Stargate Atlantis
Rating: PG13
Characters/Pairings: Gen: Elizabeth, John, Ronon, Rodney, Teyla.
Word Count: 500
Spoilers: None
Summary: They contemplate their lives. 5 100 word drabbles.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: As always, just borrowing the characters for a while..
Author's Notes: Written for 100situations over at LJ. Reviews are love, so let me know what you think.
It's dark in the control room, but her office shines brightly. Her laptop is open, but her eyes are focused on the written report she had to finish reading. Her tired body screams at her to sleep, but there is too much to be done. She flips over the page, her hand coming up to her mouth as she stifles a yawn. The skeleton crew that man the nightshift acknowledge her presence; they know she'll be there to see the dayshift begin. Pushing her exhausted body on, she drops the report on her desk and picks up the one beneath.
The same old missions, the same old failed missions. The order of events gets shuffled, but the outcome is always, somehow the same. Someone gets hurt. Someone is injured. Someone died. And he's tired of it all. He wishes for just one mission out of every hundred to be simple. Almost every day, he will step out into the unknown, his grip tight on his weapon; the bullets from his gun will decide between his life and their deaths. His finger hovers over the trigger, because he will never know what could be waiting for him on the other side.
He's tired of the endless battle life had brought him. He is plagued by all the things he has done, all the things he should have done. There is a growing insistence inside of him for the death of every last Wraith; but that job cannot be completed by one man alone, despite the strength and the willpower that man may possess. So, he waited and he tired of the continuous struggles before him. Finding comfort in the honest belief that the men and women he resides with in the city of Atlantis have the power to defeat his enemy.
He can't sleep because of the images that haunt him. He sees death and destruction, almost every day and that weakens him. He has the power to stop it all, but he doesn't realise that yet. He hides behind his arrogance and his self-assurance, but the hurt and the pain seeps through the cracks. He lies awake at night, thinking back to how he could have done things differently, had he had the chance to. In this world, it takes someone more than a genius to conquer the evil they face, and sometimes he doubts whether he can be that.
They tell her she has a gift, but she knows it is not. It is a weakness. She can open a door in her mind and they can walk right in. It takes a little of her every time she communicates with them, what she sees, what she feels, burns away at her, and she can't forget. She fears that one day she will do something unforgivable within their control. The dull ache inside her throbs when they are close. They say she possesses the gift of being able to sense them, but it is not. It is a burden.
