AN: Written for the sgrarepairings 2008 fic battle, for the prompt 'You came to Atlantis to fish?'. It's Jack/Elizabeth, with Atlantis herself in the background. Het, PG-13. Or something. Enjoy.
Commander to commander, (well, to ex-commander: the General insists that a desk job in Washington DC is not a real command. Knowing him, Elizabeth disagrees.) there are some things they don't talk about – like the fact that Jack reads Ancient fluently and disguises it with skill more appropriate for a politician, not a man whose policy is supposedly 'shoot first, ask questions later'. Or, come to think of it, the fact that the pacifist Dr Weir has asked Major Lorne to help her work on her accuracy, where projectile weapons are concerned.
They also don't talk about just who Jack had to blackmail in order to not only get a vacation, but to be allowed to spend it in Atlantis, formally outside the command structure. There are things everyone is better off not knowing, especially since he needed that time off – when the Daedalus beamed him down in the middle of the 'gate room, he had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and was grinning widely, but later, when twilight stole into the control room through stained glass windows, it was his skin not hair which turned ash grey, like he didn't even need the Wraith to turn him much, much older than his years.
Rodney's outraged squawk of, 'You came to Atlantis to fish?' is almost as amusing to her as John's thinly veiled hero worship, especially once Jack has found the Ancient equivalent of fishing boats, which are big and actually do go over 200 miles per hour. Offworld missions got suspended for almost a week, after that one, and the ferrying of supplies to and from the mainland was never the same after the boats' autopilot function had been discovered and property programmed.
Atlantis herself lights up under Jack's touch, just like she does for John, but instead of childlike excitement the General brings into her walls the kind of wistfulness and whimsy that comes with experience and being broken and mended – just like the city – over and over again.
She sings for him, and instead of cold high symphonies he hears songs and murmurs of all those who didn't ascend, and he knows they didn't, because … well, you don't have a voice like that if you can muster enough detachment towards the world to leave it for another plane of existence.
This he tells Elizabeth – without mentioning that he can understand the words, but that goes unspoken lest it be overheard and the last of his 'dumb grunt' persona be discredited – one evening when they are both standing on a high balcony, more than slightly tipsy from Athosian moonshine (he chose it over the products of Radek Zelenka's still, because it reminded him of someone named 'Skaara', and someday, she is going to ask) and staring over the ocean into shimmering salty air.
It's been a few weeks, and he no longer looks like something a Wraith dragged in. When she reaches out, the skin of his cheek is slightly rough with stubble, real with wrinkles and laugh lines. He feels like Atlantis did, after the storm in their first year there, damaged and home, and when he leaves – because politicians in DC are hardly likely to be magnanimous to the SGC without some serious prompting – she keeps that touch in her fingertips and his slight smile behind her eyes.
He'll be back.
For both, or maybe all, of them.