Jack of Spades by Domenika Marzione
Dec. 4th, 2005 10:25 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
miss-porcupine.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficI saw "shark challenge" and figured I'd end up skipping this one. And then I got an idea.
Jack of Spades
drabblesque at a mere 1077 words.
Genfic (Sheppard, Weir, McKay)
Basically a coda for "The Storm/The Eye"
In the aftermath, she is not surprised that she can't find him. He's reachable by radio, she's sure, and would come instantly if called. But he is not lingering in the periphery of her vision, not moving in and out of her sensory awareness as is his way after every other adventure gone wrong. John understands in a way that she's not sure he'd even be able to explain that his being there matters, that everyone including herself breathes a little easier with him moving around, visible and audible and there. Atlantis herself isn't the only one who derives comfort from his presence.
But his absence now is unsettling only to her; Atlantis can certainly find him, Rodney is preoccupied with the aftereffects of their temporary shield generation, and nobody else yet knows what transpired while they were away.
The ignorance will not last. Among the returnees there is a vague awareness that something happened and it is only a matter of time until some version of events is pieced together. There are two dead Marines, the infirmary and armory are in disarray, there is a Genii soldier in the brig and a half-dozen more in the morgue.
The Atlantis community is not big enough for secrets and she will have to publicly address the situation both to avoid rampant rumors and to prevent a culture of fear from developing. How much of the actual story gets told will depend on how much is gleaned from the evidence still available.
The evidence is disappearing as fast as it is collected. Peter Grodin is supervising a team of engineers in the control room as they run diagnostics, Rodney is at Grounding Station #3 performing a more permanent repair, and Radek Zelenka has another team visiting each of the other grounding stations and naquadah generators to get them all online again. Peter is used to Marines idling in the control room and Zelenka gave her a knowing, unquestioning look when Ford ordered an escort for his team. Dr. Safir is covering for Carson, running the medical staff around with the brusque briskness peculiar to Israelis so that none of them have time to ask why Dr. Beckett is concussed and bloodied.
The evidence is going, but not gone. Before Bates dialed in from Manaria, John had taken Ford and Teyla to collect the bodies of the men he'd killed, but there is more to the carnage than sweeping up bullet casings and mopping up blood. When it comes time to explain, she will not lie to the expedition members. But she will keep as much of John's actions from them as she reasonably can. He won't have to ask, the way he did after returning with only Marshall Sumner's dog tags. She can spare him this and she will because for as much as the knowledge of his... lethal prowess eats away at her, she knows that acknowledging it deeply shames him as much, if not more, than his self-perceived failures do.
Nevertheless, the now-incontrovertible fact is that John Sheppard may be lucky, but he's also good. Better than anyone with his service record should be. And that makes his survival -- and by extension their survival -- not a happy accident but instead the product of something darker and quieter. Sheppard killed more than sixty men today and that is both reassuring and horrifying all at once. To them all.
She never thought that she'd feel pleasure at the news of another's death, but there she was, reveling in the increasingly frantic reports of John's deadly actions and all but cheering with Rodney at the rising body count. At the time, it hadn't struck her as the least bit incongruous to associate death with hope, but now, in the quiet of the victorious aftermath, she is embarrassed. She suspects Rodney is, too. He has returned to his normal cantankerous self, demanding attention and deference and while he took a Marine guard without complaint when he went to repair the grounding station, she knows he wants to use the time to be alone with his thoughts, to digest what has happened and what nearly did.
This longest day (that is not quite over) has brought her closer to Rodney, their shared experiences creating a bond that she doesn't think anything will be able to break. He was the only friendly face for the entirety of the ordeal, the most immediate reason to watch her tongue and her actions, the best distraction from despair. But as much as she and Rodney were each other's sole supports and comfort, clinging together and protecting each other, they were not alone. John was out there, a ghost of a chance turned avenging angel turned savior, and she is scared that the cost of his actions will prove too high.
Courtesy of the Genii they were stripped of all pretenses, left with nothing but their true selves open and on display. Kolya and his minions may have not understood what they were seeing, but she and Rodney and John comprehended all too well.
She is probably as open to Rodney now as he is to her, his emotions and thoughts perfectly readable when they'd once been opaque behind a screen of words and idiosyncrasies. Rodney has proven himself so much braver than he'd ever thought he'd been and she'd be a little embarrassed at her surprise if his own weren't that much greater.
But John... John is closed to her now, the parts of him that she'd thought she'd figured out having been suddenly called into question and the parts just a little out of reach now impossibly far away. And she is left with the feeling that she has lost her chance to get to know him at all. He will remain what he always was but she didn't realize: a charlatan with the best intentions, an actor pretending to be that which he is not so as to please his audience. He will smile lazily and continue to make lighthearted jokes about wanting to take vacation during the next crisis. But he won't meet her eyes because she knows the truth of who he really is and she does not think that John wants to be confronted with his own duplicity.
Ferris wheels, flying, and football. Nothing more, nothing deeper. She'd be angry with him if she weren't so sure that he is hiding from himself as much as he's hiding from her.
(http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=shark may be cheating, but, well, I'm a mountebank at heart.)
Jack of Spades
drabblesque at a mere 1077 words.
Genfic (Sheppard, Weir, McKay)
Basically a coda for "The Storm/The Eye"
In the aftermath, she is not surprised that she can't find him. He's reachable by radio, she's sure, and would come instantly if called. But he is not lingering in the periphery of her vision, not moving in and out of her sensory awareness as is his way after every other adventure gone wrong. John understands in a way that she's not sure he'd even be able to explain that his being there matters, that everyone including herself breathes a little easier with him moving around, visible and audible and there. Atlantis herself isn't the only one who derives comfort from his presence.
But his absence now is unsettling only to her; Atlantis can certainly find him, Rodney is preoccupied with the aftereffects of their temporary shield generation, and nobody else yet knows what transpired while they were away.
The ignorance will not last. Among the returnees there is a vague awareness that something happened and it is only a matter of time until some version of events is pieced together. There are two dead Marines, the infirmary and armory are in disarray, there is a Genii soldier in the brig and a half-dozen more in the morgue.
The Atlantis community is not big enough for secrets and she will have to publicly address the situation both to avoid rampant rumors and to prevent a culture of fear from developing. How much of the actual story gets told will depend on how much is gleaned from the evidence still available.
The evidence is disappearing as fast as it is collected. Peter Grodin is supervising a team of engineers in the control room as they run diagnostics, Rodney is at Grounding Station #3 performing a more permanent repair, and Radek Zelenka has another team visiting each of the other grounding stations and naquadah generators to get them all online again. Peter is used to Marines idling in the control room and Zelenka gave her a knowing, unquestioning look when Ford ordered an escort for his team. Dr. Safir is covering for Carson, running the medical staff around with the brusque briskness peculiar to Israelis so that none of them have time to ask why Dr. Beckett is concussed and bloodied.
The evidence is going, but not gone. Before Bates dialed in from Manaria, John had taken Ford and Teyla to collect the bodies of the men he'd killed, but there is more to the carnage than sweeping up bullet casings and mopping up blood. When it comes time to explain, she will not lie to the expedition members. But she will keep as much of John's actions from them as she reasonably can. He won't have to ask, the way he did after returning with only Marshall Sumner's dog tags. She can spare him this and she will because for as much as the knowledge of his... lethal prowess eats away at her, she knows that acknowledging it deeply shames him as much, if not more, than his self-perceived failures do.
Nevertheless, the now-incontrovertible fact is that John Sheppard may be lucky, but he's also good. Better than anyone with his service record should be. And that makes his survival -- and by extension their survival -- not a happy accident but instead the product of something darker and quieter. Sheppard killed more than sixty men today and that is both reassuring and horrifying all at once. To them all.
She never thought that she'd feel pleasure at the news of another's death, but there she was, reveling in the increasingly frantic reports of John's deadly actions and all but cheering with Rodney at the rising body count. At the time, it hadn't struck her as the least bit incongruous to associate death with hope, but now, in the quiet of the victorious aftermath, she is embarrassed. She suspects Rodney is, too. He has returned to his normal cantankerous self, demanding attention and deference and while he took a Marine guard without complaint when he went to repair the grounding station, she knows he wants to use the time to be alone with his thoughts, to digest what has happened and what nearly did.
This longest day (that is not quite over) has brought her closer to Rodney, their shared experiences creating a bond that she doesn't think anything will be able to break. He was the only friendly face for the entirety of the ordeal, the most immediate reason to watch her tongue and her actions, the best distraction from despair. But as much as she and Rodney were each other's sole supports and comfort, clinging together and protecting each other, they were not alone. John was out there, a ghost of a chance turned avenging angel turned savior, and she is scared that the cost of his actions will prove too high.
Courtesy of the Genii they were stripped of all pretenses, left with nothing but their true selves open and on display. Kolya and his minions may have not understood what they were seeing, but she and Rodney and John comprehended all too well.
She is probably as open to Rodney now as he is to her, his emotions and thoughts perfectly readable when they'd once been opaque behind a screen of words and idiosyncrasies. Rodney has proven himself so much braver than he'd ever thought he'd been and she'd be a little embarrassed at her surprise if his own weren't that much greater.
But John... John is closed to her now, the parts of him that she'd thought she'd figured out having been suddenly called into question and the parts just a little out of reach now impossibly far away. And she is left with the feeling that she has lost her chance to get to know him at all. He will remain what he always was but she didn't realize: a charlatan with the best intentions, an actor pretending to be that which he is not so as to please his audience. He will smile lazily and continue to make lighthearted jokes about wanting to take vacation during the next crisis. But he won't meet her eyes because she knows the truth of who he really is and she does not think that John wants to be confronted with his own duplicity.
Ferris wheels, flying, and football. Nothing more, nothing deeper. She'd be angry with him if she weren't so sure that he is hiding from himself as much as he's hiding from her.
(http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=shark may be cheating, but, well, I'm a mountebank at heart.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 03:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:53 am (UTC)Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 03:55 am (UTC)As always, your detailing is great. And the characterization is right on target.
Now I get to read Atlantis and X-fic from you. Oh happy days.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 03:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 01:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 01:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:15 am (UTC)I already liked this reading of John, but I like it even more put in the context of Elizabeth's before and after understanding of John. Liked this a lot.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:19 am (UTC)This is a great paragraph. I think it describes a Sheppard that would very possibly exist and that would almost scare his colleagues. Nicely drawn portrait.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 01:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:56 am (UTC)This longest day (that is not quite over) has brought her closer to Rodney, their shared experiences creating a bond that she doesn't think anything will be able to break. He was the only friendly face for the entirety of the ordeal, the most immediate reason to watch her tongue and her actions, the best distraction from despair. But as much as she and Rodney were each other's sole supports and comfort, clinging together and protecting each other, they were not alone. John was out there, a ghost of a chance turned avenging angel turned savior, and she is scared that the cost of his actions will prove too high.
I think that this is one of the best paragraphs. Avenging angel is a good description of what John was during the episode, especially when he's "smiting" the Genii from on high.
Great fic!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 01:20 pm (UTC)John was definitely an avenging angel -- he thought Elizabeth was dead for most of The Eye.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 06:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 04:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 06:28 am (UTC)This paragraph was especially well done: Nevertheless, the now-incontrovertible fact is that John Sheppard may be lucky, but he's also good. Better than anyone with his service record should be. And that makes his survival -- and by extension their survival -- not a happy accident but instead the product of something darker and quieter. Sheppard killed more than sixty men today and that is both reassuring and horrifying all at once. To them all.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 04:49 pm (UTC)... because they never showed us any, although there must have been. *grumbles*
I'm pleased I got to fill in this particular pothole.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 07:19 am (UTC)The picture of John as the avenging angel is terrifying and beautiful at the same time, and that alone should be scary. I love how Elizabeth is torn between admiration and nausea, between fear and relief.
You managed to not only throw John's role into sharp relief, but also Elizabeth's, and her shock about inwardly urging on the killing of the Genii. She always seemed like a pacifist, so it has to be even more horrifying to realise that she, too, has another side that's lurking under her skin, not nearly as far down as she'd like to believe.
Rodney, too, his quiet approach of handling things is very much in character.
It's so damn good to read excellent gen. There's just not enough of it out there. Thank you for this.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 07:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 04:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 11:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 04:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 01:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 05:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 06:06 pm (UTC)I am sadly all about the shallow. See pretty John, see how hot pretty John is when he’s all “die you bastards”. See brave, woobie Rodney. See John give Rodney much needed hugs. Well crap, the writers left that part out.
So I need to read wonderful, insightful stories like this because its heart is true and it remains me again what I love about the show. Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 08:10 pm (UTC);)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 07:03 pm (UTC)He will remain what he always was but she didn't realize: a charlatan with the best intentions, an actor pretending to be that which he is not so as to please his audience. He will smile lazily and continue to make lighthearted jokes about wanting to take vacation during the next crisis. But he won't meet her eyes because she knows the truth of who he really is and she does not think that John wants to be confronted with his own duplicity.
Oh, I like this as a characterisation of him. Yes. The Storm was interesting because it was such a different side of Sheppard, one we really haven't seen otherwise. Aspects of it, yes, but that efficiency he showed...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 01:57 am (UTC)We see Sheppard's darker side every once in a while, usually when dealing with the Wraith. His killing of Bob, for instance, in Siege I. His dealing with the Wraith on the Aurora -- no hesitation before the double-tap to the head. But you're right; it is not often turned against fellow man.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 11:17 pm (UTC)John understands in a way that she's not sure he'd even be able to explain that his being there matters, that everyone including herself breathes a little easier with him moving around, visible and audible and there.
Except when he doesn't. Or chooses not to acknowledge it because it conflicts with his particular brand of leadership. I keep getting dragged into long debates about this in the GW forums—whether Sheppard truly realizes how very important it is to the expedition that he stays alive, and how his tendency toward self-sacrifice is double-edged as military commander of Atlantis.
...there is a Genii soldier in the brig and a half-dozen more in the morgue.
Let's see... Two dead at Grounding Station 3, three dead in pursuit of Sheppard, 55 dead with the stargate shield, another two, three—up to five—dead in that final assault on the gateroom, and Sora captured. So. What happened to the two Genii Ford stunned? :p
When it comes time to explain, she will not lie to the expedition members. But she will keep as much of John's actions from them as she reasonably can.
Huh. Never thought about that before. I mean, reasonably, Weir wouldn't tell everybody everything, but I don't think I ever seriously considered the ramifications of people not knowing all of what happened when the Genii took Atlantis. Hmm. ‹ponders›
Ferris wheels, flying, and football. Nothing more, nothing deeper. She'd be angry with him if she weren't so sure that he is hiding from himself as much as he's hiding from her.
Wow. That's all I have to say. Wow!
...okay, not quite all I have to say. :p
As others have mentioned, you really nailed the characterization here—of Sheppard, Weir, McKay, everyone who got even a line's mention—while logically extrapolating the aftermath of the Genii invasion.
Sheppard is particularly well drawn and true to what I see in canon. JF, along with assorted writers and directors, seem to see Sheppard as a generally optimistic, easygoing person and, at first, I had real trouble reconciling that with the ruthless pragmatism he shows in "The Storm"/"The Eye" and elsewhere. I got over that by looking at his dissociation from violence, how brittle his hope often feels, and your point that he's probably not proud that he can slip into KILL mode so easily and be so good at it.
I wonder how hard it is for him to snap back from that. There's his "how far in advance can we take a vacation?" comment in the episode tag—though as is common for SGA, it's not clear when exactly that happened in relation to everything else. Still, he seemed to revert back to his adorkable self as soon as he finished shooting Kolya. Threat eliminated. Or at least the threat he could deal with.
Seems it takes longer and more to push him that far than to come back if there's any—any at all—evidence things might end well. Which fits with his basic belief in good people and a good life. Hmm. ‹ponders›
Thanks for the spot-on portrayal of... well, everyone and everything!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 02:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 12:10 am (UTC)lethal prowess eats away at her, she knows that acknowledging it deeply shames him as much, if not more, than his self-perceived failures do.
That is such a satisfying line.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 02:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 01:54 am (UTC)And, like everyone else, I thought this paragraph was particularly telling: Better than anyone with his service record should be. And that makes his survival -- and by extension their survival -- not a happy accident but instead the product of something darker and quieter. Sheppard killed more than sixty men today and that is both reassuring and horrifying all at once. To them all.
He is better than he should be: what right does a helicopter pilot have to be so damned lethal on the ground? They didn't give him Jack O'Neill's black ops background as justification for that, so it's really out of left field. I'm glad you addressed it here, even if we never do get any real explanation for it. I love the idea that he's as surprised as anyone else is by it, and maybe a little frightened of himself as a result.
Good stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 02:13 am (UTC)It's not that outrageous that John can use a gun well -- the Air Force does have marksmanship ribbons and expects its pilots to be able to take care of themselves on the ground until the PJ show up -- but it's the combination of that with everything else he did...
In my personal backstory for Sheppard (i.e., what I use for all of my stories), I've rigged in a bit of a possible explanation, but it's certainly not what the powers that be had in mind. All they decided was that this was not the first time Sheppard had to go Rambo.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 06:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 04:15 pm (UTC)Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 04:16 pm (UTC)But there are definitely dark corners to John. He's laid-back by need, not by nature.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 03:13 pm (UTC)This is also an incredible insight into John. Everything he is and everything he shows the world and the fact that Elizabeth sees why he hides who he is underneath it all.
Beautiful introspection. Very gracefully written, and the perfect coda.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 10:20 pm (UTC)This is pretty much how I see Sheppard, sometimes. Fantastic charecterization and just all around insanely good. Wow.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-15 04:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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