"He's got the Ancient gene!" Sheppard exclaims excitedly, sitting down at the table in the mess hall. "We should have more of your friends over." Ville smiles with a little shake of her head. "Anyway, I told Nick if he needs a favor, to call and if those folks in London gave him a hard time, he should come work for us."
"And he turned you down. His job is more of a legacy than a career."
"Well, I hate to shut the door on someone with the Ancient gene and a high ATA rating which I'm guessing Mr. Boyle would score if he were tested. You should've seen him at the controls of the jumper. He's a natural."
"I don't get that," McKay shakes his head, "how could someone with the gene turn down such an incredible opportunity? It's crazy."
Ville chides him, "Rodney, don't talk with your mouth full."
"I'm starving. I haven't eaten in six hours."
"Six whole hours. Really?" Sheppard says in his mockingly sympathetic you-poor-thing-I'm-surprised-you're-not-dead-already voice.
"Just because I do my work sitting down doesn't make it any less strenuous. Not all of us have time to play tour guide."
Ville says, "Nick Boyle is hardly a candidate for crazy. Civilians are just harder to recruit than academics or ex-SGC personnel. They would have to relocate to a cold, bone dry desert at the bottom of the world that experiences a six month long winter."
McKay asks, "Speaking of which, are you two making any progress on the Stargate agreement? Carson thinks he's hiding it well but he's anxious to get back to his fieldwork on the retro-virus. And as crazy as this sounds, being back on Earth is not really all it's cracked up to be."
"You miss the Wraith?" Sheppard jokes.
"I'm not that stir crazy. It's weird, I know, but I actually miss going off-world."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Sheppard agrees wistfully.
"Both of you miss the other half of your team," Ville observes. Both men nod. "Richard and I have floated the idea of Atlantis running missions to Pegasus while the SGC retains...jurisdiction, if you will, in the Milky Way."
"If we can't get that, then we'll need the jumper hyperdrive. How's that coming, Rodney?"
"Zelenka says he'll be ready next week."
"Good. That's another thing I miss, space flight."
"Hold on, Buck Rogers, we're not there yet. We need to do simulations, more lab testing and a dry run before you get into the cockpit."
"Oh, come on, Rodney. What's the worse that can happen?"
"It could blow up for one thing. It's too risky."
"Well, I'm touched by your concern but I think I can handle it."
"I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the prototype. God knows how long it would take if Zelenka has to build another one."
"He means that in the nicest possible way," Sheppard assures Ville with a smirk. "This mural project seems to be coming along," he gestures at the walls.
Pleased, Ville invites them to join in, "More and more people are starting to work on it. They drop by for a meal after their shift, start talking, someone starts painting, others pick up a brush, some offer criticism or ideas. Some are interested in recreating pigments used by the great masters for others to use. It's a real community effort."
"I hate to be Mr. Negative, but the results are uhm, how shall we say? Unappealing?"
"It's an ongoing project, Rodney. The Never Ending Mural," Ville playfully suggests the name.
"If it's never going to be finished then what's the point?"
Sheppard explains, "It's obviously a metaphor for human evolution. Right?"
Ville deadpans, "No, it's just fun." She stands up, "Let me show you," and eagerly breaks out the paint palettes, brushes and just about every conceivable art supply anyone can - and has - imagined.
McKay frowns slightly in Sheppard's direction. "At the risk of sounding obtuse - where did that cabinet come from?"
Sheppard shakes his head and minutely widens his eyes. "We just never noticed it before?" he suggests.
"Ah."
"Here you go," she extends a brush to each of them. "Gentlemen, start your colours." She spends fifteen minutes coaxing a single brush stroke from McKay before he finally insists there's something in his lab he needs to finish.
Sheppard quips, "Well, I guess one stroke was all he needed." He chooses a place on the mural then daubs the brush on the pallette. "Alright, let's see what kind damage I can do." As he raises the brush to the wall, his eye is drawn to the texture of the paint already on the canvas. He sees several layers of paint, each a snapshot of a previous moment in time.
Each layer a previous moment in time when another and another and yet another stood in his place gazing upon this very same speck of the universe.
He sees the granules of pigment as the brush seemingly lays the paint down of its own accord. The molecules come to the foreground in his mind's eye, then the atoms, then the electrons, protons and neutrons.
The heavy semi-fluid pigment moves slowly under its own inertia. The individual camel hairs, rasping against the irregular layers, leave broken streaks of colour in their wakes.
Microscopic air pockets in the slow moving river of colour expand and split, bursting open to create the delicate imperfections on the new surface. His exhalation reacts with the chemistry of the fresh pigment, changing it, altering its composition at its most basic level making it uniquely his own.
His nostrils react imperceptibly to the metallic tang. The pressure of brush against canvas dislodges a speck of older pigment. His dilated pupils track its fall.
"Whoa," he breathes heavily. Ville has left his side to walk through the room contributing to other areas of the mural, talking with enthusiastic participants and interested observers. At one wall, she passes her hand over a pot, leading with her wrist in a dancer's gesture and the paint flings across an abstract landscape.
"Getting all Jackson Pollock on me." Lorne hangs his jacket on a chair and views the changes.
"Evan. You're late," she teases.
"No. I'm not," he smiles. "Time is irrelevant to an artist."
Sheppard sits back and watches their verbal jousting. Jennifer Keller joins him. "Colonel Sheppard. Sorry. John," she makes one of her silly apologetic gestures. "I wouldn't have expected to see you here."
"I like to expand my horizons. You know you just missed Rodney."
"Yeah, I passed him in the hall. He mentioned his 'brush' with artistic creativity."
"After which he practically ran screaming from the room," Sheppard jokes. "I didn't realise so many people were into this. It seems like half the city is here."
"Usually there are only a few people at a time, mostly working alone. When she shows up, word travels pretty fast."
"Really? I would think our people would be less star struck."
"Oh, they don't come to see her per se. They come for the show. She's quite the performer."
"Show?"
"Watch. You'll see."
Ville circulates through the room, contributing to others' work. Encouraging some, she mirrors their brush strokes in duet.
Becoming more exhuberant, her movements become more fluid, more graceful, humming to music only she hears. The music becomes audible as she sings individual notes without words.
Jennifer gushes in hushed voice, "It's like finger painting without the paint."
Pigment flies, charcoal streaks, new colours form right on the walls themselves. As she begins to circle and spin, light comes off her and onto the older parts of the work, fusing with the material, changing it to create a flourescence. Onlookers murmur in appreciation or wonder.
She's oblivious to the attention, her eyes half-lidded. Time slows once again, intoxicating. Sheppard senses her use of song and movement to peer beyond these walls, into other times, other places, other illusions of reality. He can feel some of the other watchers sensing it, too, but most are simply mesmorised by the physical spectacle experienced through their five senses in a very palpable way.
Time resumes its natural course. The artists are creating. Couples slow dance to the music. Small groups converse intimately, laughing and simply enjoying each other's company.
"Wow," he says slowly.
Keller grins. "Wasn't that amazing?"
Lorne nods appreciatively, "Impressive. Any idea how she does that, Sheppard?"
Suspicion colours his voice. "I thought I knew. Now I'm not so sure."
Lorne approaches Ville with a compliment to the ready which she humbly accepts. Sheppard blocks out what they're saying and watches their body language. "What do you think of those two?" he asks Jennifer.
"Who?"
"Lorne and Ville. Do they look like a couple to you?"
Keller gives Sheppard an okay-what've-you-been-smoking glance. "Actually, I think he's got the hots for Sara Thompson. But Ville? If there is anything there, and I'm not saying there is, I think it's mutually unrequited."
"Lancelot/Guenivere unrequited or Cyrano de Bergerac unrequited?"
"I think he's too chivalrous to do anything about it either way."
"Chivalrous? Not the first word that comes to mind."
"You know, most of us assume that you and she..."
Sheppard smirks, "A gentleman never kisses and tells."
"Ah, so you have kissed her," Keller teases.
He gives her a sidelong nice-try smile. "If that were the case, and I'm not saying it is," he wheedles her back, "I certainly wouldn't be the only love in her life."
"I suppose. She has been around a few millenia after all. Can't expect a girl to go that long with some action, can ya?"
Sheppard stands to leave but leans down to confide, "I think I'm needed in the control room."
She chortles and rolls her eyes as he walks away. "Oh, please." She can't help but watch Ville and Lorne a while longer before concluding, "Nah."
It's something Sheppard continues to contemplate. Evan Lorne. Dry sense of humour. Trustworthy. Dependable. Rock steady in a crisis. Loyal.
Lorne does have to spend a lot of time in close proximity to her. She wouldn't have chosen him if she wasn't comfortable with him. More than that, she listens to him.
Most important to the rest of the Council, Lorne is miserly with her time and access, otherwise she would be agreeing to help everyone with everything and spending precious little time in the city. Sheppard appreciates that about him.
Lorne's job is to protect her, not physically, though he is capable if needed, but from herself - her desire to please, her desire to help, her desire to be needed. It occurs to Sheppard that Lorne is exactly the type of guy Ville needs around precisely because he won't fall for her.