FanFic100: #030 Death
What a fitting weather. Gray and windy and rainy… even a little sleet mixed with it. In fact, it’s so fitting for his annual visit to the Stargate Command Memorial - which is still the memorial for the men and women losing their life in the service of a deep space telemetry project officially - that it’s almost cliché. He draws his coat a little tighter around himself and slowly walks up the stairs.
There had been a time where he hadn’t been able to bear the sight of the simple black stone wall with the engravings and the little white marble dots representing each member of the SGC and the Atlantis Expedition that left their life in the service or never came back from a mission, arranged in star constellations of the Milky Way and the Pegasus Galaxy. He’d needed five years to be able to come here and not feel like being overwhelmed by loss, guilt and anger. Ever since then… he comes here once a year, and really only once, even though he left the Expedition and the SGC ten years ago, and has been working in the DOD for six years, leaving the blood and sweat and tears for the next generation.
He had chosen this time of year, because the weather is always bad enough that the chances that he’s alone here are very high. However… it seems like today his strategy didn’t work. A little surprised, he stops on the pre-last stair and narrows his eyes at the sight before him. There’s a woman standing in front of the stone wall, her back to him. She’s wearing her red hair in a French knot, a black coat that reaches to her knees, black trousers… and standing completely still.
His first impulse was to walk up to her and see who dared to take away his chance to pay his respects in solitude, but something in her manner of not moving an inch in this biting cold makes him hesitant to step forward and intrude on this woman’s silent contemplation. For a few more moments they stand there, in their own worlds, but bound together by that black wall. Until she moves to reach out and touch one of the engravings with a hand clad in elegant dark purple leather.
Somehow that movement breaks the spell that had been lying on him and he takes the last few steps to walk up to her. She doesn’t notice him right away, her hand lingering on the engraved name. Not able to fully tame his curiosity, he can avoid looking at her, but he can’t avoid looking at the name she touches. Elizabeth Weir. He can’t keep from taking a deep breath. As long ago as it is, that name always gives him a stab when he comes here. No one who’d been part of the Expedition under her command had ever been able to forget her and the tragic end she had fallen victim to.
“It’s really a pity.” Shaken from his reverie, he turns to the woman beside him… and is surprised to finally see who it is. Laura Cadman. Older and with a few lines in her face that definitely hadn’t been there ten years ago and much more elegant than he thought he’d ever see her.
“What exactly do you mean…” He realizes he has no idea how to address her since she disappeared from everyone’s radar when she decided to leave the Expedition. He doesn’t even know if she’s still in the Corps.
She seems to have noticed his hesitation and smiles a little lenient smile, helping him out with, “Mrs. Cadman-Burnett.” When he doesn’t say anything because that little interjection has revealed more than one thing and he needs a few seconds to process that, she adds, “And I meant that they still make the world believe that Elizabeth Weir and Rodney McKay and all the others died for “deep space telemetry”.”
She rolls her eyes a little, letting the old Cadman show through under the layers of a respectable married… whatever she is doing now. He shortly lets his gaze swerve back to the wall, catching the name Mikhail Sokholov, immediately connecting that name with a Russian soldier having been killed on ‘Gate security duty when he’d gotten in the way of a bullet coming in from the other side. Secretly… he shares her opinion. But unlike her his job still has something to do with the Stargate program and there’s a certain amount of loyalty he owes to his employer. “Hate to say it, but there’s a reason for that… Mrs. Cadman-Burnett.” It’s so strange… not calling her by her rank or simply “Cadman”.
A little embarrassed, she reaches up to put a strand of hair behind her ear, but her French knot is perfect and she realizes she just grabbed into air. Tightening her lips, she replies, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. And Laura is absolutely okay… Colonel. Still in the Air Force, I see.” He sighs.
“Yeah, well, a man needs at least one thing to hold on to.” Once upon a time, he’d thought that this was marriage, but ever since his divorce three years ago, he has decided that being married to the Air Force is the only commitment he is obviously capable of. “Anyway… what about you?”
She doesn’t answer right away, fiddles a little with her hands. Then, “I could tell you… but then I’d have to shoot you.” It’s supposed to sound like a joke, but the smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes tells him that she is dead serious and that he should refrain from inquiring further. Whoa… he’d never thought he’d meet someone who had to keep secrets from him.
Okay, so… what other small-talk topic is there? Well, yes, he could just close this conversation now, but if he’s honest… it’s been ages since he saw someone he served with on Atlantis and since he had felt okay with talking to someone from Atlantis or the SGC. Usually there just were too many painful memories that could have come up in the process. However, today… he suddenly feels in the mood for it. “Does that apply to questions regarding the double-barreled name as well? I mean, I have to say… it is a little surprising to see that you’re married.” Stupid idiot. Why should that be a surprise? He had been married. Just because they hadn’t heard anything from her after she left it doesn’t mean she didn’t have a life after that.
To his surprise, she gives him a tight little smile and there’s something looking strangely like wistfulness in her eyes for a moment. “Widowed, actually.” Stupid, stupid, stupid idiot. He just had to put his foot into that one, hadn’t he? 45 years and he still manages to make an ass of himself. “It’s okay, Colonel. You couldn’t have known that.” He wants to say something - although he has no idea what he could have possibly said - but she turns back to the wall again, putting her hand against the obsidian stone again. “I still can’t believe it… so many gone.”
The underlying sadness in her voice somehow moves him, and he still wants to make up for his misstep. “Yeah… so many gone. But some of us are still here.”
She turns back to him, cocking her head a little… and looking like she really saw him only now. A slow smile is spreading over her face, still with a sad edge to it, but also incorporating hope. “Yes… some of us are. I just… tend to forget that sometimes.”
He takes a deep breath, not sure if what he’s going to do now is really such a good idea. “Laura… what about… coffee? I mean, it’s cold here and I could use one and…” Dammit, he’s too old for that stupid coffee game. He used to be quite eloquent, but that must have been so long ago that he forgot when that actually was.
“I could use one, too. Know any good places for that around here?” Oh. That… isn't quite the answer he had expected, but it’s still good. Granted, it’s a strange place for all of this, but… it was about time this place lost a bit of the gloom and sadness it always instilled in him. After all… these people gave their lives so that all others on Earth and in the Pegasus Galaxy could live theirs.
“Yeah, I do. Come on, you’re invited.” They both turn to go and as she walks past him, he throws a last look at the memorial over his shoulder… and raises his hand in a casual salute. He’ll come back again, of course. Maybe alone… and maybe not.