Weakness

Author's note: This is my first foray into Atlantis. I love SPARKY & SPANKY. Though I am not sure where the designations came from! BTW thanks to Oparu. Her story Unexpected, which is awesome by the way, gave the inspiration for this little diddy. It is intended as a one shot, but might be more if I get enough reviews. This is definitely Sparky so if you don't ship J & E you may want to leave now. So please R&R!


She stood staring out over the waters surrounding Atlantis. In her mind swirled thoughts of the events of the last few days. Another mission that should have been easy; a cakewalk as John had said. However, as usual for AR-1, things did not go as planned. They had stepped through the gate right into a civil war. Apparently in the two weeks in between visits to MG3-P9X the tenuous peace between the two major factions had disintegrated completely and a bloody civil war had begun. They had been ambushed upon exiting the gate and spent the better part of three days trying to escape.

The team had all suffered some pretty bad injuries. Ronan had been shot a couple of times but as usual it didn't slow him down all that much. He dragged Rodney back through the gate. Carson had reluctantly released Rodney to his quarters, as long as Rodney stayed off his broken leg and tried not to lift anything with the broken ribs he had also suffered. Teyla, for her part was still in the infirmary having been carried back through by John. She had a pretty serious concussion along with a several lacerations and contusions. Ironically John had suffered the fewest and least serious of the injuries. He had suffered a laceration above his left eye that required 20 stitches, and a dislocated shoulder.

Upon learning that all of them would recover completely, she left the infirmary as quickly as she could. She knew that Carson would keep her updated on their progress. That was three days ago. So far she had managed to avoid John. She knew from Carson's report that he had been released after being stitched up and his arm put in a sling.

She knew eventually that John would track her down. He always did. However, tonight was different. Tonight her whole perspective had changed. Seeing John come back this last time, injured and bleeding had forced her to accept something that she had been ignoring for a very long time. Like it or not, she was in love with one Colonel John Sheppard. Now her problem was what did she do about it?

"John's become my weakness." She said aloud to herself. She hated having a weakness. Always had, but if she could convince herself to be really honest with herself, he had been her weakness for some time. She just hadn't acknowledged it.

Elizabeth continued to stare out over the balcony. Her eyes drifted shut as she listened to the sounds of the waves below, willing the roar of the ocean to drown out her thoughts and her problems. However it couldn't drown out the problem of what to do about John. She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn't heard John enter the balcony a few moments before. She was also unaware that he had heard her confession a few moments before. Her words had affected him deeply. More to the point they had given him hope.

"Hey."

"John. I didn't hear the door."

"You were deep in thought. You ok?"

"I should be asking you that." She replied.

"I'm fine. Little bit of a headache but Carson gave me some meds for it, if it gets too bad. Shoulder hurts like hell, but at least it's not broken. So I'll live. So again, I ask, you ok?" He asked leaning up against the railing facing her.

"I don't know to be honest."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"I'm not sure I'm ready too. It's just some things I've come to realize, and I'm not quite sure how to deal with it." She replied looking away from him.

He noticed her eyes were cloudy. Usually they were bright and clear. Tonight they were cloudy. Her body language screamed anxiety and worry. She was pretty wound up about something. Yet, he also knew that he couldn't push her to talk. Sensing that she really wanted to be left alone he decided to call it a night.

"Well, whenever you're ready. I think I'm going to head on to bed. "

She turned her head to look at him. A hint of smile pulling at her lips, "You're turning in early. Finally going to take Carson's advice?"

"Don't tell him that. Don't want him to think he's finally worn me down."

"It'll be our secret. Sleep well."

He stood up and paused a moment. He took her hand closest to him. He was taking a risk and he knew it but he had to see where this went. As he held her hand he looked into her eyes.

"You should get some sleep, Elizabeth. Don't stay out here too much longer ok?"

"Ok." She quietly replied. Still shocked he was holding her hand. Before he realized it he had bent down and placed a kiss on her cheek and then "You've always been my weakness. Goodnight, Lizbeth." He whispered and left the balcony.

The shock on her face was quite evident.

"Now, what the hell do I do?" she said to no one at all.


This was meant to be a one shot but if I get enough reviews I may add more to it….please R&R!!!