AN: This would not get out of my head! Its a quick sketch... I'd love if someone wants to help me clean it up, or if someone wants to grab the idea and run with it, please just let me know. I still miss my show :( I posted this awhile ago on LJ, but I'm making a move to here, so its going up
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis belongs to people with a lot more money than me. And though my lawyer loves me and can do awesome things, I doubt very much he wants to deal with a bunch of studio lawyers. So just saying... its not mine!
Twists
Colonel John Sheppard knows the exact moment his life changed forever. Not many people can look back at their past, point a finger and say "That's it, that second right there. That changed my life." It's hard to do. Consider how many decisions the average person makes in a day, let alone their life. How could you pick just one that changed everything? But for John Sheppard, its easy. He knows the exact one.
He was Lt. Colonel Sheppard then, on deployment in the Forgotten War: Afghanistan. When a chopper went down behind enemy lines his decision was easy. You don't leave your men behind. He demanded – begged – to lead the rescue mission. He swore to retrieve his men, if not the chopper. But the brass, always being pragmatic, said there was nothing left to save. There would be no rescue mission. He would follow orders or he would lose his career.
Looking back, he still thinks it was an easy decision. He'd do the same again, even if events unfolded differently.
When he woke up in the hospital two days later, nursing a healing broken cheek and a concussion, he was slightly confused to see Colonel Danker sitting by the bed doing a crossword. He remembered being denied the rescue mission, the anger that had followed that decision, and the determination to get his men back no matter what the higher-ups said. But after that was a hazy blackness.
Colonel Danker had been quite happy to clear up the haze. He'd cheerfully informed him that had Sheppard succeeded in stealing the helicopter he'd attempted to, had he flown it back over enemy lines and had he managed to return alive... he would've been immediately arrested; charged with disobeying direct orders and assaulting a superior officer; convicted; demoted; possibly discharged or least of all, sent to the coldest, most desolate corner of the globe the Air Force could think of to serve out the rest of his 20.
However, since Sheppard hadn't actually succeeded in hitting him with that punch that he'd thrown, or in actually stealing that multi-million dollar helicopter, or in actually disobeying any of those direct orders (considering he'd been in the infirmary for the past two days, out cold from one punch from Danker)... he was quite happy to forget the whole thing had ever happened. Apparently Danker was as interested in following the rule book as Sheppard himself.
That's the moment. That single moment, when Danker managed to punch him, instead of Sheppard punching Danker. That's the single, solitary moment when his life changed forever.
After all he's a full Colonel now. He's got his own base of know-it-all airmen to watch over in Iraq. Ah, beautiful Iraq: where the bombs come from the sky and the ground, and your allies switch sides on you daily. Its worse than a backyard football game. He loves it.
Christine's at home in North Carolina with their twin sons, and he might actually make it home for their birthday this year. So he's been told. He's heard it before and he's not going to be holding his breath. But he is hoping.
He thinks about Colonel Danker ever once in awhile. Takes the time to thank the man. After all, who knows what his life would've been like if he hadn't been able to duck that punch, and stop him from stealing that helicopter? Who knows where he would be now?
He really should call him up and say thank you.
Finite!