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sga_flashficPart 1
Christmas came and went. John’s mom always did everything she could to make it special for John and Dave. She insisted that John invite his friends over for Christmas dinner. They all ate too much turkey and stuffing and watched football.
John bought Rodney a copy of a battered fourth grade math book he found in at a garage sale, and Rodney gave John a model airplane. They grinned at each other as they ripped open their packages. Rodney took a red pen to the math book and began to correct it. John put together the model airplane and hung it from his ceiling.
~~~~~
After they came back from Christmas break there was a rash of exploding lockers. Once John checked into it he realized that they were all lockers belonging to members of the football team. No one was able to figure out who was the culprit behind the bombings although John had his suspicions and so did the football team.
He noticed Koyla watching their table at lunch sometimes. Rodney would just smile mysteriously and flip him off. Koyla was quick to look away after that.
“Told you I was badass,” Rodney said smugly.
~~~~~~
It was the middle of February and they were all sitting around the table for dinner. There was snow falling outside, so no one was in any hurry to finish and tromp home in the snow. John was actually looking forward to it a little. They’d always lived in warmer climates so he’d never really gotten to experience snow.
“There’s this great hill on the next block,” Ronon told Dave. “If we have tomorrow off of school, I’ll take you sledding.” He promised. Dave bounced in his chair.
The next day dawned bright and sunny. Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, it was white as far as the eye could see. John and Dave sat glued to the morning news until it was announced that their schools were closed. They gave jubilant cheers and went to find their mother. She was already in the kitchen fixing a breakfast big enough to feed two armies.
“Don’t think you’re just going out without eating,” she scolded them. “Now go set the table, your friends will be here any minute, John.”
Sure enough, Teyla, Ronon and Rodney knocked on the door a few minutes later already covered in a layer of snow.
Caroline Sheppard met them at the door. She insisted that they come in and sit down and eat. After taking one look at the table groaning under the weight of pancakes and bacon, sausages and scrambled eggs, they didn’t need much convincing.
Dave bounced in his seat. “Please, oh, please, can we go now?” he pleaded. “The snow’s going to melt.”
“It’s not going to melt while you eat breakfast,” his mother scolded. “You’re not going out there until you eat everything on your plate,” she told him sternly.
Dave gulped and started stuffing the pancake down.
John had to take a huge bite of his own pancake to hide his grin. None of them really believed that she wouldn’t let Dave go if he didn’t eat his breakfast except for Dave.
Once they were all done, Caroline made them a thermos of hot chocolate. She also made them put on an extra sweatshirt along with their hats and mittens. John could hardly move once he was dressed.
“I feel like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man,” he complained as they escaped through the front door before his mom changed her mind.
“Who you gonna call?” Ronon asked.
“Ghostbusters!” They all yelled back.
The sky was perfectly blue now that the snow had ended. The sun reflected off the snow, dazzling John’s eyes. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It was so cold that his breath could be seen as a fine, white mist.
They had a snowball fight before they even got out of the yard.
Ronon hit John with a snowball on the back of the head, the snow dripping down the back of his coat and somehow insinuating itself it through three layers of clothes.
John hastily scooped up the snow, quickly learning how to shape it into the perfect weapon. When he turned to throw it at Ronon, however, the other boy had disappeared. Before he could figure out where he had gone, another missile came out of nowhere to hit John right in the face. John had seen where the snowball had come from though.
He threw himself at the snowdrift and he and Ronon rolled out the other side, trying to see who could grind whose face into the snow. Dave jumped onto both of them scooping snow into whatever opening of their clothes he could find. All three of them were hit with snowballs from Teyla and Rodney.
Suddenly it was John and Ronon and Dave against Teyla and Rodney.
The snowballs flew thick and heavy, most hitting their target. John and Ronon tried to use some strategy, but Teyla and Rodney were too sneaky to be had by a stealth attack. Soon all five of them looked like living snow people.
They found an untouched patch of snow in the front yard where Teyla showed Dave how to make snow angels.
Then they finally trudged to the next street over where the hill in the park made a perfect sledding hill. It was still early in the day so they were the only kids out.
They trudged to the top of the hill, their panting breaths creating white puffs in the air. They stood at the top of the hill for a moment looking down. It was a steep hill. At the bottom there was a short flat space before there was a line of shrubbery that shielded the park from the street.
John piled onto a sled with Rodney while Ronon took Dave onto his sled with him, leaving Teyla on her bright red sled all by herself.
“First one to the bottom is a rotten egg,” Rodney taunted as he pushed off. They wobbled a little until John and Rodney figured out how to balance themselves. Teyla ran past them before throwing herself onto her sled midstep and taking off down the hill. Ronon laid flat out on his sled and let Dave sit on him as he pushed off with his feet.
“Push,” Rodney shouted into John’s ear. He did and then they were flying down the hill. The wind was so cold that he could barely breathe. The snow crunched under them as they went down the hill fast, everything whizzing by fast in a blur of white. As they reached the bottom of the hill, they hit something in the snow that sent them flying through the air. They wobbled in the air and went rolling. John and Rodney landed in the snow, tangled together. John was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
“We’ve got to do that again.”
They raced back up the hill, almost getting run over by Dave and Ronon already on their second trip down. They made it in time to cheer Teyla on her way.
They spent the morning trudging up the hill and flying back down. The sun was high in the sky before their stomachs startled rumbling and they decided to go back to John and Dave’s for lunch.
Dave jumped up and down. “Lunch! Lunch! Then we can come back and sled some more!”
Ronon grinned down at him. “Sure, kid.”
Somehow the block seemed a lot longer with legs that were trembling from exertion and clothes that were soaked and cold from the snow.
The house was quiet as they piled in the front door.
“Mom!” John called. “We’re back!”
“And we’re hungry,” Dave moaned, clutching at his stomach, hamming it up for the guests.
There was no greeting in answer which was odd because there had never been a time in his life when Caroline Sheppard hadn’t answered John’s call.
“Mom?” he called out again. The other kids fell silent waiting to hear her call back to them. But there was no answer, just silence. The house was completely still.
“Mom?” John called, getting a little freaked out now. He tore off for the kitchen. His mom knew there was going to be five hungry kids showing up for lunch. Of course she’d be in the kitchen. She just had the little television in the kitchen on and hadn’t heard them come in. He managed to convince himself of that until he skidded into the kitchen.
He found his mom’s body there, on the floor. There wasn’t any blood or anything to say that something bad had happened to her, but John felt a squeeze around his heart that told him that something Bad had happened to her. His mother always exuded a sense of welcome and love for her children. And it just wasn’t there anymore. She was stretched out on the floor, like she’d laid down for a nap right there on the kitchen floor. She had one hand reached out, but it was empty.
He fell to his knees next to her, pulling her body up to him. It was limp, her head lolled back, her eyes were closed.
“Mom?” his voice cracked as he called out to her. “Mom, please, no.”
Dave stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes were wide. He was too young, and he didn’t get what was going on. “John?” he asked, expecting John to make everything alright. He was the little brother, it was John’s job to make things right and John couldn’t. Their mom was dead, nothing was ever going to be right again.
John’s friends jumped in, taking over.
“I will go call for help,” Teyla said. She picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed the emergency number, her voice cool and calm, telling the person on the other end of the line the address and what they knew.
Ronon put his arm around Dave’s shoulder and turned him away from the kitchen. “Come on, Buddy,” Ronon said, “let’s go wait at the door and meet the ambulance. Okay?”
Dave threw his arms around Ronon. Ronon patted his back gently, as he took the boy to the other room.
Rodney helped John straighten out his mother’s body. He sat next to John with one hand on his shoulder.
“She’s dead, Rodney,” John said brokenly. He could feel the tears flowing down his cheeks and he couldn’t stop them, didn’t want to stop them. “What am I going to do now?”
Rodney didn’t answer; he just patted John awkwardly on the shoulder and waited with him until the ambulance arrived.
“You and Dave go with her,” Teyla said when the EMT guys showed up. There wasn’t anything for them to do but put his mother on the gurney and take her to the hospital. “We will stay here and clean up.”
There was bread on the counter and cheese where his mother had been preparing grilled cheese sandwiches for them.
John didn’t want to go. He wanted to curl up someplace dark and alone where he could pretend that his mother wasn’t dead, where he could pretend that everything was still fine. He nodded instead. He took Dave’s hand and they rode in the ambulance with their mother’s body to the hospital.
Someone had called their father, John didn’t know who, because he was waiting for them at the hospital.
He seized John by the shoulders and demanded, “What happened?”
John had his tears under control now, but they threatened to return as he said, “I don’t know. She was fine when we went out. She was fine,” he insisted.
The doctors came then and tried to explain. “Aneurism,” they said. “There was nothing you could do,” they assured John. But he knew they were wrong. And he knew that his father thought so, too. Because he wouldn’t look at John or speak to him. Like he thought it was John’s fault that Caroline Sheppard was dead. Maybe it was. John felt like it was. He should have been able to see that something was wrong when they left to go sledding. He kept turning it over in his head trying to figure out if he could have done something different, but there was nothing there, she had been fine when they left.
The next few days were a blur of grief and pain for John. He kept thinking he’d hear his mom’s voice or think about telling her something and then he’d remember that she was dead and he was never going to see her again. Dave was confused and kept asking when mom was going to come home until finally John had to tell him the truth.
“She’s dead, Dave, she’s never coming home again,” John told him, hating his little brother a little bit for making him say the words.
“No,” Dave shouted at him. “She’s not. You’re just saying that. I hate you,” Dave punched John, “I hate you.” Dave punched John again, but the punches were weak. John held Dave’s arms until he stopped struggling, then he held his little brother close, letting him cry the way John wouldn’t let himself anymore.
Through it all Rodney and Ronon and Teyla did what they could to help. Rodney kept him up-to-date on what was going on at school. They sat with him at the visitation and stood close by him at the service when people he didn’t even know kept telling John how sorry they were for him.
~~~~~
Eventually life settled back into a new kind of normal where John made sure Dave got off to school in the morning with his books and his lunch money. He got to the point where he didn’t expect his mom to greet him at the door when he got home, but it never stopped hurting. The first two days back at school, he threw up after he ate the school lunch.
Spring came and they were still in the little house on the base. Now John wanted to move. There were too many reminders of his mother there. He thought it would be better if they could move on and have a new place where she had never lived.
He told his father that he was joining the Air Force. He didn’t know why he bothered. It wasn’t like his father cared one way or the other what he did. It was always his mother who had encouraged him and told him he could do whatever he wanted. He wished that he’d told her, she would have been proud of him that he’d been accepted. Now it was too late.
Finally it was time to graduate. John couldn’t believe that he’d actually made it a whole year at the same school. It was weird to walk down the aisle with people he knew, to hear the whoops and cheers.
Rodney nudged him in the ribs when it was all over. “Hey, you want to see something?” he asked with a smirk.
John nodded. He followed Rodney out blinking into the bright spring day. There was a crowd of kids everywhere, excitement could be seen wherever he looked. And John was excited, he was. His life was about to start for real. He just wished his mom was there to share it with him.
Rodney nudged him and pointed Koyla and his gang of friends. They were strutting around like they were something big. Koyla had gotten a new car from his dad for a graduation gift. He was inordinately proud of it. He had been showing it off for weeks now. He’d nearly run John and Rodney down a time or two in it. It was parked all the way at the end of the auditorium’s parking lot, far away from any of the other cars that might scratch it or dent it.
Rodney showed John the little remote control in his palm before he pushed a little button. The car, sitting all by itself at the end of the huge parking lot, blew up with a spectacular explosion.
“Oh, my god,” John breathed. He caught sight of Koyla as he stared at what remained of his car, slack jawed. “What did you do?”
Rodney grinned. “That’s for all the geeks that Koyla ever tormented. He’ll think twice before he bullies someone next time.”
Ronon appeared out of nowhere and punched Rodney in the arm. “You did not,” he crowed.
Rodney grinned at him, “Just try and prove it was me,” he challenged.
“Rodney, this is no way to settle things,” Teyla said. Her tone was disapproving, but her smile was mischievous.
John realized with a pang that he was going to miss these people, his friends.
~~~~~
Wood smoke tickled at his nose, waking John up. He stared up at a hole in the ceiling where the smoke curled lazily before escaping. He blinked trying to remember where he was.
Oh, yeah, N4Y-772. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He moaned a little.
Rodney appeared beside him, holding a canteen to his lips.
“Slowly,” he commanded imperiously while he held John’s head gently tilting it so John could drink without getting water all over himself.
John sipped gratefully. His tongue felt like shoe leather.
“Happened?” he croaked out.
“Spirit walk thing,” Rodney said, his tone expressing his disapproval. “You took a walk on the wild side just to prove that we would be good trading partners.”
John remembered the sight of the car blowing up and thought that Rodney didn’t know just how wild.
“John,” Teyla was there on his other side, wiping his forehead with a cool, wet cloth. “Are you back with us?”
He licked his lips taking another sip from the canteen.
“Think so,” he said.
“You okay?” Rodney’s hand on his shoulder was careful as he helped John sit up.
The flap of the tent flipped back and Ronon entered. “Hey, buddy,” he greeted John. “You finally wake up?”
John just nodded; he was content to let his team take care of things for the moment. He stared up at the smoke where it circled the roof of their tent-abode thing. He tried to reconcile his memories of what had actually happened his senior year of high school with the new memories he now had. Oh, his mother had died alright, but he hadn’t had anyone to support him the first time around. It had been the worst time of his life. It was only the promise of the Air Force and flying that had gotten him through it the first time.
It has been awful the second time around, too, but he hadn’t been so alone.
“What did you see?” Rodney asked.
John blinked at him.
“The whole purpose of this little exercise was so you could see what lesson you’ve learned while you’ve been in Pegasus,” Rodney waved a hand, taking in John on his cot, the tent, the fire in the corner. “So, what have you learned?”
It wasn’t really a new lesson for John. He’d known for a while now that he could depend on his team, and they could depend on him. He didn’t know how to tell them about his mother and how much it had hurt when she died when he was seventeen, how he’d been left alone with a father too involved in his own grief to know that his sons needed him, with a little brother who didn’t know how to help John in his grief. But now he had his team. Maybe he’d tell them about it sometime. They’d understand.
For now…
They were watching him anxiously, waiting for his answer.
He smiled at them, just a bare curve of his lips, but he made the effort to reassure them, “I learned that Rodney is bad-ass.”
Rodney rolled his eyes, “You didn’t have to eat bad mushrooms to find that out, I could have told you that.”
There was a quiet snort from Teyla and a louder guffaw from Ronon. John let himself drift back into sleep knowing that his team was there ready to take care of things if needed.
Christmas came and went. John’s mom always did everything she could to make it special for John and Dave. She insisted that John invite his friends over for Christmas dinner. They all ate too much turkey and stuffing and watched football.
John bought Rodney a copy of a battered fourth grade math book he found in at a garage sale, and Rodney gave John a model airplane. They grinned at each other as they ripped open their packages. Rodney took a red pen to the math book and began to correct it. John put together the model airplane and hung it from his ceiling.
~~~~~
After they came back from Christmas break there was a rash of exploding lockers. Once John checked into it he realized that they were all lockers belonging to members of the football team. No one was able to figure out who was the culprit behind the bombings although John had his suspicions and so did the football team.
He noticed Koyla watching their table at lunch sometimes. Rodney would just smile mysteriously and flip him off. Koyla was quick to look away after that.
“Told you I was badass,” Rodney said smugly.
~~~~~~
It was the middle of February and they were all sitting around the table for dinner. There was snow falling outside, so no one was in any hurry to finish and tromp home in the snow. John was actually looking forward to it a little. They’d always lived in warmer climates so he’d never really gotten to experience snow.
“There’s this great hill on the next block,” Ronon told Dave. “If we have tomorrow off of school, I’ll take you sledding.” He promised. Dave bounced in his chair.
The next day dawned bright and sunny. Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, it was white as far as the eye could see. John and Dave sat glued to the morning news until it was announced that their schools were closed. They gave jubilant cheers and went to find their mother. She was already in the kitchen fixing a breakfast big enough to feed two armies.
“Don’t think you’re just going out without eating,” she scolded them. “Now go set the table, your friends will be here any minute, John.”
Sure enough, Teyla, Ronon and Rodney knocked on the door a few minutes later already covered in a layer of snow.
Caroline Sheppard met them at the door. She insisted that they come in and sit down and eat. After taking one look at the table groaning under the weight of pancakes and bacon, sausages and scrambled eggs, they didn’t need much convincing.
Dave bounced in his seat. “Please, oh, please, can we go now?” he pleaded. “The snow’s going to melt.”
“It’s not going to melt while you eat breakfast,” his mother scolded. “You’re not going out there until you eat everything on your plate,” she told him sternly.
Dave gulped and started stuffing the pancake down.
John had to take a huge bite of his own pancake to hide his grin. None of them really believed that she wouldn’t let Dave go if he didn’t eat his breakfast except for Dave.
Once they were all done, Caroline made them a thermos of hot chocolate. She also made them put on an extra sweatshirt along with their hats and mittens. John could hardly move once he was dressed.
“I feel like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man,” he complained as they escaped through the front door before his mom changed her mind.
“Who you gonna call?” Ronon asked.
“Ghostbusters!” They all yelled back.
The sky was perfectly blue now that the snow had ended. The sun reflected off the snow, dazzling John’s eyes. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It was so cold that his breath could be seen as a fine, white mist.
They had a snowball fight before they even got out of the yard.
Ronon hit John with a snowball on the back of the head, the snow dripping down the back of his coat and somehow insinuating itself it through three layers of clothes.
John hastily scooped up the snow, quickly learning how to shape it into the perfect weapon. When he turned to throw it at Ronon, however, the other boy had disappeared. Before he could figure out where he had gone, another missile came out of nowhere to hit John right in the face. John had seen where the snowball had come from though.
He threw himself at the snowdrift and he and Ronon rolled out the other side, trying to see who could grind whose face into the snow. Dave jumped onto both of them scooping snow into whatever opening of their clothes he could find. All three of them were hit with snowballs from Teyla and Rodney.
Suddenly it was John and Ronon and Dave against Teyla and Rodney.
The snowballs flew thick and heavy, most hitting their target. John and Ronon tried to use some strategy, but Teyla and Rodney were too sneaky to be had by a stealth attack. Soon all five of them looked like living snow people.
They found an untouched patch of snow in the front yard where Teyla showed Dave how to make snow angels.
Then they finally trudged to the next street over where the hill in the park made a perfect sledding hill. It was still early in the day so they were the only kids out.
They trudged to the top of the hill, their panting breaths creating white puffs in the air. They stood at the top of the hill for a moment looking down. It was a steep hill. At the bottom there was a short flat space before there was a line of shrubbery that shielded the park from the street.
John piled onto a sled with Rodney while Ronon took Dave onto his sled with him, leaving Teyla on her bright red sled all by herself.
“First one to the bottom is a rotten egg,” Rodney taunted as he pushed off. They wobbled a little until John and Rodney figured out how to balance themselves. Teyla ran past them before throwing herself onto her sled midstep and taking off down the hill. Ronon laid flat out on his sled and let Dave sit on him as he pushed off with his feet.
“Push,” Rodney shouted into John’s ear. He did and then they were flying down the hill. The wind was so cold that he could barely breathe. The snow crunched under them as they went down the hill fast, everything whizzing by fast in a blur of white. As they reached the bottom of the hill, they hit something in the snow that sent them flying through the air. They wobbled in the air and went rolling. John and Rodney landed in the snow, tangled together. John was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
“We’ve got to do that again.”
They raced back up the hill, almost getting run over by Dave and Ronon already on their second trip down. They made it in time to cheer Teyla on her way.
They spent the morning trudging up the hill and flying back down. The sun was high in the sky before their stomachs startled rumbling and they decided to go back to John and Dave’s for lunch.
Dave jumped up and down. “Lunch! Lunch! Then we can come back and sled some more!”
Ronon grinned down at him. “Sure, kid.”
Somehow the block seemed a lot longer with legs that were trembling from exertion and clothes that were soaked and cold from the snow.
The house was quiet as they piled in the front door.
“Mom!” John called. “We’re back!”
“And we’re hungry,” Dave moaned, clutching at his stomach, hamming it up for the guests.
There was no greeting in answer which was odd because there had never been a time in his life when Caroline Sheppard hadn’t answered John’s call.
“Mom?” he called out again. The other kids fell silent waiting to hear her call back to them. But there was no answer, just silence. The house was completely still.
“Mom?” John called, getting a little freaked out now. He tore off for the kitchen. His mom knew there was going to be five hungry kids showing up for lunch. Of course she’d be in the kitchen. She just had the little television in the kitchen on and hadn’t heard them come in. He managed to convince himself of that until he skidded into the kitchen.
He found his mom’s body there, on the floor. There wasn’t any blood or anything to say that something bad had happened to her, but John felt a squeeze around his heart that told him that something Bad had happened to her. His mother always exuded a sense of welcome and love for her children. And it just wasn’t there anymore. She was stretched out on the floor, like she’d laid down for a nap right there on the kitchen floor. She had one hand reached out, but it was empty.
He fell to his knees next to her, pulling her body up to him. It was limp, her head lolled back, her eyes were closed.
“Mom?” his voice cracked as he called out to her. “Mom, please, no.”
Dave stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes were wide. He was too young, and he didn’t get what was going on. “John?” he asked, expecting John to make everything alright. He was the little brother, it was John’s job to make things right and John couldn’t. Their mom was dead, nothing was ever going to be right again.
John’s friends jumped in, taking over.
“I will go call for help,” Teyla said. She picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed the emergency number, her voice cool and calm, telling the person on the other end of the line the address and what they knew.
Ronon put his arm around Dave’s shoulder and turned him away from the kitchen. “Come on, Buddy,” Ronon said, “let’s go wait at the door and meet the ambulance. Okay?”
Dave threw his arms around Ronon. Ronon patted his back gently, as he took the boy to the other room.
Rodney helped John straighten out his mother’s body. He sat next to John with one hand on his shoulder.
“She’s dead, Rodney,” John said brokenly. He could feel the tears flowing down his cheeks and he couldn’t stop them, didn’t want to stop them. “What am I going to do now?”
Rodney didn’t answer; he just patted John awkwardly on the shoulder and waited with him until the ambulance arrived.
“You and Dave go with her,” Teyla said when the EMT guys showed up. There wasn’t anything for them to do but put his mother on the gurney and take her to the hospital. “We will stay here and clean up.”
There was bread on the counter and cheese where his mother had been preparing grilled cheese sandwiches for them.
John didn’t want to go. He wanted to curl up someplace dark and alone where he could pretend that his mother wasn’t dead, where he could pretend that everything was still fine. He nodded instead. He took Dave’s hand and they rode in the ambulance with their mother’s body to the hospital.
Someone had called their father, John didn’t know who, because he was waiting for them at the hospital.
He seized John by the shoulders and demanded, “What happened?”
John had his tears under control now, but they threatened to return as he said, “I don’t know. She was fine when we went out. She was fine,” he insisted.
The doctors came then and tried to explain. “Aneurism,” they said. “There was nothing you could do,” they assured John. But he knew they were wrong. And he knew that his father thought so, too. Because he wouldn’t look at John or speak to him. Like he thought it was John’s fault that Caroline Sheppard was dead. Maybe it was. John felt like it was. He should have been able to see that something was wrong when they left to go sledding. He kept turning it over in his head trying to figure out if he could have done something different, but there was nothing there, she had been fine when they left.
The next few days were a blur of grief and pain for John. He kept thinking he’d hear his mom’s voice or think about telling her something and then he’d remember that she was dead and he was never going to see her again. Dave was confused and kept asking when mom was going to come home until finally John had to tell him the truth.
“She’s dead, Dave, she’s never coming home again,” John told him, hating his little brother a little bit for making him say the words.
“No,” Dave shouted at him. “She’s not. You’re just saying that. I hate you,” Dave punched John, “I hate you.” Dave punched John again, but the punches were weak. John held Dave’s arms until he stopped struggling, then he held his little brother close, letting him cry the way John wouldn’t let himself anymore.
Through it all Rodney and Ronon and Teyla did what they could to help. Rodney kept him up-to-date on what was going on at school. They sat with him at the visitation and stood close by him at the service when people he didn’t even know kept telling John how sorry they were for him.
~~~~~
Eventually life settled back into a new kind of normal where John made sure Dave got off to school in the morning with his books and his lunch money. He got to the point where he didn’t expect his mom to greet him at the door when he got home, but it never stopped hurting. The first two days back at school, he threw up after he ate the school lunch.
Spring came and they were still in the little house on the base. Now John wanted to move. There were too many reminders of his mother there. He thought it would be better if they could move on and have a new place where she had never lived.
He told his father that he was joining the Air Force. He didn’t know why he bothered. It wasn’t like his father cared one way or the other what he did. It was always his mother who had encouraged him and told him he could do whatever he wanted. He wished that he’d told her, she would have been proud of him that he’d been accepted. Now it was too late.
Finally it was time to graduate. John couldn’t believe that he’d actually made it a whole year at the same school. It was weird to walk down the aisle with people he knew, to hear the whoops and cheers.
Rodney nudged him in the ribs when it was all over. “Hey, you want to see something?” he asked with a smirk.
John nodded. He followed Rodney out blinking into the bright spring day. There was a crowd of kids everywhere, excitement could be seen wherever he looked. And John was excited, he was. His life was about to start for real. He just wished his mom was there to share it with him.
Rodney nudged him and pointed Koyla and his gang of friends. They were strutting around like they were something big. Koyla had gotten a new car from his dad for a graduation gift. He was inordinately proud of it. He had been showing it off for weeks now. He’d nearly run John and Rodney down a time or two in it. It was parked all the way at the end of the auditorium’s parking lot, far away from any of the other cars that might scratch it or dent it.
Rodney showed John the little remote control in his palm before he pushed a little button. The car, sitting all by itself at the end of the huge parking lot, blew up with a spectacular explosion.
“Oh, my god,” John breathed. He caught sight of Koyla as he stared at what remained of his car, slack jawed. “What did you do?”
Rodney grinned. “That’s for all the geeks that Koyla ever tormented. He’ll think twice before he bullies someone next time.”
Ronon appeared out of nowhere and punched Rodney in the arm. “You did not,” he crowed.
Rodney grinned at him, “Just try and prove it was me,” he challenged.
“Rodney, this is no way to settle things,” Teyla said. Her tone was disapproving, but her smile was mischievous.
John realized with a pang that he was going to miss these people, his friends.
~~~~~
Wood smoke tickled at his nose, waking John up. He stared up at a hole in the ceiling where the smoke curled lazily before escaping. He blinked trying to remember where he was.
Oh, yeah, N4Y-772. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He moaned a little.
Rodney appeared beside him, holding a canteen to his lips.
“Slowly,” he commanded imperiously while he held John’s head gently tilting it so John could drink without getting water all over himself.
John sipped gratefully. His tongue felt like shoe leather.
“Happened?” he croaked out.
“Spirit walk thing,” Rodney said, his tone expressing his disapproval. “You took a walk on the wild side just to prove that we would be good trading partners.”
John remembered the sight of the car blowing up and thought that Rodney didn’t know just how wild.
“John,” Teyla was there on his other side, wiping his forehead with a cool, wet cloth. “Are you back with us?”
He licked his lips taking another sip from the canteen.
“Think so,” he said.
“You okay?” Rodney’s hand on his shoulder was careful as he helped John sit up.
The flap of the tent flipped back and Ronon entered. “Hey, buddy,” he greeted John. “You finally wake up?”
John just nodded; he was content to let his team take care of things for the moment. He stared up at the smoke where it circled the roof of their tent-abode thing. He tried to reconcile his memories of what had actually happened his senior year of high school with the new memories he now had. Oh, his mother had died alright, but he hadn’t had anyone to support him the first time around. It had been the worst time of his life. It was only the promise of the Air Force and flying that had gotten him through it the first time.
It has been awful the second time around, too, but he hadn’t been so alone.
“What did you see?” Rodney asked.
John blinked at him.
“The whole purpose of this little exercise was so you could see what lesson you’ve learned while you’ve been in Pegasus,” Rodney waved a hand, taking in John on his cot, the tent, the fire in the corner. “So, what have you learned?”
It wasn’t really a new lesson for John. He’d known for a while now that he could depend on his team, and they could depend on him. He didn’t know how to tell them about his mother and how much it had hurt when she died when he was seventeen, how he’d been left alone with a father too involved in his own grief to know that his sons needed him, with a little brother who didn’t know how to help John in his grief. But now he had his team. Maybe he’d tell them about it sometime. They’d understand.
For now…
They were watching him anxiously, waiting for his answer.
He smiled at them, just a bare curve of his lips, but he made the effort to reassure them, “I learned that Rodney is bad-ass.”
Rodney rolled his eyes, “You didn’t have to eat bad mushrooms to find that out, I could have told you that.”
There was a quiet snort from Teyla and a louder guffaw from Ronon. John let himself drift back into sleep knowing that his team was there ready to take care of things if needed.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 07:21 am (UTC):thoughtful: On this other hand, if you'd stuck to this rule - I wouldn't have had this marvelous story to read. So, go ahead, be a rule-breaker.
Man, I'd pay money to get to watch them fly down the slope on their sleds!
Thanks for the present, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ♥
Learning to Walk
Date: 2010-02-23 09:20 am (UTC)Happy Birthday.
Re: Learning to Walk
Date: 2010-02-23 02:19 pm (UTC)ETA: oops! I can't type today!
Re: Learning to Walk
Date: 2010-02-24 01:36 am (UTC)Re: Learning to Walk
Date: 2010-02-24 01:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:35 am (UTC)Glad you liked the story, I had so much fun writing it!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 11:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 02:23 pm (UTC)John's final line is what really makes this rock though, because yes! Go to Pegasus = discover Rodney is bad-ass!
Happy birthday & best wishes!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:38 am (UTC)I love the icon, it's so fun!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 05:55 pm (UTC)It's absolutely perfect.
Thank you for sharing. And happy birthday. :oD
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:39 am (UTC)Thank you for the well wishes!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 06:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-23 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 04:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 10:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 10:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-25 02:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 10:23 pm (UTC)