Title: Right Here
Author: Angel Leviathan
Spoilers: Anything, everything.
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis, characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Notes: Set in the third year of the Atlantis mission.
She leant against the wall outside his quarters, staring at the floor, fixed expression on her face, betraying nothing and saying it all simply because the expression had to be there. The door slid open as Teyla left his room, glancing briefly in her direction.
"Anything?"
"No. Not a word. If we did not know otherwise, I would say he was comatose," the Athosian replied, tone devoid of any outstanding emotion, tired just from watching him, sitting there, silently, sometimes speaking to herself when her words were meant to be directed at him. Maybe he heard. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he ignored them all. Or maybe they really had lost him to the depth of his mind.
"Right," Elizabeth nodded, "Thank you."
Teyla didn't even incline her head in acknowledgement of her words, she just walked silently away, head down, about as depressed as the rest of them were, seeing him in such a state.
If you could call it a state. State of mind perhaps. Physically he was perfectly healthy. Mentally, however… But he had to free himself, and it seemed no matter how long they called to him for, he remained impassive. Blank. Devastated. Guilty.
She entered his quarters slowly, trying to make eye contact, knowing it was useless. Elizabeth sat down in the chair beside his bed and deliberately altered the light settings so the room was bathed in bright white until they dimmed slightly, still enough to make her blink in reaction. He did nothing. Just stared straight ahead, blinking occasionally.
"Hello, John," she said softly.
She didn't expect a response she didn't get. He didn't so much as twitch. She wondered if it was an effort, being so still, whether he was affecting it, and if he sighed and shifted when they were gone. If he cried or screamed when he slept. They never saw it. They never saw him.
He had done some terrible things in his time, she knew. Most of them, she felt rather sick to realise, whilst under her command. Killed many, many people at a time, gunned down strangers, destroyed the enemy. Made devastating changes to other civilisations, said some things he desperately wished he hadn't. The old cliché of a part of somebody dying for each life they took. Maybe it was true. Yes, he had done some terrible things…but he'd never killed a child.
An. Innocent. Child.
Or so he had stated, when he was actually communicative, before he slipped into silences and what a lot of people were calling depression. But whatever was happening to him was more than depression.
It hadn't been his fault. Not really. That's what everyone said. What everyone actually thought; they weren't lying when they told him that. They might suppose he had killed, they had killed, children during attacks and battles with various enemies, but he had never fired a direct shot that killed one. Never seen the body fall. Never seen none of the enemy actually not give a damn that the child was dead.
The girl had been used as a shield. As some of them ran and some of them fought. He'd levelled the P-90 at his target and prepared to fire, pulling the trigger as his target grabbed the girl and flung her in the path of the bullet. One shot. In the head. Dead.
And the one he'd been after had just run and fired some more shots in his direction. Didn't care that an innocent had been killed.
They might call them the enemy, but they knew there were always innocents on both sides. The ones they tried not to hit. Even the child of your enemy doesn't deserve to die for the sins of their people. If they were sins at all.
"I know you can hear me," Elizabeth began, trying a different tactic, on the edge, finally feeling too sick with worry, and guiltily angry at him, frustrated and furious, "I know you can hear me, John. You can hear all of us. You just choose not to," she leant back in her chair, "I know it hurts. I know everyone has said this, that we all feel your pain and know what its like. And I know I probably have no right to be telling you to move on. I remember how I reacted when I first took a life. How I cried when I thought nobody was looking and had to constantly tell myself not to be sick. I know you were there for me, and we've all been here for you, we're still here for you, but you have to help us. Give us something, anything, just say something," she leant forward, "It was an accident, John. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say that. It was an accident. And you know it."
He remained still. Staring straight ahead. Sometimes they managed to get him to walk around the city for a while, but it was as if he were in a trance and he never spoke a single word to anyone. They could talk for hours and get nothing in return. Sometimes he'd be sitting in the chair, sometimes he'd be staring out of the window. Always lost. Always absent.
Elizabeth shook her head, "I could sit here and pour my heart out to you, I suppose, and you wouldn't answer me. I could tell you that I love you, have told you that I love you, and that I'm here if you need me, but you're always silent. I don't care if you don't feel the same. That's not what it's about. You're my friend, you're more than my friend, and I want to help you, John, god, I just want to help you."
Maybe he blinked a couple of times out of the norm. Maybe he didn't. No words. Not a breath out of place.
"So if you wont listen, then listen to this. I am ordering you back to duty, you hear me?" her voice only shook slightly as she glared fiercely at him, trying to provoke a reaction, "As your commander, I am ordering you to get back out there. Don't you think I'm joking, Colonel, I'm about as far from joking as I can get," Elizabeth stood up, "and if it takes scathing reports to get you out of that bed, then I'll do it. If it takes me throwing you back through the Stargate to the SGC, I will," she threatened, "And they wont sit with you like we do. They'll say you're beyond hope and put you in some room and leave you to it. Maybe that's what you want. And its certainly what you'll get," she approached the door, "I'm tired of you just existing. I want you to live," she hit the release for the door, not looking back.
"Elizabeth."
She hesitated. He said her name as if it were a statement, not a designation. Not who she was. Not a call or a request. She still didn't look back. Didn't give in.
His voice different, strangled, as if he was broken inside. Maybe he was.
"Stay," he finally made eye contact with her as she glanced over her shoulder.
Elizabeth took the paces back to the chair, slowly, noting his eyes never left hers. He didn't utter another word. She sat down and started to speak quietly to him again.
Because he was listening now. Maybe not to her words, but at least to her voice.
And perhaps that would be enough to bring him back, if only for a little while.
Fin