Title: Aqua Aura
Author: Angel Leviathan
Spoilers: Conversion
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis, characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Notes: What would've been a multi-chapter fic compressed down to a one-shot because the idea has been going in circles through my head since September.
When she fell in the ocean she was initially unafraid. To her, the ocean meant freedom and limitless possibilities, an element that protected their city. But she knew it also meant destruction. She just never thought its destructive force would be directed solely at her. It wasn't so much the creature that attacked her once she sunk, or even the bite it inflicted, so they said, but the water itself. What the water became once in the creature's system and what it did to it. Or how it changed it.
Elizabeth was in near perfect health for the two days after she was hauled from the ocean. A little shaken and with a bandage round her ankle, perhaps a slight limp, but no lasting damage that she let show. Then, they supposed, even if she was in agony, she was hardly likely to let on. It was when John noticed her eyes were suddenly a brilliant blue that they began to worry again. When she somehow escaped the Infirmary without anyone noticing, she was found on the balcony, staring at the ocean. She was guided back inside, her attention strangely elsewhere.
She floored John in seconds during her next morning's training. She apparently thought nothing of it, explaining it away with a confident reply that she must have improved. A bright smile and a minute of uncharacteristic taunting later, she ran from the room, laughing, as if she was on top of the world. He noticed her hair had darkened and there was a note of hysteria in her voice before he lost consciousness. She could pack one hell of a punch.
She stated, in an overly animated manner, that she knew how he must have felt. That she knew how Ford felt and how she thought she never wanted to give up the new feeling of power coursing through her. That she was changing and she didn't know how or why, but it felt like nothing before and she was almost afraid to let it go. He told her she had to fight it, no matter how much she wanted to embrace it, and that he knew she was strong enough to beat whatever was happening to her. She accused him of stealing her lines, shot him another bright smile, and barely listened to Carson when he told them he wasn't sure whether he could 'fix' her or not. When part of the city lost power one evening, as she awoke from a nightmare, they didn't connect the incident with her.
When Elizabeth heard that Rodney had found an entry in the Ancient database that detailed a case similar to hers she was almost angry. Part of her didn't want help. The ocean was calling her, something was calling her, and it almost felt like it was the city itself. Or the planet itself. No, the ocean. Definitely the ocean. She noticed her fingers were starting to become as webbed as her feet already were. She didn't care what they thought. She ran for the ocean one late afternoon, knowing those who were sent after her wouldn't dare to harm her, and was stopped at the last minute by John Sheppard. Knocked instantly unconscious with a brutality he'd often sworn he never wanted her to see from him again.
She had never begged for anything in her life. Not even for a toy when she was a little girl. But as the call became louder and louder, she begged him to kill her. Kill her or let her go. She understood why he had asked the same of her all too well. Sedation was useless. Restraints were becoming so. The armed guard only agitated her further. Surrounded by the ocean, her every waking moment became torture. She smiled triumphantly when she declared there was a storm outside, then proceeded to forecast the weather for the next week with alarming accuracy. Was she speaking to them, it might have seemed an interesting occurrence. She had been, however, mumbling in an exhausted, semiconscious state. John watched her from the Infirmary doorway, wishing he could end her pain. Even, on some level, if it meant killing her.
Rodney declared that the same transformation had happened to a number of Ancients during their time in Atlantis. Some had even been introduced to the toxin in her system on purpose and not via a savage bite. The difference was, they had been able to control the physical, and some of the psychological, aspects of it to a minimum. All had been left with startlingly blue eyes, but nothing more. They had gained the ability to manipulate water, predict the ocean and weather conditions of the planet and hear the call of not only the life in the water, but of the crystal technology throughout the city. Two of the abilities she had already shown them. The third she demonstrated the next morning when she flooded the Infirmary.
When he took aim for her on the edge of one of the piers, they both knew he couldn't shoot her. Holding a tidal wave at bay with only her mind, she screamed at him to let her go when he began taking steady steps toward her. But they both knew she could no more attempt to destroy the city than he could kill her. It didn't mean she went quietly. Still screaming at him, crying and trying to push him off her, a pathetic excuse for a wave washed over them as he emptied the contents of a syringe into her arm and she finally gave up the fight. John carried her back inside, still under an armed guard, and watched her through the night. His relief was almost greater than hers when she awoke with only dimly tinted blue eyes.
She wondered why they still had faith in her and why they bothered to sit by her bedside during her recovery. She knew she was the same with John whilst he returned to normal, but she still couldn't understand the same behaviour directed at her. Perhaps because she could not forgive herself. When he tried to kiss her one afternoon, she pulled away and held him at arms length, demanding to know why he still wanted to be anywhere near her. His answer was only that she hadn't given up on him, even if it meant risking her life, and that he'd never give up on her, even if it meant risking his heart. He left her alone then, under the pretence of retrieving some books for her to read, whilst she contemplated just how much the city had changed them…and how much they had changed each other.
Fin