Fall To Pieces.
AUTHOR : Lucy Maria Elmer
SUMMARY: After a day of near loss two of the Atlantis inhabitants find themselves brought closer together.
CATEGORY: McWeir angst.
RATING :PG.
SEASON: Early season 1.
SPOILERS : 38 Minutes.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on Copyrights or trademarks were intended. Previously Unrecognised characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Dr Elizabeth Weir left the tired and hungry Major Shepphard resting in the infirmary. She tiredly rubbed her eyes as she walked down the long corridors of Atlantis, so many still unexplored and holding secrets that were unknown to the people that now called it a home.
It had been a long day for all and one that had left her emotionally drained and broken. She had nearly lost some of her best people. Some of the brightest lights that shone among the people on Atlantis. She'd had to stand there helplessly as they all fought for a chance to live aboard the Puddle jumper. She'd had to listen to Shepphard scream in pain and Rodney panic and there wasn't a thing she could do for them. Not one thing. All she could do was try and calm them down and try and reassure them while Atlantis' group of Scientists and Doctors fought to save their lives, and provide a link between all groups working to save them. Even then she'd found herself having confrontations with a group of the Athosians and one of the Scientists.
Now that everyone was back through safely it was starting to hit her what she could have lost that day and how close she came to losing a group of people she already cared about very much. As much as she hated to admit it to herself she was questioning her ability as a leader too. What kind of a leader was she if people questioned her as they had that day? And what kind of leader was she if she could barely hold herself together now?
Elizabeth stopped and leant back against the wall finding herself unable to move as a whirlwind of emotions whizzed though her.
"Come on Elizabeth you've held your own all day. You can't afford to lose it now." She whispered to herself taking a deep breath as she fought against the emotion building up inside of her. She was their leader. There was no way she could lose it in one of the corridors where everybody could see her. She didn't want it to get back to Cavanaugh that he had gotten to her.
She stood there for a couple of minutes trying to pull herself together, aware all the time of the concerned glances of her colleagues as they walked past. It wasn't until she decided to go to her quarters and started walking that she saw a very concerned looking McKay standing a little way in front of her, watching her.
She inwardly cursed. He shouldn't be the one concerned for her and she could tell by his face that he was. It should be the other way round. It was the other way round. She had been so scared for him, especially when she'd heard him panicking on the puddle jumper. She knew it was a character trait. She knew he had a tendency to get carried away and over dramatize things when he was afraid. It was his way of dealing with fear and his way of stopping other people seeing how scared he really was. Sarcasm was his way of pushing people away. She could see through it though and she knew that deep down Rodney McKay was a sensitive and insecure man, and there he was standing in front of her concerned for her well being when he had been one of the people that had been staring death in the face.
Elizabeth thought about turning around and walking the other way. As much as she respected Rodney and cared for him, as she did Shepphard and all of the people under her leadership, she wasn't sure that she was up to holding a deep and meaningful conversation with a man who spent more time thinking about his stomach than his feelings and those of the people around him. As soon as that thought passed through her mind though she felt guilty. It was unfair to categorize him as that kind of person. That wasn't all there was to him and she knew it. She knew that she should be touched that the concern on his face was for her and not for himself.
She took a deep breath and walked towards him with her best smile on her face.
"Hi Rodney." She said to him as cheerfully as she could manage when she reached him.
"Hey." He replied looking at her unsurely. "Elizabeth are you..."
"How are you doing?" She cut in not allowing him to finish asking his question.
"Oh you know. As good as can be expected when you've spent 38 minutes convinced that you're facing certain death." He told her.
"It must have been scary. It was bad enough here listening to it all." Elizabeth commented.
"Scary is an understatement. Seeing Shepphard suffer like that was awful. I really didn't think he stood a chance in hell of surviving that. I thought we were all pretty screwed" He told her. "But we made it."
"You did. It was touch and go there for a while but you did. Thinking what could have happened..."
Rodney studied her. There was something different about her. Was there fear in her eyes?
"Elizabeth..."
"Are you sure you're all right?" She asked him again softly looking at the floor.
"I'm fine. I've eaten. I've drunk tons of coffee. I peed...I hear you had a problem with Cavanaugh." He said quietly.
"It was nothing." She replied softly.
"It didn't sound like nothing from what people have been saying. Did he threaten you? He can be a bit of a jackass. I know I'm one to talk but... Elizabeth?" He called quietly as he saw how withdrawn she was.
"I have paperwork to do." She said knowing it was an excuse and leaving him standing there behind her as she walked away.
"Hey wait a second." He called running after her. "I'm trying to ask if you're all right."
Elizabeth stopped and turned to look at him touched by the hurt on his face.
"I'm fine. I really do have paperwork to do." She told him looking at the floor.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me that you're fine." He asked her.
She couldn't bring herself to do it. She just stood there.
"I'm the leader. I shouldn't be feeling like this." She told him softly.
"Like what. Elizabeth..." He prompted.
Elizabeth immediately regretted saying something. He was already worried and now she knew that he would be even more concerned for her. She didn't want him to think that she was questioning herself or her abilities. She didn't want him to see her as weak. The only thing she could do was push him away. Then he wouldn't get the chance to see what she was trying to hide under the surface. He wouldn't get the chance to think that she was a failure too.
"Rodney I can't do this. Not here and not with you." She told him sternly walking off again, tears threatening to fall because she was pushing away someone who had shown genuine concern for her.
"Then who are you going to do this with?" He called after her loudly.
Elizabeth turned around angrily and glared at him. He walked up to her and stood facing her, mirroring her own stance and putting his hands on his hips.
"If you're not going to talk to me then who are you going to talk to?" He asked her.
"Rodney stop this." She told him sternly.
"No I won't. I will not stop this because I know that something's up. You can push me away if you want but you know how determined I am. I'll wear you down..." He pointed out smiling.
"Nothing's up." She told him smiling in spite of herself.
"Just because you're our leader doesn't mean that you can't have feelings. You shouldn't be afraid to show them. You need to talk about them." He told her.
"I'm not having this conversation with you Rodney. You of all people here."
She mentally kicked herself when she saw his face fall.
"Is that how much you think of me? You think you can't even talk to me? That I won't take you seriously or listen because there's no way Rodney McKay could ever think of anyone but himself? I thought you knew me better than that." He said hurt she could think so little of him. "You know what? Forget it. I've had one hell of a day. I'm not sticking around to be made to feel worse by the one person that I really want to make sure is okay. " He told her angrily walking off.
Elizabeth stood there shocked. Not by his outburst, he was right to be angry, but by what she had said to him. Of course she knew she could talk to him. For all of his faults she knew he'd listen. She'd learnt it during some of the late nights in the Antarctic when they had stayed up talking about anything and everything. Until the sun came up.
Deciding that her plan of not losing it in the corridors had already been shot to pieces by her and Rodney having a rather public disagreement Elizabeth ran after him. She caught up with him after a couple of minutes. He wouldn't even look at her as she walked beside him.
"Rodney I'm sorry." She apologised.
He still wouldn't look at her.
"I'm sorry. Rodney please. What I said...I didn't mean it."
"Yes you did. It's okay. Everyone else thinks its true so why not you."
"Rodney..." She said softly her heart breaking even more when she saw the hurt on his face.
"It's okay Elizabeth. You'd rather be alone. I understand. It's the same for everybody else here. I'm too much hard work for all of you."
"No you don't understand. You don't understand at all." She told him tearfully.
He turned around and gently put his hands on her arms.
"Then make me." He replied softly hating to see her hurting. She'd been holding it together so well since they came back except for the brief moment when they had been trying to revive Shepphard and she looked as though her legs were going to give way. Then he hard about Cavanaugh and the Athosians and how worried she had been and even when they were just in the Infirmary and she was smiling and joking with Shepphard he could sense that there was a lot on her mind.
"You have every right to feel something about today. You're our leader. Your people were trapped and facing death. You had confrontations with one of our people and one of the Athosians..."
"You were the one on the ship..." She told him softly.
"Don't remind me." He joked then turning serious. "And you are our leader who had to listen to us all suffer and try and keep the peace."
"I couldn't do anything Rodney." She whispered.
"What?" He asked her quietly.
"The only thing I could do was be a go between and find out what you'd discovered or what the scientists and medical teams had discovered and relay it backwards and forwards. I couldn't do anything myself to help you. I wouldn't have had a clue where to start. What kind of leader does that make me?" She asked him tearfully.
Rodney looked around and noticed that people had stopped and were looking at them. Elizabeth looked distraught and he didn't want to stop her from talking when she had just started to open up.
"Come on. We have an audience. Let's go discuss this somewhere private okay?" He asked her softly.
Elizabeth nodded and let him lead her along the corridors. A few minutes later she found herself in his laboratory.
"And we're here why?" She asked him looking around and smiling when she saw so many things that reminded her of him.
"Because they all know better than to interrupt me in my inner sanctum." He replied pulling out a chair and motioning for her to sit on it. She gratefully did.
Rodney sat on his desk in front of her.
"You're worried that you're not a worthy leader?" He asked her shocked.
Elizabeth looked at the floor.
"You can't think that. You're doing an amazing job. Everyone here respects you."
"I was in over my head today Rodney. It was all I could do to keep checking on everyone and to see if there were any developments that could save you all. Time was ticking and all I could do was keep checking on everyone to see if they knew how to save you. I couldn't do a thing to help."
"You did what you could. That's all that matters." He reassured her.
"But it wasn't enough was it? Do you have any idea how helpless I felt? Or how horrible I felt when I denied the Athosians their ritual because we were running out of time?" She asked him sadly.
"You wanted us to focus on finding a way out, not to give us a message that in all likelihood may have caused us to give up. It was the right call to make at the time. You know me; I would have panicked even more and never would have been able to figure out that control conduit. I would have felt like you were giving up on us." "But everyone has their own beliefs Rodney and I denied Teyla and her people theirs. What if you all had died because of my choice and Teyla had not been prepared for her death, as is her people's custom? The Athosians would never have forgiven me. I would never have forgiven myself." She admitted unable to even imagine what it would have been like if they hadn't made it. If he hadn't made it. She couldn't imagine Atlantis without him on it. Without his sarcasm, awful jokes and whining and without the way that it made her feel warm inside every time she saw him return from a mission safe and sound.
"You can't keep thinking of the ifs. Trust me, it's not pleasant. I don't know what it's like to experience the whole hard vacuum thing but I imagine it's not a pretty way to go. You can't keep questioning yourself either. I know it's hard when something happens like what happened today but what's done is done. You have no reason to doubt yourself."
"I'm not sure I can do this Rodney." She admitted quietly, not wanting to show herself as having doubts but feeling the need to talk to someone and realising he made her feel safe enough to open up to him.
"Of course you can." He reassured her.
"If Cavanaugh had been right then my decision to let you play around with that control conduit could possibly have cost you all your lives by causing an explosion." She told him regretfully.
"Elizabeth I would have done it anyway. We needed that chance. And you were right. By my doing that it helped get us back."
"That's not the point Rodney."
"Yes it is. Elizabeth we're here. We're home. We're safe and sound. Shepphard's okay, Teyla's okay, Ford is okay. We're all okay. You have no need to question your abilities as a leader. You did all you could today. You kept us going. You got us through it and you made the right choices. That's all that matters."
"I could have done better." She told him quietly.
"Stop being so hard on yourself. This is a whole new situation for all of us. We're all learning as we go along. There is no right or wrong here. We're all doing the best we can."
"And what if my best isn't good enough? I'm supposed to be leading you all. How can I lead you when I doubt myself like this? If I worry about every decision I make?" She asked him thinking back to Cavanaugh and the Athosians and every other choice she had made since their arrival.
"Because this is all new. This is bigger than all of us. It's all right to question yourself. I do it all the time. But you have to know that we have faith in you and your choices. You were right to focus on us living instead of our dying in the case of the Athosians. You were right to let me carry on with that panel even when Cavanaugh spoke to you so rudely about that risk. You were right Elizabeth." He assured her.
"Then why do I feel so terrible?" She asked him softly, wiping a tear from her cheek.
"Because it's been hard. You lived through it all just the same as us." He told her.
"But you're not sitting here whining about it." She told him smiling softly.
"Yes which is very uncharacteristic of me." He replied grinning. "I was really scared Rodney. I'm so scared of all of this. It's all so new." She admitted, her shoulders shaking with silent tears.
Rodney slid himself off the desk and knelt down in front of her. He slowly reached for her hands which were resting on her lap, unsure as whether to try and comfort her or not, but when he saw no signs of the tears stopping he took her hands in his own.
"It's all right to be scared. We're all scared except maybe Shepphard. He's just cocky. This is a big thing for anyone to be in charge of and that job's fallen on you. It's scary enough to be a part of it. Amazing and rewarding but scary all the same. But in charge...? No-ones done anything like this before except maybe General Hammond, but he was on Earth not on a different planet unable to go home. You're just feeling overwhelmed that's all. When you find your feet you're going to be even more of an amazing leader than you are now. We believe in you. Screw the people that have a problem" He told her.
Elizabeth smiled.
"Thank you." She told him gratefully.
"It's the truth." He reassured her and she could hear the sincerity in his voice. It touched her so much that when she thought of how close she had come to losing him she found the tears coming again.
"Elizabeth?" He asked again softly.
There was no way she could tell him how she was feeling. Not completely. Not about the part he played in her life and the place he held in her heart. It wasn't fair on Simon for her to be thinking like this and she couldn't tell Rodney. She'd already let down her guard so much that she was worried that he saw her as weak. She could never admit to him what he meant to her.
"I'm sorry." She told him tiredly. "I guess today is catching up with me."
"It's okay." He reassured her again. "Look why don't you sit here for a moment and get yourself together. I'll be right back." He told her getting up and walking to the door.
Elizabeth glared at him.
"Let me get this straight. I come in here. I open up to you. I cry in front of you and you're ready to just get up and leave me here like this?" She shouted suddenly angry with him, thinking she may have misjudged him.
Rodney looked at her as if he was shell-shocked.
"I said I was going to come back I..." He started but Elizabeth was already at the door.
"Forget about it. I'm fine." She told him through gritted teeth before quickly walking down the corridors leaving and stunned and hurt Rodney behind.
"What'd you do to the lass?" Asked a voice from behind him.
McKay turned around to see Beckett standing there.
"She was upset. She..."
Beckett raised an eyebrow.
"I did nothing okay!" Rodney told him angrily.
"Aye okay." Beckett replied holding up his hands.
"I'll never understand women." Rodney told his friend sighing as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Nor will I Rodney. Nor will I." Beckett replied nodding his head in agreement and putting a hand on Rodney's shoulder.
AUTHOR : Lucy Maria Elmer
SUMMARY: After a day of near loss two of the Atlantis inhabitants find themselves brought closer together.
CATEGORY: McWeir angst.
RATING :PG.
SEASON: Early season 1.
SPOILERS : 38 Minutes.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on Copyrights or trademarks were intended. Previously Unrecognised characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Dr Elizabeth Weir left the tired and hungry Major Shepphard resting in the infirmary. She tiredly rubbed her eyes as she walked down the long corridors of Atlantis, so many still unexplored and holding secrets that were unknown to the people that now called it a home.
It had been a long day for all and one that had left her emotionally drained and broken. She had nearly lost some of her best people. Some of the brightest lights that shone among the people on Atlantis. She'd had to stand there helplessly as they all fought for a chance to live aboard the Puddle jumper. She'd had to listen to Shepphard scream in pain and Rodney panic and there wasn't a thing she could do for them. Not one thing. All she could do was try and calm them down and try and reassure them while Atlantis' group of Scientists and Doctors fought to save their lives, and provide a link between all groups working to save them. Even then she'd found herself having confrontations with a group of the Athosians and one of the Scientists.
Now that everyone was back through safely it was starting to hit her what she could have lost that day and how close she came to losing a group of people she already cared about very much. As much as she hated to admit it to herself she was questioning her ability as a leader too. What kind of a leader was she if people questioned her as they had that day? And what kind of leader was she if she could barely hold herself together now?
Elizabeth stopped and leant back against the wall finding herself unable to move as a whirlwind of emotions whizzed though her.
"Come on Elizabeth you've held your own all day. You can't afford to lose it now." She whispered to herself taking a deep breath as she fought against the emotion building up inside of her. She was their leader. There was no way she could lose it in one of the corridors where everybody could see her. She didn't want it to get back to Cavanaugh that he had gotten to her.
She stood there for a couple of minutes trying to pull herself together, aware all the time of the concerned glances of her colleagues as they walked past. It wasn't until she decided to go to her quarters and started walking that she saw a very concerned looking McKay standing a little way in front of her, watching her.
She inwardly cursed. He shouldn't be the one concerned for her and she could tell by his face that he was. It should be the other way round. It was the other way round. She had been so scared for him, especially when she'd heard him panicking on the puddle jumper. She knew it was a character trait. She knew he had a tendency to get carried away and over dramatize things when he was afraid. It was his way of dealing with fear and his way of stopping other people seeing how scared he really was. Sarcasm was his way of pushing people away. She could see through it though and she knew that deep down Rodney McKay was a sensitive and insecure man, and there he was standing in front of her concerned for her well being when he had been one of the people that had been staring death in the face.
Elizabeth thought about turning around and walking the other way. As much as she respected Rodney and cared for him, as she did Shepphard and all of the people under her leadership, she wasn't sure that she was up to holding a deep and meaningful conversation with a man who spent more time thinking about his stomach than his feelings and those of the people around him. As soon as that thought passed through her mind though she felt guilty. It was unfair to categorize him as that kind of person. That wasn't all there was to him and she knew it. She knew that she should be touched that the concern on his face was for her and not for himself.
She took a deep breath and walked towards him with her best smile on her face.
"Hi Rodney." She said to him as cheerfully as she could manage when she reached him.
"Hey." He replied looking at her unsurely. "Elizabeth are you..."
"How are you doing?" She cut in not allowing him to finish asking his question.
"Oh you know. As good as can be expected when you've spent 38 minutes convinced that you're facing certain death." He told her.
"It must have been scary. It was bad enough here listening to it all." Elizabeth commented.
"Scary is an understatement. Seeing Shepphard suffer like that was awful. I really didn't think he stood a chance in hell of surviving that. I thought we were all pretty screwed" He told her. "But we made it."
"You did. It was touch and go there for a while but you did. Thinking what could have happened..."
Rodney studied her. There was something different about her. Was there fear in her eyes?
"Elizabeth..."
"Are you sure you're all right?" She asked him again softly looking at the floor.
"I'm fine. I've eaten. I've drunk tons of coffee. I peed...I hear you had a problem with Cavanaugh." He said quietly.
"It was nothing." She replied softly.
"It didn't sound like nothing from what people have been saying. Did he threaten you? He can be a bit of a jackass. I know I'm one to talk but... Elizabeth?" He called quietly as he saw how withdrawn she was.
"I have paperwork to do." She said knowing it was an excuse and leaving him standing there behind her as she walked away.
"Hey wait a second." He called running after her. "I'm trying to ask if you're all right."
Elizabeth stopped and turned to look at him touched by the hurt on his face.
"I'm fine. I really do have paperwork to do." She told him looking at the floor.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me that you're fine." He asked her.
She couldn't bring herself to do it. She just stood there.
"I'm the leader. I shouldn't be feeling like this." She told him softly.
"Like what. Elizabeth..." He prompted.
Elizabeth immediately regretted saying something. He was already worried and now she knew that he would be even more concerned for her. She didn't want him to think that she was questioning herself or her abilities. She didn't want him to see her as weak. The only thing she could do was push him away. Then he wouldn't get the chance to see what she was trying to hide under the surface. He wouldn't get the chance to think that she was a failure too.
"Rodney I can't do this. Not here and not with you." She told him sternly walking off again, tears threatening to fall because she was pushing away someone who had shown genuine concern for her.
"Then who are you going to do this with?" He called after her loudly.
Elizabeth turned around angrily and glared at him. He walked up to her and stood facing her, mirroring her own stance and putting his hands on his hips.
"If you're not going to talk to me then who are you going to talk to?" He asked her.
"Rodney stop this." She told him sternly.
"No I won't. I will not stop this because I know that something's up. You can push me away if you want but you know how determined I am. I'll wear you down..." He pointed out smiling.
"Nothing's up." She told him smiling in spite of herself.
"Just because you're our leader doesn't mean that you can't have feelings. You shouldn't be afraid to show them. You need to talk about them." He told her.
"I'm not having this conversation with you Rodney. You of all people here."
She mentally kicked herself when she saw his face fall.
"Is that how much you think of me? You think you can't even talk to me? That I won't take you seriously or listen because there's no way Rodney McKay could ever think of anyone but himself? I thought you knew me better than that." He said hurt she could think so little of him. "You know what? Forget it. I've had one hell of a day. I'm not sticking around to be made to feel worse by the one person that I really want to make sure is okay. " He told her angrily walking off.
Elizabeth stood there shocked. Not by his outburst, he was right to be angry, but by what she had said to him. Of course she knew she could talk to him. For all of his faults she knew he'd listen. She'd learnt it during some of the late nights in the Antarctic when they had stayed up talking about anything and everything. Until the sun came up.
Deciding that her plan of not losing it in the corridors had already been shot to pieces by her and Rodney having a rather public disagreement Elizabeth ran after him. She caught up with him after a couple of minutes. He wouldn't even look at her as she walked beside him.
"Rodney I'm sorry." She apologised.
He still wouldn't look at her.
"I'm sorry. Rodney please. What I said...I didn't mean it."
"Yes you did. It's okay. Everyone else thinks its true so why not you."
"Rodney..." She said softly her heart breaking even more when she saw the hurt on his face.
"It's okay Elizabeth. You'd rather be alone. I understand. It's the same for everybody else here. I'm too much hard work for all of you."
"No you don't understand. You don't understand at all." She told him tearfully.
He turned around and gently put his hands on her arms.
"Then make me." He replied softly hating to see her hurting. She'd been holding it together so well since they came back except for the brief moment when they had been trying to revive Shepphard and she looked as though her legs were going to give way. Then he hard about Cavanaugh and the Athosians and how worried she had been and even when they were just in the Infirmary and she was smiling and joking with Shepphard he could sense that there was a lot on her mind.
"You have every right to feel something about today. You're our leader. Your people were trapped and facing death. You had confrontations with one of our people and one of the Athosians..."
"You were the one on the ship..." She told him softly.
"Don't remind me." He joked then turning serious. "And you are our leader who had to listen to us all suffer and try and keep the peace."
"I couldn't do anything Rodney." She whispered.
"What?" He asked her quietly.
"The only thing I could do was be a go between and find out what you'd discovered or what the scientists and medical teams had discovered and relay it backwards and forwards. I couldn't do anything myself to help you. I wouldn't have had a clue where to start. What kind of leader does that make me?" She asked him tearfully.
Rodney looked around and noticed that people had stopped and were looking at them. Elizabeth looked distraught and he didn't want to stop her from talking when she had just started to open up.
"Come on. We have an audience. Let's go discuss this somewhere private okay?" He asked her softly.
Elizabeth nodded and let him lead her along the corridors. A few minutes later she found herself in his laboratory.
"And we're here why?" She asked him looking around and smiling when she saw so many things that reminded her of him.
"Because they all know better than to interrupt me in my inner sanctum." He replied pulling out a chair and motioning for her to sit on it. She gratefully did.
Rodney sat on his desk in front of her.
"You're worried that you're not a worthy leader?" He asked her shocked.
Elizabeth looked at the floor.
"You can't think that. You're doing an amazing job. Everyone here respects you."
"I was in over my head today Rodney. It was all I could do to keep checking on everyone and to see if there were any developments that could save you all. Time was ticking and all I could do was keep checking on everyone to see if they knew how to save you. I couldn't do a thing to help."
"You did what you could. That's all that matters." He reassured her.
"But it wasn't enough was it? Do you have any idea how helpless I felt? Or how horrible I felt when I denied the Athosians their ritual because we were running out of time?" She asked him sadly.
"You wanted us to focus on finding a way out, not to give us a message that in all likelihood may have caused us to give up. It was the right call to make at the time. You know me; I would have panicked even more and never would have been able to figure out that control conduit. I would have felt like you were giving up on us." "But everyone has their own beliefs Rodney and I denied Teyla and her people theirs. What if you all had died because of my choice and Teyla had not been prepared for her death, as is her people's custom? The Athosians would never have forgiven me. I would never have forgiven myself." She admitted unable to even imagine what it would have been like if they hadn't made it. If he hadn't made it. She couldn't imagine Atlantis without him on it. Without his sarcasm, awful jokes and whining and without the way that it made her feel warm inside every time she saw him return from a mission safe and sound.
"You can't keep thinking of the ifs. Trust me, it's not pleasant. I don't know what it's like to experience the whole hard vacuum thing but I imagine it's not a pretty way to go. You can't keep questioning yourself either. I know it's hard when something happens like what happened today but what's done is done. You have no reason to doubt yourself."
"I'm not sure I can do this Rodney." She admitted quietly, not wanting to show herself as having doubts but feeling the need to talk to someone and realising he made her feel safe enough to open up to him.
"Of course you can." He reassured her.
"If Cavanaugh had been right then my decision to let you play around with that control conduit could possibly have cost you all your lives by causing an explosion." She told him regretfully.
"Elizabeth I would have done it anyway. We needed that chance. And you were right. By my doing that it helped get us back."
"That's not the point Rodney."
"Yes it is. Elizabeth we're here. We're home. We're safe and sound. Shepphard's okay, Teyla's okay, Ford is okay. We're all okay. You have no need to question your abilities as a leader. You did all you could today. You kept us going. You got us through it and you made the right choices. That's all that matters."
"I could have done better." She told him quietly.
"Stop being so hard on yourself. This is a whole new situation for all of us. We're all learning as we go along. There is no right or wrong here. We're all doing the best we can."
"And what if my best isn't good enough? I'm supposed to be leading you all. How can I lead you when I doubt myself like this? If I worry about every decision I make?" She asked him thinking back to Cavanaugh and the Athosians and every other choice she had made since their arrival.
"Because this is all new. This is bigger than all of us. It's all right to question yourself. I do it all the time. But you have to know that we have faith in you and your choices. You were right to focus on us living instead of our dying in the case of the Athosians. You were right to let me carry on with that panel even when Cavanaugh spoke to you so rudely about that risk. You were right Elizabeth." He assured her.
"Then why do I feel so terrible?" She asked him softly, wiping a tear from her cheek.
"Because it's been hard. You lived through it all just the same as us." He told her.
"But you're not sitting here whining about it." She told him smiling softly.
"Yes which is very uncharacteristic of me." He replied grinning. "I was really scared Rodney. I'm so scared of all of this. It's all so new." She admitted, her shoulders shaking with silent tears.
Rodney slid himself off the desk and knelt down in front of her. He slowly reached for her hands which were resting on her lap, unsure as whether to try and comfort her or not, but when he saw no signs of the tears stopping he took her hands in his own.
"It's all right to be scared. We're all scared except maybe Shepphard. He's just cocky. This is a big thing for anyone to be in charge of and that job's fallen on you. It's scary enough to be a part of it. Amazing and rewarding but scary all the same. But in charge...? No-ones done anything like this before except maybe General Hammond, but he was on Earth not on a different planet unable to go home. You're just feeling overwhelmed that's all. When you find your feet you're going to be even more of an amazing leader than you are now. We believe in you. Screw the people that have a problem" He told her.
Elizabeth smiled.
"Thank you." She told him gratefully.
"It's the truth." He reassured her and she could hear the sincerity in his voice. It touched her so much that when she thought of how close she had come to losing him she found the tears coming again.
"Elizabeth?" He asked again softly.
There was no way she could tell him how she was feeling. Not completely. Not about the part he played in her life and the place he held in her heart. It wasn't fair on Simon for her to be thinking like this and she couldn't tell Rodney. She'd already let down her guard so much that she was worried that he saw her as weak. She could never admit to him what he meant to her.
"I'm sorry." She told him tiredly. "I guess today is catching up with me."
"It's okay." He reassured her again. "Look why don't you sit here for a moment and get yourself together. I'll be right back." He told her getting up and walking to the door.
Elizabeth glared at him.
"Let me get this straight. I come in here. I open up to you. I cry in front of you and you're ready to just get up and leave me here like this?" She shouted suddenly angry with him, thinking she may have misjudged him.
Rodney looked at her as if he was shell-shocked.
"I said I was going to come back I..." He started but Elizabeth was already at the door.
"Forget about it. I'm fine." She told him through gritted teeth before quickly walking down the corridors leaving and stunned and hurt Rodney behind.
"What'd you do to the lass?" Asked a voice from behind him.
McKay turned around to see Beckett standing there.
"She was upset. She..."
Beckett raised an eyebrow.
"I did nothing okay!" Rodney told him angrily.
"Aye okay." Beckett replied holding up his hands.
"I'll never understand women." Rodney told his friend sighing as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Nor will I Rodney. Nor will I." Beckett replied nodding his head in agreement and putting a hand on Rodney's shoulder.