"It really was an accident, you know," Rodney says, looking momentarily cowed, for once. "I wouldn't . . . I'm not like him. I know sometimes people . . . women, think that I really am that unethical and socially retarded, but I . . . you know I would never . . . I'm not him."
She doesn't know how Rodney found out, but he obviously did. He's a smart man, and yes, not completely socially retarded. Maybe Lieutenant Cadman told him. They did share a body. They must be close.
Elizabeth hangs her head in shame. Rodney will never trust her now, not after he knows how dirty she is, what she did. Yes, she was under the influence of a pretty powerful drug at the time, but she should have known. As a leader, she should have realized how he was influencing her. She should have resisted.
"Rodney, I know you're not him. And really, all you did was make Colonel Sheppard fold a couple of your socks. There's no harm in that."
Rodney shrugs a little, fiddling with one of the sculptures on her desk and not meeting her eyes. "Yes, but . . . I know how it felt to be used by someone like him . . . to laugh about Ronon holding me up against a wall while he essentially drugged me, and I just want you to know that I would never voluntarily . . . violate someone like that."
Her head snaps up and their eyes meet.
He knows.
"Well, I have to . . . um . . . very important, life-saving . . . yeah . . ."
She sighs and slumps back into her chair as he leaves. He can't even stand to look at her. What has she done?
Carson is gentle and even the cold metal of the stirrups against her skin isn't that bad. She's had a lot of examinations in her lifetime and while they'll never be comfortable, this one isn't particularly bad. She doesn't feel like a victim, at least.
Because she's not. She liked it. She consented to it. It was a bad choice, an irresponsible choice, a stupid choice, but it was still a choice.
"There you go, lass," Carson says. His smile is strained and sympathetic.
She doesn't need his sympathy, though she supposes that if anyone can understand, it's Carson. It was he that Lucius hoodwinked into bringing him here in the first place.
"So . . ."
"We won't know for certain until a follow-up test several months from now, but the tests all came back negative and the exam revealed nothing. You can put it out of your mind."
Easy for him to say.
"I'll try to do that."
"I'm the only one Laura told. She promised me that. I can't say about Doctor Heightmeyer or Teyla, but I find it hard to believe that either would betray your confidence."
Betray. Such an interesting word, when it might not have even been their choice.
Aren't trauma victims supposed to repress? Isn't she supposed to have some sort of natural psychological protection against this sort of thing?
But then, the oddest things remind her of him the familiar giggle of the Jell-o in the mess, a particularly self-absorbed comment from Rodney, Doctor Parson's cologne.
The rustle of the sheets as she turns over at night, the slight pull of her jeans just that way. A part of her knows what it was. A part of her knows that on Earth it would be tried as a crime and that part stings with the injustice of it.
But there's another part that remembers the taste of him cheese doodles and the bitter twinge of the herb. It should be disgusting, but it's not. It wasn't, at least. His hands felt like silk soft and warm and so broad, like they could hold her, cradle her against a broad chest and protect her from the world.
Since coming to Pegasus, Elizabeth had never felt so safe.
She sighs, flipping over and tangling herself further in the sheets. The night is humid and the air clings with a sort of restless urgency that sparks her hips to motion. She can't sleep without release.
And release will not come without the images of him the intensity of his gaze, the way his fat rolls seemed to undulate like the most perfect sea, the smell of him, warm and rich and full of so many hollow promises.
No, what she needs is a familiar fantasy. Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, the new White House Press Secretary. She comes home from work not this work, but her old one. A simple negotiation, closed, a candlelight dinner already prepared for her. He comes up from behind, silk shirt pressing up against the nape of her neck, hardness already a bar of heat against her spine.
She gasps, reaching beneath the waistband of her pajama pants, warmth spreading between her legs, wetness to match the soft press of the night. She shifts, trying to find the right position, but her hands are cold. So much heat and she's still frozen.
But she won't be thwarted. She needs this. No, she deserves it one sinful little release in a world full of crystals frozen like ice, where history proclaims your actions in metallic irony, where you can still feel eons and leagues of ocean touching the walls of their emerald city.
There is no longer any magic here.
The fantasy shifts. He is hot against her, voice bubbling, weaving myth and reality and persuasion so that she can set all insecurities aside and just believe.
Heat flushes her and when she turns, he's there again, all dripping flesh and hair and snide smile, and as disgusting as it is, the memory makes her blush from head to toe so much warmth.
No. No, she is not that pathetic.
She flips back over with a huff, but does not sleep.
Where do they come up with these ideas? Sometimes she wonders how she ended up babysitting a couple of grade-schoolers instead of the top scientific minds in the field. And John Sheppard.
"You made me clean your room."
"Yes, yes, and I apologize profusely."
"Do you have any idea what was living in your dirty socks, McKay?"
Frankly, Elizabeth doesn't want to know. She sighs, tired and frustrated. She doesn't even have the energy to give them the evil eye anymore.
"Possibly some form of small marsupial from P34-55Y, but in my defense, they're not poisonous, just highly territorial . . ."
"Rodney . . ."
"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"
"At least once more. And you're going to build me a space laser."
"Yes, yes, drool, drool, slobber, slobber, though I don't know what good you think it'll do you when you already have drone weapons, not to mention the difficulty the array is going to pose for reentry . . ."
Elizabeth lets Rodney's voice float over her. It's not like she's going to okay a space laser anyhow not until Radek tells her it's a workable idea, at least.
She looks over at John's playfully annoyed expression and knows that he's not really serious either, just taking the opportunity to yank Rodney's chain. Today he's actually looking even more . . . what is the word Rodney always uses? Oh, yes, rakish.' He's looking even more rakish than usual, the color finally returning to his cheeks after his illness.
He gives her a small wink before returning his focus to Rodney. Elizabeth finds herself blushing. She's used to John's seemingly-default flirting by now. But then again . . . Lucius wanted her, not just as the leader of this facility, but as a woman. He chose her first. Would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that if it weren't for duty and regulations and all those things that seemed so immaterial with Lucius thrusting into her that John would want her too?
Maybe one day, after they've defeated the Wraith and Atlantis becomes a free colony to do as it pleases, John will unwind from his touch-phobia. He'll stroke her hair and look into her eyes and tell her how beautiful he thinks she is, just like . . .
"Elizabeth?"
She startles. "Yes, Rodney?"
"Please save us all some time and tell Colonel Kirk that he'll get a space laser the day that pigs fly, the floor gives up and finally swallows Zelenka the way he keeps praying for in Czech and we find a food group that Ronon the barbarian doesn't fall madly in love with on sight."
"I'll take those odds," John says, still smiling. "But I bet you would have done it for Lucius." He bats his eyelashes at Rodney. "You just don't love me anymore. Would it help if I gained a hundred pounds, cured the bug up your ass in only 6 days and let you sit on my lap while I told you a bedtime story?"
"Hey, it wasn't like that . . . I had my . . ."
Elizabeth feels herself flush with shame. He let her sit on his lap in the GateRoom.
"Lucius and Rodney sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S . . ."
"Enough, gentlemen. Let's pretend that we're all responsible adults for just a few minutes, please ." She knows she's snapping, but John really needs to let this go.
Or maybe Elizabeth does.
Rodney sticks his tongue out at John when he thinks she's not looking.
"I saw that."
The stars are bright and tonight she is thinking of Simon, about the way he'd hold her, kiss her and touch her and she's think of surgery, of rubber gloves, and the other bodies he'd touched that day.
To Lucius, she was a piece of meat, another notch on the bedpost, another beating heart, another pretty face. And, yes, he drugged her, but she wanted him. She needed to please him. She would have married him.
6 years with Simon and she'd only thought about it come tax time. When he didn't want to come with her, it hurt, but was she really surprised? She didn't even care enough about him to say goodbye in person.
"Elizabeth?"
She turns to find a familiar figure silhouetted in the doorway short, curvy, voice clear and compassionate. "Yes?"
"I have not seen you in the past few days. How are you feeling?"
Elizabeth makes to shrug, but this is Teyla. Despite being from another galaxy (or perhaps because of it) Teyla can see right through all of Elizabeth's well-honed deflections. "I've been better." She ducks her head and crosses her hands across her chest.
"Lieutenant Cadman and several of these programs that the women of your world seem to prefer . . . The City and Sex?' seem to indicate that sexual relations among your people, even with leaders such as yourself, are not done with such gravity as my people show."
"Yes, I suppose we are pretty free thinking about the whole thing." Elizabeth herself is certainly not above the casual fling, the fuck buddy, the one night stand. Sometimes she thinks she prefers it.
Teyla nods in that infuriatingly knowing way of hers. "And yet I have trouble believing that you should be unaffected by any encounter, especially one such as Lucius."
"Well, he does make an impression, doesn't he?" She tries to laugh it off, but she's not as good at this as John, and Teyla sees through even him.
Teyla moves to stand beside her. Elizabeth knows what's coming next the classic I'll be there for you' friendship speech. "Because it was not what you would have chosen had circumstances been different, does not mean that it did not happen."
"No," Elizabeth agrees. "But I can't let it change who I am." She can't let him win.
Teyla smiles, a little sadly.
She doesn't need to say it for Elizabeth to know what she's thinking. If only they had the luxury to allow themselves to be changed by someone.
Teyla brings her forehead up to touch Elizabeth's. She explained it once as a meeting of minds.
It will never be the same as a hug.
FIN