Reconstructing Rome
By Indygodusk
Chapter 20
"Rome was great in arms, in government, in law."
GOLDWIN SMITH
Meredith's life gets turned topsy-turvy after that, though a yo-yo might be a better analogy. She spends the next few months going on missions with Atlantis's premier gate team. It turns out that going on missions as a permanent team member in Pegasus was completely different than the occasional trip through the gate to fix something in the Milky Way. Thank goodness for the experience Meredith had going out with Major McLean's team because without that she'd have given up the first week.
Along with blisters, she found herself enduring more boredom than she'd been subjected to in years. She's not the star on these trips, she's the accessory. Does she care about friendship rituals or the price of that pink corn that tastes like peach perfume? No, no she does not.
And yet.
Meredith is happier than she's been in years. All that walking and fresh air (despite the potential allergens) has made her healthier than she's been since getting her second Ph.D. And she's lucky enough to live in Atlantis, the city of the Ancients, and regularly visits alien worlds. When not bored she's feeling both exhilarated and challenged, discovering new things about technology, people, the universe, and herself.
Her attempt to socially isolate herself with only knowledge for company has failed, but she can't bring herself to regret it. She's almost never alone anymore. It's odd, but not bad.
First and most importantly there's John and… well, she's not sure what to think about John and how he's upended her plans. She's completely failed to hold onto her grudge. They see each other every day both for work and socially. She spends more time with John than she ever did with Troy even during the height of their marriage. It feels like she's seriously dating John, almost like they're an old married couple, only without any kissing or cuddling, much less more intimate contact. Not that there isn't contact.
There's a LOT of contact.
John never seems to realize how much and how often he casually touches her. The touching is something he's done since he first surrendered to their friendship years ago and she'd missed it when they'd been separated and then fighting, but now he does it way more often than ever before. It's hard to believe he's completely oblivious to how often he takes her arm, puts a hand on her back, or touches her knee, but John has strange blindspots. He'd somehow overlooked her being in love with him for years, after all. She wants to demand he tell her what he's doing with all the touching because it's driving her crazy, but in the end, she keeps quiet. She doesn't want him to stop.
It's safer not to think too much about what she's doing with John.
Instead, she thinks about how quickly her teammates, Teyla and Ronon, accepted her. Sure, they're strange and deadly friends who sometimes seem to like her and other times seem to want to twist her into a pretzel with one hand while sharpening a knife with the other, but they're still people who defend her and hang around her even when they don't have to, like in the DFAC or social lounges or harvest festivals on that planet with the blue roast beef and green potatoes.
Man, she loves eating that stuff.
Anyway, for the first time in her life, Meredith feels like she has a community. The scientists have adapted to her command style and have mostly learned not to flinch during instructional tirades. She's included in the gossip, betting pools, and weekend experiments to blow things up just for fun.
Since Cohen forgave her mistake with the EpiPen, she rescued that team from the middle of a holy war on that planet, and then joined SGA-1, everyone's gotten easier to get along with. Most of the military personnel either greet her by name or ignore her, which is a big step up from when they'd been actively unpleasant.
People respect her and even, dare she say, like her. Some of them at least. The important ones.
The naysayers aren't worth her time. Most of the men probably have crushes on her and feel threatened by her intellect, leading them to pull her pigtails by acting insulting, but she can't be bothered to learn their names so who really cares. Many of the women are jealous, but she can't blame them for feeling inferior to her genius.
Whatever the case, Meredith fits in here on Atlantis. Enough people are pleasant to make her happy. She hadn't realized how long it's been since she was happy.
And she's not sure why she's surprised, but Elizabeth Weir is wonderful to work with. Elizabeth's neither harder or softer on other women, making you earn her respect but setting reasonable goals. Although not always happy about the crazy things John and Meredith have started getting up to both on and off the clock, she genuinely cares and can be persuaded to leniency and even support of a wild scheme with enough logical arguments. It's refreshing.
Meredith has more than one friend here, which is extremely unusual for her. On the civilian side, she's closest to Carson, Miko, and Radek, but there are others she finds herself talking to with pleasure instead of disdain or impatience, like the very pregnant Rachel Kushumba. Rachel's never mentioned Meredith's bout of uncharacteristic violence towards her baby's sperm donor beyond a simple thank you for the help that day. Rachel's headed back to Earth soon and Meredith knows she'll miss their talks on Ancient engineering and life on Atlantis.
There's also the friendships she's building with Ronon and Teyla and, in the military, there's John—a very close friend again albeit a complicated one—and, of course, Kindall, who tracks her down regularly just to hang out. Even Lt. Cohen has become determinedly friendly despite their rocky start. Meredith will probably never be bosom beaus with King or Rigo (he is an anthropologist, after all), but they're definitely allies instead of enemies and superior to the rest of the grunts on Atlantis.
Major McLean would never seek her out for social time—it isn't the way their relationship works—but he takes her safety seriously. She's stopped trying to avoid him since it never really works anyway. Once a week like clockwork they have a standing appointment in the gun range to practice her shooting. McLean secretly likes and respects her. Very secretly. He just doesn't like to talk about his feelings out loud or smile. She suspects he thinks it might tarnish his big bad Marine reputation.
When she'd first joined John's team, McLean would randomly drop by training sessions with her new teammates. At first, she thought he was there to criticize her ability to pull her weight as a full member of a gateteam without him there to ride herd, but then John made a passing remark that made her realize that McLean was actually trying to make sure they were treating her right. It was sweet. Of course, McLean denied that that was what he was doing, but even after he'd stopped lurking, during gun practice he always asked probing questions to check if her team was looking out for her in the field or if he needed to readjust anyone's attitude. It felt good to know he cared.
Taking time away from her research to go on missions hadn't made Meredith less productive either, one of her fears. She'd learned to spend the hours traveling to villages and sitting in boring trade meetings mentally churning over theories. Since she's a genius she can multitask, pondering the mysteries of the universe while still keeping up with the bantering of her teammates. When she gets back to Atlantis, it lets her dive right into the practical applications.
Out in the field, she also gets to interact with bizarre and interesting technology that pushes her to the limit. It's exhilarating. Solving problems isn't just an intellectual exercise anymore, it's a matter of life and death. John has complete confidence in her ability, which should be a good thing but also means he expects miracles as a matter of course and pushes and pushes until she delivers. He can be a complete bastard about it, which she should've expected but hadn't. He dives headfirst into dangerous situations and just assumes she'll be able to get them all out if there's even a hint of technology nearby. It's the downside to always bragging about being a genius. People believe you can do anything. But when she succeeds, John gives her this look of pride, gratitude, and awe with sparkling eyes and small smiles and squeezes her shoulder and it's like a drug. She's become addicted to it.
Meredith finds that she likes being believed in. She likes going out on missions with her team and even, secretly, sort of likes the adrenaline rush of danger and saving people. Several planets have called her a hero. There's probably paintings and statues by now. They love her. And John, Teyla, and Ronon too, of course, but the point is, she's a part of that. She's not on the outside, she's in the middle of it all.
Everything is going great.
Except for the wooden box of letters in her bottom drawer that she still hasn't read. Sometimes in the middle of the night she sits out on the balcony with the box cradled to her chest and watches the moonlight skipping over the waves. She listens to the mournful cry of nocturnal seabirds and feels guilty for not being more miserable. Even the nightmares about Manudia have become less regular, though they haven't stopped. She thinks about reading the letters. Doesn't. Eventually, she hides the box away again and goes back to pretending nothing bad had ever happened. Most of the time she's good at pretending.
And mostly her life is extremely satisfying.
But then there's her love life. It currently has no life, or rather, is stuck in neutral no matter how she presses on the gas pedal or yanks at the stick shift.
Sure, there's that cute Dr. Kit Brown who, after a citywide lockdown trapped them in the botany lab together for hours, now openly flirts with her and has offered to cook her a meal in his quarters. It's tempting to say yes just to prove to herself that she isn't holding back for fear of another two-faced jerk like Seward, but she can't relax into flirting seriously with Kit when she's confronted with the sumptuous reality of John Sheppard every day.
John put his heart out there for her to take and she choked. Meredith isn't a coward, she's just cautious. Despite how they've repaired their friendship and become joined at the hip, she isn't sure John would make different choices if he had to do it all over again. If he got transferred out, would it be with another "So long" or "Good luck and goodbye" and no looking back?
John had really hurt her with that video and his actions afterward. She's forgiven him, but the fact remains that he could hurt her again. Sure, he was trying to keep her from being a miserable and lonely Army wife waiting for months or years for her man to sail into port, which was actually rather thoughtful even if, once again—it was her choice to make. Though John was Air Force, not Army or Navy, and they weren't married, so it would be more like an Air Force Girlfriend, which sounded lame when she said it in her head. The point was, her first marriage had scored bloody furrows in her heart and she didn't want to be hurt like that ever again.
Having Troy try to convince her to give him another try had been flattering yet almost comical in how infinitesimally low his chances of success had been. However, having him betray her all over again by leaving her behind to be killed by the Wraith had been the opposite of funny. It had reawakened the pain and memories of how he'd fooled her so badly before and how stupid she'd been to ever trust him. Troy's betrayal and the consequences of what she'd lost on Manudia had damaged her in ways she'd never get over.
If that could happen with a husband, what could John do to her, whom she loved twice as much with fewer promises exchanged? And could she trust in John's promises? She didn't know anymore.
She'd never wanted to be one of those women who let loving a man interfere with her career or turn her into a bon-bon eating waterpot, but she could see it happening with John Sheppard. He made her feel irrational. He could destroy her. It was giving Meredith new nightmares on top of the usual line-up of Manudia, Seward, and the Wraith.
Nevertheless, John would never do to her what Troy had. Not in a million years. John didn't feel threatened by her intelligence or title, and by having her join his team, he'd shown her that he didn't want to control her or make her less. He admired her and encouraged her to push herself to be better and do more. He might argue with her until they were blue in the face, but in the end he supported and respected her decisions. John had a deep-seated need to protect her—which she heartily approved of up to a certain point—but he'd also asked her to be on his gate team and put her into danger because he trusted her to handle it.
No, if John hurt her now, it would be because of new mistakes, not old ones.
Meredith loved John. Was she being too greedy in her demands for more commitment? Was she committing the sin of being clingy? But he might only want her now because it was convenient. Frustratingly, there was no way to know until she said yes to his kisses and something bad happened and then it might be too late to keep her heart from being crushed to a pulp. Unfortunately there was no way to only dip her toes in the water with John. At this point, John wouldn't accept less than a complete surrender. She'd have to bare all her secrets. What if it made him think less of her? What if he reacted in the worst way instead of the best? What if he got her kicked off Atlantis? Or decided to leave her alone to find a better posting or better relationship elsewhere?
She didn't like being hurt. She didn't like pain. Another betrayal like Troy's could destroy her completely. How many times could she piece herself back together before there weren't enough pieces left to find?
However, if she refused to compromise and waited too long she might lose out on John completely. Some other woman would snatch him up and kick Meredith to the curb, just like his first wife had, removing even the possibility of friendship. Then what would she do? Meredith wouldn't be this attractive forever and she knew her personality was difficult. The power of positive thinking couldn't override biology and physics.
It would help if John stopped flirting with her and made her feel secure with a platonic friendship, but it was looking more and more like platonic friendship might be impossible in the long-term. John kept touching her and laughing with her and dragging her around on his adventures and even putting her in danger where she was trusted to help out and she got to see him being all protective, demanding, and dominant and that intense version of John was extremely hot once she got past her intense fear of dying. John tempted her even when he was driving her up a wall. Her resolve was starting to crack.
Meredith didn't want to compromise, but she was starting to wonder if the inevitable pain might be worth all she'd get to enjoy before everything came crashing down. She couldn't help but daydream about falling asleep next to John in a comfy bed instead of the occasional couch, bunkhouse, barn, or wooded clearing. She'd love to have the right to wake him up with soft kisses, to slide into bed in winter to find the sheets already warmed by his body, to join him in the shower every morning after his daily run.
Several times over the last couple of months she'd had to wake up early to deal with work or some repair crisis out in the city. If John caught sight of her on his morning run, he always swung by to check in on her. Seeing him flushed and sheened in sweat, smelling musky but not unpleasant, and feeling the heat he radiated like a furnace had made her temperature skyrocket, her pulse elevate, and things down low clench hard.
It almost got her over her aversion to having people leaning over her shoulder, though John was careful to always announce his presence and never make her too uncomfortable, at least not in that way. He certainly made her uncomfortable in other ways. His eyes would linger on her lips when she talked and become heavy-lidded. It made her drop her tools and when she bent over to pick them up, his eyes would drag heavily down her body to focus on her legs and hips. She found herself picking things up very slowly. The look in his eyes was scorching. Hungry. They both knew what they were doing, but it was like a game of chicken where neither of them was willing to break first. Sometimes he left with a bit of a limp that made her feel both smug and wistful. Her breathing always took too long to slow down on mornings like that.
The sexual tension was so thick that even Ronon sometimes said something and Ronon rationed his words like food in wartime. Showering had become dangerous because when she closed her eyes to rinse out the soap she thought about sharing the shower with John and the slide of soapy fingers over slick skin and started calculating if the size of the shower stall was really large enough for everything she wanted to try in there and if she'd have to take up yoga to improve her flexibility. Such imaginings made her complain less when Teyla forced her body into strange shapes during workouts. She already knew how amazing kissing him felt. She knew the feeling of his clenching shoulders beneath her hands, the slide of his soft lips and rasp of his scruff, of his hot breath fanning her the skin of her neck. She knew the sweet syrup of his seduction and the demanding nature of his passion. Making out with John Sheppard was practically a religious experience. Just thinking about it made her squirm. Naked kissing would be even hotter. She had no doubt that sex with John would make her neverending stream of thoughts turn into blissed-out static.
However, it wasn't just sex. If it was just physical she could take care of it by herself. She had a great imagination and the ability to fabricate toys to her exacting specifications. She didn't need a man for that.
This was more. She missed holding John's hand when they walked side by side, the clasp of his fingers and bump of his hip when they drifted close. She missed snuggling under his arm while reading or watching a show. She missed how he'd lay his head on her lap during rambling conversations and she'd run her fingers through his hair.
Meredith wanted more of John. She wanted to trust in John's promises. But when she thought about going to John and telling him yes to everything (because at this point John had made it clear that he would accept nothing less than everything she had to offer), she flashed on her mistakes with Troy, the things she'd missed, the compromises she'd made, the stupid things she'd said and done in response, so many moments that she felt ashamed of and… she choked.
Meredith had a track record of being bad at personal relationships, romantic and otherwise. Her thoughts kept circling back to the fact that she didn't trust herself enough to not screw it all up and didn't trust him to stay with her when things got difficult. It was easier to just do everything on your own than to be abandoned at the worst possible moment. Even if he didn't want to abandon her, he'd still probably do it. After all, even Meredith had abandoned her most important person after swearing to put them first and stick around forever.
Life wasn't fair. Usually, that was a complaint, but there was always the chance it could get turned to her advantage. Maybe despite all her horrible mistakes and many justifiable fears, she could have good things whether she deserved them or not. Maybe her luck was turning around and she'd get to keep the job, the community, and the man of her dreams. Maybe she should just let herself be happy in the now and let the future take care of itself.
