Title: Sometimes
Author: Normative Jean
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: not mine
Spoilers: none
Word count: 500 (100 words each)
Summary: Sometimes they think about things.


Sometimes it's red, sometimes it's brown.

Her hair, John thinks, looks red in some lights and brown in others.

It's the little things that make him hate her.

Sometimes it's red, sometimes it's brown.

It's different in his dreams. Sometimes the blood is fresh crimson pooling beneath her body. Sometimes the blood is caked mud when he's been far late to save her. Sometimes her hair bleeds into the floor. Sometimes he can see clearly where the killing blow fell.

It's the little things that make him hate her.

Sometimes it's the little things make him willing to sacrifice everything.


Sometimes she thinks about his eyes.

They're green with flecks of amber around the irises, but sometimes they turn a flat, dark hazel.

Elizabeth worries when they turn a dark hazel.

It's his way, she thinks, of barricading himself against the world they live in. Hazel means death, death by his hands.

Sometimes she wonders if his eyes were like this before, or if Pegasus has made them change color. Green means mirth and charm. Hazel means silence and menace. Green means John. Hazel means Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard.

Green is life. Hazel is death.

Sometimes his eyes make her sad.


Sometimes he wonders what she's doing there.

She's a politician, a negotiator, a peacekeeper. Elizabeth doesn't belong in a war room, discussing battle plans and ordinance expenditure.

Sometimes John wonders just what the hell the President was thinking.

She should be on Earth in a business suit, sitting at the head of a long table talking about trade and economic policies. She should be behind a lectern. She should be in an embassy surrounded by armed Marines, and be safe.

Sometimes that happens where they are, but not enough.

She really shouldn't be there.

But mostly he's glad she is.


Sometimes she thinks about the what-ifs.

She allows herself to wonder what if John had not been on duty that day. He might have never sat down in that chair.

Sometimes she marvels at how different they are. He is flights of fancy. He is sarcastic and infuriating and grates on her last carefully-honed nerve.

Sometimes she marvels at how similar they are. Determination undercut by pain and steel, she knows they both feel every loss like a severed limb. He is loyal and caring and makes her reassess her feelings on the military.

She doesn't like to play "what-if."


Sometimes she forces him to talk when he just wants to be silent.

Sometimes he attacks with words when she has no defenses left.

Sometimes John thinks she will be what finally makes him insane.

Sometimes Elizabeth thinks he will be what finally makes her pick up a gun.

Sometimes she makes him want to bang his head against a wall.

Sometimes he makes her want to scream at the top of her lungs.

Sometimes they don't know what to say to each other.

Sometimes they understand each other without saying a word.

But most times, being there is enough.