&fic;

 

Tracing the Years on your Skin

by sugargroupie

PG-13, 2217 words

Summary: she touches the imprint of laughter and sorrow and anger on your changing face.

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to Stargate: Atlantis or its characters.

Notes: Written for the S4/S5 Sheppard/Weir Fix it Challenge. This can be seen as a companion piece to Like Wounds on her Back. Title taken from Regina Spektor's Braille. Also? Sorry.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

She was tracing her years with her fingers on her skin
Saying, why don't I begin again

> You'll have been together for more than two weeks before you realize it's her at all.

*

You don't believe until the touch of cool fingers against your jaw convinces you otherwise. You blink hard to wipe away your blurry vision, sweat stinging your eyes, but those fingers are there again, brushing wetness from under your lashes and at your temple.

When Elizabeth's face finally comes into focus you force tense muscles to relax. You've been through this before, but this time you recognize the scene for what it is wish fulfillment, an apparition. Torture.

"Hey there," you croak out through a bruised throat, voice scratchy from not enough talking and too much screaming. "Long time no see."

"John," she sighs.

"You found me." Your voice is a whisper now, and she leans in further, grasps your shoulders before sliding her hands down your arms lying limply at your sides.

Closer, you think, and move your lips as if words are coming out. Just a little more.

You can't remember the last time you felt something so vulnerable in your hand. Her skin is soft and warm, the tendons in her neck stiff, her breathing shallow. You use what little strength you've conserved since your last round with the Asurans by tightening your grip.

"Listen to me," you whisper harshly, "I will break your goddamn neck before I let you inside my head again."

"I'm not who you think I am," she tells you, relaxing her body and slipping your hand from around her neck, as if commanding your body as her own. It occurs to you that this is different, that she's not sticking to the script; a machine, going against her programming.

You don't know how to respond, and so you say nothing.

"It's me, John. Elizabeth."

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. "No."

She exhales sharply, annoyance shaping her voice when she says, "Damn it, John! We don't have time for this."

You hear foot steps, followed by the brief weight of her sitting on the bed beside you. She pulls at your shoulders until you're sitting up, and your eyes open without thought, your mind and body too weak to protest.

Behind her, a prone body catches your eyes and you recognize it instantly. Lizzie Borden, you called her, one of the more creative Replicators who'd discovered all your weaknesses and exploited them.

"You do that to cheer me up?" you ask with a pointed look over her shoulder, not really expecting an answer. "One dead machine isn't enough to get me on your side."

Elizabeth rises from the bed and turns her back to you, speaking low enough that you can't hear the words, but you don't really need to hear them. She's closer to the real Elizabeth than the previous ones, and you can tell by her body language that something is about to happen.

You're not certain it's worth fighting to survive whatever's coming.

She turns to you, says, "I'm getting you out of here, John. You have to believe that."

You have no belief.

*

When you wake up your world is no longer static.

There's movement beneath your fingers, vibrating against your skin, a hum you've never heard before.

Gray walls come into focus as you test the mobility of your arms and legs. You've been left unbound again, and you wonder when the next Elizabeth will show up, and which machine she's murdered to gain your favor.

To your right you hear the sound of a door swishing open and advancing footsteps. Pushing past the soreness of your arms, you sit up, wanting to face whatever they've got coming for you next. You haven't moved beyond a hastily thought out plan A, which involves defending your head from searching fingers melting into your skull. Your body's still weak but you've pushed it to greater limits before. You'll push yourself again, farther, if you have to.

She comes to you dressed in leather, arms crossed beneath her breasts. The clothing is new (strange, different, appealing), yet her mannerism is all Elizabeth. But you can't remember what she was wearing the last time you played this game, so it doesn't matter.

"Hello, John," she says. Her eyes are clear but her face is guarded, and all you need is to see one tell, one glimpse of her mask slipping.

You wait but she reveals nothing.

"What've you got for me this time?" you ask instead, meeting her eyes unflinchingly.

Elizabeth shakes her head and lets her arms fall to her sides. "I just want to talk." At your silence she continues with, "Does this look familiar?" gesturing at the room with one hand.

"No," you answer. She moves closer, taking small steps, her eyes never wavering from yours. "You're usually more creative than this." You affect a bored shrug. "I'm a little disappointed, actually."

She nods. "I'd have to be inside your head to manipulate your environment."

Elizabeth says nothing further, and it grates. "Look, why are you telling me this?" You release a frustrated sigh, wondering why she'd bother with the fucking pretense of behaving as a normal human would. You've never been one to rush your torturers into action that could do you harm, but the wait is almost too much to take.

"So that you'll believe me when I tell you this is real, that I'm real, John. Asura is gone; Oberoth is gone."

"And the devil can quote scripture," you return flatly. She bites her lip and crosses her arms over her chest again, and for the first time you feel as if you've gained some control of the situation. It's probably fleeting but for the moment you don't care. "You can wear her face and walk in her body, and mimic being like my- the real Elizabeth all you want, but you'll never be her. Thanks for playing."

"I know what it means," she says, and leaves the room.

The Replicators you've known have never given up, and you wonder what she's up to this time. You wonder, for the first time since you've seen her face, if your Elizabeth could've broken free from the Asurans and survived, if she's now attempting to do the same for you.

*

You track the time you've lost by the scars on your skin, and by the secrets they hold.

*

You can still recall the memory of Atlantis and your people, but the smell and particular blue of the ocean surrounding it slips through your fingers. You remember some of the reports that were last sitting on your desk, but you can't remember what Teyla wore to your last sparring.

Elizabeth, who is a constant presence and never far away from your thoughts, is sometimes the one memory you want to shake loose. You want to claim that freedom she's promised you, but to do that means to leave her, and that's something you can't do yet. Not when you've just found her again (found another being wearing her face).

It's hard to keep it straight in your mind anymore, whether or not she's real. But when she brushes up against your arm or deliberately grabs your hand or allows you to lean against her when you've taxed your body, she feels real. She feels like Elizabeth, like home, and you have to force yourself to turn away.

*

"Why haven't you tried contacting Atlantis?"

She stares at you, assessing, and you realize you've seen that same look cross her face dozens of times, across a conference room table or in her old office.

It's the same look you shared when you wanted to kiss her but missed your opportunity. You lick your lips and tear your gaze away.

She clears her throat, begins in low tones that Atlantis is gone, that her ship has been searching the Pegasus galaxy looking for a floating city with no success. That your people are lost to you.

You say, "Why didn't you tell me! This whole time I could've helped you look for them, instead of-" feeling sorry for myself, is what you don't say.

But then, you don't have to. Elizabeth has always been able to supply you with the words you lack.

"Would you have believed me?" she asks instead, and your answer is silence.

No, you wouldn't have believed, and might have insisted on proof. Now, you look around your spare room and at the space between you and Elizabeth, and no other evidence is needed that you are alone.

But you don't have to be.

One step forward is like extending yourself beyond your reach, until you're only a few feet away. Your hands are itching to reach out and make contact, to reassure yourself that this is happening, and that it won't be snatched away by a machine with a god complex.

You take another step. "I think I need to make myself useful somewhere."

Here, you mean.

"Oh John," she says, drawing close enough to cup your jaw with her hand. "You don't have to go anywhere." Like an apology.

"Isn't that supposed to be my line," you wonder aloud. Seeing and accepting her here, now and not as a figment of your imagination, momentarily strips you of your carefully erected walls and all you can do is feel, with no filters.

This time, you say, "long time no see," and mean it.

*

And it will be years still before you realize that only one of you is aging.

*

First kisses are almost always unsteady, and even the best memory of such is often replaced by a kiss with more significance - usually a prelude to great sex or a grand gesture. Your marriage (a lifetime ago, it seems) comes to mind.

So it's especially meaningful that you remember your first kiss with Elizabeth more than most other events in your life.

(Your first kiss is really your second, but that instance doesn't count. Your bodies were only cooperative because of the alien presences that inhabited them. Among the many memories you took away from that encounter - violating others, feeling the violation of yourself and being powerless to stop it - you've always wondered, hoped to replace those moments with Elizabeth and Teyla with much more pleasant recollections. But this day is one of many that you can't scrub from your brain, no matter how hard you've wished.)

You recall it even now, after untold years of kisses and slow sex, of hurried fucks and stolen moments of quiet together. You remember her slight hesitation that meant she'd second-guessed her decision right up until the moment she'd pressed her lips against yours. How her lips were soft and moist because she'd licked them beforehand.

Elizabeth's breathing had been ragged, her chest brushing against yours, and you remember this detail clearly because her breasts were a warm weight against you, felt through the layers of both your clothes. You'd leaned in close, felt her thighs and hips; chased her mouth, her breath with your tongue until it felt like you were breathing for you both. It was years of anticipation crashing down on you, and you'd happily carried that weight, so long as you could kiss her again.

That first kiss was part of the defining moment of your decision to remain onboard her ship, to join her band of misfit Replicators, to create something new and unrefined with Elizabeth.

You have many regrets, but staying isn't one of them.

*

You've been together ten years and she hasn't aged a day.

*

You're beginning to notice the years on your face.

Elizabeth's hands are gentle, cool fingertips framing your jaw as she leans her forehead against yours. She traces the lines of you, touches the imprint of laughter and sorrow and anger on your changing face.

She wiggles on your lap, mischievous glint in her eyes as you lift your pelvis, bumping against her. You see all the ways you've changed just by staring at her face, while it seems she hasn't aged a day. The creases around her eyes and mouth are still there, crinkling as she smiles, and you have the sudden urge to touch them, claim them as she has claimed yours.

Though in some ways it feels as if you've always been together, you still wonder why it's taken you so long to get to this point.

*

There are jokes to be made, of course; that one day you'll be a dirty old man with a younger lover, and you'll be duty bound to say inappropriate things the crew can overhear. That eventually you'll need a never-ending supply of Pegasus galaxy Viagra. And you should probably have sex in zero-gravity while you're still able.

Then Elizabeth climbs on top of you, often naked during these conversations but sometimes not, and she takes you inside her body. Says, "then I better get used to being on top, old man," before breaking into laughter, the vibrations of her shaking body going straight to your cock.

And you say around a big smile, "Please, please, settle down before you make me come," that sets you both off laughing again.

These are the memories you now protect; not from a replicating interface, but from time.

*

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