sga_flashfic | Still Haven't Found by X-parrot (ancient history challenge)

Title: Still Haven't Found
Author:

xparrot
Pairing: John/Nancy
Rating: PG-13/R (not-very-explicit het sex)
Wordcount: ~7,500 (wow I so very fail at flashfic.)
Warnings: Spoilers for "Outcast" (but not anything else.)
Notes: Not my usual sort of thing, but I'm sick and had no will for the stories I want to be writing. It probably went nothing like this. But what the heck.
Summary: "Already done that. Not very good at it." Three years of friendship and marriage and love and heartbreak.

Still Haven't Found
X-parrot

At the wake, he's by the paddock, off apart from everyone like always, and she could pretend she didn't see him, but Nancy's never run from anything. A woman doesn't get to where she is by backing down. Besides, it's ancient history; it's over and done with, part of her past, and that's not just what she's telling herself; it's the truth, it's the way it is.

But she walks across the lawn towards him and the years peel back and it's like she's seeing him for the first time, tall dark and attractively uncomfortable in his suit, the look in his eyes saying anywhere-but-here.

They met at a cocktail party in Arlington, politicians milling with generals, she there to flatter her boss, he a new captain dragged along as someone's trophy date, hotshot pilot dolled up in his dress uniform, tousled and smiling. It wasn't only his looks that drew her, though, but the distance he kept, the way the flirts would go to put a hand on his arm and he'd drift back, just out of reach, while his genial smirk never faltered.

She wouldn't be here herself, but such affairs were a necessary evil in her line of work. By the time he'd been backed into a corner by a persistent redhead in emerald, she'd schmoozed enough and took pity on him, moved in and introduced herself with a handshake, strong, not delicate. "Nancy."

"John," he said, smooth and friendly, and wary under the charm, combat-ready like this was a war zone.

She drew back her hand and didn't try to get closer, didn't spare a glance at the airhead in green glaring at her. "So, John, you hate these society things as much as I do?"

"They're all right," he said, eyes on her right back.

"Only for making connections, as far as I'm concerned. And the food." Openings denied, green strapless flounced off in a snit. Nancy folded her arms, non-threatening, let herself relax back on her heels like she was talking baseball with one of her brothers. "Tell me you can make more interesting conversation than who's up for what congressional seats."

He arched an eyebrow and she was fifteen again, pimple on her chin and her hair untamable, gazing dreamily into the hazel-green eyes of the most popular boy in school. "I pulled nine and a half Gs, day before yesterday," he said.

"Cool," she said, snagging them cocktails off a passing tray. "In what?"

Two hours passed in a blur, and when she asked him to walk her back to her apartment, he agreed with barely a moment of hesitation. She said goodbye on the stoop and didn't invite him up, and thought she might have seen more gratefulness than disappointment in his face.

Two days later she showed up at Andrews Air Force Base on assignment. "Captain Sheppard will show you around, ma'am," the colonel told her, and Sheppard was called in. His greeting smile shifted, if didn't quite falter, when he saw her.

She grinned back at him, unrepentant. "Connections, like I said," she told him, and both his eyebrows raised this time.

Usually a civilian agent from the DoD couldn't expect more than grudging cooperation, but she'd always been good at insinuating herself into groups, even the tight-knit formations of military ranks. She obviously wasn't one of the boys and never tried to be, but she made sure they'd be eager to welcome her into the clubhouse all the same. By the next weekend the officers and airmen were inviting her out to drinks with their whole rowdy crowd.

Captain Sheppard often came along, and usually stayed near, sitting next to her at the cinema, squeezed into the booth beside her at the bars, thigh to thigh. He never sat closer than necessary, and his hands never wandered. It might have seemed chivalrous, except he never commented when his fellows hit on her, laughed along with them at the raunchiest jokes. She laughed, too—two older brothers and one younger, she'd seen and heard it all. Besides, she preferred Austin Powers to While You Were Sleeping, and would take a tequila shot over a Pink Lady any day.

John was more comfortable in fatigues or civvies than the stiff-backed soldier in the dress blues she'd first met, but she noticed he rarely had more than a couple drinks a night, nursing the same beer bottle for hours. Past midnight, when his friends were at their loudest, he'd be in the back, more often than not, watching; smiling always, but sometimes she caught an edginess in his eyes, the same trapped look he'd had at the party, like the bar's walls were too small and close.

Claustrophobia, maybe, she guessed. Captain Sheppard's records had sealed sections, need-to-know missions above her level of access. Though it never really looked like fear, only a vague aversion to the limelight. Still, she found herself sitting in the back with him, most nights. They'd talk politics, which John followed but had no particular opinions about; and football, about which he most definitely did. She told him about growing up in Brooklyn, about getting her CJ bachelor's and her Masters thesis; he told her about always wanting to fly, about the most dangerous maneuvers he'd executed. He had a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and his eyes would brighten as he explained the science behind some impossible feat of flying, but he tended to cut himself short before he got too technical, like a kid in junior high worried about looking like a nerd.

So she asked him about the realism of Top Gun, and ended up in John's loft at three A.M., sitting on his couch while he kept pausing the tape to illustrate aerodynamic principles with his empty beer bottle and the VCR remote. In the morning she woke up on his couch, still fully dressed in her creased pants-suit, covered by an afghan. "Sorry," John said, when he slouched out of the shower, decent in jeans and a t-shirt. "I tried to get you to move to the bed, but you were pretty much out."

His hair, damp, managed even more incredible angles than it did dry, and she had to fake a yawn to cover her giggle, knowing what kind of birds' nest her own must be. Yet she couldn't help but think how she wouldn't mind waking to that sight every day.

Years later she still thinks it was one of the best reasons she ever had for getting up in the morning, to witness John Sheppard's unique bed-hair. Seeing him mussed and slumping, green eyes warm and heavy with sleep, she could forgive him anything, even at the end of their marriage. It was all the other mornings that were the problem.

The first time she hugged John was when he was sent overseas, exact destination classified. The sendoff party lasted well into the wee hours, an excuse for everyone to buy rounds for everyone else in turn, and she was the only one conscious in the morning when the taxi came to pick him up. She rose up on her toes, wrapped her arms around him and whispered into his ear, "Good luck, come back safely—maybe you can take me up, when you get back."

When she let go, he was staring at her, for once startled out of his calm, and she wished she had a camera to catch that wide-eyed bewilderment. Like he'd never been hugged, for all his unit had been pounding him on the back just the night before.

She had other photos, at least, group shots of everyone waving at the camera. In the month he was gone, she found herself looking at them too many times, seeking out John's tall figure standing on the fringes, touching her fingers to the distinctive wry twist of his smile. She had a father in the Army, a brother in the Marines; she was used to this. But it was different, now, even if she assured her mother, "No, he's just a friend."

"So when are we going to meet this friend?" She could hear her mother's knowing smile over the phone. Nancy didn't bother to correct her; they'd had the family argument enough times before.

She emailed John, not asking him about those things he couldn't answer, like where he was or what he was doing, instead talking about her own life, about the latest rumors of the president's sexual escapades spreading around the Pentagon, about what she saw of the bar fight three of his buddies got arrested for. About her boss the director, and how he had assigned her to the desk closest to his office, in order to look down her blouse every chance he got. She was used to it, but it wasn't something she could mention to her family without provoking protective wrath; or her girlfriends who would be outraged and tell her to sue, demand that she make waves she couldn't afford to make, not if she wanted to be taken seriously.

"The guy's a moron," John wrote back, a few days later at a ridiculously early or late hour. "Wear things with high collars and prove to him how damn good you really are."

Which she was already, of course, but it still made her smile. She marked the email so she could always find it again.

It occurred to her that if she had been under John, he would have noticed her accomplishments long before he noticed her figure. Ironically enough.

John came back safely, and they hugged again, like she'd embrace a fourth brother. Her assignment at Andrews was up, but after work she still hung out with the guys from the base, more evenings than not. Or else she and John would go out alone, just the two of them to catch a movie or visit the Einstein Planetarium, or drive out of the city to gaze at real stars as the weather warmed. She crashed on his couch a couple nights a week, and wondered what the hell she was doing.

She had never dated seriously, never looking for a relationship, just a good time. Marriage wasn't something she'd ever really considered one way or another. A white wedding had never been among her ambitions; she dreamed instead of promotions and pensions and proving herself. She'd never wanted children, not when she was younger, and the dreaded biological clock had yet to kick in; she was perfectly content playing aunt to three sets of nieces and nephews. Doing her part to keep them safe, to keep her country safe.

Now she found herself wanting a partner, wanting the stability of someone to come home to, someone to support her, believe in her; someone for her to believe in. She caught herself daydreaming about buying a house, a shared mortgage, and couldn't tell if it was because she was getting older, because her life was moving to the next stage; or because her subconscious had decided she had found someone.

Found herself playing beard to a man who wasn't even gay, as far as she'd been able to determine. That at least would have made sense, given his career; hell, she might've covered for him, that was how far gone she was. But he never responded to any of her hints, and she never caught him with another man. Women came up to John in the bars, all the time if she wasn't close by, and he had left with a few of them. It wasn't like he kept a little black book, though; he never called any of them back, she didn't think.

For all she knew, he took them back to his place and showed them videos and spread afghans over them when they fell asleep on the couch. Those few times he left the bar with a girl latched onto him, he always had a tense, by-the-book formality, arm properly around their shoulders but leaning away, just that little bit, not enough for them to notice but she always did. The chivalry that wasn't, and she wondered if he was like that in bed, too, rigid angles and pale open eyes and only touching where he had to, when he had to. Maybe he never called any of them because they never left him numbers, in the end.

Performance anxiety, playing by the rules—that was what she told herself, home alone with her vibrator. Fantasies as vivid as imagining her fingers in John Sheppard's hair, as imagining John's strong hands around her thighs, his husky whisper in her ears. Watching the star quarterback bang the cheerleaders one by one and wondering why he never picked the girl next door—fucking pathetic, that's what it was. She'd never been that girl, even when she was fifteen; she'd always known what she wanted, had never feared taking it.

But then, John Sheppard wasn't that guy. Or any other she'd ever met.

At work the director met her eyes squarely when he told her how impressed he was with her recent work, and how he was going to be expecting more from her now that he'd seen what she could do, and there was nothing lewd in his smile. She accepted the praise with an obliged nod, but the pride she felt in his office was nothing compared to how loudly her heartbeat thumped in her ears when she told John that evening, and he grinned and said, "Awesome, knew you'd do it."

Thirty-two years old, top of her game and climbing; six months ago her life had been on the fast track to success. And now she didn't know what the hell she wanted.

She had the terrible, terrifying feeling that maybe she had fallen in love.

The night they celebrated her promotion, John and the other guys from Andrews and half her coworkers, John's apartment was too far to walk back to, and rather than pay for a taxi they went back to her apartment instead. Both of them were tipsy if not really drunk, reeling and laughing up the stairs rather than waiting for the slow, cranky elevator. She tripped on her pumps and he caught her, and then they were kissing.

She was sober by the time she unlocked her apartment door, dizziness burned away by the heat of his mouth, the heat of his hands on her cheeks. "We don't have to, John," she said, but he said, "No, let's," and then they were inside.

He wasn't like she'd spitefully imagined for others, was everything she had fantasized for herself—not coldly rigid but warm, curved against her, curving up into her, hands and body gentle and steady and achingly slow, and his eyes were dark until he closed them. She watched him under her, watched his face change as he came, trying to understand, until she bit her lip and closed her own eyes and lost herself in the moment.

When they awoke the next morning, she ran her hand through the disaster of spikes that was his hair and kissed him. They rolled together again, spent languorous hours making love, exploring one another's bodies as the rising sunlight glided across the sheets. At last she settled her head on his breastbone, the wiry firm planes of muscle, listened to his beating heart as she trailed her fingers over the curls of hair on his chest. "I've been wanting this," she said frankly.

"I'm glad," he said, uncertain as she had rarely heard him, hesitating as if the words were hard to find. "I wasn't sure...what you wanted. If you wanted anything."

"This," she said. "This is good."

That afternoon, he finally he took her flying. The first time the jet broke through the clouds and she heard John whoop over the headphones as the sun hit their faces, she thought she might have glimpsed a sliver of his soul. Like he'd cracked, split open in the light as he hadn't even in last night's darkness, and she saw him through that fracture, raw and pulsing and alive, unbound as he never could be when grounded.

(Years later, she thinks that maybe he never really forgave her for that.)

But she was happy, happier than she'd been in a long time, happier than she remembered being. Her friends grinned and said, "It's about time!" and John's buddies punched him in the shoulder and shouted, "Score, dude, score!" to the whole bar, like he'd broken another flying record; and everyone bought them drinks.

Her new duties didn't give her any more time off—less, really, and John had his own career. They didn't see each other much more than they had before, and when they went out in the evenings with everyone it was the same, mostly, except that she could lean over and kiss him when she liked, and he would occasionally slide his hand around her waist and draw her in. And she'd tell the pick-up artists that she was taken, he'd put off the girls who drifted up to him with an apologetic shrug in her direction; and they went home together most nights.

Her apartment was bigger, but she was already keeping a toothbrush at his loft. She didn't exactly move in, but he gave her a key, and her work started stacking up on his table as much as on her desk at home, file folders piled until they toppled over onto the floor. She apologized for the mess (John kept his little place ordered as a barracks, like he was always expecting an inspection) but he shrugged like he didn't mind, and bought her a set of crates to file in.

"Has he said he loves you yet?" her mother wanted to know, and Nancy said they hadn't, and her mother clucked her tongue and told her of course a man would never say it first; that if she wanted to hear it, it was up to her.

But she didn't want to hear it; or rather, it didn't matter. John didn't have to say it; he proved it, every time he touched her, every time he looked at her with his eyes dark and intent. He proved it with the space he made for her in his apartment and in his arms, places carved out especially for her, perfect fits.

She wanted to say it to him, though. Wanted to tell him so that he would understand, because sometimes she was afraid he didn't. As if as difficult as he found it to express his own feelings, he found understanding other people's just as big a challenge. Sometimes, watching him with his Air Force friends, she thought that he might have joined the military because the camaraderie there was expected, enforced by circumstance and tradition. He could fly whatever position his squadron needed in their formations; he trusted them with his life and they trusted him with theirs, no words needed, no other proof.

And yet even so, he'd sit in the backs of the bars and watch his friends fool around, and never join in until someone dragged him into the action. Like he was awaiting assignment, even off-duty, looking to the flight leader for what position he was flying.

John's missions came irregularly; he'd be on deskwork for a month, good-naturedly bitching about paperwork he mostly avoided or fobbed off on others anyway, and then gone without warning for days or weeks. Nancy was mature and responsible and got more done when he was gone, working late in the office and only going back to her empty place to sleep. She read the papers obsessively, wondering at every international incident if John was there, flying in the skies over Serbia, or Iraq, or China. She ate lunch with friends, and dinner alone with CNN on, and felt like a damn war-widow, wringing her hands and anxiously awaiting word from the front. Thinking, every time he left, how she hadn't told him yet, how she needed to be sure he knew. What he was taking with him, if he died.

At her division of the DoD, one of the directors fell ill, forcing an unexpectedly early retirement and a shuffling of positions that bumped her up another grade. John came back the same day, red-eyed from jetlag but startled into laughter when she literally jumped into his arms, shouting in her excitement. He swung her around, kissing her, and they tumbled into bed, clothes half-off and her fingers digging into his shoulders, his mouth marking her neck, all the passion of twelve days apart squared by her success—by his as well, even if he wasn't allowed to talk about it.

Afterwards, flopped on the mattress sweaty and breathless, gathering strength enough to make it to the shower, she reached out and curled her hand around his, resting on the pillow. He turned his head toward her, face flushed and lips swollen and his hair dampened to black, and she drew the back of her other hand down the side of his cheek, feeling the drag of stubble.

I love you, she meant to tell him, but when she opened her mouth she said, "We could get married."

John blinked, but didn't flinch. "We could," he said, maybe dryly or maybe just calm.

Her cheeks were hot but she made herself speak rationally, mature woman, not teenage girl. "Pooling our incomes, we could afford better than either of us is living in now, and with the tax deductions, insurance benefits—not to take the romance entirely out of the thing, but there are practical benefits. We could take advantage—or we could just forget it."

"We could," John said again, and she kissed him before he said anything else.

Three weeks later, at ten at night when Magrite's was at its most crowded, John handed his camera off to one of his buddies, reached into his jacket pocket and got down on one knee and took her hand. She was crying when he put the ring on her finger, her face blotchy when the camera's flash went off, and smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.

They planned an autumn wedding. In June she took a week off and flew with John to his father's main estate.

She had talked to Patrick Sheppard on the phone once before. In person he was tall as his son, thicker around the middle but still lanky. His eyes were a clear, sharp blue and his hair was totally gone to silver. He had a hearty voice, accent slowed and stretched by a youth in Georgia though he'd lived for years in the north. He took her hand, looked her up and down and said, "John's always had taste, but you, sweetie, are a cut above even for him."

"Thank you," she said evenly, not sure what kind of impression she should make.

John shook his father's hand in a jerky motion, flat eyes staring past his shoulder. "Glad you approve, Dad."

"I'm happy for you, John," Patrick said, sounding sincere, and then smiled at her, broader than his son ever did. "I'm sorry, no offense meant. Always valued speaking my mind, John can tell you. Embarrassed him to no end, all growing up."

John didn't mention his childhood or family much, but she knew they'd fought, well past his rebellious teenage phase. John had enlisted without his father's approval, and there had been long stretches when they hadn't talked. This was the first time he had been back home in years, how long she wasn't sure; she'd never pressed him on it.

His father was making an effort, anyway, that she could see. John...it was strange to see John without his sardonic, relaxed smile, the one he could mask nearly anything behind. There wasn't a mask, when he talked to his father; there was nothing, as if he were swallowing back everything in fear that any emotion he let himself feel might flare up out of his control.

In the daytime John showed her around the estate and neighborhood, took her riding on trails and shopping in town. Dinners weren't as awkward as they might have been, with John's father asking polite questions about her career and education and family, not passing judgment, just time. In returned he shared anecdotes from John's past, the time he broke his arm trying to skateboard off a car hood, the summer he borrowed the gardener's hose to turn his sandbox into a mud bath. Sweet little tales that didn't really tell her anything, but were new and she laughed at them appreciatively, while John ate and said little, correcting vague details but volunteering nothing.

After eating they discussed the wedding, Patrick offering extravagant donations until Nancy finally laughed and gave up, gave him her parents' number and told him to battle it out with them. Her mother and John's father, irresistible force versus immoveable object, though her own money was down on her side of the family. Her mother had but one daughter, after all.

The night before they left was the only night she heard John or his father stray from civility. Neither of them raised their voices, but she recognized the anger in John's dropped timbre, in Patrick's baritone deepening to match his son's, barely audible through the closed door.

"I meant that your mother would have been happy to see this," Patrick said, "to see you do this."

"You mean, if I go through with it," John said. "If I don't embarrass you by pulling out. Think you're throwing enough money into the wedding that you'll shame me to the altar?"

"I know you too well to believe you respect me enough for that to work," Patrick returned, voice vibrating into almost a growl. "But no son of mine is going to wrong a lady like that—"

"It has nothing to do with whose son I am—"

"Your mother would have liked her," John's father said, and she wondered if John could hear how sad he sounded, under the fury. "That's all I meant."

Late that night, spooned up into John's lean warmth with his arms loosely around her, she asked him, "John, marrying me—is it really what you want? You're not doing this to please your father?"

"No," John told her, and his body stayed relaxed against her, but his voice was low, as angry as she'd ever heard him. "No, I'm not."

"We don't have to go through with the wedding," she told him. "Not if you're not ready, or—"

"I want to," John said.

"Or we could just elope now and get it over with."

She felt John's chuckle resonate through her own chest. "Now that sounds like a plan. Tickets to Vegas tomorrow?"

In the end they had the wedding her mother had always dreamed of, and it was worth it, even after the headache of flower arrangements and cake selections, the bigger headache the morning after the bachelorette party her friends threw (which didn't hold a candle to John's; his Air Force buddies spirited him away for two days, and he came back wearing sunglasses for a full twenty-four hours.) Marriage had never been one of her fantasies, but the way everything came together, the intensity of John's eyes when he slid the ring on her finger, the taste of his kiss and feel of his white tuxedo crumpling under her fingers—it was all worth it.

She didn't change her name, but they'd already put a down-payment on a house, a cozy split-level only a half-hour commute from Andrews and the Pentagon, and they moved in a week after the honeymoon. Unpacking dragged on, a month and then two and then three, until some of the boxes became as innocuous and unnoticeable as furniture, propping up a table here or supporting a lamp there, only remembered when John was suddenly taken by the urge to reread a particular issue of The Uncanny X-men, or Nancy needed a needle to replace a button on her coat.

Otherwise they continued on the same as they had before the wedding. They both worked long hours and didn't sleep enough, going out with friends or staying in together. Neither of them were much for cooking, so if they wanted something fancier than spaghetti and jarred sauce they ordered out, calling one another at work if they had forgotten to coordinate in the morning. They talked about getting a dog but couldn't decide on a breed. They never talked about children.

They never talked about anything that they hadn't talked about before, and Nancy didn't know why she expected it would be different. She'd never fantasized that a wedding ring would be a key to those places in John which had always been locked tight; she'd seen him with his father and brother, so had never believed that becoming part of his family would bring them any closer.

And now, when generals called and he grabbed his duffel and left, he had the ring, always carrying the proof of her feelings with him.

When he was gone, she couldn't help but always open the paper to the international news first, keeping the TV tuned to CNN and the car radio tuned to NPR, wondering with every report of action overseas if John were there, or somewhere else, a place that couldn't be mentioned on any official channel.

She could find out; she knew the right people, the right questions to ask. It would be at the risk of her job, her entire career; she'd never get government work again, not anything important. Sometimes she thought it'd be worth it. Most of the time she knew it was idiotic to even consider.

Some of her girlfriends hooked up with some of John's Air Force buddies, on and off, and when John was gone on assignment, she would go out with all of them on weekends. Lieutenant Falcelli had been an usher at their wedding; once she asked him if John ever mentioned where he was going, where he'd been.

Brian shook his head, laughed, "Christ, Nancy, you're the one he talks to. If he hasn't told you, he sure as hell won't be blabbing to us. Shep never tells any of us anything that matters."

She thought he was trying to make her feel better. She wasn't sure if it worked.

Wherever he went or whatever he did, John always came back tired. Sometimes it was a triumphant, accomplished exhaustion and he'd kiss her back fervently, eager even through a haze of strained fatigue that made him stumble against her like he was drunk. Other times he would return silent and depressed, slumping where he sat and accepting her touch with perfunctory resignation, like he was too tired or too polite to flinch away. Some nights they would fall asleep in each other's arms, only for her to wake up in the middle of the night to find that John had moved out to the futon, elbow over his eyes to block the streetlight through the thin living room curtains, too-long legs propped on one wooden arm.

She asked him, every time he came back, ""How'd it go?" but he always only said, "Can't tell you, you know that." As if "Good" or "Bad" would be breaking his oath; as if she couldn't tell.

She never quite knew if John thought he was unreadable, or if he simply found other people so difficult to read that he never realized that not everyone had so much trouble.

They had been married for six months, and she didn't know if John yet understood what that meant, what they meant to one another, what he meant to her, even wearing her ring. No matter how she tried to tell him, tried to show him.

She understood duty, understood devotion to one's country, to one's cause. But he left every time the generals called, and always said "Goodbye," but never, "I'm sorry." Never, "I'll miss you," unless she said it first.

She started keeping later hours even when he wasn't gone on missions, knowing he would be home and still staying at the office, finishing one last project, sending one last email. Sometimes he would already be asleep when she got back, and she would crawl into bed beside him, lay apart under the covers as she listened to him breathe.

It was spiteful, she knew, a petty way to get him back, except he never asked about it, beyond a casual, "Things busy at the Pentagon?" He listened when she talked about her work, would ask questions and make comments, insightful, sarcastic and honest. He'd always been interested. It mattered to him, after all; the policies made at the Department of Defense affected the Air Force. She'd always thought it was more than that, though, thought that John wanted to know about her job because it was a part of her, as she cared about his flying as much for what it said about him as because of a fascination with aeronautics. Now she wondered.

It was more than spite, too, because she always had plenty to do at work, especially with her recent promotions. She'd let herself get distracted, but she couldn't afford that, not if she wanted to keep moving up. And she loved her job, fulfilled by her successes, by the director's confidence. He didn't glance at her cleavage these days; now he kept his eyes on her face and gave her the best assignments, assured that she would carry them out.

She'd had the thought, long before, that if her director had been John, he would have noticed her success rate first and her cup size much later—that it had worked out like that anyway, much to her ironic dismay. The irony hurt more now.

She started wearing lower-cut blouses, skirts instead of pants-suits. She had won hard-earned respect, but she appreciated the looks, quick surreptitious glances in the hall, professional and legally unassailable. She sat at her desk and toyed with her ring, wondering if she took it off, who might approach her at lunch, after office hours, at the bars if she went out alone.

For their anniversary John brought her roses and took her out for French cuisine, a hundred dollars a plate. The food was delicious, the wine was superb. She only had two glasses, and yet in the car she was screaming, and when they got back home, she found herself crying, sobbing into his shoulder as he stroked her hair. "I'm sorry," he told her, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as if he were trying to make up for a year of missed apologies.

The next time he returned from a mission, he answered her, "It went okay, I'm sorry I can't tell you more." But he still hadn't hesitated when he left.

They weren't talking now, the change she had been expecting after the wedding, come a year late. Where once they had joked about movie special effects and sports games and bawdy political scandal, now there were only long silences made up of all the questions she wasn't asking, all the answers John didn't know how to give.

Strangely, the sex didn't change. She would have thought he would be more reluctant, more distant, but he rarely hesitated to return her kisses, and he sank into her with the same gentle, intent attention, studying her face until the moment he came himself, making sure she was always with him.

She knew she wasn't as happy anymore, but she didn't realize how depressed she had become, until John was gone again, and she found herself relieved that night, lying alone in bed, able to cry out loud without worrying she would wake him.

She wondered if John was as relieved, wherever he was sleeping, not to have to pretend not to hear her.

She wondered, when he got back a week later, if she was imagining the look in his eyes, that old familiar look, at the party, in the back of the bar—trapped and cornered; lost and searching. If she was imagining how he relaxed when she stepped back, away from him, keeping her distance, giving him space.

"I missed you," she said, not sure if she was telling the truth.

"Missed you, too," John said, smiling at her, the same smile he always had, warm and caring.

It wasn't real, she thought, and wondered when she had been lying to herself. Now, telling herself that he was as unhappy as she was; or before, thinking her feelings were returned.

Anywhere he was, she always could see it in the back of his eyes, that desperate look of being out of place, that wherever he was, he didn't know how he fit in. It had never really gone away; she had just stopped noticing it. Now when she looked at John it was all she could see, the tension in his shoulders, the restless downturn of his mouth skewing every easy smile. She wondered if maybe the reason he was so quick to leave her, to run off and risk his life flying missions so dangerous he couldn't whisper a word of them to anyone, was because that was where he was most at peace, doing what he was born to do. Or maybe he was just following orders, playing by the rules, hoping no one noticed that he didn't belong.

She thought of how he'd shouted aloud, the first time he took her flying, and wondered if up there, miles above everything, was his place more than anywhere on the ground.

It took her a week before she was strong enough to tell him, "I think we should separate."

There was no fight, not then. He looked at her and asked, too confused to be angry, "Why?"

"Because you're making me miserable. Because I'm making you miserable. Because I don't want to hurt you, and I'm trying to anyway. This isn't working, John. I don't know if there's any way to make it work."

Later there were arguments, shouting matches like they'd never had before. "I don't know what you want," and "I'm tired of having to tell you," and "You're impossible to make happy."

But when she first came to him, first said it, she knew she wasn't imagining the way his eyes lightened, the way his shoulders loosened and his spine relaxed, like he'd dropped a burden he hadn't realized he was bearing.

If you love something, set it free; if it comes back...but he wouldn't.

The divorce was long and drawn-out, but not as painful as it could have been. Neither of them wanted the house, and some of their belongings were still in their separate boxes. And a heart can't be broken again before it's put back together; she didn't bother trying to pick up those pieces until after everything was over and done with, until after she had said goodbye.

John took a permanent posting overseas; she didn't bother asking where. They didn't exchange letters. She sent his father and his brother cards at Christmas, received cards in return.

At work, she was on the cusp of another promotion when the Department of Homeland Security was established. She was transferred on the recommendation of her director and endured some teasing for the blindingly shining top brass of her references, but they took her seriously.

She met Grant when he was brought in to advise on the legal ramifications of the state-level incident management system. He asked her out to dinner the second afternoon. She told him it would be an unprofessional association and asked him to wait until the end of his month-long contract. He did.

Occasionally she went out with John's old buddies at Andrews. None of them heard from Shep, either. Most of them never expected to.

Enough time passed that when she got an email from Major Sheppard, she didn't think twice of responding to it. She asked for him to meet her on her lunch break, at the Starbucks around the block from her new offices. He didn't answer the email, but he was waiting at one of the outdoor tables when she arrived.

She hugged him, a quick awkward squeeze, and they ordered at the counter and sat down together. She told him about her new job, about her fiancé. He nodded and looked interested, asked her questions and looked at the picture of Grant on her cell phone. Congratulated her, without jealousy and with no regret.

John looked different. Not much older, but worn, like he hadn't slept a full night in months. His face was tanned and his hair was as ridiculous as always, and she had to stop herself from touching it, from running her fingers through the lopsided spikes and tangling them even more.

"I'm shipping out tomorrow," he told her. "To McMurdo Air Force Base."

"Antarctica?" she asked, disbelieving. John was one of the best pilots the Air Force had, to waste him there...

He shrugged. "Trouble in Afghanistan. Got a black mark." He said it easily, but she knew him well enough to see the pain behind his casual smile.

"I'm sorry." She had the clearance now to look up the details on that, but thought that maybe she shouldn't. That he would tell her, if he wanted her to know. That he wouldn't.

"My own fault," John said, and then, "Nancy, before I left, while I was here. I wanted to tell you I was sorry. For everything," and he indicated three years of friendship and marriage and love and heartbreak with a clumsy wave of his hand.

"It wasn't your fault," she told him. "Not just you. It was both of us. We weren't suited for each other."

"No." John shook his head. "No, it was me. You, you were perfect. You were always perfect, you always knew what to say, what to do, how to feel, always."

"John—"

"I was the one who fucked it up. Not just that I couldn't give you what you wanted—that I never could tell. But me. What I wanted. I thought I wanted to marry you. I thought—it wasn't about Dad, it wasn't about making things right. It was..."

John looked down at his fingers, crumpling a paper napkin between them, took a breath and steadily went on, "It's like this. You marry, and there's two of you. Just two in tandem, so there can't be any mistakes. No replacements, no alternatives. You're where you belong. That's what I thought. Hoped, I guess. But it doesn't work like that. Not if you don't know how to make it work, and I don't. I can't figure it out, there's always been something wrong with me, I can never figure it out."

He spoke quietly and calmly, and she thought that he must have had a long while to think about this, to say it so clearly. Maybe he'd written it out; maybe he'd practiced it aloud in the car, driving here. She wished she had a script of her own to follow.

"I loved you," she said instead.

He looked stricken, hurt like he hadn't been by anything else she had said. "I'm sorry," he said, helplessly.

She thought that maybe she should have slapped him, that maybe that would've been kinder.

We're not perfect, she wanted to tell him. We're human, there's something wrong with all of us—we're all fucked in the head, we're all twisted and tangled up inside, every one of us. And none of us fit anywhere, not really, not perfectly. We just keep looking until we find a place that's more comfortable than anywhere else.

She said, "It was good to see you again, John. I hope you'll stay in touch."

He sent her one postcard from Antarctica. It was a Far Side cartoon of a flock of penguins on an iceberg, surrounding a polar bear wearing a penguin-beak mask. Oblivious to the predator, one bird was remarking to another, 'And now Edgar's gone...something's going on around here.'

On the back, John had written, "Actually there's no polar bears down here. Damn. Sunrise over the ice is amazing, though.—John"

He never sent her anything else after that.

And four years later, here she is at his father's wake, almost surprised to see him, almost surprised that he cared enough to come. He never resolved things with his father, as far as she knows. But he's here now, even if too late. And standing alone, but for the big man in dreads hovering at his shoulder. "Co-worker," Dave Sheppard had said, curtly disbelieving. Nancy watches the way the man turns towards John in conversation, their backs to everyone else, and thinks, friend, maybe.

She wonders if Antarctica suited him. If maybe endless deserts of ice could be hospitable to a man most himself in the unbroken blue emptiness of the sky above the clouds. Or if he's still searching.

She looks at him, slouched and uncomfortable and beautiful, and should be irritated by how her heart squeezes, even after all these years. But she isn't; instead, she finds herself hoping, with a fierceness that surprises her, that now or someday, somehow, somewhere on Earth, John Sheppard will find that place where he's at home.