Spoilers: "Home"

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and its characters are not mine, nor am I making money off of them…as usual.

A/N: Just a small piece trying to explain why John might have had his 6th grade teacher included in his version of Earth. Maybe I'm taking creative license with letting John call Dr. Weir "Elizabeth" at the end of this when it wasn't until later that we heard him call her by her first name, but frankly, after seeing his reactions in "The Eye", I get the feeling that he may have been calling her Liz before we knew of it. Sorry for any errors, this was written and posted in two hours…anyhow, enjoy!

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A Little Faith

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"You're still awake? I would've thought you'd be recovering from today by now," Elizabeth commented as she approached the solitary figure standing at the balcony railing.

John turned his head, sent her an absent smile then returned to gazing out towards the sea and city below. "Couldn't sleep. Just needed some fresh air I guess. Some real air."

"You felt that too, then?" She asked, thinking back to the strange, indefinable scent that had occasionally lingered in the air while she had been in that simulated environment. "I thought it was just because I had been away from Earth so long that I had forgotten what the air there smelled like."

"Even the most polluted cities don't have that weird smell," He said, struggling to think of a way of describing it. "It was almost…"

"Alien?" She offered dryly and was rewarded with a quick glimpse of a grin. Inhaling deeply, she went to the railing and settled in beside her second-in-command. "Not like here though. The air here is so fresh, so unspoiled. You can clear the cobwebs from the brain with one breath." Shaking her head, she rested her head on her hand as she leaned against the cool metallic surface. "I sometimes wonder what it will be like when we finally do get home—the real Earth. Will everything seem strange there and will Atlantis feel more like home?"

"Who knows, Dr. Weir," was his reply as he ran a hand through his hair "Just don't count your chickens before they hatch."

A little surprised at this sudden dubious attitude, she flicked him a sideways glance and noticed for the first time the lines on his forehead. Though John Sheppard wasn't exactly a paragon of optimism, she hadn't realized he could be quite so cynical either, especially about a topic that she needed her people to believe in. She wanted to prod him for answers as to this turnaround in his personality, but they had only just begun establishing a comfort level and she wasn't ready to cross any lines with him just yet.

So she did the only thing she could do—she waited patiently until he was ready to talk.

After a few minutes of silence, as they both watched the setting sun dip lower down the horizon, John finally decided to break the peace.

"What…what was your version like? Your version of Earth?"

"Exactly like I remembered it to be," Elizabeth answered quietly. "My house, my gardens, even my dog looked like she had when I left. Maybe that was the problem, why I was lulled into such a sense of security. I couldn't possibly question anything when it was all so familiar to me."

"But you did start questioning it, in the end."

It was a statement, not a question, but she still felt a need to reply. "Well, yes, eventually I did. Although the settings were the same, the people weren't quite what I remembered." She thought back to Simon's kiss, the strange emptiness she had felt in that fleeting touch, as if—even though she could touch him and feel his presence—he wasn't really there at all. "It wasn't until I was back at Cheyenne Mountain that things really started feeling wrong."

John lapsed into silence again, and she had a feeling that she would have to prod just a bit more to get his furrowed brow to relax. "What about your version? I know you said that your home had been in the Arctic for the last while, but was that really all?"

Slowly he shook his head, keeping his eyes trained on the distant sunset. "Mostly. What really cinched the deal was having some of my long-dead army buddies show up at my door with pizza and beer, as well as a bunch of other people I had nearly forgotten about."

"That would be disturbing."

"It was," He said with a sigh. "But not as weird as having my old 6th grade teacher there. Luckily she chose not to wear a bikini, unlike the other women. You'd probably have to put me through therapy if that had happened."

Elizabeth grinned at his joke, noticing the distant look on his face even as she chuckled. "Your 6th grade teacher? Of all the people to pick, what would she be doing there?"

She could see his hesitancy to answer the question, and she was about to retract it and let the matter rest (he wasn't exactly forthcoming about his past), when he truly surprised her by telling her why.

"She's the only teacher I ever remember clearly. Her name was Ms. Watson and on my first day of being a sixth-grader, she asked the class to write a small piece on what we wanted to be when we got older. The next day, she had us stand up in front of the class, one by one, and recite what we had written down. I hated public speaking—still do—and I didn't want to do it."

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips as she watched him drift off into the memories. "But if I didn't do it, then that would mean I'd get shown up by the punk kid who used to steal my lunch money. I was so damn nervous though, I couldn't keep my voice from shaking, but she smiled at me, and told me that whatever I had written must be important."

"Let me guess, you wanted to be a pilot?"

He grinned at her then, a real grin, and she felt an answering smile grace her lips. "You're a funny woman, Doc. But no, I didn't want to be a pilot then. Nope, I stood up in front of twenty twelve- and thirteen-year olds and told them all I wanted to be an astronaut and travel the galaxy in a spaceship of my own design."

The humour faded from his eyes as he glanced back to the sea. "You should have heard the kids laughing—the punk Gary was laughing hardest of all. I was so embarrassed that I hid in the bathroom for recess so I wouldn't hear their teasing. Ms. Watson eventually came and found me and took me back to the classroom. I thought she'd tell me how my effort was good but to forget such silly dreams, like most people did. But she sat me down next to her and told me that she thought I was brave young man to share my dreams with the class. She told me that I could do whatever I want if I put my mind to it, and to never let anyone else's opinion matter as much as my opinion of myself. And then she gave me not one, but two gold stars on my report."

Shaking his head, as if shaking himself out of a reverie, John turned back to his companion. "She was the first person to believe in me, and to thank her for it, I put more effort into that grade than any others. Even as a kid I was pretty well known for acting up in school, but in Ms. Watson's class I was a star pupil. You should've seen the surprise on my parents' faces when I came back with my report card in June." He chuckled wryly at the thought. "Even after I left her class, then the school, and moved on, I still remembered her advice and stuck to it, making sure that people's opinions never got to me."

He fixed Elizabeth with a wary look, trying to gauge her reaction. "You must think I'm nuts to admire a sixty year old woman who I knew for a brief moment in my life," John declared after a moment of study.

Shaking her head, she rested a hand on his arm in an unconscious effort to offer her support—not as a leader, but as a friend. "No, John, not at all. Everyone needs their heroes or heroines, and you should count yourself lucky that you found one at such a young age. If only she could see you know, I know she'd be proud of you."

A small grin returned to his face, his eyes lightened a little as he realized that she had meant every word. "Yeah, well I got lucky twice in that department."

Raising a brow at the sudden switch between moods, she asked, "How so?"

His smile was warm and directed solely at her. She wasn't sure if she should be flattered or cautious. "I met another woman stupid enough to believe in me. Even with all the black marks on my record, even when I challenged her authority and probably drove her crazy, she still kept me around."

Swallowing against the sudden tightening in her throat, Elizabeth tried to return the smile as best she could. Though she had had many people thank her for her services, never before had she truly felt as though they meant it. That was, until now.

"She's proud of you too, John. And she's just as lucky to have someone around who'll watch her back."

"She'll always have me watching her back, even when it doesn't seem like it," He promised solemnly. Then, he reached up to her hand—which was still resting absently on his arm—and gave it a small squeeze. "Thank you, Elizabeth. For everything."

He turned then, disappearing through the multi-coloured doors, and Elizabeth turned back to the sea and the city, a smile drifting onto her face as she realized that he had finally called her by her first name.

"You're welcome," She breathed into the salty, fresh air and settled back into the real world that she called home.

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end