This fic was inspired by my friends at the Sparky thread at Gateworld's Forums, who were having fun writing song-based fics. This song, by Lara Fabian on her Nue album, really caught me. The lyrics, of a mother singing about a child--either one who she's lost to adulthood or something else--was so sad, and yet Lara sings it so sweetly, it's just captivating. It inspired this fic, which is a great deal sadder than I normally write about, but one I feel proud to have worked on. Google the song to get a true sense of how Lara blends the sadness of the words with the sweet tone of a Mother's love.
Bambina
Lara Fabian
Rien qu'un petit espace
Une toute, toute petite trace
Un petit mal qui reste
Tout c'que tu détestes
Je prends ma petite place
D'un trait de larmes j'efface
Les souvenirs terrestres
Qui traînent dans ma veste
Bambina tu me manques
Les photos qui me hantent
Sont des parfums de rue
Où je ne vais plus
Bambina...
De ta petite voix
Je parle de nous tout bas
Et quand ça les fait rire
Ça me déchire
Car d'apparence tu vois
Je ne te ressemble pas
J'ai plutôt l'air de celle
Qui grandit en toi
Bambina tu me manques
Les photos qui me hantent
Sont des parfums de rue
Où je ne vais plus
Bambina si vivante
Reviens, j'ai mal au ventre
Bambina, dans ce corps
J'ai ton coeur qui bat
Je t'attends en bas dans la rue
Où l'autobus ne passe plus
Je chante à tue-tête
Tu verras j'ai la même voix
Bambina tu me manques
Les photos qui me hantent
Sont des parfums de rue
Où je ne vais plus
Bambina...
Reviens, j'ai mal au ventre
Bambina, dans ce corps
J'ai ton coeur qui bat
Rien qu'un petit espace
Une toute, toute petite trace
English Translation (courtesy my friend Probie at Gateworld)
Only a small space.
A tiny, tiny trace.
A little evil that remains.
Everything you hate.
I take my little place.
With a stroke of tears, I erase
earthly souvenirs
lying around in my jacket
Bambina I miss you.
The photos that haunt me
are perfumed streets
where I'm not going anymore.
Bambina ...
With your little voice
I speak about us softly
And when they laugh
It tears me apart
Because apparently you see
I don't look like you.
I rather look like the person
who grows in you.
Bambina I miss you.
The photos that haunt me
are perfumed street
where I'm not going anymore.
Bambina, so alive.
Come back, my stomach hurts
Bambina, in this body
I have your heart beating.
I'm waiting down the street
where buses can not pass.
I sing loudly.
You see, I have the same voice.
Bambina I miss you.
The photos that haunt me
are perfumed street
where I'm not going anymore.
Bambina ...
Come back, my stomach hurts.
Bambina, in this body
I have your heart beating.
Only a small space
A tiny, tiny trace.
--/--
Bambina
It was just a small thing; a tiny trace buried within world-weary eyes that let her know the truth.
For the past few weeks, she'd been receiving visitors like him. They had come in droves, driven to her doorstep by a small obituary buried on page twenty-seven of the local paper.
Diplomat killed overseas.
The military had told her that, owing to Elizabeth's extremely classified position, there couldn't be much more said. It hadn't mattered. Ceremonies and notices, medals and honors, couldn't bring back her daughter, now lost. Maybe, in the future, she'd wish there had been more, but for now the emptiness was all she really felt.
Lately the visits had slowed; a few former colleagues and friends here and there. Everyone who'd mattered to Elizabeth had come and gone very quickly in those first few weeks. She didn't expect anyone else of significance to appear.
But he did, on a day that was not a day for visiting. Slate gray skies, murky and heavy with drizzle, hung overhead and there was a tinge of frost in the air. When the doorbell rang, Sedgewick eagerly barking at the unexpected visitor, it had surprised her. As had the unkempt appearance of the man who stood just beyond the archway. Handsome enough, but also a little less than perfect: hair damp and spiky from the rain, suit wrinkled, shirt untucked. Different from the other well-dressed, polished professionals who had once claimed Elizabeth's acquaintance.
She recognized him, though she couldn't say from where. So many of Elizabeth's former colleagues had strolled across this threshold in the last few weeks that the where's and when's of their acquaintance with her daughter had blurred together. In the end she supposed it didn't matter; he would fade back into the fog of misery and despair, as everyone else had.
Sedge pushed forward, slipping from her grip, as the man accepted her invitation in. He didn't ignore the dog or back away, as many of the others had. Instead he caught the retriever's forelimbs in his arms, studying him for a moment, a pained look on his face.
"This is Sedgewick," she remarked as she pulled the dog away. "I apologize, he's a little excitable."
The man nodded, though his attention remained fixed on Sedge. He stood there, watching from the foyer, as she hustled the discontented retriever back into the kitchen, those expressive eyes observing them until they were both out of sight.
--/--
"I honestly didn't expect to meet anyone else from the military after General O'Neill, Colonel Sheppard. I was under the impression that whatever…happened…couldn't be spoken about, least of all by the military."
"Yeah, well…I guess…I wanted to pay my respects." His eyes flickered back to the coffee mug in his hand. He'd done a terrible job of pretending to be interested in her conversation and the coffee. The visit was obviously a lot more difficult on him than he let on; his struggle to avoid looking at the mementos and photos placed around the house, and how his tongue tripped over Elizabeth's name, proved that.
"It was kind of you."
He moistened his lips, offering her a soulless little smile. She wasn't quite sure what to say. With the others, it had been easy conversation: how wonderful Elizabeth was, what she'd meant to them, to the world, to the nation. All joyful trips down memory lane that had eased their burden and doubled her pain.
This man—he was different, and she couldn't figure out why.
"How exactly did you know Elizabeth?"
His attention, wandering across the empty living room, snapped back to her. "Ah…I was her…military commander. Second in command. Sort of. Actually we never really figured out how that was supposed to work. But…somehow it did."
A flash of a memory crept through her mind.
"He's a good commander, Mom, and I don't understand why on Earth…" Elizabeth smirked at the expression for a moment, for some reason, "I don't understand why they'd think for even one moment that I'd want to replace him…"
"Of course. You're John. Elizabeth mentioned you often."
He stared back at her in surprise, sadness shadowing his handsome features, and she suddenly remembered where she'd seen him. A photo album, one of many, lay spread across the coffee table, and she picked it up, thumbing through to the last few pages. The photograph she was looking for was near the bottom. "She gave this to me one of the few times she came home from wherever you were stationed."
He clenched his jaw, keeping his expression stoic, though the flimsy photo paper trembled in his hand.
They were standing on a balcony with a beautiful seascape behind them. Elizabeth couldn't explain where or when it had been taken, but she'd said that the photographer had been a friend of hers named Carson Beckett, a doctor in their operation, and he'd wanted a few mementos of his time with them. He'd apparently stumbled upon them having a meeting on the balcony and asked for a picture.
This photograph had been given to her after his death. She'd brought it back home for 'safekeeping'.
It showed them together, John with his arm awkwardly about Elizabeth's shoulders, her own arms crossed behind her back. She was staring up at him in amusement; he was looking down, staring into her eyes with such a kind and happy expression on his face that it had raised the immediate question of who exactly he was.
Elizabeth snatched the picture back, studying it. "That's my military commander. John. I've mentioned him before. And no, Mom, before you ask, nothing's going on."
"Are you sure?"
"I don't know how Carson managed to snap this at just this moment," Elizabeth murmured, deflecting, as she was so good at doing. "I mean, Carson insisted on John's putting his arm around me and John said something funny about what exactly that implied, I remember that. But he only looked at me for a moment; the rest of the time we were smiling at the camera."
"Maybe it's because you were looking at him like that."
"Mom!"
"Well, it's true. I don't blame you, he's handsome enough."
Elizabeth tucked one strand of hair behind her ear, raising an eyebrow. "That he is. But it doesn't mean anything."
She'd not responded, just cleared a few things away from the table. Elizabeth fixed her with an uncharacteristically pouty stare. "Stop it."
"I didn't say anything."
"I know what you're thinking."
"I doubt that."
"Look, it's just not…done. It's not even…we don't think about things like that. Ever." Her eyebrow arched higher. "Not even as a joke."
"Of course."
Elizabeth widened her eyes, throwing her arms up in the air. "Mom!"
"All I'm saying is that you never used to look at Simon that way." She smiled, heading towards the kitchen. "And he certainly never looked at you like that."
After that the protests had stopped, Elizabeth staring down at the picture in her hand, a half-worried, half-pleased expression on her face.
Tears blurred her vision as the memory faded. Colonel Sheppard leaned forward, a tissue from the table in his hand.
"You all right?" he asked softly, his own eyes rimmed with red. The edge of the picture had a crease in it from the grip of his thumb and forefinger. He extended it towards her.
"I think you should probably keep it," she said. "It's a nice picture."
"I…" he studied it again, setting his mouth in a thin line. "I don't think I…"
"Please, Colonel. I know you probably don't get many things like this wherever you're at. Consider it a gift."
He nodded, still looking uncertain, though he took the picture and placed it in his jacket pocket. His eyes lifted to a telescope sitting in one corner of the room, dusty and careworn. "I had one of those when I was a kid."
"That was Elizabeth's," she remarked, her voice choked with sadness. "We bought it for her when she was just a child. She always loved looking into space."
To her surprise, his expression lightened, and he smiled, almost a smirk. If it was that, the desire to keep him smiling, or her own wish to remember happier moments, she wasn't sure. But it prompted her to reach for another of the albums littering the table.
This one was much older than the first she'd grabbed; she flipped it open to some more pictures, taken with a camera that these days would be considered antique.
A ten-year-old Elizabeth, with curly hair and a smattering of freckles, carrying a model of the solar system onto a school bus. She flipped the album around so he could see it. "She was in sixth grade. She won first prize for it."
He grabbed the album, staring with unconcealed fascination at the photo, more at the girl than at the universe model. "Wow."
"She loved working on it. Though science wasn't her best subject. Social Studies and English were."
"Makes sense," he murmured, his eyes wandering down the other pictures on the page. They stopped on a photo of her holding up some freshly caught fish, standing next to her father. He looked back up questioningly, as though the thought of Elizabeth baiting a hook was unfathomable to him. Which it probably was, in the last few years. She'd done very little of that after her father had passed away, and her work had always come first.
"That was in Guam on vacation. She was very proud of those fish."
He nodded absently, flipping the page and studying more pictures, devouring the remnants of Elizabeth's childhood. She rose quietly, clearing away the coffee and plates. For the next few minutes she heard no sound from the living room other than the careful flipping of pages or an occasional shuffle as he reached for another of the albums that littered the floor and tables.
She leaned forward over the kitchen countertop, holding her breath as he tore through the memories of her baby girl, widening his own knowledge of the part of Elizabeth's world she'd known so very well, and he'd never known.
And yet, there was so much of her daughter's life she'd known nothing about, of which she'd never been a part. It had started with the first few volunteer jobs Elizabeth took for the government; the secret trips to areas she wasn't allowed to speak of. Elizabeth had always been honest with her, but never forthcoming—she was a quiet, reserved girl who'd been intently focused on what she considered important. If she chattered, it was out of nervousness or discomfort, not because she felt the need to bury silence.
The longer and more frequent those trips grew, the more darkness fell over her daughter's life, and the more invisible it became. The less she knew of it. The less it made way back into her house, into dusty photographs and framed newspaper clippings.
She'd been grateful for Simon at first; he was a permanence that she believed might finally bring Elizabeth back around to her, to bring that life back into a world of normalcy. But while Simon's ordinariness kept Elizabeth grounded, it never brought her home.
It was no wonder he'd been abandoned, like everything else.
--/--
How long she'd been standing at the counter, she didn't know, but when she returned to the living room Colonel Sheppard—John—was on his feet, head tilted, and staring at the framed photographs that lined the walls. At the moment his focus was on Elizabeth's senior portrait, a lovely shot taken by a professional studio.
His eyes travelled to the graduation pictures: high school, the college one where she wore a mortarboard and smiled proudly at the camera, and finally the doctoral degree, where her smile, older and matured, was much more reserved. It was one of the first ones Simon was in as well. On the mantle next to it sat a picture of the two of them during holidays, calm and content, as they'd always been. John's gaze lingered on that one for a moment, then flickered away to the double frame hung over the fireplace.
Her favorite pictures of Elizabeth were there. In the first, she was just a toddler, dressed in a fancy red dress, smiling with the joy only a child can. In the second, the exact same size, she was grown, also wearing a red dress, her face framed by short brown hair and also bearing a smile, though like everything about the grown Elizabeth, it was more reserved. He drew closer to it, his hands rising to his hips.
"She had that made for me before she left."
When he turned back to her, he wore an expression so sad it nearly took her breath away.
"As a gift," she continued softly, avoiding his stare and trying to keep the sorrow out of her voice. "She wanted to give me something to remember her by. A compliment to her baby picture. I think I realized it was a sign of what she was getting into, but…"
The pictures before her blurred again and she moved away from him, bending to gather the albums he'd left on the sofa.
"I barely remember her like this," he said after a moment, his voice gritty. When she looked back towards him, he held a hand up near his face. "Her hair. It was like that at the beginning, but lately it was longer. Curlier."
"She preferred it curly. Said she didn't have to deal with it," she replied with a small smile. "But she straightened it out then to look more 'professional.' I'm surprised she grew it out."
He nodded in response, turning his attention back to the pictures.
She got the living room in some kind of manageable order and he didn't disturb her, allowing her a few more moments' peace. When he made his way back towards the sofas, his attention turned to a few of the family portraits they'd taken: her, Elizabeth and her father when he was alive. "Wonder why she never took any of these with her."
"The pictures? I don't know. Elizabeth was strange about those kinds of things. She wasn't attached to pictures that much."
"She had a photo of the dog on her desk."
"Sedgewick?" That explained his reaction from earlier. She arched an eyebrow, reaching for a small photo of Elizabeth holding Sedge as a puppy that was sitting on an end table. "That's not surprising. She loved that dog. I sometimes wondered if she didn't prefer him to people."
Sedge barked in response to his name, which raised another small smile from John.
A memory of Elizabeth playing with Sedge in the backyard of her and Simon's house flashed through her mind. Of the time the picture she held was taken, Elizabeth holding Sedge as a puppy, absolutely delighted with him. Of the look on her face when she had to leave him at her mother's, almost as sad as saying goodbye to her family.
Sedge nuzzled Elizabeth's hand, as if he could sense the sadness. She rubbed behind his ears once more, laying a cheek on his head, then rose.
As always, she maintained her composure. "Well, that should be everything."
"Are you sure Simon doesn't mind?"
Elizabeth smirked a little. "Sedgewick was always my dog, not Simon's. He's fine with it. Besides, he'll be on call most weeks, so who knows when he'd be home? Sedge is better off here. Aren't you, big guy?"
The retriever barked in response. Elizabeth smiled, then sighed, turning to her. "Well, it's about that time."
"Do you have everything you need?"
"Considering it's not much, yes."
"Have they given you any idea when you'll be able to come back?"
The brightness in Elizabeth's eyes faded. "Sorry, Mom. Where we're going—there's just no way of knowing when we might be able to come back."
"Holidays? You can't even call? What about Simon?"
"He'll be fine."
"Are you sure? Are you really sure about this, Elizabeth?"
Darkness crept over her daughter's face, and she reached forward, embracing her. "I don't mean to sound critical with your choices. I just want to make sure that you're doing something that won't leave you with regrets."
Elizabeth hugged her tightly, sadness palpable in her voice. "I'm not. But if I didn't do this, I think I would regret it more." She released her, sniffling. "I will miss you. Don't ever believe that I won't. Or that this was an easy choice, Mom, because it wasn't."
"I know, sweetheart."
Sedge barked again, and Elizabeth smiled through her tears. "You too, Sedge." She bent down, grasping the dog in a full hug. He stilled for a moment, save his tail, which wagged happily. "I'll miss you, too. I'll do my best to come back, I promise."
She had kept that promise. She returned, if only briefly, always excited, always happy. With stories of what she could tell, of the new cultures she'd encountered and the people who made up her mission. Of Carson, of a man named Rodney McKay—and of John Sheppard, especially, who she'd once said she trusted with her life.
That life had been one her mother couldn't share. No one could, who lived in the world as it was. Somewhere, as she'd grown and matured, Elizabeth had left them behind. Only those who went with her really knew what her life had been about in those final years, and how it had been lived. People like Colonel Sheppard, who'd understood that part of her daughter better than she ever had, or ever would.
He watched her now, his face stoic and sad, trying to read her thoughts. It struck her how terribly different he looked from the man in the picture. As though something had gone out inside his soul.
And suddenly she understood. Something had. What he'd lost, and what she'd lost, too. Two halves of a whole, standing at different ends of a life that would never again move forward, for either of them.
He noticed her expression change and his eyes widened, giving him an almost childlike appearance. There was no help for the pain that held them both; no way to offer comfort to the other.
Elizabeth was gone. All that was left were the photographs and memories, haunting them with the ghosts of a life they would never again share.
It was a reality that had hit her only a few times during these last few long weeks; the emptiness of the loss buried in a haze of duty, of guests, of arrangements and exhaustion and the need to forget. But on occasion, the reminder bore its ugly head; that what she'd loved was gone—her baby girl—and she was never coming back.
The sobs came suddenly, without warning. She clutched the photo to her chest, trying to control them. Somewhere in the rational part of her mind she knew it was inappropriate, that she shouldn't cry in front of strangers, that she was hurting him, too, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. The pain was too strong, her own grief too overwhelming, to care. Through the haze she could see his face crumple, eyes glistening, though he had the self-control to contain the tears.
--/--
It had taken a few minutes to pull herself together. She retreated to the bedrooms so he didn't have to hear her tears, and she didn't have to see his face. It didn't help much; everywhere she went there were traces of Elizabeth and she couldn't escape them. Only the need to find peace allowed her the self-control to grasp it.
When she returned Colonel Sheppard was seated on the sofa, staring at the floor. He heard her enter and glanced over; able to gather himself much more quickly than she, though he was obviously concerned.
"I'm very sorry. I just…"
"No. I mean, don't apologize." He cleared his throat. "I should have thought about this, you know, before. But I felt like I had to do something. I owed that to her." He smiled that soulless smile again, clasping his hands. "Maybe I'm being selfish. I wanted a part of her back. But I didn't want…"
"To hurt me," she finished softly. He caught her eyes, nodded.
And there it was—the small thing she'd noticed earlier, a tiny trace buried beneath the weariness of the world and the burdens he bore. A hint of tenderness, of some kind of powerful regret, and most of all, of love. He'd loved Elizabeth. Loved her as much, if in a different way, as she had.
His love didn't include the bright innocence of her childhood, or the memories of her growing up, but it was just as important. He'd known the Elizabeth who had lived beyond her reach. The woman the girl had become, whose last few years of life had been filled with the happiest of times, but had never extended to the world within these walls.
She'd felt the heartbeat of that little life inside her so many years ago, held her when she was helpless, guided her as she'd grown. Missed her when she was gone. Loved her. Outlived her.
And known so little about her, in the end.
"Then help me," she said.
He looked startled for a moment. "I…"
"Tell me about her. What she was like these last few years. Something. Anything that you can. There's so much I don't know. Share her with me. I can do the same for you."
She caught his hand in her own and felt him automatically stiffen, not use to this much human contact, and probably not this much emotion. A perfect compliment to Elizabeth, who would have respected and appreciated that kind of person; a man whose heart was hidden, and yet so much like her own. She released him after a moment, after he acknowledged her with a small nod, and settled back into the couch.
"Ah…let's see. I…we…met at a military base in…well; it was a base that was out there. Elizabeth was working on a project, which, as it turned out, she needed my…help with." John looked over at her, his eyes fixed intently on her face. "She trusted me, though God knows why."
She smiled.
An embarrassed grin flitted across his face. "Anyways, it wasn't easy." His voice took on a pleasant lilt, and his eyes lit up a little—just a shadow of the man who'd smiled in that picture on the balcony, but he was there, somewhere. She wondered if he'd ever smile the same way, though in her own heart she knew the most probable answer.
Sweetheart. I know you'd hate this—people holding on to you so tightly. But we only do it because you were such a part of who we are. Understand that, if you can. Forgive us for it.
And know that you were loved.