Title: Talent
Author: Angel Leviathan
Spoilers: The Gift and The Brotherhood, I think. Blink and you miss them, they're minor.
Season: 2, several episodes in, further than we are.
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis, characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Notes: I thought that John really doesn't do the maths thing, and Elizabeth doesn't often do anything really linguistics related, when maybe they could.
She was seated by the window in one of the deserted rec-rooms, curled in the alcove by the window, head rested against the wall, eyes closed, smiling slightly as the amber light of the setting sun streamed in through the window. Certain areas of the city seemed so empty since the Athosians had left all those months ago, especially the rec rooms with no screaming and laughing children to fill them. However, it also meant peace and quiet, so she couldn't exactly complain. She'd been present at some of the games her personnel held in the larger rooms, at the back of the room, smiling and applauding, watching them improvise various sports games, using fists instead of bats, tennis balls instead of baseballs, turning enclosed games of baseball more into games of dodgeball, watching the tennis balls ricochet off the walls and threaten to hit everyone in sight. Elizabeth turned her attention back to the notebook she held, scrawling down another few symbols in a row, pausing in thought before she added more, adding the romanisation and then the translation underneath.
"What're you getting up to?"
She looked up to see John Sheppard leaning against the door frame, and tried not to laugh when the door tried to snap shut on him, ruining his 'cool, calm, and collected' pose.
John cursed and jumped out of the way, "Damn doors."
"The Ancients evidently didn't expect anyone to be hovering in their doorways," she smiled.
"Well, the option would've been nice!" he wandered across the room and stood beside her for a moment, peering down at her notebook. So much for privacy.
Elizabeth looked up at him, "Are you quite finished?"
"I think so," he took a couple of steps to sit down opposite her, the two of them neatly wedged in the window seat. He was silent, content to gaze out of the window, and she to return to her writing. John glanced back at her and held out a hand, head tilted in inquiry, "Can I see?"
She closed the book and held it out to him, "You would have found a way to anyway."
"I'm resourceful."
"You're persistent."
"I never give up."
"You're stubborn."
"I…" he paused, "…know when to quit," he opened the book.
"A wise choice," Elizabeth smiled.
He flicked to the page she had been working on, frowning, and holding the notebook at a few different angles, playing around just to see her confused reaction, before he turned back several pages, looking at each, then returned to where she had been working, "I don't see you do this stuff a lot. Why don't you more often?" he questioned.
"The linguistics?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"There hasn't really been a call for it. I mean, I suppose I could have. Despite the circumstances, I quite enjoyed working on that Wraith language-" she nodded as he flicked back a few pages and held up an example of it for her, "but we've got a multi-lingual community here. I'm not the only one here who speaks several languages," she shrugged.
"I still say it'd be fun to see you get really irate and blast somebody in their own language," he grinned, "or just go and show off."
"This from Mr secret mathematical genius," Elizabeth shot back.
"There hasn't really been a call for it," he teased.
"You tell me you haven't come up with the answer Rodney needs quicker than he has, several times."
John shrugged, "Yeah, I guess. Alright, I can calculate pretty quickly, sometimes faster than he can, doesn't mean I understand it. It'd just be me blurting out a number and I could be wrong for all I know, maybe I didn't account for the atomic weight of something or other and the gravitational pull of said scientist toward coffee each morning."
She laughed softly, "True."
"If it really does have to be me who saves our skins with math one day, then I think we're gonna be in bigger trouble than we think. And anyway, why do the math thing instead of flying? Its why I shut up and stopped spouting numbers. You gotta be able to do the calculations to fly, but you don't want somebody trying to drag you into another profession and away from what you love," he sighed, "And I guess people expect less of you if they don't know you can do it."
"And the people who do know?"
"Should only call upon the secret genius in dire circumstances," he grinned. John folded his arms, "But you. That's different. We all know you're hoarding languages up there," he taunted, "Most of us, anyway," he tapped the book and looked back at the page she'd been writing again.
Elizabeth shifted and leant back once more, "I don't see how different it is. Okay, you can call it an easy way out, that so many people know English these days, you don't necessarily have to learn any languages at all. But why not? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to speak to somebody in their own language? I can say there hasn't been a call for it here, but if I know the language of somebody I'm having to meet with, I'll speak it with them instead of English. Sometimes it's a matter of courtesy. Plus, you can't just wander into a negotiation and expect everyone to be spouting English. But if I don't have to, yes, I'll keep quiet and stick to English, sometimes that's better here, it stops us from considering barriers between countries. Its like you and the mathematics; just because you can do it, doesn't necessarily mean you should all the time. Or even want to."
"I guess it gets a little confusing sometimes."
She grimaced, "Sometimes. But its worse to think you're losing any of the languages you know. Hence," she nodded toward the book and the different dialects and languages scattered across its pages.
John held up another page, turning the book toward her, "Now, see, how do you even remember all of these? I'd say that looks like a key, so it has to be ki. And the e looks like a wavy h. But half of those are just random lines thrown together. Numbers are easier, see, one, two, three, four…"
Elizabeth nodded, "Sometimes it works like that, associate it with something and remember words that way."
"But what about stuff like…" he frowned, "I mean, ta…tu…, no, wait, tsu. Tsu…ku…e…?" he looked up to see her smiling, "Don't mock the learner."
"But see, you say this is difficult and math is easy. I've heard people say that if you're good at linguistics, you're good at maths."
"I don't do languages. Well," John grinned, "Not exactly true. I do cursing. And high school French. I can ask where the bathroom is. And order tickets to the cinema."
"Hopefully not at the same time."
"Try ordering tickets to the bathroom!"
She laughed, "Well, you don't do linguistics, I don't do math. Not well. And certainly not on the level around here. If you haven't already noticed, I do a lot of smiling and nodding around Rodney and Zelenka at times."
"Secret's safe with me," he nodded, handing her notebook back. John paused, "Hey. Do you a deal."
"What exactly?"
"In the time that we're not being hunted or shot at or blown up by the Wraith and whoever else is out there; you teach me a language. And I'll try and make it so there's less smiling and nodding, more knowledgeable smirking and nodding going on when the scientists start babbling numbers. Deal?"
Elizabeth smiled, hesitating for only a split second, before she held out a hand, "Deal," they shook on it.
They were silent for several minutes, both gazing out of the window, then both turned to look back at each other, grinning.
"How's your Russian?"
"How's your formulae?"
Fin