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This time: David Sheppard.
When it came to brothers David and John Sheppard were a shinning example of the power of a fraternal relationship. David and John were opposites… but one was never seen without the other. When asked David say proudly that John was his best friend. They looked out for one another, took care of one another… laughed together. Their wasn't a day in their childhood that David remembered not having his brother beside him… until his mother got sick. John, who was dark and quiet and more like their mother than their father wanted to spend all of his time at the hospital. David wanted to be there, but he was afraid to his mother in that state. He was more like his father and started channeling his grief in productive applications. While he worked away on homework and business problems that his father gave him, John stayed beside their mother and told her stories, read to her, listened to her tell him about the things that he would do.
David would think back later that those months apart is when the problems started. John and him were no longer inseparable. Their father, Patrick, who was a hard man, was made even harder by the impending death of his beloved wife. When the day finally did come… things changed more drastically than David could have imagined just days before. Their father, who looked at John and saw only his dead wife… began to pull away and he took David with him.
John was always a smart kid. David remembered the day when grades came home, his brother and himself would have to report to their father and give him their grades. He would read them aloud, and then ask them to explain any grade that was less than an A. After all they were Sheppard's… and must therefore hold themselves to a better standard. John always had A's and David always felt jealous. John never applied himself to school. He would rather spend time hanging out with his friends and going to see their Uncle and Aunt in the city.
David didn't have a choice about what school he would attend. His father came to him part way through his Junior year in high school and gave him the admissions paperwork for Harvard. David knew that he was expect to take over in his father's place when the day came…and he relished the challenge. Later, he would consider that in those days John was on his own. He was expected to join the company and work under David and their father for the rest of his life. He had no one to turn to at home as the fights between their father and him grew more frequent and heated.
David for his part couldn't understand why John was the way we was. He seemed to reject all the advantages that their father wanted to give him. David was excited about the world of business. He was fascinated by stocks and bonds, bear and bull markets, marketing and selling… David was primed to take the reigns of the company… but John… well John grew more and more distant every day.
It wasn't until he got the call in his dorm room at Harvard that he realized how distant John and him truly were. His father called to tell him that John had joined the Air Force. It was a shock to David, who had planned his future carefully and always imagined that his brother would be there working along side of him. He didn't understand why John hadn't told him that he was planning to join up… and as the years past without word it grew into anger.
It would be four years before the youngest Sheppard son came home, in that time things had changed for David. He was now a Harvard graduate and quickly making a name for himself as a shrewd businessman. For him, John's return was like a match that set the powder keg of the last few years to fire.
John was a different man when he returned, calmer… and more committed. Their father tried to convince John to stay, to leave the Air Force, but John laid that idea low… he'd enlisted for another four years. David would recall the color of his father's face for months to follow. That murderous red… and that wide fist slamming into John's jaw. David might have stepped in to stop their father… if he hadn't felt like doing the same thing.
John didn't hit back or even get angry, like David expected he would have. Instead he quickly grabbed his still unpacked bag and walked out without looking back.
David would be haunted by that night for days before a dip in the stock market forced it from his mind. He knew that John would go to see their Uncle and Aunt, but he never showed up on their door step. Just the occasional card, a few terse words around the holidays.
David grew older and with that age came a better understanding of his brother. Maybe he couldn't fully get into John's head… but he did try. David was sure that Patrick felt horribly about the way things had gone that night, but Patrick was a Sheppard and Standard Operating Procedure was to force those feelings down as far into your gut as you could.
The next time that David saw his brother was when he showed up at their door late one light with a sharply dressed woman at his side. Her name was Nancy. She was a Harvard graduate like himself, a self-contained driven woman. The kind of woman that Patrick Sheppard had always wanted his son's to marry. David heard his father congratulate John on snagging Nancy… John, David decided, looked decidedly uncomfortable…
Nancy gave their father false hope that John was planning to settle down… thought David would admit that the same thoughts crept into his mind. Nancy and John announced that they were engaged to be married… in fact it was Nancy that insisted on meeting them… David wondered if she hadn't insisted would John have brought her around at all. Later in the Den, over drinks, Patrick would ask his youngest son about what he planned to do with his life now. David wished that his father would just let the subject drop… but Patrick Sheppard was nothing if not tenacious. David always thought that if Nancy hadn't been there Patrick would have tried to hit John again… David emphasized the try to himself as he regarded his brother, that night he saw something in John that he had never seen before… I kind of hard ruthlessness.
Nancy explained that neither one of them was ready to give up their careers… so John had decided to re-enlist for eight years. That night when John and Nancy had walked out of the house… Patrick Sheppard's cold fury had followed them down the drive and away into the dark. Nancy stayed in touch… and they saw John for the wedding but it was a brief meeting. Their family never was very good at getting along and David felt awkward watching one of John's Air Force buddies, Captain Holling, act as best man and deliver a rousing speech at the reception.
Nancy called the next week to let David known that John had been shipped out to some undisclosed location with the Air Force. She kept in touch and David was grateful for the window into his brother's life… even if his father wasn't
When his Uncle died David had expect to see John, but Aunt Margaret said that He'd called the night before to express his sympathies and to let her know that he would be able to make it to the funeral… Nancy arrived alone. She didn't stay long, just long enough to give Patrick and David her sympathies and let them know that she was filing for divorce from John. David felt the anger rise again like bile… it burned at his insides. Only tempered when their Aunt had handed him a packet of letters that John wrote over the years. Letters that were written to her husband… letters about his life and the things that he'd seen and hints at what he'd done. What gripped David's heart was the obvious concern the John expressed for himself and for their father despite everything that had happened.
It was six months before they got word from John and the news wasn't good. John was coming home for extended leave… because he was facing a review. Apparently he'd disobeyed a direct order and flown into the heart of enemy territory to rescue a friend. David wanted to respect his brother for what he'd done… but it was hard… it seemed to him that once again John had thrown everything good in his life away.
When John showed up on their door step… David had responded in the only way he could. He'd slammed the door in John's face and walked away. John, who had never been one to take no for an answer, simply opened the door and headed wordlessly to his old room.
Later that night… well that had been the biggest fight David could ever recall his brother and his dad having. David had tried to be neutral, tried to play third party like he'd done when they were younger… but he couldn't seem to be quiet. Between the two of them, David and Patrick ripped John apart. They criticized his choices, poked at his mistakes, laughed at the things he felt were important… anything that they could have done to make John feel lower than dirt… they did. It was two in the morning before the shouting stopped. Two in the morning before John looked at them with dead eyes and walked away. David and Patrick stood quietly for a moment… before heading up to their rooms for a couple hours of sleep. It was guilt that woke David later… and guilt that made him read the letter's John wrote… guilt that made him leave his room and head down the hall to John's room… and remorse that he felt when he saw the empty room… the tightly made bed… the military placement of the few items left in the room… and emptiness that filled him as he knew John wouldn't be coming back.
David waited for word from his brother… waited for some clue about what was happening… but no word came. David, who had started taking over more and more of the company, made some calls. He found out that John had been stationed in Antarctica. The loneliest place in the world… flying helicopters for hot shots and big wigs… something David was sure chaffed at him.
David tried to send John a letter but the words did seem to come out right… so he'd decided to wait until the time was right. After all John would come back sooner or later… he always did.
David wasn't ready for the news that reached them later that year… John was declared Missing in Action. At first… David had to admit he was confused… how does one go missing in Antarctica? let alone… M.I.A.
He'd made the same calls as last time, trying to find his brother… but was met with stony silence. Instead of answers he got a phone call late on night from an unknown number. Thinking that it was John he'd answered… but from the silence on the other end of the phone a sentence rang out as clear as a bell…
"David Sheppard. You need to stop looking for your brother." The person on the other end of the line was monotone… no sound echoed in the background of the call… and for a moment David sat on his bed with the phone to his ear, sure that the man on the other end was still there, until the phone line went dead.
David had never been more scared in his life… but he had no choice. He'd pushed his fear for John to the back of his mind and threw himself into his work. A year passed before David sat down and thought of John again… this time it was on his birthday. David pulled out the letter's Aunt Margaret had given him and a stack of old photos… then left both on his Father's desk. David felt like he had made peace with his brother… made peace with the choices he had made, made peace with the real possibility that he was never coming home.
It had been nearly a year and a half before they got any word of John's fate. A phone call, in the early evening, drastically changed David's view of his little brother. There, pouring out of the speaker on his father's phone was General Hank Landry… calling to congratulate them.
"I'm calling to express my deep gratitude for the service that your son, John Sheppard, has done for this country." David thought it had to be a hoax. First they think John is dead… now they get a call from some General saying that not only is John alive… but promoted…
"I'm sure he didn't get a chance to call you yet, so let me be the first to tell you. John Sheppard was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel." General Landry seemed completely oblivious to the havoc he was reeking on the Sheppard family. Patrick could barely speak when he responded.
"What do you mean promoted? We were told that he was M.I.A presumed dead." Patrick's voice was softer than David had ever heard it.
"No, Colonel Sheppard was working with Air Force operatives on a matter of national security. He was promoted for exceptional service, above and beyond what is expected…" there was more said after that… but David didn't hear a word. John was alive. He broke in as General Landry started to hang-up.
"How can we contact him?" General Landry was silent for a moment… but he gave them an address at Peterson Air Force base and hung up.
Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was anger… or fear of what would happen if they couldn't get a hold of him… or worse yet if they could… but it wasn't until Patrick Sheppard had his heart attack that David sent the first message to John. It was strange that death pulled them apart and death pulled them back together.
John showed up out of nowhere, this time with a dangerous looking man at his side, John said the two worked together but David had his doubts. David wanted so desperately to make things right… but his grief clouded his vision… and made him fall back into the old routine with John, he'd asked about who this "Ronon Dex" was and loosed a crack remark about John's "Top Secret" Air Force work. He wanted to say more… to ask if he was happy, to ask John if he had found himself a place to settle down, to ask what he was doing with his life… but all he could get out was some dumb question about the Will.
He was sure that John wouldn't come back… that he gone and done what Patrick Sheppard had feared in the last couple of months of his life… he was afraid that he'd driven John away. So later… when a knock sounded on the door, and he'd opened it to reveal his brother, David felt a weight lifted off his shoulders. He would realize as he watched his brother wave from the back of the Taxi hours later… that as stubborn as his brother was about life… he was doubly as stubborn at his family… which David was glad to hear included a whole new group people, including the mysterious "Ronon Dex" who'd reportedly eaten more than ten full plates of food at the wake, a group of people who understood his brother in way that he hadn't in many years. David hadn't recalled ever seeing his brother as comfortable in his own skin as he had looked in those hours after the wake… and he'd never seen him so genuinely happy. It was a good start, David thought to himself, a good time to rebuild, because David was sure that no matter what it took he wanted his brother in his life.
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