Time Immemorial

Chapter 44: Right Now

July 25th
2155 Hours

Approaching John's quarters, Elizabeth wrung her hands in apprehension. In truth, she didn't know why her feet had carried her here. She didn't know what she wanted to say to him. She only knew that if this was the final night they'd share together in Atlantis then she needed to clear the air between them. Their past night's conversation in the Puddle Jumper was not the one she wanted to be their last.

Shifting her weight nervously on her feet, Elizabeth noticed caution tape discarded on the floor. Someone had torn it down. Finally mustering the courage to knock on his door, she brought her fist up to rap on the Ancient metal when the doors parted unexpectedly.

"Elizabeth," John exclaimed, almost bowling her over on his way out.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, "I shouldn't have shown up unannounced."

"No, no, it's fine. I was, uh… I was actually on my way to see you."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." He swallowed and decided candor was the best approach. "We both have some close friends here," he explained timidly, proverbial hat in hand, "even if that's something I forget every now and then. Two days ago a couple of them told me to get off my ass and go talk to you. I didn't have the nerve until now."

"I see. Well, here I am," she said, trying to force as much levity into her voice as she could.

They stood in the doorway in awkward silence, unsure of how to proceed.

"Do you… want to come in?" Sheppard finally posed, nodding to his quarters behind him.

Elizabeth balked. She was certain his intentions were nothing but honorable; that was not the issue. If she stepped foot into his room, though, onto his turf, she would be on the back foot, disadvantaged. This is a talk, not a treaty negotiation, she told herself. Relax.

With a nervous smile, she stepped into his room. It was immediately apparent the reason for the caution tape outside. His quarters were still a mess. The giant glass window opening to the ocean below was missing entirely, more caution tape spanning its frame. At least the broken glass had been disposed of. Matching manhole-sized gashes in the floor and ceiling had not yet been fixed. Broken furniture had been piled in a corner. A ragged mattress laid forlornly on the floor in the opposite corner.

"I like what you've done with the place," she mused. "You've really opened it up."

"Thanks. I was going for a new age, urban conflict sort of feel."

As she continued to look around, she recalled what he had told General O'Neill earlier that day: he really didn't have that many personal things. What he did have — a few photos, clothes, some DVDs, War and Peace — he'd organized into neat piles next to a duffel bag.

"I wasn't sure I'd find you here," Elizabeth mentioned.

"Yeah, well, the Daedalus departs at 0600 tomorrow, so I figured I'd better get packed up now in case… you know."

"Right," she said, swallowing back her disheartenment. "I was actually just awaiting General O'Neill's call. I thought maybe you'd want to face the music together."

Glancing at his watch, John's face fell. "Ah. I never did have very good timing."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, uncertain of his meaning.

"Look, I'm—"

"I thought—"

They stopped in unison. Laughing tensely at their awkwardness, John offered, "Ladies first."

"Okay," she began with a deep breath. "I said some things last night, horrible things, that were childish, hurtful, and underserved."

"We both said — and drank — things we shouldn't have. The only difference is that everything you said about me was true."

"Even if that was the case, I was way out of line. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted, as long as you accept mine."

"Deal." She exhaled a sigh of relief, glad that was over with, as tepid as it had been. But there was something else she needed to know. "Going to bat for me earlier today was honestly one of the more selfless things I've ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot for this place. Thank you," she said genuinely, though somehow the words just didn't cut it. "I just... I guess I don't understand why you did it."

"Why?" he repeated.

"With everything going on between us, why would you do that for me?"

He stared back at her, as if the answer was obvious. When the need to explain himself became apparent, he flinched. Suddenly it was his turn to bear the anxiety.

"Okay, look. There's something I need to get off my chest," John began tautly, "because if I do get shipped back to Earth tomorrow then I might never get another chance to tell you this, and if I don't… then I probably won't be allowed to."

Watching him flounder for his next words, Elizabeth wondered just what emotions were running through his head—

"Major Sheppard, Dr. Weir, come in," O'Neill's voice interjected over their earpieces.

The interruption caused Elizabeth to start. Regaining her composure, she checked her watch. 2200 hours, right on time. She caught John looking at her hesitantly, no doubt wondering if his moment was about to forever slip away.

She wouldn't let it. She owed him that.

Clearing her throat, the diplomat radioed back, "Just one minute, please, General."

Sheppard nodded appreciatively. He swallowed nervously as he fought to reassemble his thoughts, finally sputtering to a start again. "I... I've known you for just over a year now, and because I was so damn stubborn and scared it took me that entire time to realize something," he began, recalling his sudden revelation of his love for her. "And when I finally admitted it out loud, it was to the wrong person and too late to do anything about it, or so I thought. But, it looks like there is such a thing as second chances, and I'm not about to pass mine up."

Elizabeth looked back at him, her muscles all at once tense, unsure if she was ready to hear what came next.

"When I first met you, I didn't know what to make of you. Here was this Washington bureaucrat put in charge of a couple dozen scientists and a bunch of Marines, thrown light years across the universe with no tether to home, shoved headlong into a war with an alien race. I didn't think we'd get along very well. But you have this gravity about you. And I got pulled in."

Elizabeth shifted nervously on her feet. She didn't like how he held her gaze; it made her uncomfortable. She knew he didn't mean anything by it, but she found his eyes in that moment to be so damn inscrutable.

"It didn't take long. When we were in those damn morning briefings together, I had to remind myself to breathe. Afterward I found myself replaying the words you said in my head, recalling the shape of your lips as you said them, the way your every freckle, every curve moved with a grace and strength I'd never seen before.

"I hated it. I never asked for any of that. I came to Atlantis for a fresh start, a clean slate, where I could just be alone and do my job with zero complications. And there you were, throwing me a curveball, a giant snag in the plan. Soon I couldn't decide if seeing you in those briefings was the best part of my day or the worst. You were like some drug, and I was a total junkie. I tried giving you up... but I couldn't.

"You got to me, Elizabeth. You inspired me, kicked me in the ass, stirred up feelings I frankly didn't want any part of. I was blindsided. Whatever sledgehammer you carried broke down my walls, despite my best efforts to keep them up. When you got in, you became a part of me. When you died, I… I don't know.… I felt like an amputee missing his arm. I could still feel you connected, even though you weren't there anymore."

Swallowing, Elizabeth willed her pulse to steady. "That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me: comparing me to a missing limb," she jested tensely. But she was certain she could be read like an open book right now, open and vulnerable and powerless to do anything about it.

John sighed and shook his head, frustrated at his inability to clearly explain himself. "Antigonos showed me who I would become without you. I didn't like that man. All I know is that those ten hours you weren't part of this world were the worst of my life."

Elizabeth's body tried its best to maintain an outward stoicism her mind could not command. She had seen him bare his soul once before, but never about her, never to her. She had been worried about displaying her own vulnerability in front of him, but it was he who was the naked one; he, the indomitable, unflappable warrior, had finally shed his armor.

"I told you I was stubborn and scared — well, that hasn't changed," Sheppard continued. "Ever since meeting you I've been scared out of my mind. I'm scared you'll see me as the man I was before you brought me here, or that man I almost became without you, and not the man you make me want to be. I'm scared that none of them are good enough. I'm scared I won't outrun my past and that I won't live to see my future. Most of all I'm scared you won't be a part of it — that O'Neill's about to call up and tell me my part in this story is over, that you'll walk out my door for the last time and I'll lose you forever. But I'm stubborn enough to let it happen. Hell, I'm even stubborn enough to want it to happen. If I have to say goodbye to you here, tonight, so be it. I let you go thinking I'd never see you again on Klaan; I'll do it again if I have to, if it means that you stay right here where you're meant to be. If it means you're happy."

The diplomat stood stiffly in the heavy silence that followed, eyes wide. "I'll be honest with you," she whispered, her breath trembling, "your vulnerability right now is throwing me completely off balance—"

"O'Neill calling all Sheppards and Weirs on base," sounded the voice in their ears again, noticeably more perturbed than last time. "And that's General O'Neill, in case anyone forgot. One L in 'general', two in 'O'Neill.'"

Before Elizabeth could respond, John ripped his earpiece from his head and threw it to the floor. Metal and plastic crunched as it was crushed under the heel of his boot. She regarded her military commander with a furrowed brow. Apparently a two-star general could wait.

"O'Neill's not going to like that," Elizabeth noted, if only to test that her voice was still there.

"He can fire me if he wants to," John contended in a tone that made clear it hadn't been one of his quips. She decided 'you still might get your wish' wouldn't have been an appropriate repartee.

"You want to know why I did what I did today?" he asked, still fired up. "Why I stood and will continue to stand behind you until I can't stand any longer?"

There was that gaze again, that powerful laser boring down into her soul.

"Because even though everything might be about to change, some things won't. Ever. I wasn't going to lose you—" He stopped abruptly, catching himself. "I wasn't going to let Atlantis lose you twice."

The corners of her mouth twitched humorlessly. Even now, at the end of it all, they still played that game: carefully choosing words and dodging others to avoid admitting their taboo feelings aloud. Did it matter anymore? Had it ever?

Her voice came out raspy, weak. "So Atlantis gets to keep me, but I might lose you. That doesn't seem right, does it?"

"Right," he echoed, as if pondering the meaning of the word. "Nine days ago, before this whole mess started, I asked myself a similar question. I wondered if I had to choose — if the IOA or the Air Force or circumstance made be choose between you and Atlantis, what was the 'right' answer? At the time, I couldn't come up with one. And then that very same day, after I'd already lost you, that question was answered for me."

Suddenly she regretted coming to his quarters. It had been a mistake. She shook her head, silently willing him to stop, stop before it was too late, before those truthful, taboo words left his mouth and the tenets of their shared ruse violated, the game forfeit—

"It was you. It always has been."

She stood stock still. Expressionless. Silent.

There. That was it, the moment they both had been so afraid of for the past 12 months, come and gone like a powerful wave that had crested and passed, too late to do anything about and still recent enough for it to feel raw against her bones.

Frowning, John finally broke eye contact, eyes darting uneasily. He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. "Whatever O'Neill's about to say over that radio, I just… I thought you should know. Anyway."

The ensuing silence was disquieting.

Elizabeth stared at the door, skittish. She knew she should go. She knew she should leave and forget that she had ever heard his words. But her feet remained cemented to the floor.

No. I'm done trying to run away.

"So that's it, then?" she asked softly.

"That's it," John conceded.

"What makes you think I'd be happy?"

"What?"

"You said you'd give it all up as long as I was happy. What makes you think I'd be happy without you?" Her tone was not despairing or withering, but rather objecting, rational.

Expelling a lungful of air, John replied, "Because this place has so much more to offer you than I ever could."

She met his eyes with her own. They were dry, determined. "Then you underestimate what you mean to me." She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, carefully unfolding it to show him.

His eyes caught the half disintegrated photo, his present to her to commemorate Atlantis' one year anniversary. He'd wadded it up in a fit of despair the previous night. He hadn't intended for her to find it.

"'To the woman who has it all'," she read, his own words reverently inscribed on the back of the photo. "Maybe there was a point when I thought I had it all — there were certainly several times I'd thought I'd lost it all." She gently tucked the photo away in her breast pocket, careful not to damage it any further. "Have you ever wanted something so bad, but you knew you couldn't have it? Have you ever felt like you're clinging to something you never really had ahold of?"

"Everyday," he answered sincerely, voice barely above a whisper.

Elizabeth smiled tightly at that. "This place does have a lot to offer. It's magical, there's no other word to describe it. This team—" she touched the photo sitting atop her heart "—is the finest in two galaxies. I've traveled through wormholes, brokered peace treaties with alien cultures, lived in a mythical, lost city. It's everything I never knew I wanted, and for anyone else it might be enough."

She inched toward him, one step, as far as her feet would allow. "John, when I look at you I see everything that I need. You may think I'm strong, but I'm not, not really. Not without you. I meant what I said earlier: I can't do this without you. I can't be..." and she searched for the proper words but found none. "I can't be without you. It took my death and yours for me to realize that."

John stood, unmoving.

"I need you," Elizabeth repeated. "I need you, but I never had you, not really, anyway. All I had was a chance and I squandered it. Instead of jumping in with both feet like I should have, I kept one foot firmly on the deck. You were right: I was afraid of operating without a safety net."

She took a deep breath. "And now I'm afraid that if you're reassigned, I'll never again feel the way I feel when I'm with you. I'm afraid I'll spend the rest of my life trying to fill an emptiness inside me that's a bottomless pit. I'm afraid I'm not wise or brave enough to capitalize on proving those 'you only live once' idioms wrong."

Despite himself, John smiled softly, amused by the quirkiness of her sincerity.

Elizabeth threw her hands out to her side. "I'm tired of being afraid, John. I'm done—"

"Oh, Major Sheppard, Dr. Weir..." sounded General O'Neill in her ear, his voice dripping with forced patience. "It is now 2208 hours and getting close to this general's bedtime, and, boy, do I get cranky if I don't get enough sleep. The IOA has decided—"

But Elizabeth had already removed her radio's earpiece. She held it by her fingertips, wondering how she could have been so intimidated by something so small. Without another thought, she capriciously tossed the earpiece out the broken window. It plummeted 800 feet into the ocean below.

"That way, I won't know what he was going to say," she said with a definitive nod. "As they say, ignorance is bliss."

His vision followed the room's only remaining tie to his future as it disappeared over the window ledge. "Ignorance is bliss," he agreed, taken by her sudden audaciousness.

"I'm not ready to hear your fate right now," Elizabeth declared, finally stepping up to him. "Right now I just want to hear your voice, even if it's for the last time. Right now I want to hear your heartbeat to know you're still alive and this isn't just some cruel dream; to see you with my own two eyes and take a thousand mental pictures before you might have to leave for good. And as much as I'd like to be able to stay in this limbo forever... I'll settle for right now."

John stood in front of her, toe to toe, mouth agape. "Wow," he admitted. "I thought maybe you were just going to say 'thanks for the photo' and leave, but I gotta say, your speech really blew mine out of the water—"

His eyes widened as he felt her lips suddenly on his. He stiffened, stunned. The kiss was tender, cautious, not their first but so much more... elemental.

She sensed his unease. Elizabeth pulled back, eyes studying his face for a hint of clarification before she looked away, cheeks reddening with guilt and instant regret. This was not what she had come here to do. "I'm sorry—"

A squeal caught in her throat as she felt herself being tugged forward. She felt her chest pressed against his, and before she could process what was happening he was kissing her back.

He was not so timid.

John poured every ounce of need, every bit of longing and want built up over the past nine days into the embrace. She was real. She was real and here and alive and goddamn if she wasn't the only thing that mattered to him anymore.

Elizabeth found herself reaching up, hands finding the back of his head, the small of his neck. He was warm, solid. She deepened the kiss. Her hand fell to his chest and she let it linger there. She could feel his heartbeat through his t-shirt, strong and steady.

Letting his forehead rest on hers, John broke from the kiss and looked down at her delicate fingers atop his heart. He placed his hand over her own, clasped it tightly in his, and pressed it to his chest. His heart was no longer his own. It hadn't been for some time. It belonged entirely to her.

Her vision traveled from their intertwined hands upward. Looking up into his earnest, brown eyes, Elizabeth searched for any trace of reticence. She found none. Instead she found that his gaze matched hers, brow furrowed, looking for an answer to their shared, silent question, "is this really okay?"

They reached the same conclusion. At once, they broke into relieved smiles and came together again.

Elizabeth surrendered any remaining doubts to the moment, to right now. She kissed him hurriedly, almost frantically, as if half of her was still convinced he'd disappear at any moment. Her frenetic energy was met by his own. John's hands explored her arms, her back, her hips, wanting to feel all of her at once.

Then Elizabeth was tugging at his shirt, pulling it hastily over his head. She'd barely gotten it off him when his lips found her neck, forcing her brain offline. She didn't know if she wanted to laugh or moan or gasp in pleasure, but she was certain she was losing her mind and it was in the most wonderful way possible.

They stumbled backwards gracelessly, their attention on each other leaving little bandwidth for anything else. Together they collided with the wall aside John's mattress. His fingers, trembling with the sensation, brushed against the smooth skin of her stomach that peaked out from underneath the hem of her scarlet shirt. He grasped the edge of the fabric, pausing in a wordless ask.

She pulled back enough to meet his eyes, granting him permission with a coy smile that nearly did him in. Slowly, almost reverentially, John pulled her shirt over her head. His eyes never left hers.

Elizabeth shivered, and she knew it wasn't entirely due to her cast off clothing.

Here they were, at the end of their long road, finally. Here they were, together. This was it.

He grabbed hungrily at her waist, pulling her into him even more, breathing her in deeply. Her lips were so soft, her body so warm against his, her hair—

"Wait, wait, wait — stop, stop." He broke away. Oh how he wanted to do anything but. He held her shoulders at arm's length, allowing them both the catch their breath. "If we do this, we can't undo it. There'll be no going back."

Her answer was a lingering kiss. "Promise?"

For the first time in nine days, Elizabeth saw him crack one of his patented crooked grins and knew that in that moment, right now, everything was perfect.

They fell to the mattress together.


On the other side of the City, O'Neill frowned at his handheld radio. "Major? Doctor?" He shook it and tried again. Nothing.

With a sigh, the general put the radio down on the guest quarter's desk and sat back.

"Okay, I guess I'll just email you."

TBC