Feathers, Fallings & Flights

Or Are We Dreamers?

2009-05-26T03:33:19Z

First dent on the fanfic100 challenge.

Title: I Walk This Line
Rating: PG
Character: Elizabeth Weir
Number: 011 Red
Length: 201 words
Summary: Sometimes there isn't a difference.

“One last question before you’re done: have you been having strange dreams lately?”

My dreams? They are full of earthquakes and stars, the city shuddering like a wounded beast and bodies stumbling over steps, dragging themselves away from the violence and dying slow, solitary deaths. I see monsters and peace and everything but the crucial pieces, making decisions that lead to thorn-strewn roads no one would ever walk, never finding that path less taken that should lead to sunrises and endings.

In my dreams I speak, walk, feast on flesh and bones until the sweet alien marrow is tender in my mouth; I trail fingers in still waters and watch rusted gears groaning as they strain to turn. My dreams have doors and pain and the pathetic gratefulness for a headache that reminds me, however cruelly, my blood still pulses, runs through my veins.

It is because of my dreams that I wear red, so that whenever I look down I am reminded to take everything seriously, to treat it with the respect reality deserves and attempt to make sane choices, if I can – because in my dreams, I wear red as well.

“No stranger than usual, I’m glad to say.”

Finish What You Have Started

2009-05-24T22:09:28Z

I've always been one to flake off on projects, as my "Unfinished" folder can tell you. However, an idea that someone came up with for a writing challenge was so interesting I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and do them together.

1. Write 100 fanfics, minimum of 100 words, with no repeats of the "focus" character/pairing.
2. Write 100 fanfics, minimum of 100 words, with prompts from a table.

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis

Deadline (self imposed, and therefore likely to be ignored): September 1st.

Count: 1/100
Cumulative Word Count: 201

001.	Beginnings.	002.	Middles.	003.	Ends.	004.	Insides.	005.	Outsides.
006.	Hours.	007.	Days.	008.	Weeks.	009.	Months.	010.	Years.
011.	Red.	012.	Orange.	013.	Yellow.	014.	Green.	015.	Blue.
016.	Purple.	017.	Brown.	018.	Black.	019.	White.	020.	Colourless.
021.	Friends.	022.	Enemies.	023.	Lovers.	024.	Family.	025.	Strangers.
026.	Teammates.	027.	Parents.	028.	Children.	029.	Birth.	030.	Death.
031.	Sunrise.	032.	Sunset.	033.	Too Much.	034.	Not Enough.	035.	Sixth Sense.
036.	Smell.	037.	Sound.	038.	Touch.	039.	Taste.	040.	Sight.
041.	Shapes.	042.	Triangle.	043.	Square.	044.	Circle.	045.	Moon.
046.	Star.	047.	Heart.	048.	Diamond.	049.	Club.	050.	Spade.
051.	Water.	052.	Fire.	053.	Earth.	054.	Air.	055.	Spirit.
056.	Breakfast.	057.	Lunch.	058.	Dinner.	059.	Food.	060.	Drink.
061.	Winter.	062.	Spring.	063.	Summer.	064.	Fall.	065.	Passing.
066.	Rain.	067.	Snow.	068.	Lightening.	069.	Thunder.	070.	Storm.
071.	Broken.	072.	Fixed.	073.	Light.	074.	Dark.	075.	Shade.
076.	Who?	077.	What?	078.	Where?	079.	When?	080.	Why?
081.	How?	082.	If.	083.	And.	084.	He.	085.	She.
086.	Choices.	087.	Life.	088.	School.	089.	Work.	090.	Home.
091.	Birthday.	092.	Christmas.	093.	Thanksgiving.	094.	Independence.	095.	New Year.
096.	Writer‘s Choice.	097.	Writer‘s Choice.	098.	Writer‘s Choice.	099.	Writer‘s Choice.	100.	Writer‘s Choice.

Count me crazy, but this might just be fun.

Slippin' Away

2009-05-17T04:39:44Z

Title: Summer Lovin'
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Summary: In my life, I love you more...

Author's Note: This was written for oparu via her request on a meme for "Sam/Jack, summery." There were over five variations and attempts to write the original drabble before it eventually spawned this one, leaving a backstory that's referenced in the first sentence (which involves an uncomfortable Cam, a devious Vala and the mysterious dress). That may, one day, see the light of the internet; for now, I leave you with a drabble that has an AN almost as long as it is.

Author's Note II: Bonus points to the reader who correctly identifies the songs from which the title and summary were taken!

It starts with a dress, and ends up on a screened porch with the afternoon sun quietly slipping away towards the other side of the world, brilliant ambers and golds turning softer, fainter. While it still lingers, though, she drowses with her head on his chest and arm draped over his body, her hand loosely curled and tightening when he shifts, the little possessive “mine” he had never expected from her. So Jack lies on the pile of blankets, the only concession he’ll make to a body that likes reminding him of the hell he’s put it through, and lets his right arm fall asleep while he watches the porch fan turn idly in the breeze.

Where they’ll go, what will happen, he doesn’t know. How long she’ll be able to cope with his cranky fits and persnickety moods, no longer bound as a subordinate to sigh and suffer through it, he can’t predict. Why she wants him, old and beaten and good for little more than looking distinguished in dress blues and sitting in a fancy office chair, he has no idea. But they’ve always been good at taking things at face value, so he’ll lie with his arm going numb and her head on his chest for as long as he can, listening to the crickets start up an evening chorus while the summer drifts by around them.

Pleased to be of Service...

2009-05-14T17:52:32Z

Because I love oparu 's writing enough to do a meme m'self (although the chances of anyone actually requesting anything are pretty darn small)....

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request a drabble of any pairing/character of their choosing from me. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level. ~~If you absolutely can't write, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to offer drawings or icons or something instead.~~

In Which An Author Ponders Pirates and Polls

2009-05-08T04:10:54Z

So. I have a story.

And given the amount of stories I have waiting to even get put on the backburner, this would seem a bit ridiculous. But I've learned that when a story taps me on the shoulder and says, "I have a few things I'd like you to look over," you grab it and run as far as you can. Eventually, that first spark is going to die, and if you have nothing but broken bits, you have nothing better than ashes.

What I'm dealing with now is a story that is part POTC, part Princess Bride, and part The Terminal. It's a pirate story, and the key image that comes to mind is along the lines of a pirate captain, proud and scarred and beautiful, and the wide, wide blue sky stretching out behind her.

The issue is, it can go two ways at this stage. What I've gotten from the story is light-hearted with a darker, somewhat serious undertone, but shallow enough to have only a sprinkling of morals mixed in with the fun. Where I can see it going, however, is a place that's much deeper, reaching out to touch on bigger themes (hopefully, of course, because what works in my mind rarely transfers well to paper), with far more serious backstories. Similar events would take place, but the scope and depth of their consequences, and the players in the events, would be dramatically different.

Think "Why is all the rum gone?" versus "Why is everything I've struggled to hold onto gone?"

Of course, the second story wouldn't be without it's more fanciful moments (Pirates! Do you know how long I've wanted to write pirates?), nor the first without it's meaningful ones, but they're completely different barrels of fish.

So, opinion time! (And also another mile-marker: first poll.)

View Poll: Plundering Plot Polls

"Little Things" VIII

2009-05-05T00:50:47Z

Title: To Everything, A Season
Rating: G
Pairing: Sheppard/Weir
Length: Drabble
Summary: "Goodbye" leaves a place for "Hello."

Author's Note: All drabbles can be read as stand-alone, or as they were intended to, as part of a series. This is the final part.

The Little Things I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.

The afternoon drizzle has turned into an evening rainfall that keeps the families inside their warm, safe houses, doors all up and down the street shut firmly against the elements. All but one, that is, where the entryway light spills across the threshold and reflects off the wet pavement, a reminder of foreign stars scattered upon an alien ocean.

Elizabeth, curled in a chair with a familiar copy of War and Peace, looks up from the worn pages at the sound of a tail thumping gently against the floor. Sedge has risen from her position sprawled in front of the storm door and now sits staring expectantly into the night, her whole being focused on whatever – or whoever – is out there.

“No squirrels today,” she says with a laugh, and sinks back into her reading. Seconds later, an elated bark startles her out of her reverie, and she straightens to watch her normally shy dog nose the door eagerly, scratching to get out - the ritual Sedge only performs upon her return from a long absence. And because she remembers the definition of “miracle” they found galaxies away, Elizabeth looks again into the dark street.

Slowly, out of the blur of the rain, a man with his hands shoved into jean pockets appears, hair undaunted by the soaking. John Sheppard, presumed KIA on that last, desperate run in Atlantis, gives her a lopsided smile from the other side of the door.

"Little Things" VII

2009-05-04T00:38:13Z

Title: Better to Have Loved And Lost
Rating: G
Pairing: Sheppard/Weir
Length: Drabble
Genre: Angst
Summary: If two become one, then she truly is half a person.

Author's Note: All drabbles can be read as stand-alone, or as they were intended to, as part of a series.

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

It takes time, relearning how to sleep alone.

She has all the time in the universe, now, so she isn’t bothered by that. Sometimes only the rampant growth of the tomatoes outside her kitchen window reminds her that somewhere, in the houses of her neighbors and down the quiet street, life is moving on.

It’s for their benefit that she chats and smiles and says all the right things (“Overseas? What were you doing?” “Classified, sorry.”), all the while knowing the white picket fence is meant to hold her in, rather than keep the world out. And she doesn’t mind it, so much, except that in the twilight hours of summer her heart aches and she can hear the waves of an alien ocean.

When the dark nights finally become too much, she breaks one of her unspoken rules and lets Sedge hop into the bed. It’s a pale substitute for the accustomed warmth of her lover, but she doesn’t wake up with one hand flung across empty space.

one hundred and seventy six days

2009-05-03T03:56:54Z

It's taken me six months, but I finally gathered up the courage to return to a faraway land tonight, somewhere I had long dwelled, whose shores I had left behind on a sudden, whim-driven departure and thought to perhaps never see again. It was a place I had out-grown, I tried to convince myself, an island whose borders were drawn in age and society's demands and they limited me, shamed me. But as C. S. Lewis once wrote, "When I became a (wo)man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be grown-up," and as Bon Jovi sang, "Who says you can't go home?"

I returned to that long-ago "home" tonight.

And I willing admit that I had thought not to see recent posts on my Friends page, assumed that the world would have stuttered and stalled since the end of my stay, the end of that mythical island's days. Shame on me, for not knowing better. If there's one thing that time and tears and all these years spent here have taught me, it's that things never truly stop, but simply change, as I have. I am not the same person I was seven months ago, and I think I am the better for it.

I have been the better for knowing you.

When my beloved Atlantis finally started to die, when we knew that it was well and truly over, I wrote a letter explaining my soon-to-be absence, and what things I had left unfinished, unseen by any eyes but my own. I never posted it, and I'm glad of that. It means I have many more things to share with you.

I think I'm strong enough now to finish those lost stories, and begin the ones that were never begun. I don't know what I've lost over the months, or what I've gained, or even how these stories will change because of these things - but I'm willing to find out.

Ashita made, friends. Until tomorrow.

soapbox_solo38 @ 2008-11-07T19:53:00

2008-11-08T01:08:41Z

So, anyone feel up to letting me bounce ideas off of them?

On a related note, I've actually started to go back and watch old episodes to realign the Elizabeth and John in my head with show canon... as much as that's worth, anyway. It's like revisiting some place from my past: pleasant, good memories, a fond and worn love...

To The Grace

2008-10-14T02:22:37Z

Title: To The Grave
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Kidfic - sga_flashfic
Character: Teyla Emmagen
Warnings: Blood, death
Summary: Even in the womb, her people know this sound.

Author's Note: ...well, this did not turn out like I was thinking it would, but since it was written for this challenge and still has to do with "kids"...

There is a peace in this, a simple acceptance of the reality that lies around her without protest or illusion of control.

Bellerophon's Obituary

2008-09-08T15:35:23Z

Title: Bellerophon's Obituary
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: sga_flashfic - comfort
Length: 101 words
Summary: There are only so many things they can say.

He fell in the line of duty / gave her life to save her team / went down fighting / bought us enough time

Love Isn't Love 'Til You Give It Away

2008-09-07T22:48:27Z

Title: Freely Given
Rating: G
Length: Drabble
Genre: Angst
Pairing: Sheppard/Weir
Summary: She will never give an order to "stay."

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

For every dog lover, there is a moment when you know that you are their whole world. A heartbreakingly devoted look, a lean against your knees, a sympathetic whine – Sedge had told her, in every way possible, that Elizabeth was her reason for living, her universe. And the trust and love that implied always manages to catch Elizabeth’s breath, even years later and light-years away.

She narrows her eyes, watching John flirt shamelessly with the alien blonde on the impromptu “dance floor,” and turns away before the sick feeling in her stomach can claw its way up to her heart.

soapbox_solo38 @ 2008-08-30T21:05:00

2008-08-31T02:44:40Z

So I was just about to make a post complaining about the lack of inspiration and Muse!ness going on right now, despite the thirty-item long list of "To Be Written", when (of course) an idea hit me.

I'm not a proponent of McKay/Sheppard, but read into whatever you want.

Title: Who Gave This Life To Me
Rating: PG
Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Length: Drabble
Summary: And he's the only one left to recieve it.

Author's Note: Inspired by Live Without by slodwick and Glass, Half-- by trinityofone

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It's an American flag, and he never thought that he'd be so proud to have one in his home, in his hands and covered with the silent stains of tears, but he is. That his beloved red and white made room for another color, another country, another representation of what war and terror and courage can do to the lives of good men, young men, quiet pilots who see mathematical equations in the clouds.

But it did, and he does, and Rodney takes down the folded cloth and teases out the corner just so, just enough that it unravels all on it's own, snapping out proudly even in the dead air. And when he pulls it around him, he thinks of the Olympic winners and how they drape their own flags about them, how it's a symbol of triumph.

And he's got a medal too, in a way, because he's survived - but tonight, falling asleep on a couch with the only thing he has left of a razor-edged city and the man who made her come alive, the warm embrace of his team and the dream that slid so cruelly out of their grasp, he thinks it's not like winning at all.

Truth be told, he'd rather have died.

"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.