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and as I try to make my way
Like all the rest of SGA fandom, I've read and loved Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synecdochic. Though, two and a half sessions of BAWLING MY SOUL OUT (especially after writing this just this morning) later, I'll stop lying to myself about being able to handle the DVD commentary tonight.
Good frelling Christ, that hurt. The crying that is, not the story, the story was great, not at all painful and lovely and hopeful like Duran Duran's Ordinary World, (YSI) except in the way that beyond there merely being an ordinary world still turning out there, there are other ways for it to be extraordinary than the ones you'd grown to know and love and will carry with you forever. Of course, they're paid tribute to in all the little ways in which Rodney never moved on - He wears the standard two-tag set. No one gets close enough to notice that one of them is printed with a different name and deliberately staying away from any former Lanteans and his PTSD - but the real way to pay tribute to your inspiration is to put it to good ends, which he does better than the honor that 10 Nobel Prizes could bestow.
"Harris." Rodney stops him as he's turning to leave. "You said there were other alternatives. What were they?"
The look on Harris's face means that every inch of last year was worth it, even if Rodney hadn't fully known what he was doing at the time. "The military came to me," he says. All traces of humor have bleached away. "They said they'd fund my Ph.D. and all I had to do was promise to give them four years afterwards. They said it was so classified they couldn't tell me what it was, but it'd be the chance of a lifetime."
Because of course they'd come after Rodney's progeny, but along with all the other amazing things Rodney teaches them are that nothing comes from nothing and loyalty isn't a bartered good, which, failsafe to returning to the lost city or not, ensures they'll never put themselves in a spot to make that choice.
"General Carter also included a verbal message. She said to tell you that if this isn't enough of an enticement, you should name your price, and if it's in her power, she'll pay it gladly to get you back on base. She said to say that in your place, she'd probably have done the same thing, but things are different now and you can come back. Should come back. She said to tell you they need you to, and I quote, sir, 'fix whatever it was they did before they left, because the situation is getting critical'. And that if you want it, she'll do her best to get you home."
Really though, just that last word, home. It's not the first time it appears in the story and it's not strictly true anymore, especially not if Samantha Carter knows about either Rodney and John or just why the city has gone dormant for good. But it was once, possibly the first for many of them (most arguably Rodney and John), and that alone is an incredible, improbable enough feeling, like learning that aliens exist or flying through space or the way a ZPM always feels a little warm and makes your fingers tingle if you're holding it for longer than a moment.
Which brings us to the solid 20 minutes in which I just didn't stop crying at all. It kind of happened in two parts: First, Rodney telling Atlantis that he loves her and asking her never to work for anyone again, then the scene with Zelenka as Rodney wonders whether the rest of the team would forgive him if they knew it was because of him that they could ever go back. Of course he would, and of course they would, and none of that makes any of it better, but what's better when the alternative means the end of the world as they know it?
The final scene in Arlington laid waste to whatever was left of me. That anything about their experience on Atlantis is "worth" anything else is a ludicrous notion. There's no price to be paid for coming back alive when no one expected them to, no tears to be shed for an experience that gave them all something to treasure, and no logic to regret for being brave enough to take on the greatest adventure of their lives. I love that while Rodney remembers, he doesn't dwell, and he makes the best of his past for his new life. Because as much as the thought of any of them, but especially John and Rodney, having to fathom life after Atlantis breaks me, I also know that experiences like that, their joy, buoy you through the times that are darker or harder. Because knowing that they happened means knowing what the world can be, and as improbable as it may seem will be again if you have the will to make it so.
synecdochic. Though, two and a half sessions of BAWLING MY SOUL OUT (especially after writing this just this morning) later, I'll stop lying to myself about being able to handle the DVD commentary tonight.Good frelling Christ, that hurt. The crying that is, not the story, the story was great, not at all painful and lovely and hopeful like Duran Duran's Ordinary World, (YSI) except in the way that beyond there merely being an ordinary world still turning out there, there are other ways for it to be extraordinary than the ones you'd grown to know and love and will carry with you forever. Of course, they're paid tribute to in all the little ways in which Rodney never moved on - He wears the standard two-tag set. No one gets close enough to notice that one of them is printed with a different name and deliberately staying away from any former Lanteans and his PTSD - but the real way to pay tribute to your inspiration is to put it to good ends, which he does better than the honor that 10 Nobel Prizes could bestow.
"Harris." Rodney stops him as he's turning to leave. "You said there were other alternatives. What were they?"
The look on Harris's face means that every inch of last year was worth it, even if Rodney hadn't fully known what he was doing at the time. "The military came to me," he says. All traces of humor have bleached away. "They said they'd fund my Ph.D. and all I had to do was promise to give them four years afterwards. They said it was so classified they couldn't tell me what it was, but it'd be the chance of a lifetime."
Because of course they'd come after Rodney's progeny, but along with all the other amazing things Rodney teaches them are that nothing comes from nothing and loyalty isn't a bartered good, which, failsafe to returning to the lost city or not, ensures they'll never put themselves in a spot to make that choice.
"General Carter also included a verbal message. She said to tell you that if this isn't enough of an enticement, you should name your price, and if it's in her power, she'll pay it gladly to get you back on base. She said to say that in your place, she'd probably have done the same thing, but things are different now and you can come back. Should come back. She said to tell you they need you to, and I quote, sir, 'fix whatever it was they did before they left, because the situation is getting critical'. And that if you want it, she'll do her best to get you home."
Really though, just that last word, home. It's not the first time it appears in the story and it's not strictly true anymore, especially not if Samantha Carter knows about either Rodney and John or just why the city has gone dormant for good. But it was once, possibly the first for many of them (most arguably Rodney and John), and that alone is an incredible, improbable enough feeling, like learning that aliens exist or flying through space or the way a ZPM always feels a little warm and makes your fingers tingle if you're holding it for longer than a moment.
Which brings us to the solid 20 minutes in which I just didn't stop crying at all. It kind of happened in two parts: First, Rodney telling Atlantis that he loves her and asking her never to work for anyone again, then the scene with Zelenka as Rodney wonders whether the rest of the team would forgive him if they knew it was because of him that they could ever go back. Of course he would, and of course they would, and none of that makes any of it better, but what's better when the alternative means the end of the world as they know it?
The final scene in Arlington laid waste to whatever was left of me. That anything about their experience on Atlantis is "worth" anything else is a ludicrous notion. There's no price to be paid for coming back alive when no one expected them to, no tears to be shed for an experience that gave them all something to treasure, and no logic to regret for being brave enough to take on the greatest adventure of their lives. I love that while Rodney remembers, he doesn't dwell, and he makes the best of his past for his new life. Because as much as the thought of any of them, but especially John and Rodney, having to fathom life after Atlantis breaks me, I also know that experiences like that, their joy, buoy you through the times that are darker or harder. Because knowing that they happened means knowing what the world can be, and as improbable as it may seem will be again if you have the will to make it so.