Disclaimer: As ever I do not own the series with which I am playing, please don't sue, it is not for malicious purposes, the show is simply too good to stay away from, so reallythis is a compliment.
A/N: This came to me late last night. I don't usually write Atlantis fics and I have a million and one stories I should be finishing instead of getting caught up in new worlds. However, I was randomly googling things and I thought about names and that is how this came to be. If you are an Elizabethan aficionado, then I apologise in advance as I took some liberties in implying the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and her favourite Sir Francis Drake, as there is no evidence he was in love with her, she was twenty years older after all and he did marry one of her ladies in waiting, a love match by all accounts.
Atlantis: The Elizabethan era
It is odd really, these thoughts running through his head, as he doesn't really consider himself as much of a historian. Maths is more his thing, though he never studied it, preferring to devote his life to flying ever more complicated and challenging aircraft. An endeavour that would finally in a way take him to the other side of the universe and show him that yes in some ways history does repeat itself.
They'd been on Atlantis for several months when, having once again been confined to the infirmary by Carson, in a fit of extreme boredom he picked up an abbreviated history of the world, if only to amuse himself with the facts he knew the author had gotten wrong, usually anything to do with the importance of religion in ancient Egypt and how so many myths seemed to be similar.
The chapter that really gripped his attention however concerned England and Queen Elizabeth the First, an amazing woman by all accounts, thrust into a cutthroat political world, who had succeeded where many had predicted she would inevitably fail. A woman who preferred the art of diplomacy, but had an unfailing instinct for when diplomacy was on its last legs and another solution, a military solution had to be found. A woman who had exceeded even the most optimistic expectations and had forged a united nation from fractured, hesitant and suspicious beginnings.
A woman a lot like the Elizabeth he knew, the Elizabeth that haunted his dreams at night and filled his days. The woman who had given him a chance when all others had expected him to fade gently and unresistingly into the night so they could forget him and the questions he had raised. The Elizabeth that trusted him with her life and yet forgave him when he felt he had failed her. Even though it was weeks after the Kolya incident before he could bring himself to answer for it. But that was Elizabeth.
In his more winsome moments he sometimes considered himself Francis Drake to her Queen, favourite of sorts, dashing pirate, who usually got into trouble, whether he searched for it or simply fell over it. And usually she was the one who uncomplainingly - sometimes - picked up the pieces.
There was one major difference between that far gone time and this. And as he stared down at the curls spilling over his chest and pillow and felt the warm arms around his waist as she curled into his side, he counted himself extremely lucky that this was so, that he was not doomed to end like Drake had.
For here in this time, the pirate got the Queen.