SGA fic: Breaking Up in Three Easy Clichés (+ challenge)

[xparrot]

Firstly - McShep HappyFic Challenge! I've been waiting for something like this to pop up, since we all need it now. Since I not-so-secretly love unmitigated and absurdly happy endings even more than I love angst, I am all over this one (...whether or not I'll be able to write something for it is another matter, but we'll see...) It's very open-ended, so go! Sign up! Be happy!


Then, changing gears so fast that I apologize for the whiplash, a new fic:

This is...okay, I don't like the McKay/Keller pairing. My reasons range from my fairly levelheaded disinterest in seeing any romance in the show, to the increasingly emotional and irrational. But I don't want to take out that dislike on Keller, not when we have so little show left to enjoy; I don't especially like the char as she's been written anyway, but I'm trying. So really, this is less an actual fic and more me working to come to terms with the pairing, such as it is. Such as I see it, so I can move on and see Jennifer in her own right. Any McKeller OTPers will probably want to give this one a pass, for your own good.

(And next I will return you to your regularly scheduled Rodney/TEAM/McShep squee, before gnine has my head for straying!)

SGA: Breaking Up in Three Easy Clichés {~3,300 words}
PG, McKay/Keller, spoilers for "The Last Man" and "The Shrine"

Read it on AO3

Comments

This is not going to fit in one comment

[naye]

Since I promised you favorite lines and such... (Oh, this is probably going to kill LJ's comment character limit!)

The thing with clichés is that they're cliché for a reason. Because sometimes there's nothing else to say.

Because - yes. I mean. Yes. Even things you don't say - cliché situations are cliché because they really do happen like that. And I love how the title is a play on this! You do such good titles. I'm jealous. ♥

"Yes. Um. Could we...wait? Until after dinner? Or another week or two? A month? Forever?

Oh, RODNEY. This is what really broke my heart, because - um, yeah. When you've been there, and you have that moment of your heart plunging through your stomach and all the way down to your toes, you really would give anything to stop it falling. Even if you know it will; it has to, it's all given way... But you want it to stop, before it's too late - even after it already is.

mistaking a crush for something more, mistaking friendship for romance, mistaking loneliness for desire

Especially the last one of these - oh, yes. This is so... human. And I'm right there with Jennifer. It's such an easy mistake to make, such a pleasant mistake to make. I don't blame her for one minute, and I think she's doing an absolutely fabulous job of righting her mistake (and his, too - because like she says, it's not him, or her, it's both of them and John, of course).

It's a shame she's never been good at holding grudges, because she could get a spectacularly satisfying one out of this.

This made me giggle. Oh, yes. Another feeling I know so well. But I'm glad she doesn't hold a grudge against John. That'd be sad.

salutatorian

I'm being totally lazy and asking you to explain this instead of Googling it. Also, this way I can confess that I keep thinking that Jennifer is actually Canadian. XD (What? She sounds Canadian! When even the Swede can tell, it's got to be pretty obvious.)

He's awfully cute when he's vulnerable. That, at least, is too fundamentally true for her to feel guilty about it.

Eeee, yes! Oh, Rodney. ♥

"You weren't interested in me until John told you we hooked up in an alternate timeline,"

And I'm with Jennifer on her reaction to this line. It's kind of hysterical and twisty and weird and oh, Pegasus. Life in a different galaxy is so interesting. Plus, I am so very on board with the idea that John told Rodney, and that's why he started crushing on Jennifer...

Ronon Dex!

I love the way you transcribed it to sound exactly like Rodney was saying it! Aww. Ronon Dex! :D

Told you so!

[naye]

she can see herself, desperate to save someone after losing everything.

Fabulous take on TLM, as always. And this part really moved me, for Jennifer, who is almost more bothered by the hypothetical loss of Rodney's team, of Atlantis, of Pegasus, than she is of her own hypothetical death by alien respiratory disease.

Right now, she's happy with her job, happy with her place on Atlantis. She wants friends to grab a beer with, to watch the stars with, a shoulder to cry on when she needs it; she's not looking for someone to come home to. She doesn't want the noise of obligatory conversation filling up the peace of her quarters every evening, doesn't feel like arguing about the room temperature every night. She can still put off thinking about kids for another few years, and plans to. She likes what she has now.

Yes, hi. Have a paragraph! A paragraph of oh, I recognize this...! I'll just substitute a couple of words for ones more right for me - "tea" for "beer", and "Japan" for "Atlantis" - and then I can post this paragraph and explain exactly where I'm at right now. It really does feel like you've been in my head. ♥ (In a non-creepy kind of way, of course.) It also feels like we somehow have a lot in common. Hmm. Who'd have thought! XD

And she hasn't seen Teyla in a couple days and is missing her Torren time

Awww! Torren time! So sweet.

"Okay," Jennifer repeats, after the doors close behind him, and she's only a little surprised to discover that it really is.

*mad flailing*

SO PERFECT! Love this one to BITS, it's a wonderful fic, because it's so real and true to the characters, and to this situation, and just... everything. It's a happy break up fic. You really are a genius, to be able to write something like a happy break up fic. *hugs*

Re: Told you so!

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

<33333

So glad you liked it! all of it!

Very glad you liked the title - I came up with it after I wrote the story and realized how many classic break-up cliches were in it. And then I wrote in Jennifer's early lines to make the title fit...

Poor John, so mixed up and mixing up all his friends with him.

And yes...Keller's final thoughts are one big "you don't need a guy to be happy! dammit!"

Oh, and "Salutatorian" is second to valedictorian - the person who graduates with the second highest GPA. (umm, I don't think it has anything to do with being Canadian or not - Canadian schools have it, too...? Canada's high schools work like the US's, I believe, though their university system is somewhat different...)

Thank you!!! <3