In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future.
The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
- Eric Hoffer
All the Good Stories
By EllieV
Chapter One
Various members of the Atlantis team waited in the gateroom. She could see Sheppard from her office. He had the slightly glazed, concentrated look on his face he always had when he was calculating something. She had asked him after the puddlejumper had been stuck in the gate—when she thought she'd lose them all—what Sheppard used as an anger control mechanism, confessing that she had threatened to send Kavanaugh to a barren wasteland planet. Sheppard had looked approving.
Sheppard replied, "It depends how angry I am. You?" then flashed Distraction No. 1 at her. Weir said she used a once faddish deep-breathing technique.
When the news came through that they were being sent reinforcements she asked Sheppard if he knew General Norman Elliot. O'Neill hadn't been at the SGC to fill her in and the news had come from the unfailingly polite but non-gossipy General Landry. Weir supposed that O'Neill wouldn't have told her anything over an open channel anyway but she thought that Sheppard might know Elliot. The Air Force, as big as it was, was still a small community.
As the Atlantis military team clattered in to wait the arrival of their new commanding officer, she realized that Sheppard hadn't answered either of her questions, but right now he looked very angry indeed.
Wee have engaged in this Kingdome and ventur'd our lives, and itt was all for this:
to recover our birthrights and priviledges as Englishmen, and by the arguments urged there is none.
- Edward Sexby, Putney Debates (1649)
It was yet another military briefing. They had a lot of those. Since they'd made contact with the SGC again bit-by-bit Atlantis had become militarized. Elizabeth Weir hated it. She was still nominally in charge but her power had become subordinate to General Elliot, who had now been there several weeks. She had been spoilt by the easygoing, cheerfully dumb act that Jack O'Neill affected. They had all been spoilt. Most of her staff, including the scientists, had worked with or for O'Neill prior to joining the Atlantis expedition. Even those who hadn't had much to do with O'Neill had been spoilt. They'd had John Sheppard. She wasn't supposed to know that General Elliot's nickname in Atlantis was "General Enema." She allowed none of her amusement at the nickname to show on her face.
She glanced around the table as Enema ... Elliot ... droned on. Rodney had zoned out. Carson was frowning, doodling on his notepad. She hoped that Elliot didn't find out about his nickname; the good doctor was at the head of her shortlist as to who thought it up. Teyla, there against the General's wishes but at Weir's insistence, looked bewildered. Elliot didn't translate the jargon. Stackhouse looked blank and she wondered if he practiced that "I'm a nobody sergeant" look in front of a mirror.
As Major Williams took over from Enem ... Elliot ... she risked a glance at John Sheppard. After being the senior officer in Atlantis, John Sheppard was back to being a pilot and at the General's bidding, sometimes a groundpounder. He hadn't protested. He'd just smiled and flicked his gaze downwards.
"Sir," he'd said. She had caught a glimpse of that smile before—in the gateroom on Earth just before they left. Colonel Sumner had put that look there. She still didn't know what it meant. Sheppard sat, his hands folded, that smile on his face, his eyes mostly cast down at his hands. He looked up and caught her gaze. The smile broadened slightly and he looked down again. If there was a joke somewhere in this, she wished he'd let her in on it. She'd tried to talk to him but as always, Weir never got beyond the slight flirtatiousness he affected when he didn't want to talk about anything deep.
John Sheppard was good at deflection.
Major Williams stopped talking and Enema—she thought defiantly—mercifully didn't start except to dismiss the troops. The mission was a go. Bates's team had found a potential trading partner. The General would take charge. She didn't protest that she should go because it was a diplomatic rather than a military mission; there wasn't any other sort in the General's rule book. She frowned as Sheppard executed a textbook salute—Enema made the military Atlanteans salute; it was pointless—and then disappeared out the door. John Sheppard wasn't a textbook officer and his salutes were usually sloppy at best. She'd try to catch him before they left.
I hope that none in the Army will say but that I have performed my duty, and that with some success, as well as others. I am loath to leave the Army, with whom I will live and die, insomuch that rather than I will lose this regiment of mine the Parliament shall exclude me the House, or imprison me; for truly while I am employed abroad I will not be undone at home.
- Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates (1647)
He stood against the wall, listening to his attorney. His father was pacing up and down; his Nana sat, her back ramrod straight in the chair, with a look of disdain on her face. She didn't care for lawyers. She didn't care for the American military either—he was grateful she hadn't said any of it was his fault for joining up in the first place. Maybe making his own decisions, such as they were, made up for it.
Sheppard interrupted, "I can understand not wanting me in a combat zone but a desk job?"
His father snorted. "What's the worst punishment you can think of, boyo?" He was always "boyo" when he was in trouble. A habit picked up from the maternal northern English line.
"Not flying," he said softly.
"Then they picked the one thing that would affect you the most," his father said. He hesitated and offered almost tentatively, "I know people; I'm still owed favors."
"Dad …" Sheppard shook his head, though in his heart he knew that strings would be pulled whether he wanted them or not.
Having by our late labours and hazards made it appear to the world at how high a rate we value our just freedom, and God having so far owned our cause as to deliver the enemies thereof into our hands, we do now hold ourselves bound in mutual duty to each other to take the best care we can for the future to avoid both the danger of returning into a slavish condition
and the chargeable remedy of another war.
- An Agreement of the People for a firme and prefent Peace, upon grounds of common-right and freedome, Leveller manifesto (1647)
Only one person could have stopped him from going to Atlantis. He used to think that she was a telepath then he thought she was omniscient. It took him a while to work out that she was just his Nana, who thought new days were important. He remembered his father arguing with her, calling it being held prisoner to history. He also remembered his father visiting him after Afghanistan with family history and family present conflicting in his face. His father had never disobeyed an order.
Sheppard sat on his bed and flicked through the photos. Next to him was a frame that Jinto had made. The boy had asked if he missed his family and Sheppard said that he did but that he had photos as reminders. Of course, that meant explaining photos and Jinto pouring over them, asking him eager questions.
He found the photo he wanted and carefully placed it in the frame. It fit perfectly. When the knock at the door came, he placed the frame on the bedside table. Time to stop hiding so much.
"You have a minute?" Weir stood in the doorway.
"Sure," he said.
She clasped her hands, just as she had the last time, her usual precursor to an awkward conversation.
"About General Elliot wanting you to return to pilot duties," she began.
Sheppard lifted his hands, palms out, and looked deliberately rueful. This conversation was not unexpected. Of course, what the General actually bellowed—in front of McKay and Teyla—was that he didn't want a screw up like Sheppard anywhere near him. He'd even asked who Sheppard had been sleeping with to get promoted. O'Neill told him, he said, that Sheppard was Weir's "favorite genetic mutant." Sheppard didn't know O'Neill that well and wondered if he'd actually used those words. But it wasn't difficult for him—or anyone else—to connect what Elliot was implying.
Elliot said Sheppard would be allowed to go on missions and fly the puddlejumpers until he got kicked back to Earth at the first opportunity. What Sheppard wanted to say in return was that Elliot was an incompetent piece of crap who shouldn't be in charge of himself let alone anyone else. He had ignored Elliot the first time—it had been the right thing to do—but there was too much of his father, the Cold War Hero, in him. This time there wasn't anyone at stake other than himself and he'd replied, "Yes sir" instead. Nana said everything had a flow on effect. That first choice, even before Antarctica, was what landed him in Atlantis.
"Flying is what I do best," he said, in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. It was nice that she worried about him but then she worried about everyone. Distracting her worked sometimes so he handed her the frame. "See what Jinto gave me?"
"It's beautiful," she said. She smiled teasingly. "This your girlfriend?"
He took the frame back and put it on the table. "My grandmother, on her engagement. She's eighty-nine now."
"She's lovely. Do you think she could leave me that hair slide in her will?"
He chuckled and grinned Distraction No. 5—the "I'm going to say something cheeky"—at her. "You'd have to marry me first and then it would go to our eldest daughter, it being a family heirloom n' all." He was mock solemn. "Dr Weir, will you marry me?"
Weir smiled back at him and at his marriage proposal. "No thanks, Colonel Sheppard, I'd end up insane and I'd have to kill you, and then I still wouldn't get the hair slide."
"Ah, well," he subsided, still smiling.
"How old is it?" she wanted to know.
"Old." He considered the hair slide. "Antique. About 350 years. It gets passed down."
She was impressed, and he thought with satisfaction, completely distracted. He said casually, "I have it here, you know." Now he had her.
"One personal item, Colonel," Weir said in severe "I've said this before" tones.
He lifted and dropped his shoulders, unrepentant. "You want to see it or not?"
She sat on the end of his bed and he pulled over his backpack.
"You keep a family heirloom in your backpack?" she asked.
He looked faintly embarrassed. "Good luck charm."
He rummaged around and pulled out a bundle of red silk. He unwrapped it deftly—he'd done it a lot since arriving in Atlantis. Sheppard handed Weir a small wooden box. She opened it, looked in, and turned the box around to Sheppard.
It was empty.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke
