Summary: He hates it all. Too late he realizes why.
Category:
Drama, Romance, Shep/Weir
Spoilers: After Siege
Rating: A strong T, but not quite a M; (I hope that's about right. If not, please do tell me so!)
Archive: The
Phoenix Portal, my LJ, everyone else - feel free to ask
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, everything to MGM. I just
needed to hunt the bunnies, so I borrowed the characters…
A/N:
Dark. Very dark. And rather AUish. Do not read when you need a happy
end. You won't find one here.
A/N 2: A big thanks to daniforblue and johnliz4ever for giving me the courage to post this here.
The Way Things Go
He hates them. He hates them all. He hates
Earth for recalling her. He hates her for not fighting it. He hates
the president for giving in the demands of others to let the
expedition become military. He hates the expedition members for
following her last order not to stand up for her. He hates himself
for not being able to do anything. He hates himself for remaining
2IC. He hates his friends for looking at him with pity in their eyes.
He hates the General who came and took over, for being such a smug
bastard when it comes to civilians. He hates the scientists for
making always trouble and reminding him that they too can't stand
the new guy, and that there were never those kind of problems when
she was still in command. He hates General O'Neill as Head of
Homeworld security for doing nothing.
He hates it all. He hates
that although he hates his new boss, he has to admit that he isn't
bad in his job. He hates to step into the General's office, because
it used to be hers, and it reminds him too much of her. He hates to
step onto the balcony, because it used to be theirs. He hates to
enter the mess hall, because the first thing he sees is the table
where they used to meet for a midnight snack when they couldn't
sleep. He hates that he still looks up to the control room when he
comes back from a mission, expecting her to be there and smile at
him.
He hates everyone and everything.
When he looks at her still form in his arms now, his hate is forgotten.
He
stands on her doorstep, knowing it's too late to turn around and
flee. When she opens the door, he is shocked by her appearance. Her
hair is darker than he remembers and untamed. Her eyes have lost
their spark. She has a cigarette in her hand and he can smell alcohol
in her breath. He knows that she is broken, because she can't
belong anymore. She is broken, because Atlantis is her true home.
She doesn't smile when she sees him.
They have sex in her kitchen 20 minutes later. It's rough and quick, and everything else than romantic. They don't talk. He doesn't understand it, and he is sure, neither does she. He doesn't leave after it. She goes for a shower immediately, he makes himself a home on the couch. It's not about feelings, he tells himself.
His leave is over four days later. He steps out of her house quietly in the morning while she is sleeping. Or so he thinks. As he turns around one last time, he sees her standing at the window of her bedroom, watching him with hollow eyes.
Two weeks later he nearly dies on a mission. When he kisses the edge to death, he realizes that he needs her. The first night he sleeps with the help of medicine. She invades his dreams. Later Beckett tells him he spoke her name in his sleep. He realizes that his feelings run a lot more deeper than he feared. He plans on telling her everything when he sees her the next time.
The next time is almost five months later, at Dr.
Carson Beckett's funeral. His plans of speaking with her vanish,
when she comes through the gate to attend the service. It's her
first time stepping food in Atlantis since she was recalled. This
time they fought for her to be allowed to come for the funeral. And
they won. He knows that she notices all the changes in the city, even
the little ones, that have taken place in the last nine months. He
can't see it through, because she wears a perfect façade.
Only when she delivers her speech, standing next to him and the
senior staff, he can feel her hands are trembling.
He knows that
everyone who used to know her, is shocked when they see her. She is
cold, doesn't talk a word more then necessary and the black cloths
she wears make her look only more darker. She wears black eyeliner,
and her hair is black too. Her appearance is without colour. The only
exception are her lips.
He finds himself drawn to them. He stares at them through the whole gathering after the funeral. In the middle of black and white, her lips are a faint red. He kisses them with all the passion he has, hours later, when they stumble into a supply closet. His plans are forgotten.
Weeks later, he wakes
up one night, needing her more than ever. He records a message for
her. He confesses that he needs her.
He never sends it.
He know that he has gotten bitter without her. None of his friends can understand that he needs her. They don't know, that without her, he feels nothing. Hell, he can't understand it himself. He can't understand that he needs her so much.
Three months after Carson's funeral, she is back in Atlantis. It is exactly a year after he saw her smile the last time. He thinks that she forgot how to do it. The General - although he hates her with a passion, just because she is a diplomat – needs her for the most important negotiations they ever had since coming to Pegasus. The General knows that he needs her, but he doesn't want her in what he claims to be his city now. He has to thank General O'Neill for her being there. She is the best for the job.
The night before they leave, he realizes that he feels nothing when she's with him. It's a dark nothing, one he can loose himself easily in. It's different from the nothing he feels when she's not there. That one feels like falling in a dark abyss, falling to his own undoing.
Something goes wrong at the negotiations, and both sides are ambushed by a group of rebels. She throws herself in front of the leader of their new allies and saves his life. She pays immediately with her own.
She is lying still in his arms, her last words echoing
in the now silent room.
"I'm sorry. For all three of us."
A single pause.
"I need you." Just a faint whisper, as she
fades away.
He doesn't know what she meant, and he can't
think anymore. His hate has vanished, is forgotten.
The blood on
his hands is hers, and he knows he will never be able to feel clean
again. He feels nothing, the bad kind of nothing, and a single tear
falls down.
They look all up in shock when he returns through the gate, the dead body in his arms. Everything goes still, and many close their eyes in respect and pain for their fallen leader. They still think of her as their leader, that he knows.
On the
next morning, he is called to her office – he still refuses to
think of it as the General's office. Dr. Sandens, the medical
Doctor is there. He looks ashen and ill. It takes the poor man more
than one attempt to finally spill the news.
"She was three
months pregnant."
The news hit him like a sledge in the face.
His knees buckle and he falls to the floor. He stares at a imaginary
point on the wall.
It doesn't take much testing to confirm what
was for him out of the question. He hasn't only lost the person he
needed the most; he has also lost his child he never knew about.
Her
last words make sense now.
He finds the envelope in her
temporary quarters, sitting on her bed. He doesn't wonder about it.
He know she never set out to die, but she still was prepared for it.
He opens the envelope, and a ring falls out. He recognizes it from a
photograph of her grandmother.
"It's yours.", is written in
careful letters. He puts the ring on his left ring finger, a symbol
for a promise that will never be fulfilled.
"I'm
sorry. For all three of us. I need you." The look in her eyes as
she says those word is one of realization. He is too frozen to tell
her that he needs her too. He takes her hand, while her other hand
wanders to rest on her abdomen.
Later, he realizes the real
course behind that one action. It hits him, that the moment she found
out about her pregnancy, was the moment she died.
Three days
later, he delivers his words at her funeral.
"Elizabeth Weir
was a remarkable woman. She was the leader of this expedition for
more than three years, but for a lot of us, she is still the only
true leader to this city.." He only reads a few passages of his
written speech, before he rips the note apart and begins to speak
from his very heart.
"She was broken when she had to leave.
Atlantis was her home, and it was taken from her. She wasn't able
to fit in on Earth anymore, and it broke her. Because she was alone.
She didn't have someone with whom she could talk about it. Someone
who would understand. And that broke her too.
But her legacy
lives in this city. As long as the lights of Atlantis shine bright in
the night sky, she will live on."
He is the one to toss her ashes in the sea. The city mourns for their fallen leader, and the innocent unborn life that never had the chance to see the light of the world.
On the next day, he stands on a cemetery on Earth
and goes through the whole ordeal again. This time her family and
other friends are there, and also her closest friends from Atlantis,
and a lot of people who didn't know her that good, but still want
to pay tribute to her. Her family notices the ring on his finger, and
they understand. He can't stand the pity in their eyes. They too
know about the lost child. No one ever told them that he's the
father. But eventually, they figure it out on their own.
Again he
speaks at her grave. His expression is blank, he feels nothing. He's
numb.
"She meant a lot to her people, and she will never be
forgotten. It is in her legacy, that we will go on. I'm sorry that
she never got the chance to really live again. I'm sorry for the
child that died within her, without anyone even knowing about it. I'm
sorry I let her down…"
And there is again just a single tear.
Back on Atlantis, he stares out on the sea and just hates
himself. As he stares in the sunset, he casts a look at the ring on
his finger. And suddenly he lets go of the hate.
All that is left
is nothing.
Nothing, and a ring that symbolises a promise he will
never be able to fulfil.
-Fin-