Sandbox
He is a little boy in a very big, very foreign sandbox.
And he’s been digging out his own moat and fortifying his own castle walls since he was eighteen and he is tired.
And he is lonely and he is lost and there she was
(with her unrelenting sass and her interminable stubbornness and she is loyal to her friends and she loves her daddy)
And suddenly there is a second shovel and a little pink bucket
(that baby pink that she loves so much; like the color of that top of hers he loves so much)
And the moat looks a little straighter and the castle walls have ladies’ underthings strung from them on strings.
And just like that she’s invaded every orifice of Lieutenant Scott
(and every pore of Matt)
And he can’t get her out
(and he doesn’t want to)
And he can’t remember how he managed before,
(“I want you there.”)
And he’s done a miserable job of even pretending to hide it
(“I don’t think you know how much I care about her.” “I think I do.”)
He’s not ashamed
(“Listen, listen, I’m gonna marry Chloe, we’re gonna have a half-dozen kids, buy a house on my Dad’s street; we’re gonna renovate it together, play catch with the kids in the front yard, and go to Brody’s every Friday night; you can videotape the whole dang thing.”)
And that may be a first and this must be real
(and he must be in trouble)
Because he wants to lock her up, bubble wrap her and put her safely away in his closet and he knows that’s impossible
(mostly because there are no “locks” per se on Destiny and he doesn’t have a closet; but also)
Because everyday the world might end and they need all hands on deck and she can’t be on deck if she’s tethered to his headboard.
(Also there are no headboards on Destiny. Clearly the Ancients had skewed priorities with all this practical architecture.)
Everything happens so fast.
(They meet, they’re stuck, they talk, they almost die, they love.)
And some might say it’s shallow and surface and bullshit
(but when you hover on the brink of destruction the only way to live is a whole lifetime in a single day)
Because she might not wake up tomorrow and he might not walk through that event horizon next time.
(I am only human.)
And they’re all coping in their own way; some in very similar ways.
(The halls echo and T.J. only giggles for the Colonel and Eli leaves his stupid t-shirt around more often than not and that doesn’t even matter because Ginn wears a tell-tale glaze on her face for days and no one misses Greer smacking Lisa’s ass on his way to the mess and who even knows if birth control was requisitioned for this mission but if it was it has to be precariously close to depleted by this point.)
Stress has to be relieved.
And it doesn’t slow down.
(He loves her, she loves him, she saves him, he saves her, he’s losing her, she’s an alien.)
He doesn’t care if she’s an alien; he doesn’t care if she’s a goat
(he won’t say it doesn’t scare the shit out of him, that creepy crawly she’s finding on her skin, because he is straight up terrified and if she wasn’t in his bed at night he’d spend it curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth)
He prays.
(and he thought he’d lost his faith and it’s ironic that it took aliens to find it again-and not for the first time he thinks that just maybe these things might not be so evil)
He prays for his friends and he prays for Chloe but mostly he prays for himself
(and it’s selfish but he doesn’t want to be alone anymore)
And sometimes he asks and sometimes he begs and sometimes he rages and sometimes he cries
(don’t ever say goodbye)
But it always ends with a nod to the guard at Chloe’s door and a silent vigil from the armchair next to her bed
(and he can tell himself it’s for the mission and he can tell Greer he doesn’t see her anymore and he can tell her he’ll stay away)
But when she sleeps, she is still Chloe
(and he can be horrified beyond all reason that she is slipping away in the daylight hours and he can be weak and afraid)
But at night he watches her chest rise and fall and he listens to her battle monsters in her dreams and he is strong.
(And she is only human.)
And he can protect her from guns and knives and fists and fire
(but Jesus Christ, aliens, he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with that)
And he loves her.
He loves her and no one has any answers and he would give anything just to fix it.
She makes him need her, makes him depend on her
(on her face in the morning and her arms at the end of the day)
And he likes it
(he loves it)
This stability, this steady sound of her breathing above him and this insistent beating of her heart under his head and this “you-better-come-home-or-I’ll-find-you-and-kill-you-myself” every time he marches through that gate.
(And coming home to her is more than enough reason to complete the godforsaken mission)
And so it’s not fair when she up and leaves, cuts him off
(you disappear with all your good intentions)
And he doesn’t care how many times he hears “it’s for your own good” or “she did it for you” because she is good for him, she is for him, and he needs her to pick him up off the floor when he falls down and falls apart
(“I’ve got an eight year old kid named after me. How weird is that?” “Are you okay?”)
Because she makes it look easy and he is more when she is there
(and all I am is all I could not mention)
He needs someone to tell him what to do
(who will bring me flowers when it’s over)
He is a good little soldier, give him an order and he will follow through
(who will give me comfort when it’s cold)
but now there are no orders and no next step and no clear path and Matthew Scott is not a child and not a sap
(but he is only human)
And he wants her there.