they followed, who was the lifeblood and ruler of her hive. The queen he had carelessly swatted aside.

Damn. He had fucked up, badly.

Just as his mental berating turned up a notch, the sight of an open door stopped him. Given that this area was obviously out of the way, with its empty and ever-so-slightly dusty…

“Don’t.”

Ellis recognized the voice immediately and wondered briefly what Sheppard was doing out here when the Replicator threat had yet to be taken care of; he didn’t seem like the kind of man to shirk his duties when lives hung on the line. But the light from the RepliLaser was bright enough, even down here, to illuminate the scene on the balcony and leave a reflection on the polished Ancient walls. And in that faintly blurred image, the Colonel was approaching someone who stood with their back to him.

“Don’t what?” The person turned, and he could make out details in the pale face that told him this was probably Dr. Weir. It took him a moment, because her voice was a shadow of its earlier self, and filled with an empty bitterness that shook him. As he grappled with the consequences of these two meeting here, away from anyone who could see them, she spoke again.

“Teyla.”

“If asked, I’m supposed to lie.” There was only a fading attempt at humor in his words.

“I don’t have a choice, John.”

“There’s always a choice. You're the reason we're still around; you can fight them, Elizabeth, you could-”

“Lose. They’ve made up their minds about me, and nothing I say will change that. And I’m too tired.”

Ellis watched the faces on the wall, running through options. Walk away? Interrupt? Try and keep from seeing something that he would have to report; something that would shatter Weir and Atlantis? Or watch and tell the IOA like he was supposed to? Something about that thought made his blood run cold.

“You haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately.” Tense words, a deliberate misunderstanding of her meaning.

“No one hears them, John; the people who have no voice. That’s what I do.” A hitch. “That’s what I did. But morals didn’t keep Ford alive; ideals didn’t save Carson. I have sacrificed everything I held myself to in order to make sure Atlantis had one more day to live, and it has never been enough.” Another choke. “And I’m so tired…”

The figure that was John moved forward, drew Weir to him in a gesture of support and comfort that was too smooth to be the first time he had done so.

“What have we done to you, Elizabeth?” He asked the silence, arms tightening around the woman who stared into the dark ocean over his shoulder. “What have we done?”

Slowly, painfully, her thin fingers clutched his shirt and held onto the fistfuls while Atlantis’ leader began to cry.

“Ssh, ssh…”

As Ellis turned to go, he caught a glimpse of the Colonel rocking her gently, tenderly; he finally left as the hands that had killed numbers beyond count slid to Weir’s face and cupped it for a kiss.

Colonel Ellis was a military man, sculpted head to toe exactly as the regulations dictated. He had as his personal Bible the regulations manual, and the deepest faith in what he had been taught as a young man fresh out of one of the roughest neighborhoods in America. But he had another faith too, and that was that even though good things – beautiful, shattered, impossible things – and miracles had to end, he could leave well enough alone. So as for when it was time for the queen bee to die, and one of her daughters to take her place, Fate could dictate that. All he could do was his best, and hope that would be enough to keep Atlantis and its leader alive for another day.

True and Blue and Old but New...

2008-04-20T00:23:15Z

Yes, so, about being alive: I am. Apparently being away from a computer for a whole two-or-so weeks is the one thing that jumpstarts the Muse. And if I've missed a post or a life-changing crisis because of this absence, please forgive me.

Oparu, I swear that the notjustclosets fic is getting written as I speak. But due to the overflow of creative juices and need to vent some of it, I am breaking one of my set-in-stone rules and doing a meme.

ETA: After much consideration, the censoring community has decided to remove the previously struck-through text in a vain attempt to create the illusion I may still be sane.

Give me one of my own stories and a timestamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, sometime in the past before the story started, or even within the story itself. I'll write you at least a hundred words of what happened then, whether it's five minutes before the story or ten years in the future.

The Problem With The World

2008-04-07T19:50:45Z

Title: Building Bridges (Instead of Walls)
Rating: PG
Challenge: Family - sga_flashfic
Character: Elizabeth Weir
Summary: And Atlantis has broken all the other rules; why should this one be any different?

She didn’t have to be told that those in power were alone.

Rags and Tissue Squares

2008-04-05T04:57:22Z

Title: Patchwork
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Underground, 1x08 - notjustclosets
Pairing: Sparky
Summary: Hanging by bare and threadworn seams, they weave a tale together.

Author's Note: This is much shorter, but much better than what I had originally written. When you think about it, we're-going-to-die sex could concievably take place in over half of the SGA episodes. Maybe the writers write in in, and it gets filmed, and we just never see it because everyone actually involved with the show is a secret Sparky 'shipper, and really good thief.

He sits in the interrogation chamber, next to a scientist he’s barely coming to trust and staring with hard-won nonchalance at several pissed off guards, and all he can think is, Elizabeth’s not going to be happy with me.

“Two Jumpers; isn’t that a bit extreme?” She asks, voice edging from caution to disbelief. “Are you planning on starting another war?”

He flinches internally, the words gouging a wound that hasn’t begun to heal, and shrugs.

“They hid one thing from us; what else could they have up their sleeves?”

She looks at him for a long moment, still hands on the folders she had been gathering up from her desk, and then nods.

“I want you to take Markham and Guevara; they need the experience.” As he turns to go, she whispers, “I just hope they don’t get any.”

The file in her stack labeled Causalities stays in his mind until they enter the Hive ship.

“Tell them we agree.” The resignation in her expression is well hidden, but he’s better at reading people that most would think, and he wonders how difficult it will be for her to continue sending teams through the Gate when they might not return one day.

As soon he catches the fact that he’s already planning for a long-term future, he wonders if he’s refusing to give into despair or just too damn stupid. When she swallows and closes her eyes, gathering up the strength to let them venture in the unknown, he realizes that it’s because she believes too strongly for anyone to walk away doubtful.

Sixty ships. More than that, if the odds are stacked as unevenly as they have been lately. One city, sixty ships. He really didn’t need to be good with numbers to understand the math there.

“Promise me you’ll come back,” she says breathlessly that night, skin still slick with sweat and their bodies still pressed together. “Please.”

He wants to let the agreement roll off his tongue as easily as her name, but something catches the thought before he finishes it. In the moonlight slanting nearly sideways through the window, her green eyes are large and desperate and reflect his face back at him. It will be empty, they both know, and it won’t mean anything the moment they separate and are no longer dreaming this hurried relief from their duties, these stolen and secret minutes in the night.

She said he was a horrible negotiator, but he knows when to hold his cards, and when to fold.

“I’ll try.” And though his words break the tentative hope she wants to build, though it drains anything meaningful from this interplay of love and lust, he knows he won’t regret it.

The day he arrives through the Gate in a body bag will be the day she understands that.

“Allies, Major,” she says, almost exasperated. “I want you to go to whatever planet Teyla suggests, and bring back food. And don’t antagonize the locals.”

“Who, me?”

Hints of wariness, of a trust not yet formed, show their rough edges in every conversation, no matter how small. He grins, glossing over them with a charm she seems almost immune to, and lets her sidetrack the conversation into what the Ancients might have been like.

“Snobs,” he tells her, and goes to gather his small team for the meeting. They have a whole galaxy to explore, after all; they had better start soon.

Between Duty and Downtime

2008-03-31T04:33:44Z

Title: In This Foreign Land (Here, Hold My Hand)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sparky
Summary: And we danced, out there on that empty hardwood floor, the chairs up and the lights turned way down low. The music played, we held each other close, and we danced... - Brad Paisley, We Danced

Author's Note: Inspired by this video. DAFT, away!

“And then-” Elizabeth paused, tilting her head to listen as music begin to play from the side of the street. He read the curiosity in her expression without even needing to think, and they stepped out from the current of people to see what was happening.

They weren’t expecting to see couples beginning to tango, that much was certain.

For a few minutes they watched, somewhat bemused and intrigued, until several bystanders joined in the dancing with a few self-conscious laughs and their partners. And as soon as he took her hand, his rough and calloused fingers wrapping around her smooth ones, she realized what he meant to do. The protests were almost out of her mouth – someone could see us, what are you doing, this is foolish – when he maneuvered into the unofficial “ballroom” and grinned at her, that wicked, wicked streak glinting in his gaze.

Without another word or thought for the consequences, Elizabeth slid into place against him and let herself follow his lead.

There, on the rain-soaked streets of Dublin, billions of light years away from Atlantis and thousands of miles from the SGC, they danced. From the first steps, rusty skills were put to the test as they glided by several older couples and neatly passed a younger pair, his arm around her like it had been made to fit there, their bodies pressed slightly closer than was necessary. As they turned and twisted, holding onto each other, all the worries that had built up on her shoulders seemed to disappear with every step, melting away into the fluid movements and the unique scent of “John”. Had it been a slower song, she would have willingly leaned into him and closed her eyes, never to open them again, but he was upping the tempo ever so slightly, forcing her to pay close attention, and soon they were both lost in their own world, conscious only of the melody and each other.

When the song finally ended an eternity later, they woke to the applause and cheering of the spectators and dancers who had gathered around to watch. Elizabeth flushed, and John held onto her as they took small bows and waved off suggestions to dance again, feeling more alive with the beat of the music in their blood and the warmth of contact still lingering than they had in a long, long time.

At the airport, sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chairs and surrounded by harried mothers and squabbling children instead of soldiers in uniform or strangers whistling praise, John glanced over to see a distracted expression on her face as she stared out the window, lost in contemplation of the future. Slowly, discreetly, he reached past the armrest separating them and twined his fingers with hers.

She started, staring at him with eyes that had already begun to dull with the detached gaze of a leader, and then squeezed his hand. They spent the three hours until their flight leaning against each other over the armrest, seemingly unaware of the other’s presence but for the gentle pressure of her back against his, and the hands that didn’t let go until they walked off the plane and back into Denver.

With Your Shield, Or On It

2008-03-24T04:00:24Z

Title: With Your Shield, Or On It
Rating: PG-13 (yeah, we'll talk about that)
Pairing: Sparky
Assignment: "The Ark", 3x16 - notjustclosets
Summary: And this is her power: that she picks the broken pieces out of the wreckage and puts him back together without hesitating.

Author's Note: Yes, I know the real point of the notjustclosets challenge was to write them having hot monkey sex in such a way that it fits in the episode, but I decided that rather than scarring people for life, I'd go with a pre-and-post fic centered around the Sparky warrior/goddess theme. I know, I know, but I don't really have a Smut Muse, sorry to disappoint you - although I did get them somewhere other than a closet. So y'all want NC-17 stuff, fill it in - and if you actually write it, I will be more than happy to add it to the fic.

Note II: I just have to laugh at the fact that everyone else got an extension to my much-begged-for date. ;)

Note III: The imagery here is something that I had to kick around a bit (code for: I yelled "Forget it!" and the Muse yelled back, "Write it!" "But it's abstract-ish!" "And when's that stopped you?"); I'm occasionally under the impression that the Elizabeth that John imagines is sometimes quite different from who she actually is, and that even in canon, she is his goddess. It's something I fiddled with, and comments are definitely welcome! And- er, okay, to the fic before I get sidetracked with ancient mythology and Shakespearian plays.

“It could have been me.” Had he his pride, his ego, his sense of dignity, he would not have been here, on his knees like this. But she is his goddess, and he her warrior, and any time she wishes to she can break him down and leave him in pieces. Bellona’s bridegroom, in gleaming armor, is defeated only by the one who makes him invincible.

The touch of the void has left him shaking, trying to shut out the feelings of helplessness as the air spilled out into space and he gasped for breath. Death is close – it is his constant companion – but to die without a struggle is not the way he wants to leave the world. He imagines the caress of hard vacuum and shivers against his will, not wanting to reveal this fatal flaw to her.

When her fingers slip through his damp hair, he knows she knows anyway.

Her skin still smells of sex as he kneels there, naked and bared to her keen gaze as if this is an execution and not a confession. Why he is admitting this weakness, he doesn’t know, but the words won’t stop and she’s not allowing him an escape.

“If…” ‘If’, ‘if’, ‘if’. The damn word that haunts his thoughts and nightmares, teasing him with possibilities and futures that will never come to be. The word that always comes to mind when he kisses her and remembers why he’s addicted to her, why he can’t live without her, why all the dreams he wants to share with her fall away.
He’s not sure she would listen, if he tells her of them.

“…it had been you meant to make it to safety; if you had died and I had found out…”

She trusts him to come home every time she sends him out because he knows to fail her is to fail a goddess, and they are not forgiving. But had it been him who failed her – if she had trusted him to bring her home and he had failed –

“…it could have been me.” Him, standing to look death in the face; him, dooming whatever was left of his people; him, trying to find salvation in eternity.

And his goddess sits on the chair that is more like a throne, listening to her lover try to say what he can’t – I love you, I can’t stay away, this terrifies me – and stops him with a touch of her fingers on his lips. He lifts his head from her lap, meeting her unearthly green gaze with another shiver.

“John,” that word from her mouth is a prayer, a blessing, what he has needed to hear since whispering her name and being answered by silence, “it’s time to wake up.”

Then she leans forward and kisses him, breathing air into lungs that have been empty for far too long.

-

He takes the last two steps in one stride to reach Elizabeth as she moves into the transporter, unaware that he’s been following her from the Infirmary at a walk he refuses to let break into a run. As she turns she sees him and holds the door open, a question in one raised eyebrow as he slips in, only slightly out of breath – out of breath, drowning in space, air, air, air.

“Wasn’t Carson going to make sure you-” She stops when he reaches to touch the transporter screen and grimaces, his battered body protesting the movement after all the abuse it has taken over the past few days – down in a blaze, sand colored soil and an explosion of white between his eyes. Slowly, as the doors slide closed beside them, she meets his eyes and sees through the screen of nonchalance everyone else takes for granted.

What she reads there, he doesn’t know. But the urge to see her, to touch her has been driving him on since they returned from that damn planet in one piece – wreckage, broken bodies and eternity distilled in a heady mix, drunk from Wraith bones, shattered – and now that he is alone with her he cannot find the words to say what has lurked in his heart since escaping death.

Her hand lifts, settles on the curve between neck and shoulder where her head has lain in the early morning hours. The long fingers slip under the shirt hem and pull it aside to reveal bruises that trail down to his waist, hidden until she exposes them – scars, pain and a death-dream eating away at his soul. It is then that she pulls her gaze away from his to study the marks the straps have left on his body, and perhaps the ones deeper than that.

As the transporter starts to hum almost inaudibly, Elizabeth looks back up and lets him take what he needs from her.

-

The hallways are black except for the light spilling out from the open doors of the transporter, a glow that doesn’t begin to breach the darkness filling the disused section of living quarters. Thanks to the miracle of Ancient cleaning technology, there’s no dust floating in the air they breathe or on the steps she’s sitting on, John lying across her legs with his head in her lap. No one will come here, especially at this time of night, and any attempts to use this particular transport will result in an “Error” message. They are safe, at last.

She doesn’t ask if he’s fine, if he’s in pain, but shifts her feet so that his hips aren’t cutting off her circulation.
“It could have been me.” This feels – uncomfortable; wrong, somehow, as if he is going to say these words, they should be said from a distance and under different circumstances. As if he should turn away, or bow before her. But Elizabeth doesn’t want that, doesn’t want allegiance and loyalty and an oath to die for her – she wants him to trust her, to learn about and love her.

He’s finally coming to understand that, now.

“If it had been you...” If – if, if, if – he hadn’t come back, what would she have done? It’s a pointless question, and one he’s asked a thousand times before, but he shies away from the idea that somewhere out there is a reality where he probably hadn’t; a world where Elizabeth lies sleepless and alone in her bed instead of sitting, mostly naked and mussed, in a transporter doorway.

“You and our family gone…” Did she guess that one day he wants to cradle a child who had her nose and his eyes, their genes mixed in a tiny miracle? He has never told her, barely believing at times that he holds her in his arms, but listening to Herick grieve over his lost ones reminded him of what he doesn’t have; might never have, at all. He wants to take her flying just for the hell of it, to show her nothing but blue sky and an open horizon, to bring her closer to the stars. And his dreams for them… they remain his dreams alone.

“It could have been me standing in front of those engines.”

When Elizabeth doesn’t reply for a long, unbearable stretch of time, he wonders if he was wrong to speak at all. She has always listened and given him an answer, whether it’s the one he wants or not; it is an candid streak he has come to be thankful for, because she can spin lies that he would never see through. But his leader, his lover, is always honest – or silent.

Finally, she exhales and cups his cheek with a smooth, gentle hand. John, fearing what will come next, tilts his head anyway and meets her gaze.

“No.” Because we would be together, dead or alive. No man left behind; no dream abandoned.

And her assurance, her confidence gives him a hope he can almost taste in her kiss.

In Your Absence (I Lose Myself)

2008-03-04T02:49:05Z

Title: In Your Absence (I Lose Myself)
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Second verse - sga_flashfic
Summary: Where do we draw the limits? (I need you.) And will you still be the same? (I need you.)

It fails again.

Auld Lang Syne and an Old Friends' Farewell...

2008-02-26T03:26:01Z

Because part of me has wanted to do this for forever, and now it's helping me hold onto the good memories.

All images, with the exception of #5, are from stargatecaps.com. #5 is from this YouTube video on The Kindred, Part 1.

TOP 5 MOMENTS OF STARGATE ATLANTIS IN PICTURES (Or: The Shiny Moments I Still Love and Refuse to LJ-Cut) AND ONE

1.

      No one left behind.

2.

     First thought: &@#*! Zelenka's got a sword!

3.

      This was the moment for me, that summarizes everything John/Elizabeth.

4.

      Well, this counts more as multiple moments, but still.

5.

       PWNED.   (Pregnant Woman: Neurotic and Easily Disturbed.
       And also because, Teyla/Stick <3.

6.

     [Somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy, a light shone in an Ancient City.

     Just in case.]

          - Time Spent In Tents Whilst Off-World From Atlantis, by grav_ity

     Just in case, Atlantis. Just in case.

A Long Time in Coming...

2008-02-26T03:24:48Z

Goodbye, Stargate Atlantis.

We had a wonderful two years together, and I'm glad to have met you, but somewhere along the line our relationship soured. Now it's hard for me to turn on the TV and see what you're doing to yourself, to watch the self-inflicted tortures and your desperate struggle to scrape by.

What happened? I'm not sure. After all, there are so many moments I still treasure sharing with you, and Friday nights that I curled up to sleep knowing you still cared, still held the same values as I did. But then things changed; you started hanging out with the character-killing shows, wouldn't call to warn me when you planned on slaughtering a few more Red Shirts or minor roles, and grew progressively darker and obsessive with winning despite the costs. Worry became an everyday part of my life, and I couldn’t speak out to warn you, because you wouldn’t listen.

Looking back, I guess the trouble started when you knocked off Ford. This was SciFi, I told myself, despite the fact that I was already watching Season 3 and he hadn't shown up again. You could change, you could fix this; we could still be happy together. I could trust you to carry on the proud Stargate name with honor and dignity and a core cast that would remain stable. Perhaps I shouldn't have expected you to follow the same path as SG-1, because from the start you said you were a spin-off and not a carbon copy. Was it too much though, I wondered, to ask you to have a similar respect for the lives of your characters? Surely, I told myself as Carson died, there would be no more throwing people to the wind.

And then you fucked Elizabeth.

That was too much, SGA, for me to handle. If you didn’t know it, that woman came very quickly to be my role model. I admire her courage and dedication, her gifts with words and belief that there is always another way - and as ridiculous as it may sound, I love her in my own way. The tears came with the realization that you now lived for the highs, the ratings, an addiction that had driven you to such lengths - for what? Another five viewers to stare at their screens in disbelief? That was it; no poetic "beginning of the end”, no warnings. Just an emptiness in my heart, and the knowledge that things had to change.

The reasons for your inexplicable insanity may have been external (competing Friday night shows, a declining audience?) or internal (Mallozzi, I know you probably hear this often, but I will have your head on a stick); it doesn't matter. You're not the show I thought you were, and I don't want our fics to grow up in this kind of environment. So... I guess the entire point of this letter was to explain why I'm leaving.

Oh, I'll still tune in every once in a while, and see how you're doing and what new lengths you've gone to now, but don't expect me to stay. I won't. I'm taking the fics, and our unwritten plot bunnies, and I'm going back to the good days before First Strike. And I'll stay there.

Take care, Atlantis.

P.S. Touch the Elizabeth/Replicator storyline with a ten-foot pole and I will rip out your throat. Some things are best left to the imagination, Elizabeth deserves better, and you need to quit while you're ahead - or at least relatively close to zero.

We're Falling Apart

2008-02-22T22:03:00Z

Title: Natural Disaster
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sparky
Summary: In the end, he looked back and thought he should have seen it coming.

It was painful, this dividing things into “his” and “hers”, drawing the lines between where he ended and she began. So was sorting through the dusty photos that had fallen behind the couch, the unfinished knitting projects she had left under the bed and sworn she was going to finish one day. It was looking back through memories that were sometimes good, sometimes so incredibly amazing that he knew he would never trade them for anything – but outnumbering those were the bad ones, the recollections of fights and arguments and days of not talking to each other that had piled up, one on top of another until the precious few peaceful moments were lost.

It hurt, made something deep inside of him wish for a way to go back and do it again – or not at all… and that was why he did it.

No one else knew the meaning in a mismatched pair of socks he found stuffed in the corner of the drawer and separated with a hollow heart; no one else understood that the dried flowers on the nightstand weren’t a gift to a lover, but a taunt about what they could never share again. They would have inevitably left some of her things among his, and he wouldn’t have been able to bear that constant reminder that she had existed, had been in his life. They would have put some of his things in her piles, and he wouldn’t have been able to bear that either.

He wanted to walk away from this and leave nothing of himself with her.

Maybe it was childish, or simply jealousy snaking through his dark thoughts as he folded nearly identical shirts, knowing which one was which by the texture, the feel of the cloth under his hands. It had been one more difference separating them, their preferences for laundry soap and softener a joke between them in the beginning, a point to fight on in the end. Now it was one less load of laundry he would have to do, one less burden on his time, and he was almost glad to be free of it.

Eventually the rooms they had shared together looked nothing like the place where two people had settled their intertwined lives, and resembled instead the sparse furnishings and walls all empty places had. Two crates sat on the floor in a circle of tiles that were darker and richer in color that those around them, the rug protecting it from the sun rolled up and shoved in with her separations. John sat on the bare mattress, staring at the evidence of their breakdown, until the doors slid open and the silent Daedalus Marines entered. Without looking at him they picked up the one marked “Weir” and left, taking it to be stored in the ship and taken to Earth, to the family that had requested her belongings.

She had never told him she had relatives alive on Earth, relatives who cared enough about her to want what she had left behind; just another lie to add to the many they had told each other.

When the doors slid shut, John stood and moved to the window overlooking the city, standing in the sunshine that played over his cold features, the hands held loose at his sides, the pale circle on his left hand where a gold band no longer rested. And he could almost feel her disapproval, her anger at his denial of her wish that her ashes be scattered across this place she had loved so much, but it was one last blow he could deal her, one last spiteful thing to throw in her face, and he couldn’t help himself. Her body was going back to Earth in two days, and had he thought he still loved her, he might have said she was taking his heart with her.

He knew better, now.

All Is Calm, All Is Bright...

2008-02-16T00:56:05Z

Title: Silent Night
Rating: G
Challenge: Snow - sg_challenges
Summary: When life is nothing but a struggle, what would you do to preserve newfound peace?

It was a normal Colorado winter blizzard that would be the death of them, and somehow that was funny; they had survived nukes and plagues and Armageddon, but a few cut power lines and suddenly they were doomed.

Another New-Fangled Idea

2008-02-13T22:14:52Z

Note: Author does not take credit for any insanity caused by the following.

In an effort to get myself to write down the numerous stories I've got swirling in my mostly-empty head, I am starting a new project. Every day that I have not posted / written fic and I have time, I'll be putting up a snippet from an unfinished story and a quick summary of what I have planned for it (and, most likely, why it's not working).

If you're wondering why I'm doing such a thing, it's partially because I need to get back in the ball game and wrap up what I've got on the back burners, and partially because I'm very interested in seeing if anyone else actually ~~cares~~ wants to see how my mind ~~doesn't~~ ~~work~~ wanders and maybe offer help; like mini-betas, in a way. Any and all comments on these posts, including consistent nagging to actually write the accursed pieces, are welcome and appreciated!

Note: I will be f-locking and then f-filtering these entries. If you wish to be a part of (or simply watch!) the ~~itsshiny letswriteaboutit~~ creative process, please comment on this entry and I will add you to a group, if one eventually exists, that actually reads these things.

Let the games begin!

soapbox_solo38 @ 2008-02-11T19:17:00

2008-02-12T01:19:00Z

Title: Just A Pinch of Fairy Dust
Rating: G
Challenge: Passion - samcarter_gen
Character: Samantha Carter
Summary: She sails towards the horizon and the second star to the right, even now.

Make-believe: that eternal childhood game of imagination and creation, participation in which is often characterized by invisible friends and playing “House”. An assurance that you can be anything you want to, if you scrunch your nose and close your eyes and believe – because in the end, that’s what it’s all about. Even in adult life; even in the Stargate program.

She played as a princess, like children do, had a court of stuffed animals and tea parties complete with plastic cups and kettles. When the glitter and pink faded, she put aside her tiara and scratched plastic scones.

She dressed in dark cloaks and pointed hats for two Halloweens in a row, practicing her evil cackles until Mark cried. When someone pointed out that witches had dark hair, she filled her cauldron with broken toys and the tattered remnants of her dress.

She dreamt of ponies for five months after seeing a local parade, and every day begged her father to let her have one because she was a girl and girls had ponies, it was just the way the world worked. When she discovered she was violently allergic, she tore down the crayoned magical horses hanging above her bed.

She lifted off into space with every shuttle launch and soared among the stars, twisting to look at Earth and wing back down to her body when the songs of the moon had lulled her to sleep. And Samantha wished on a shooting star that she would never lose this hope, this dream.

Her imaginings turned to thoughts of boys and cars and shopping, eventually, and for everyone around her the magic faded. But, as some have found, they cannot part with that simple and cherished piece of childhood; they hang onto it with tooth and nail and refuse to let go, even if they are unaware of the fight within themselves.

They are the ones who never manage to dismiss the power of believing.

Sam clung to the edge, knowing that her fingers were slipping, praying that her teammates were coming.

And despite the pains and pangs of growing, flaunting the limitations of “maturity” and “adulthood”, even into the harshness of life, a part of them holds onto the magic that has carried them through.

“Sam?”

“Carter!”

“Over here!”

And then they were above her, leaning too far over the edge to grab her numb hands, pulling her up, saving her.

Because of that, sometimes when the sky slips into a shade too unreal to be blue and the grass sings like the moon only softer and with a thousand more voices, the line between reality and imagination can blur.

She got her breath back as her cramped muscles slowly subsided in their complaints and opened her eyes, looking up from the rocky cave floor to thank them.

There was no one there.