Fic: Pandora's Box: Shards Instead of Glass (1/8)

[gelbes_gilatier]

Title: Pandora's Box: Shards Instead of Glass (1/8)
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: drama, romance
Summary: Apocafic/AU - Atlantis lost the fight against the replicators, and Earth gave up on the city... and her crew. Two of the survivors are Laura Cadman and Evan Lorne.
A/N: Before I continue with Protect and Survive, I'd like to squeeze in this little apocafic series called Pandora's Box. Originally, Shards Instead of Glass was supposed to be a stand-alone but people kept bugging me about a sequel. In the end, it became a series of eight one-shots focusing on Laura Cadman and Evan Lorne, dealing with how it might have gone if 'First Strike' had gone differently. I hope you like them (since, you know, I don't read apocafic, which is why it's still a little weird for me that I wrote it).

Protect and Survive will be back when mackenziesmomma worked through her beta backlog, BTW :)

 

Shards Instead of Glass

“Sieh dort, Marie, das leere Bett,
Der Spiegel uns’rer großen Zeit.
Ab morgen gibt’s statt Glas nur Scherben.
Komm her und schenk uns noch mal ein,
Den letzten Schluck vom letzten Wein,
Marie, die Welt beginnt zu sterben.”

Hans Hartz, “Die weißen Tauben sind müde“

This just isn’t how he’d pictured dying. Actually, he hadn’t pictured his death at all. Never. Came with the territory of being a soldier and being deployed to a base like Atlantis. But the Replicators had taken over Atlantis, only to be blasted to smithereens because Dr. Weir had managed to activate the self-destruct… at the cost of her life. 

Before giving the city up, she’d ordered everyone to abandon it, flee to the first planet they could gate to. The plan had been to contact the Apollo or the Daedalus from there but… they’d never managed that because both ships had been destroyed… and suddenly he’d found himself stranded with a dozen Marines, some Airmen and a gaggle of civilians

There had been Radek Zelenka among them and Miko Kusanagi, Theresa Cole, Laura Cadman… but now, after a year on the run, their group has dwindled down to six people. They lost Radek and three of the Marines when they’d tried to get away from a planet that had once been a Wraith stronghold but was now dominated by the Replicators. And then Captain Espinoza had sacrificed himself to make it possible for them to escape from some volcanic hellhole… which had still cost another four lives in the retreat.

So many… and no sense in it, despite the desperate wish to stay alive in this galaxy that had seemed like home for a little while but was something else entirely when they didn’t have the safety of Atlantis anymore. That and the impossible hope that somehow, somewhere they’d find a way back home to the Milky Way.

But they never did until now and as it is, it looks very much… like they never will. Right now… they’re trapped in an abandoned Genii bunker. They’d thought it was a perfect hide-out, at least for as long as the residual radiation wasn’t enough to seriously harm them… but they hadn’t counted on the I’kkai, one of the mercenary units the Replicators had employed to purge the galaxy of the Wraith… and everyone else they deemed a threat to the peace – their definition of peace.

Miko Kusanagi, who they’d made their scout when she had surprised them all displaying amazing courage under fire and a prowess for stealth again and again, had snuck out a day ago and there she’d seen them advancing to their position. She had made it inside before they had spotted her but they’d probably known where to find them anyway. So now… all that’s left to decide is whether they’ll die outside or inside.

“You know,” he suddenly hears a voice beside him and looks up to see Cadman sitting down beside him, “what I really miss about home?”

He looks at her face and in the half dark of the flickering artificial light the rugged scar that runs diagonally over her face, only narrowly missing her left eye makes her look harder than she is. It also makes the lopsided grin appear almost like a sneer but he knows her well enough not to be put off by it. He sighs. “Chocolate?”

It makes her laugh – genuinely even, without a resigned edge – a little and give him a little punch in the shoulder. “No… C4.” Right. Of course she’d say that. They used up their last bit – a few packs they’d found in a weapons cache the Expedition had planted three years ago – weeks ago and since then they’re absolutely out of it. Cadman had tried to manufacture a substitute – several, actually – but oh no, this Marine can only be satisfied with the best of the best… as her added wistful sigh proves.

There are so many things he’d like to do now but in the end, he tries to play it cool, as he’d done ever since they’d gotten stranded and he’d somehow ended up as the leader of their group. “It doesn’t solve all problems, you know.”

Her shoulder brushes against his as it moves with another wistful sigh. “No, it doesn’t.” Some more movement from beside him and then… “But maybe it’ll solve the one we’re having right now.” What the… He looks at her again and she waves around… a pack of C4. How…? “Cool, huh? I managed to save two packs from the last batch. For rainy days and all.”

Her eyes… her eyes are blazing and again it amazes him how she can still be herself after all they’ve been through. All of them have changed – grown harder, more cynical – and she has, too, of course but… the essence of her nature is still the same. Underneath the scars and the cropped hair and voice that’s become rough with all the shouting and barking orders there’s still good old Cadman. Still explosions happy, still brazen, still… crazy. Still keeping their team together.

And because it always manages to cheer him up when she behaves like they were just on a mission and would get back to Atlantis in a few hours, safe and sound and without so much as a care as what they’d show on next movie night, he manages a little grin. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Come on, you know, you love me,” she says and grins again… but this time he thinks he detected a flicker in her eyes… anxiousness… or maybe that was just the light from above.

He sighs, trying to keep it good natured and light, even though the plan that starts forming in his head now that they have some more C4 leaves only one option in the end. “Don’t get cheeky, Lieutenant.”

That makes her snort. “Shouldn’t that be Captain now? I mean, come on, it’s been long enough, isn't it? And not even the promotion board could…”

“Laura.” It was just one word, uttered quietly, but it makes her shut up immediately. He’s very, very sorry for that because he loves to hear her ramble on but he had to do it. Kind of like ripping off the band-aid. “Tell the others to get ready. We’ll do the excursion in twenty minutes.” He also wants to tell her that he expects her to lead them out… to do for them in the future what he used to do for them until now. But all of a sudden… his throat feels dry and tight and it’s impossible to keep talking.

She’s silent for another moment, then nods. “Yes, sir.” Then she takes a deep breath, obviously struggling to get back into military demeanor, even if neither their uniforms nor their ranks bear any significance anymore. “How’s the plan?”

Another deep breath, and now it’s feeling like there’s a weight on his chest that nearly suffocates him. “I want you and Undhati to rig me a detonator for the C4 so I can… I can act as a distraction. Once I… neutralized the mercenaries, you lead the others out and make straight for the ‘Gate. Dial the first safe planet that comes to your mind.” She wants to open her mouth, to protest, no doubt, but his resolve is final. “That’s an order, Laura. Don’t look back. You hear me?”

She swallows and now there is no way that flicker in her eyes could be caused by the light. He feels so very sorry now to burden her with this but someone has to make a sacrifice here and he’s tired of others making that sacrifice for him. It’s not that he’s suicidal… it’s just that he doesn’t want to send others to do what he can himself just as well. Everyone had sacrificed themselves out of their free will but that doesn’t make the guilt any easier to deal with and in the moment she’d shown him the C4 he’d known that today it was his turn.

For a short moment, it looks like she wants to object but then it seems to have registered with her that they might have enough to fabricate a detonation device for the C4… but that there’s no way in hell they could rig up a remote detonator. Someone had to manually activate it and he can see the exact moment when the cruel logic of that fully unfolded in her mind. She swallows again… and then she fully throws him off his guard with saying, “Why you? Why you?”

“Laura, I…” Why is he justifying himself now? He doesn’t need to and she doesn’t have the right to make him justify himself to her.

But that doesn’t quite interest her now. “No, I’m serious. This is not how it works. You don’t have the right to decide this all on your own. You’re no one’s superior anymore and you’re not allowed to… you can’t just go and…” Suddenly… he sees that Cadman has changed, more and in a different way than he thought. What he sees now in her unguarded eyes is fear. Real fear, not just anxiety. Fear and stubbornness and hurt.

“What, do you want to do it?” Oh crap. That was cruel and unnecessary but she wasn’t supposed to oppose him. She was supposed to comply with this and lead their remaining team into safety, so that they might keep up the chance of coming home some day. Because that’s all he wants for her… for them: to be home and safe again, one day. And if he has to sacrifice himself so she… dammit, they can survive long enough then so be it.

And yeah, of course that triggered her rebellious side. She jumps up. “Yes, maybe I do. And maybe I want to find a way how to do this without you having to blow yourself up. Maybe… maybe I just don’t want you to die.” That’s… stunning. The amount of fierceness in her voice when she just said that… it makes him get up – no easy feat, since ever since a lucky escape from a Replicator stronghold two months ago, his knee never was the same again – and try to say something but she’s on a roll now. “Maybe I’m just tired of seeing people I care about die and maybe I just want them to stop dying so I can keep on living. Maybe I want to get out of a messy situation with everyone alive for a change and maybe I want to…”

“Laura!” Because he can’t bear listening to her anymore – practically losing it right in front of him, after all those long months when she just soldiered on and even managed to make them all smile and laugh once in a while – he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her towards and embraces her as tight as he can. She keeps on murmuring and he’s pretty sure he’s hearing sobs so he crushes her even tighter to him, if that’s possible. “It’s okay,” he tries to tell her “it’s gonna be okay, Laura. You’re gonna make it. You’re all gonna make it. You’re gonna get home.”

Somehow she manages to make him loosen his embrace and glares at him. “But that’s the thing, Evan. It’s not gonna be okay if we make and you don’t! I don’t want to make it if you don’t make it. I don’t want to get home if you don’t get home.”

What is she… why… “Look, Laura, someone needs to tell my family…”

Now she’s… she’s hitting him. “I don’t want to tell your family, you idiot!” Right there, pummeling him with her fists. “Don’t you see it? I’m done with people sacrificing themselves and I sure as hell won’t tell your family anything about your heroic death because you’re not gonna die today. Or on any other day that we’re here in this Goddamn stupid crappy galaxy. You hear me? You hear me?” She tries to keep on pummeling him but he manages to catch her fists, as bewildered as he is by her tirade.

“Laura, please…” He tries to look her in the eye but she keeps avoiding his gaze and he’s wondering if she’d see him through the veil of tears anyway. By now, her whole face is glistening wet and it nearly kills him to see her like this. All he wants to do now is… bend down, kiss it all away, make her forget about sacrifices and scars and guilt trips. But this is neither the time nor the place…

“No ‘Laura, please.’ Go ‘Laura please’ yourself. I’m done with this dying crap and I don’t care if you’re suicidal or a lunatic or whatever. I just… I want to you… I want…” And suddenly, he feels her lips on his, tasting of salt and desperation. Apparently, Laura doesn’t care about the right time and place for kissing him. Not anymore, anyway.

Neither does he, all of a sudden. Giving up his hold on her hands, he moves to embrace her again, careful not to let go of her lips. She’s angry and she’s still torn between keeping on kissing him and slapping him. He can feel that in the way that she threads her hand into his hair at the back of his head and how his lips get caught by her teeth once or twice.

Oh God, no, he doesn’t want to leave her behind. He doesn’t want her to be alone. He wants to survive, and he wants to survive because of her and because even of the promise that someday they could leave this all behind them and just be with each other.

But there’s still the bigger picture. There’s still the team survival to consider and the Catch-22 they’re still in and the mercenaries outside that are just waiting for them to get out. He nearly has to tear himself away from her lips and when he manages it, he gasps, “Laura… the survival of the team…”

For a moment, she looks like she’d simply knock him out and do it all herself but the soldier in her wins the argument over her temperamental side. “Survival of the team means also your survival, no argument about that.” Or… maybe not. Good Lord in Heaven, she looks magnificent. Eyes blazing again, lips swollen, cheeks reddened… now the scar makes her look bold and brave. “I ain’t leaving this damn bunker as long as you don’t see that. Either we all die in here… or we make it out together.”

Yeah, and who is she to speak for the whole team? “Says who, huh?”

“The team. Did you really think I didn’t talk to them about this before coming to you?” What the… the sneaky vixen. “Oh come on, don’t look at me like that. It was plain to everyone how you’d react. And we’re all tired of seeing friends die.”

How could he… how could he not see that one coming? How could he know so little of his team that it was possible for her to stage a rebellion? And how in hell is it possible for her to look so damn smug and so damn good; here in some long forgotten bunker with ugly artificial light and with her hair so short and that scar and the fear in her eyes that’s still there, mixed with a thousand other emotions… mixed with hope. Yeah… maybe it’s that what makes her so beautiful right now. That despite everything, she still has hope…something he thought he’d lost when Miko had told them about the I’kkai.

Damn. It shouldn’t be so easy for her to sway him. “Alright, fine. Twenty minutes, Laura.” She kisses him again, this time quick and not half as passionately as the last one but what makes this kiss so great is that she’s genuinely smiling again. A little too fast for his liking, she breaks the embrace and turns to leave… but he feels the need to add something, “Just remember: either we die all in here or we get out of this together.”

She bends her head a little and gives him a little crooked smile. “Will do. But just for the record: I prefer option number two.”

As he watches her leave he takes another moment for himself. Yeah, of course he also prefers option number two… but the important thing is that either way, he’ll be together with her. And right now, that’s enough to rekindle the fire of hope in him… the one that everyone needs to survive.

~*~

“Look there, Marie, the empty bed
The mirror of our great times
From tomorrow on there’ll be only shards instead of glass.
Come over and pour us some
The last drop of the last wine
Marie, the world is about to die.”

Hans Hartz, “The White Doves Are Tired”

~*~

TBC in Find Peace Tonight.