Authors Note: This hasn't been beta-read so I apologize if it has grammar/spelling errors in or if the characters sound a bit off. Please let me know what you think of this, complaints, suggestions; any feedback would be helpful as long as it is constructive.

Another slightly experimental fic (inspired by the song by Placebo of the same name as the title). Is departing from my usual style. Love to know what people think.

Spoilers: For Season One episodes 1-11.

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate in any incarnations of course and I'm not making any money, this is just some harmless fanfic fun.

Protect Me From What I Want

She stands tall on the balcony beside John Sheppard.
They talk as they watch everyone come home.
She's surrounded by people once more, back in her role. She's meant to protect them just as many of them protect her, like John did.
A circle of decisions, of power and responsibility, actions and consequences.

Only he broke it.
He protected her instead of the other way round.
He's not the military, he's just a man. A man braver than she'd ever thought, better than she'd hoped.
And he surprises her in that once again because it's not the first time he's shown that courage in their hour of need, just that this time it was hers. It's hard to pass it off as him protecting them all by his actions, he did it for her, he saved her.

But he can't save her from what she feels. She can only deny it, act the same as before, as his leader and friend.
Play on, lying to everyone but most of all to herself.
Maybe he'll never see what he made her face up to.
She didn't want to die and she didn't want him to either, because she wanted both of them safe.
She admits to herself that she selfishly wanted both of them, together.
When he stepped up he'd been all she could think of, the memory of Simon so terribly distant, forgotten in that moment as Rodney jumped out without a thought to his own safety.

Only however much he could protect her from the gun, with his unexpected bravado and intelligent words, he can't stop her thoughts from running, from forming. She locks them off, trying to bury her curiosity too and having stopped him from saying what she fear he was going to say.
Three times he tried at the grounding station and she wouldn't let him say it, won't let it be there in the open. If that was even what he might have said because she'll never be sure now and it's probably for the best.

It's a kind of protection, a kind of denial she issues on them both. Finding the circle complete, returning to the normal, her protecting him. Because she can't let it be, it shouldn't be.
She shouldn't crave the hold of his arm, shouldn't accept it like she had as they'd huddled supposedly simply for warmth, knowing it injured but desperate to be close to him with the uncertainty of the situation.
He gave everything he could to make her feel better and she felt too much for her liking, not comforted but not for lack of trying, instead for the fact he would. That she wasn't meant to care as she found she did during the ordeal.

He's there beside her, joining the conversation. She makes polite chitchat, smiling a little to hear his voice relieved. She's almost amused to hear him back to himself and thinking of food. She tries not to think of his badly dressed wound and what lies beneath that. Instead she looks to John all the while until the discussion is over and she leaves for the solitude of her office.

She should sleep but there's a report to write. She could convince herself that it's just because the details are still clear in her mind but she wants to start on it, to sort through everything. The report will be precise, to the point. He'll get his acknowledgment, what he did on his record, but it will be facts from then on. All easier to deal with when it's something like that, not quite so complex, just another one of her staff doing what they must when facing extraordinary circumstances. She'll be proud of him all her days and grateful that she is alive, those feelings perfectly justified as well as she intends to show them as his superior, but nothing else.

In the end they all won, a heavy victory but they still stand; wet, bloody, battered and bruised, and cold inside.

Knowing from now on that he would do anything for her. Relishing the fact, heart soaring that she could mean so much to him.
And then plummeting because she wished it could be taken back, out of the way, wishing not to know, not to suffer.

Life is suffering she's read, a very wise person once said. She should remember who but the details escape her troubled mind.
And love equals hurt, somewhere along the line.
They were left somewhere along that line, one crossed that she wanted to ignore, now hanging on, her grip strong.

He saved her from death, resurrected her hope, yet she feels bad enough to be dead. Ironic that that's what proves she's still there and in that case today they are so very much alive.

It's up to her to save herself now, forsaking what could be because its not what's right however much her heart begs it to be.

She doesn't cheat, she doesn't lie; except where it has purpose. So here she is setting up the biggest lie to herself.
She doesn't care.
They are good friends.
And she's just a leader, he's her scientist.
No!
Their scientist, chief.

The mask goes back on, a numb neutral version of herself. Something never changing, undoubting. Someone to believe in, to look to. She knows he will and he'll see that. The total lack of anything changed.
He'll believe that and they will be ever the same.
Life going on.
The suffering goes on.
Someday she knows the pain will fade. Perhaps. She hopes at least.
For now it's the way it has to be, feeling like she's turned inside out but everything just as it was if you choose to believe what you see.