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sga_flashfic2006-08-14 10:15 pm
Look Up In the Sky by teand (Superpower Challenge)
Author: teand
Rating: G; Gen
Word Count: 1,230
Summary: Perception is everything.
LOOK UP IN THE SKY
"You see, in my business sometimes it's important not to let inconvenient facts get in the way of the greater truth. And the truth is, you should remain here..." He met Dr. Weir's eyes and held her gaze with his. "...in charge of this expedition." Then, as she realized what that meant, he smiled.
He could see that even through her relief, she was smart enough to know what the smile meant and when he added, "For the moment." she only nodded. In his business, approval was fluid and they didn't give absolutes. Dr. Weir would do a better job if she had one less reason to keep looking over her shoulder but he couldn't give her that. Couldn't make her job any easier.
And what a job...
He walked over the door of her office and looked out over the gate room. Noted the pairs of Marines standing ready, a group of scientists arguing as they walked, recognized three people who'd been with him on the Daedalus, new faces to replace those who hadn't survived one of the countless crises this mission had faced from the beginning.
"A lot to ask of normal, everyday men and women," he murmured.
"Pardon?"
He turned to find Dr. Weir at his shoulder. "I was just thinking ..." A gesture out at the infinite ways things could go wrong in Pegasus. "...that this mission could use a few supermen."
She stared at him for a long moment – her diplomat's face on, he couldn't tell what she was thinking – then she said, "Mr. Woolsey, walk with me." and left the room, giving him no choice but to follow.
Rolling his eyes as he realized he should have kept his mouth shut. "I know what you're going to say, Dr. Weir."
She flashed a Mona Lisa smile at him as he caught up. "No, I don't think you do."
"I read the reports and..."
Her raised hand cut him off and held him motionless on the balcony.
"Do you know how much blood has been spilled in this city, Mr. Woolsey? And I mean literally spilled. Spilled, splashed, splattered..." Her mouth twisted. "Sorry."
"Dr. Weir..."
She ignored him. "The fierce looking young woman standing by the far side of the gate is Dr. Connie Franklin. She's a biologist but like everyone here she wears a couple of hats and doubles up on tech support. After the Wraith attack, after the clean-up crews had taken buckets and mops and sponges and rubber gloves to stains that might have been all that was left of their friends, Dr. Franklin came into the control room and quietly took one of the consoles apart."
"Yes, but..."
"Dr. Rankin had taken a piece of shrapnel..." Weir continued quietly. "...and the spray of blood went... well, everywhere. The clean up crew got rid of the mess you could see but... No one told Dr. Franklin to take the console apart. Do you know what she said when I asked her why? Why with so many major repairs needing done, with so much damage and so much blood all over the city, she thought of that?" Dr. Weir didn't give him time to answer. "She said, she figured the control room staff had enough on their plates without being reminded of their mortality every time a key stuck."
"Well, that's..."
"Not all." She started walking again and frowning slightly, Woolsey matched her step. Halfway down one of the long corridors, she paused and smiled at a passing Marine. "Lieutenant Rodriguez."
"Ma'am." His smile was warming.
"This is Mr. Woolsey."
Woolsey waited for the thinly veiled hostility. His reason for being in Atlantis was top secret so, of course, everyone knew it.
Rodriquez's gaze was measuring but non-judgmental. "Pleased to meet you, sir."
"Lieutenant Rodriquez," Dr. Weir said as they continued walking, "is a genuinely nice man. And he has remained a nice man regardless of what the Pegasus Galaxy has thrown at him."
They stopped walking just inside the door to the mess.
Weir nodded at the large, middle-aged woman behind the steam line. "Technical Sergeant Halton, our cook."
"Dr. Rosen," Woolsey began.
"Is a dietician," Weir finished. "Technical Sergeant Halton has taken Dr. Rosen's reports and a thousand and one strange foodstuffs and kept us fed. She's used fruits and vegetables from half a dozen different worlds, parts of animals I don't even want to think about, and created meals that not only met all our nutritional needs but tasted..."
"Good?" Woolsey offered, sarcastically.
Weir smiled. "Not always but surprisingly often. In the year before the Daedalus arrived, she baked forty-two birthday cakes. The last fourteen of them after we ran out of ingredients we'd brought with us."
"And you don't think birthday cakes are..."
"...a reminder that celebrating milestones together is one of the things that makes us human? Yes, I do."
He thought it safest to stay silent on the way to the infirmary.
"Garret Harper." Weir nodded toward the large man with shoulders like a linebacker bending over a bed against the far wall. "He's one of the two original nurse/practitioners Dr. Beckett brought with him. The infirmary has a full staff now but in the beginning... Have you ever been in hospital, Mr. Woolsey? As a patient?"
He blinked. "No. I haven't."
"I have. And let me tell you that if I had to choose between a good nurse and a brilliant doctor, I'd take a good nurse every time. Someone who sees a person, not a patient. Someone who understands firmness does not mean tyranny. Someone who hears what you're saying even when the pain is twisting your words."
"Someone like Garret Harper."
She nodded in approval and he had to fight an involuntary urge to preen. "You're catching on, Mr. Woolsey."
They walked side by side back to the Gateroom. "When you read the reports, you read about Colonel Sheppard blowing up a Wraith ship or taking out the Genii but you don't read about the tech who got those hard to clean stains out of his uniform."
Brows up, he glanced sideways and found her smiling at him. He couldn't keep himself from smiling back.
"You read about Dr. Zelenka or Dr. McKay up for seventy-two hours and finally pulling the answer out of the ether that saves the city once again but you don't read about the guy who kept refilling their coffee mugs and ran their errands and took their abuse. You read about the amazing advances Dr. Beckett has made in gene therapy but you don't read about the nurse who emptied the bedpans."
They were back in the Gateroom, and a Marine he didn't know was holding out his briefcase. He took it, nodded his thanks, and turned to find himself caught in a measuring gaze.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you, Mr. Woolsey?"
"You're telling me that the normal, everyday men and women in Atlantis can handle the job just fine."
"No. I'm telling you that this mission has a superman for every occasion." Half turning, she raised her voice enough to be heard in the control room. "Dial Earth!"
He waited until the event horizon had engaged and there was a chance of being heard before asking, "And your superpower, Dr. Weir?"
This last smile was dazzling. "Seeing theirs."
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