The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd
by Bil
K+ - Gen, Romance – John/Elizabeth - Oneshot
Summary: A moment out of time, when a Sheppard and a nymph meet on the Mainland... Sparky fluff. Pre-relationship.
Disclaimer: Not mine. As should be fairly obvious by the time you get to the end :)
A/N: Season 2 or 3, at random.
Warning: Includes John reciting poetry. Sorry. But when his actual name is shepherd, some things are inevitable :)
After the puddlejumper landed just outside the Athosian village they scattered for their afternoon's shoreleave. Ronon found some martial arts-mad Athosians and went off with them so they could have a grand old time smashing each other into the ground. Teyla went off with Holling and several others to look over the plans for the upcoming harvest. Beckett marched off with a determined look, fishing rods over his shoulder.
McKay, of course, had refused to come to the Mainland at all. He said it was because somebody had to stay on Atlantis in case disaster struck (and apparently no one but Rodney could possibly deal with an emergency) but they all knew it was really because there was nothing on the Mainland to interest him. McKay liked shiny toys that went beep and did interesting things, and the Athosians had a lot going for them but they were definitely running low on shiny toys.
That left John and Elizabeth to wander the village. Or rather, Elizabeth wandered the village and John trailed along behind her. (Not like a lost puppy, because there was no way he was going to describe himself like that. Like... like... like a military officer concerned about the safety of his commander when they were off base. Yeah. Never mind that the Mainland was probably safer than Atlantis, since there was no 'gate for the bad guys to come through. That wasn't the point.)
They – Elizabeth – investigated all the improvements since their last visit, talking with the Athosians who cheerfully stopped to greet them and answer questions and even ask a few of their own. Elizabeth was good at this stuff. She remembered all the little details like names and who was sick last time she saw them and which children belonged to whom. John got on well with them and chatted with them, but he didn't remember every little detail of their lives. But that was why Elizabeth was the diplomat and he was the soldier.
But eventually even Elizabeth felt she had done enough schmoozing with the locals and they got on with the "day off" part of their day off. In unspoken accord the two of them left the bounds of the village, strolling through the trees, the cool shade welcome after the heat of the late summer sun shining down on the village. Finally, perhaps inevitably, without speaking, they came to rest on a low grassy clifftop overlooking the lake, where they stopped in the dappled shadow of a gnarled old not-an-oak-but-almost tree.
There John lay on his back and chewed on a grass stem, finding shapes in the scattered clouds overhead while Elizabeth sat beside him and picked the small red and yellow flowers sprinkled through the meadow. They pooled in her lap like flames while the dappled sun danced in her curls and her hair fell over her face and shaded her eyes, and she was always in the periphery of his vision as he looked up at the clouds.
As much as he liked his life and his home and his job it was nice to – just briefly – lie here in peace and quiet with nothing that had to be done, nowhere he had to be, no deadlines he had to meet, and no one trying to kill him.
Then Elizabeth dropped a daisy chain over his head. Her aim was off, so it fell rakishly over one eye, and he laughed, looking up at her. She wore her own crown of flowers, more chains around her neck and wrists, decorated in reds and yellows like living jewels, smiling down at him with the sun haloing her hair, and he remembered old words from out of his distant past and spoke them:
"There I'll make thee beds of roses
And a million fragrant posies
A cap of flowers and a... kirtle?
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle."
Elizabeth's eyes lit up with laughter and she leant over him to adjust the chain on his head so it sat better, as more memory returned.
"Come and live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove (he said it 'pruhv' to rhyme with 'love')
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield."
Eyes dancing, she promptly replied:
"If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love."
John threw back his head and laughed.
"How do you know poetry?" Elizabeth demanded, smiling down at him and fingering the flowers in his hair.
"My stepmom. How do you know it?"
"College English. I always liked her reply."
"So did my stepmom." He grinned. "You would have got on well."
She sprinkled spare flowers across his chest and smiled. "I'm sure we would have."
Her necklace was caught on her curls and he reached up to free it gently so that it swung free over him. "I'd give you beds of roses if you wanted them," he said quietly.
She quoted softly:
"Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten."
"When I was a kid," he said, "my stepmom made it funny, her reply. Now I wonder if that nymph wasn't a bit hard on him. He's doing his best, after all."
"Perhaps," she said thoughtfully, picking a flower off his chest and twirling it in her fingers. "But he's going about it all wrong."
"Oh?"
"Springtime promises and gifts."
"I thought women liked presents."
"There are better things than flowers."
He tugged gently on the daisy chain around her wrist. "Like what?"
Her fingers closed around his. "Like being there whenever she needs him. Listening to her, maybe even taking her advice on rare occasions." She lifted an eyebrow and he grinned sheepishly. "Going on walks with her, dragging her out of her office when she needs it, bringing her lunch when she forgets to eat, forcing her to come on a trip to the Mainland despite her protests." She touched his nose lightly with a finger. "Don't you think these things are worth more than a few trinkets and promises?"
John smiled.
Ronon looked up as they neared him where he stood by the puddlejumper. "Sheppard. You know you've got flowers in your hair?"
John shot a look at Elizabeth, who could have warned him, and she shrugged. She'd taken hers off, he noticed.
Ronon smirked as he pulled the daisy chain off his head, but John grinned a little too, and tucked it in his pocket. "A nymph gave them to me," he said.
Ronon looked confused, but Elizabeth smiled. And as they all went into the puddlejumper her hand brushed down his arm and he saw flowers around her wrist. "I think there's truth in this Sheppard's tongue," she said softly.
He smiled back at her. "Just let me know when you want the roses," he said.
Fin
.
Poems:
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Walter Raleigh