Eat Your Cake and Have It by 2ndary_Author (cake or death challenge, amnesty 2008)

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

Title: Eat Your Cake and Have It
Author: 2ndary_author
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters: Sheppard, McKay, references to Zelenka, Team
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1.033
Summary: Sheppard, Ford, and a river in Egypt
A/N: epigraph by Eddie Izzard, of course. **SPOILER: for Season 2**

 

Peter was the one who said "I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know him." cock-a-doodle-doo "Oh, HIM!"

 

John Sheppard, who always does things on his own schedule or not at all, doesn’t freak out until four months after they lose Ford.  That’s the word he uses on the rare occasions when he mentions the kid—“lose”—and it’s clear to Rodney that he means “temporarily misplace,” like Ford is a set of keys, the other blue sock, bound to turn up sooner or later as long as they keep looking.  Like a bad penny, Rodney thinks, and then shakes the thought out of his head because the first sign of Sheppard’s freak-out was his attempts to teach English colloquialisms to Teyla and the Satedan caveman.  Look before you leap, good fences make good neighbors, you can’t eat your cake and have it, no man can serve two masters.  Rodney’s of the opinion that Sheppard should take some of his own good advice, but for once he holds his tongue (“no, no, not literally, it means to not say anything”) and just digs into his jello as the major—lieutenant colonel, now—explains the concept of a gift horse, and why one shouldn’t look it in the mouth. 

“My people also have such sayings,” Teyla offers, looking thoughtful.  “For instance, we say: a hasty fool drinks milk with a fork.”

“Uh,” Sheppard looks flummoxed, but only for a moment. “Yeah.  Kind of like that.  How about you, Ronon—any Satedan proverbs?” 

“No,” the caveman says around a mouthful of spaghetti, and that’s the end of the proverb lesson. 

 

But not the end of….whatever this is.  Two weeks later, Sheppard is refusing to take the kitchen staff at its word about the impossibility of making ice cream out of the milk from the Athosian goat-like creatures.  Billy, the head of food services, is a petty officer seconded from the US Coast Guard, a man who revels in his salty-dog image and has been slinging hash since Archimedes figured out what makes things float.  He just shakes his head, wraps Sheppard in a giant apron, gives him a spoon, and tells him to go at it.  The result is more like pudding or pablum than ice cream: flavor is fine, but the texture is just not right.  Billy serves it anyway; “homesickness takes the taste out of everything,” he says.  Rodney’s pretty sure it’s more than that.  After all, he was with Sheppard on Earth: the man wasn’t happy there, either. 

After the failed ice cream, it’s teaching the Athosian kids how to play baseball.  That’s when Rodney starts to get suspicious, because Sheppard’s game has always been football. 

It was Ford who—oh.  Oh, yes, it was Ford who liked baseball, who knew batting averages and hall of fame statistics, who played seven years of mediocre little league and then quit to coach his cousin’s team ‘cause nobody else would do it.  Ford who always said “nice play,” regardless of whose team scored, who enlisted for the GI Bill because he wasn’t quite good enough to get an athletic scholarship and he couldn’t ask his grandparents to foot four years of college.

Ford who loved ice cream, who could recite all 31 Baskin Robbins flavors. 

Ford who had a vocabulary full of weird expressions because he’d grown up in New York, but he’d been born in the deep, deep South, where people talk in pictures. 

Rodney feels a little stupid for not figuring it out sooner.  He is, after all, a genius.  Sheppard wasn’t missing Earth: he was missing Ford missing Earth.

 

The game does not go well. The Athosians are used to individual tests of skill—footraces, stickfighting—not team sports, and so the kids keep trying to tag everybody out, teammate and opponent alike.  Then, too, they’re a left-dominant society, a team of southpaws who keep hitting foul balls and trying to run the bases backwards.  Rodney hears all about the fiasco afterwards, from SPC Perkinson, but he would have known anyway: Sheppard came back more subdued than he had since SGC OK’d the return to Atlantis.

He’s not the only one, of course, who thought that returning to Atlantis would make everything all right again.

One would think Sheppard would have learned his lesson, but he’s either very persistant or extremely stupid.  Rodney hasn’t quite made up his mind on that issue.  He begins to lean toward “stupid,” though.  A week later, Rodney’s half-way to the mess hall, and three-quarters of the way through an argument with Zelenka, when he hears the horrible, grating sound that his Sheppard laughing.  (Holy God, the man really should just stick to that supercilious smirk of his).

Rodney follows the sound, and Zelenka follows Rodney, and they find the rest of the gate-team in Elizabeth’s conference room. They’re gathered around a laptop, and Rodney doesn’t even need to see the screen to know what they’re watching. 

Tht skit made Ford laugh so hard he couldn’t even stand up straight.

Ronon is staring, head cocked, at the screen with a confused expression on his face.  Sheppard stops snickering long enough to catch his breath. “Get it?” he manages. 

“It is quite...” Teyla begins. 

“What is the…churchofengland?” Ronon interrupts.

“It’s a cult.”

“Rodney!” Zelenka sounds appalled.

“Well,” Rodney waves his hand,  “cult—religion—worship community; tomato, tomahto.”

“Want to watch it again?”  Sheppard asks, and pulls up the clip before anyone can answer. 

The voices sound tinny coming through the speakers and Zelenka’s idea of a quick explanation starts back with the concept of closed communion and the Council of Trent.  Even Sheppard isn’t really watching anymore—he’s facing the screen, but it’s clear that he’s not paying attention. Why his eyes are so glassy…well, that’s not quite so clear.  Rodney's pretty sure it's scientifically impossible to actually laugh until you cry?

Rodney stifles his sympathy.  If there’s one thing he knows, it’s cause and effect; equal and opposite reaction.  Too late to go back now, and even if they could, Sheppard would do the same thing again. When it comes to cake or death, they all know what Sheppard—so long, Rodney—would pick if given the choice.

 

 

Also, this doesn't get it's own post, because it's really a sequel to an amnesty entry...but for anyone who's been playing along at home: Signs of Rapture, Called Apocalypse (part the third)

Comments

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's lovely. Snort-worthy jokes and great little insights into the characters and the Athosians, with this deep, deep sadness running through, the hole where Ford should be and Rodney's comment that Sheppard wasn't happy before, either. Really nice.

Some lines I love:

“No,” the caveman says around a mouthful of spaghetti

He just shakes his head, wraps Sheppard in a giant apron, gives him a spoon, and tells him to go at it.

Sheppard wasn’t missing Earth: he was missing Ford missing Earth.

And that last line, what a zinger. Whew.

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment! I love hearing which lines people like the most. I also love Ford, as you may have noticed, and think it's sad that no one seems to miss him anymore. Also, Sheppard would have major survivor guilt, y/y?

[bratfarrar]

I do so love the way you write these people.

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

And I love writing them! I still have a few old challenges unfinished, so I'm hoping the amnesty lasts until I can dust them off...

[panisdead.livejournal.com]

I like this a lot. It seems like the sort of approach Sheppard would take to grief that he wasn't even necessarily aware of.

When are you picturing this set? Before "The Lost Boys"/"The Hive" or after? I'm guessing before, because the references to Ronon make me think he hasn't really gelled with the team yet, but I could see it either way.

[2ndary-author.livejournal.com]

You know, I was thinking before, because of all the new-team activities Sheppard is doing and because I was imagining the guilt/grief as being pretty new (give or take *four months* John?) But after would work, too...then Ford really would have passed the point of no return, except in Sheppard's head. Hmmm. Now you've given me something to think about!

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Oh, Ford! I wish we had gotten to see more of the impact that losing Ford had on everyone -- he was team, after all, and part of the original expedition, and I feel like that should have mattered more. This had some great insights into that, and I always love seeing bits of Pegasus culture (a hasty fool drinks milk with a fork -- hee!). And this bit:

Zelenka’s idea of a quick explanation starts back with the concept of closed communion and the Council of Trent.

Awesome. &hearts

[skieswideopen]

This is lovely! I really like the look at the effect of Ford's disappearance on Sheppard, and his attempts to cope via baseball and ice cream and all Ford's favourite things. Very nice piece.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

That managed to be both funny and heart wrenching, and I could so see Sheppard doing these things.

[dragonladyk.livejournal.com]

That's great. The Team, consquences!John, and my boy.

DragonLady

[kuonji14.livejournal.com]

a hasty fool drinks milk with a fork

I need to start saying that just to confuse people. :D

Wistful but not overly angsty. I like this.

[aqua-eyes.livejournal.com]

<3 Oh john. Athosian proverbs for the win!

[oxoniensis.livejournal.com]

What a beautifully written blend of humour and sadness - it seems so very in character too, that Sheppard would mourn Ford like this.

[hajimebassaidai.livejournal.com]

The slow realisation by Rodney of where this is all leading, of how John is quietly not coping with the latest thing he blames himself for is what makes this so sad.

The last line is profoundly sad and slightly scary with those three little words echoed as they must have through Rodney's head for a very long time.