Chapter 11: Where the White Boys Dance


She'd never felt more isolated than when she'd arrived into this strange place. There were people everywhere, always touching and crowding and talking, but to look out your window and see for as far as possible only water was not only disconcerting, it was vaguely frightening.

What if Atlantis suddenly sprung a leak and everyone had to evacuate? Were there enough ships to carry them all?

It was a Titanic-esque thought that made Beth wonder just what the hell the Titanic was. Even more disconcerting than this utopia literally in the middle of nowhere were the thoughts that came more and more frequently. She could remember snippets of her life, but nothing linearly and nothing that made sense out of context.

She remembered chocolate and that it was good, but she couldn't remember it; the taste of it, the texture. It was almost an emotional detachment from these things. She could pull up the meaning and picture of some things, but didn't know if she liked them or not. Her people memories were even worse. She knew the people, their faces if not their names, but again, not how she felt about them or what she knew about them.

Having amnesia sucked the big one.

Beth turned from the visage of serene seas beyond 'her' balcony and turned to her companion. He was too busy doing push-ups to notice her gaze and continued to count under his breath as she walked closer.

"What do you think?"

"Of what?" He asked, sparing her a glance through his sweat-sodden golden bangs.

"Of this place. The people, the operation, of the person I'm supposed to be."

"You don't have to be this person, Beth," Shal replied as he slid into a stretch, showing off all those glistening muscles to perfection. Had she mentioned he wasn't wearing a shirt?

She shrugged, sinking down onto the couch to watch as he started to stretch out in various positions. "I don't know that person. I don't know if I want to be or not." Beth kicked him in the side lightly, causing him to fall and sprawl at her feet. It was a nice image. "What do you think of Ronon?"

"I don't."

"Don't what?"

"I don't think of him," Shal replied with a smile, "though it's obvious you do."

"How obvious?"

"Not much, but still obvious."

"He's cute."

"If that's your type."

"What type?"

"Well, your type is male. Mine is female. I don't think of him."

Beth smiled and kicked him again, just as lightly. "He's different from the others."

Shal sighed and stood, pulling her up with him. He pushed her toward the small stack of their clothing even as he commanded that she, "Stretch. We're going for a run."

"Maybe I don't want to run."

"Maybe you don't have a choice."

"Maybe you're bossy."

"Maybe you are."

Beth stopped in the middle of pulling out a pair of stretch pants and turned to stare at Shalimar snidely. "Maybe I am."


Ronon inhaled a peanut butter and jelly and bananas sandwich while Sheppard felt the need to inform him of what he'd missed during his tour with Beth and Shalimar. Ronon also felt the urge to inform Sheppard of what he'd missed.

"Beckett thinks she doesn't want to remember?"

John nodded, working his way through his own sandwich (sans bananas) at a slower pace. "It worries me, a bit, that he thinks that. He might be full of shit though."

Ronon smiled, "Has Beckett ever been wrong?"

John grimaced. "Not that I'm aware."

Ronon nodded and they stood in companionable silence for a while. Their food finished, they sat there, stuck in a staring contest neither wanted to concede. Finally, Ronon smiled. "Beth's hot."

John smiled. "You noticed that too?"

Ronon grinned back and shrugged. "Dr. Weir was...attractive before, but there's something there now that wasn't..."

"...there before." John finished the sentence. "Something in the way she moves?"

"The way she speaks?"

"It's different, but I like it," John conceded, slightly guilty about the conversation all around, mostly because this was his superior he was speaking of. Another good dose of guilt came from the non-relationship he had with Teyla; non-relationship in that the feelings were there even if the actual relationship wasn't.

Ronon nodded, before looking at his friend again. "Or maybe it's something in the way she throws McKay over her shoulder and into the wall?"

John, who had been delicately sipping at his water (alcohol was not allowed at Atlantis) (and by not-allowed, he means officially), and proceeded to spit it all over his Satedan counter-part. "She did what?"

Ronon shrugged, wiping at the dew drops that slithered down his hair and onto his face. "She didn't like his tone of voice."

John laughed a full belly laugh that hurt from the long absence of any sort of amusement in his life. "You think when she gets her memory back; she'll let me get away with doing the same thing just once?"

"I doubt it. Last I remember, she was still mad about you threatening him with lemons."

"And last I remember, she was still mad at you for threatening him with a knife." John held up his two hands, pantomiming a scale that went back and forth. "Lemon...or knife...lemon...or knife...I think she was madder at you."

Ronon laughed a bit and pulled said knife from his side. The light glinted off the shiny blade, before becoming dampened by the fruit on the table as Ronon hacked at it. "Good thing she has amnesia and doesn't remember those things."

John scoffed, "Yeah, good thing. What do you want to bet that the first thing she says when she's normal again is that we better not have been threatening her baby genius again?"

Ronon slowly ate the fruit, choosing his words carefully. "What if this is her normal?"

"What?"

"Well, what if this is Elizabeth now? We don't know if she's going to get all her memories back, and even if she does, what if she stays the way she is now?" Ronon explained, expounding on thoughts that had whispered in his mind all day. "What if, we never get Elizabeth back, and we're stuck with Beth?"

Sheppard leaned forward, staring right into his friend's cold eyes. "Why are you talking so much? Aren't you supposed to be all quiet and skulky?"

Ronon shrugged and disdainfully ignored his friend's attempt at humor. "I'm going to the gym."

"I will not join you," Sheppard called to Ronon's back as he walked away, "because your optimism is ruining my day!"

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.