FanFic100: #031 Sunrise
“And as the nights passed by, she tried to trace the past.
The way he used to look, the way he used to laugh.
I guess she'll never know what got inside his soul.
She couldn't make it out, just couldn't take it all.
He had the saddest eyes the girl had ever seen.”
Kim Wilde, “Cambodia”
One year since they came back. One year since they ended their tour on Atlantis and took up different postings - she stayed with the SGC, he took up a posting at Peterson Air Force Base. At first they saw each other regularly - passing spare days together, sharing a beer or two if they happened to be in town for the same evening, now and then going running together… the things friends do.
Then… gradually… it lessened. At first their schedules wouldn’t really match anymore, then he - kind of out of the blue - seemed to have developed an unwillingness to see her. She hadn’t pushed him, because she knew pushing Lieutenant Colonel Lorne into something was never a good idea. He would just find ways to evade the pressure she would have put at him; quietly, but effectively. He never gave a reason why he cancelled date after date, and she wouldn’t ask. She thought that maybe he had started dating some girl and at first she thought it didn’t bother her.
But then she managed to run into him as he was at the Mountain on some business or other… and he hadn’t looked much like being happily in love. In fact… he had looked so… different. So… sad. Like something in his world had fundamentally changed him… cut him so deeply that he wasn’t the same man anymore. Yes, he would still walk like he used to - with the confident stride of a seasoned fighter pilot and SF-soldier who knows what he could do. And he would still talk with the same unerring certainty in his voice - the voice of a man who knows he is responsible for equipment billions of dollar worth and enjoys the responsibility.
The eyes, though… the eyes hadn’t been the same anymore. The few moments he’d seen her, he’d never looked her in the eye, but had always seemed a little distanced… like he was seeing something that others didn’t. Something that bothered him and haunted him and wouldn’t let him go.
And it wouldn’t let her go, so she tossed and turned and brooded… and finally ended up at the front gates of Peterson AFB, demanding to see Lieutenant Colonel Lorne, and if it was the last thing she ever did. Somewhere along the line, in one of those endless nights where she couldn’t sleep because those eyes had haunted her, she had decided to get behind the secret of those eyes and turn them back into what they used to be - friendly, smiling, commanding… anything but sad.
She was determined to, and after the third time appearing there they had given up and let her proceed to his office. And there he had been, digging his way through paperwork, working as meticulously and dedicated through it like he had decimated Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy. For a moment… they had simply stared at each other, and suddenly all her words had left her, because only then it all came crashing down. She realized that this wasn’t just seeing each other in passing… he was sitting there and she had him nearly trapped in his office, because she was standing in front of the door, and she knew she could take him out if she really had to.
And she realized she had missed him and that she wanted him back, sad eyes or no. So before he could say anything, she had simply taken the file he’d been reading from his hand, taken the receiver he’d just picked up down again and locked the door. The only thing she had said was, “Okay, flyboy. I ain’t leaving until you tell me what’s got into you.”
She sighs, turning her face to the first rays of morning sun filtering into the room. She still doesn’t know what happened to him. She still encounters his sad eyes now and then. She still wonders some nights if she should have acted earlier. But most of the time she’s glad that she acted at all. Because if she hadn’t, he maybe would have never… “It’s too early to brood by the window, Laura. Come back here.” it comes sleepily from the bed behind her. She smiles.
“Just a moment, Evan.” She wants to see the sun rise, see it burn away all the monsters and demons populating the night… burn away the lingering sadness. As more sunlight starts to filter into the room, she turns around again, satisfied they managed another night of keeping the demons at bay. Contently she smiles and crawls back into his arms. He greets her with eyes full of warmth and a little early morning drowsiness… and she knows the fighting was all worth it.