SGA fic: Still Haven't Found

[xparrot]

The midnight flasher strikes again! ...no wait. Midnight flashficcer. New story for sga_flashfic's Ancient History challenge. Het pairing, not really a happy ending, no science fiction, no Rodney--no, I don't know what's wrong with me. I wouldn't read this story; I have no idea why I wrote it, except that John Sheppard is the kind of puzzle that demands contemplation. Also I've been suffering from the Black Death for the past week and was having trouble concentrating on the fic I wanted to be writing, between coughing up pieces of lung. So instead I wrote 7K words of this. Go fig.

SGA: Still Haven't Found {7,500 words}
light R, het; John/Nancy backstory; spoilers for "Outcast" but not much else
"Already done that. Not very good at it." Three years of friendship and marriage and love and heartbreak.

Comments

[iamza.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this. I like the non-slash take on John's marriage, and that the marriage broke down because both partners went into it expecting, maybe, too much of themselves and each other.

I love stories that don't go the John=Kirk route. I like that it took Nancy and John a while to get intimate in your story. It makes sense to me that John would be a little more reserved with someone he really cared about, not wanting to rush things or push Nancy away. And also, not really knowing what Nancy wanted or expected from him -- partly, I suspect, because Nancy didn't want to rush John either.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah, I can't buy the Kirk!John interpretation. It amuses me when Rodney goes on about it, because he's so obviously jealous that John is pretty and flirty enough to draw the hot alien babes like moths (and I'll leave it up in the air who exactly he's jealous of!), but for all that women come onto him, John almost never responds like he's that interested. This season I've been coming around to the closeted gay reading, but mostly I see John as, if not actually asexual, then mostly unmotivated...he likes flying more than sex.

[iamza.livejournal.com]

You know, I think Outcast was maybe the first time when I really started to appreciate the closet gay reading for John. Up till then, well, I love John/Rodney fanfic, but it was like the John in SGA and the John in the stories were two distinctly different people to me.

And I can totally see John as being more interested in flying than in sex.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about fic being different than the show, it took me a bit to adjust my brain to read the slash (AUs helped!) Oddly what throws me off more in McShep is Rodney...John's sexuality was always so uncertain that I could see him as anything, but Rodney as openly gay threw me for a loop. Bi maybe, but I can't believe he's faking his lust for all those various women...!

[naye]

You made me cry. Which surprised even ME! I mean. I'm not sobbing my heart out here, but at the end of the story I teared up and it hurt, because - this is so raw and painful and true.

It's a gorgeous study of John Sheppard, and it's a fantastic portrait of a woman who could love him and marry him and divorce him, and neither of them is at fault, really, it's just... it didn't work out. Words that look so flat written out like that, but when the whole story is it didn't work out it's complex and difficult and tragic enough to break your heart. My heart.

Reading, I fell in love with John along with Nancy, because - well, it's John. With his being uncomfortable in uniform and smiling among his friends and going home to analyze the aerodynamics of Top Gun...! (I absolutely adored that insight into his character; that he's got a science degree he loved getting but doesn't want to show off, because he's John.)

The first flight he took Nancy on... It's at this point I keep superimposing the image of John on Atlantis on the image of John with Nancy, and the jubilant irony of the last line really got me: someday, somehow, somewhere on Earth, John Sheppard will find that place where he's at home. Not Earth. Not even in this galaxy. But he has, hasn't he? I could recognize the John that Nancy met in the John that first came to Atlantis, but now? Leaving his door open for his friends to come talk - actually talking to his friends, even about feelings...? He's come such a long way. He'll never change, he'll never be other than who he is, but on Atlantis, he's got a place where he can be himself and be loved. Which might be all he ever needed.

So in a way, despite breaking my heart, this is a HAPPY kind of story. They're both carry hurts from their time together, but those hurts are healing, and each one of them has found something now. Something better, for them.

I can't believe you were putting this story down! It's BEAUTIFUL, and don't you dare disagree with me!

*hugs*

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ahhh but I didn't want to break your heart or make you to cry! (well, maybe a little bit, in a good way. But really, I didn't send it to you because I didn't want to force a sad 'shippy piece on you, and then you go and read it anyways... <3)

Ahhh I'm glad you fell in love with John, because you're supposed to...because we all know how lovable John is, but we also know that it's never going to work out for anyone on Earth who loves him, because...that's Earth, that's not John's home. So from the moment Nancy meets him, we know it's a bad idea, and even she suspects it's a bad idea, and yet she can't help herself. I was hoping that she didn't come across as too helpless or hopeless (really, I wanted more with her career, because one reason she got along with John is because she does love her job, and understands that commitment better even than the relationship one...except I couldn't figure out what her job was, not knowing a thing about the DoD or the DHS, so I kinda had to fudge those details terribly ^^;;;)

But you thought it was happy! hee - I meant it to be, really, that it's sad that what they had failed, but Nancy's happy with her life now (even if she's never going to quite stop loving John, because, well, John) and John has found his place, even though she doesn't know it. I wonder if later, seeing him with Ronon, and doing his duty, that she might start to guess...

Okay, it's beautiful! No disagreement!

And thank you~~! ^_^

[naye]

I know you didn't, which is why I loved it. ♥ You are such a sweet Neechan!

Oh, how could I not fall in love with John! The way you described him - he's not a woobie, but he's... different, which is always interesting. And there's something about him, aside from the physical, that just... yeah. At least Nancy was bright enough to see that it wasn't necessarily something good, or something she could change, but. Oh. Yes.

And she's the farthest thing from helpless or hopeless I could imagine! She's human, but she is extremely competent and composed and smart enough to know her own mind and brave enough to act on it and - I admired her, all through the story. I felt terribly sorry for her and John both, but she does what has to be done, and she does it with such grace... I'm glad she has someone new in her life, who can be the partner she always needed.

Of course I thought it was happy! It wasn't like John or Nancy spent their entire lives miserable - I like the timeline you've given them, of three years from their first meeting to their divorce. It's - long enough to really know someone very well, and short enough that your life won't end with the relationship. Especially not with two such strong individuals, who each have their own thing - and when we know that John's thing is Atlantis, which is home and family and flying and finding everything he never even knew he needed. ♥

I wonder if later, seeing him with Ronon, and doing his duty, that she might start to guess...

She might. Ronon is a very attentive friend, and John really does let him inside his personal space in a way I don't think he did with anyone before Atlantis. So she'll either guess, or just assume that he finally went and got himself a boyfriend. XD (I cannot get over how Outcast SO supports the "closeted gay" reading of John!)

Write more~! Even if you think it's weird and dark and not good - the last two stories you've warned me away from I've LOVED, and they've made me laugh and cry and you are FABULOUS. ♥♥♥