Promises to Keep by Mad Maudlin

[mad_maudlin]

Title: Promises to Keep
Author: Mad Maudlin
Category: Gen
Word Count: ~ 200
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The Return
Summary: Without the city, what else is left?
Notes: This could eventually be a lead-in to something longer. But, um, it's turning out a lot longer, and I think this stands well enough on its own.

Promises to Keep
by Mad Maudlin

When the order came to leave, she couldn't say she was surprised. It was certainly sudden, and certainly she reeled with the avalanche of things to do, but some part of her had always known that it would end this way. From the very beginning, she'd known they'd leave in sorrow, limping from Atlantis like scolded children, back to a homeworld that could scarcely be called a home. She had just expected to have a chance to say goodbye.

She had no time to mourn, though. She was a leader, and her people were now all she had. She was all they had, once the Stargate shut down. They needed her to convince them that they would survive this, and she needed their faith to sustain her, because without Atlantis she wasn't quite sure who she was, anymore. In the city she had been many things: friend, confidant, leader, peacemaker, warrior, scholar. Outside it? Freed from their endless battle, cut off from their endless project? Who was she—who could she be, and what could she do? The answer: only that which she already was. Only that which had to be done.

She was Helia, daughter of Hippopharalcus, and she would bring her people home.

Comments

[bluefall.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with ceitie on the coolness of the Elizabeth/Helia parallels. It's pretty much the perfect device to get us to see it from both sides - a sympathy bait-and-switch that really makes you think. I like it. :)