Rating: PG-13
Characters: Elizabeth (I MISS YOU), Peter Grodin, Jack O'Neill, Cameron, Ladon, and Rodney.
Summary: When his mouth brushes against hers, mobile and warm, she realizes it was always going to be him in the end.
Authors Note: I can't thank jazmin22 enough for being an awesome beta. This particular piece has sat on my hard drive unfinished for nearly a year so I am quite glad to have it finished. Feedback, as always, is welcome in any form.
i.
Elizabeth Weir never sleeps with Peter Grodin. She thinks about it at first, during the long nights of uncertainty and isolation from Earth. She sees how accommodating he could be, how quick he is to sooth away her irritation or on the rare occasion, her impatience, with a steady hand. She knows if she asked he would have come to her bed, willing and discrete. She knows they might have lasted, that they could've been happy and she isn't sure she's made the right decision, made a good call until Rodney comes to her, unearthed by a strange grief and says I'm sorry.
ii.
Jack O'Neill kisses her once, lips dry and warm at the celebration. No one notices them and when he rests a hand low on her hip she knows it wouldn't be hard to slip away, to find one of the many hidden alcove on Atlantis together. He would make her laugh, flush with embarrassed pleasure as he complained about his bad knees and a little about her aged beauty too. It would be nice, uncomplicated in a way she misses but instead Elizabeth lets Rodney draw her away, excited and animated while Jack watches.
iii.
Cameron Mitchell is young and handsome with a boyish laugh that warms her. He is uncomplicated, open to her unlike so many at Atlantis. There are scars, fresh and pink but he is strong, growing into the position left to him. He talks about his grandmother and smuggles her homemade cookies that cloy her senses with the sweet taste of earth. His sincerity and boyish charm soften her, loosen her tongue and laughter but he is too young, too earnest for her. She sends him back through the gate before she is tempted and pretends not to see the way his face falls open in the soft blue light of the wormhole as Rodney stands beside her, reassuring with his impatient silence.
iv.
Ladon Radim is not a man to be trusted even if the hand he lays on her arm is soft and inviting just like his eyes. They talk of treaties on the Genii home world over fine dinner and warm, mulled wine that makes her skin prickle. Her men are outside the door should she need them but the room is dim and Ladon is close, open to what she might ask of him. He is eager for a treaty, for their support and as the idea passes, it makes her pause. He would understand her burden and, for a few hours, she knows he would willing take it but in the end she returns to Atlantis. She eats lunch in the bright mess hall and swallows down the overcooked meat and drinks the stale water as she listens to Rodney's cresting voice over the crash of waves.
v.
When his mouth brushes against hers, mobile and warm, she realizes it was always going to be him in the end. He was there at the beginning, when the mission was nothing but uncertain promises and he was there when she thought it was over, standing brave and bloodied before Kolya.
The first time he says I think I love you she can feel the heat of his face against her own and the trembling of his hands at her shoulders. It's awkward in a way she expects from him but his fumbling shyness falls away when she opens up under him. At first she worries what people will see, what they will think but no one takes notice and soon it becomes easy for him to slip into her room, easy for her to stay the night with him.
Soon it becomes easy to love him too.