sga_flashfic | Five Ways Elizabeth Weir Leaves Someone Behind, by minnow1212, abandonment challenge

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Author:

minnow1212
Title: Five Ways Elizabeth Weir Leaves Someone Behind
Gen, Weir character study, four drabbles and one double-drabble
Abandonment challenge

I. (pre-series)

Elizabeth is seventeen when she first dates someone seriously. Jeff is generally known as a nice guy. He speaks of her accomplishments with pride and mock self-deprecation: "Lizzie’s way too smart for me."

She breaks up with him three weeks before they leave for college. She marshals arguments about the difficulties of long-distance relationships while he goes mute and wounded and finally says, "I get it, Lizzie." She feels guilty; she feels relieved.

Because the distance is an excuse. She’s come to understand that his jest holds truth: he is a nice guy, but he isn’t smart enough for her.

II. (mid-Rising)

She leaves a videotape for Simon, but she takes an afternoon to fly to her mother’s town.

First she arranges the financial details with Aunt Molly, still sharp-eyed and vigorous, and Molly’s daughter Janet, explaining how they can access Elizabeth’s accounts.

"Don’t you worry," Aunt Molly says, hugging Elizabeth. "We’ll take good care of her."

Then Elizabeth visits the nursing home, where her mother calls her Laura and plucks fretfully at the sheets.

"You stay safe now," her mother says (she always said that, never goodbye) as Elizabeth rises to leave. Her face holds politeness, not recognition. "You stay safe."

III. (sometime post-Siege)

“Yes, I’m returning there,” Elizabeth says. “I wanted to tell you in person.”

Simon replies sharply, “No videotape this time?” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“I wish I’d gotten clearance in time last year,” she says, which is true. She’d wanted to share her excitement. Though she was slightly relieved, too. How do you tell someone that you love him, but he’s not enough?

“I understand,” he says. “I wish you well. But, Elizabeth, I can’t...”

“I know.”

Back at the mountain, Sheppard asks, “Good leave?”

“What I expected,” Elizabeth says. She feels untethered, adrift, freed. “What I needed.”

IV. (several years post-Siege)

Rodney is offworld, and Radek on Earthside leave, when AT-5 tries to dial in. The two of them might have solved the problem. (It takes them hours to work it through theoretically, later, but if they’d been under pressure…maybe.)

The gate shakes. The room shakes. Alarms sound. “Too much buildup. Gate’s gonna explode,” Simpson shouts.

“We need to shut down now,” Kavanagh yells, hands not pausing.

“Not yet,” Elizabeth demands. “Give them time.”

Ten seconds. The city wails.

Fifteen seconds. A surge of power knocks Simpson across the room.

Templeton, Blake, Hale, Green.

Elizabeth gives the command: “Shut it down.”

V. (nine years post-Siege)

When she announces her resignation, people are shocked. They keep saying, "I can’t believe you’re leaving," when they wish her luck with the Furling-Asgard-Earth negotiations. She’s heard it before when someone leaves: who could want to leave Atlantis?

The night before her departure, she finds Sheppard on a balcony. "You weren’t surprised," Elizabeth states as they gaze at the water.

"Hamilton," Sheppard says, shrugging. Elizabeth’s replacement, whom she had brought in three years ago at the first stirrings of restlessness.

"I’ll miss the city," Elizabeth says. "I do love it."

"It’s not your work, though," Sheppard says. "God knows the scientists should get that--McKay’d be the first on board the Daedalus if a cooler project came up on earth--but they’re a little shortsighted sometimes."

Elizabeth smiles. Odd that Sheppard of all people should understand. "You wouldn’t--won’t--leave, though," she says with certainty.

He glances over at her, eyes gleaming, an inward smile on his face, full of the city’s knowledge down to his fingertips. "No."

She hugs him when she leaves the balcony. "Be safe."

"We will." He presses a kiss to her forehead and says gently, "Ten thousand years and ten, Elizabeth. You can go now."

END

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From:

thegrrrl2002.livejournal.com

Oh, that was utterly lovely. I love this look into Elizabeth's mind and heart.

"Ten thousand years and ten, Elizabeth. You can go now."

::wibbles:: So beautiful!

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