Sunset ^beta

Elizabeth tries to keep still, but Radek's talking around the pins in his teeth as his hands are lining up the edges of the rip in her sleeve. It’s small, but it was bothering her so much that Radek took her by the wrist and pulled her into the back room, where he plucked the emergency sewing kit from her hands and started matching the thread to her jacket. His words are background noise to the thumping in her ears, and she’s pretty sure he hasn’t actually swallowed any of the pins, but she has a flutter in her gut that’s less about the fear of having to perform an emergency laparotomy on him and more to do with the upcoming reception.  

Her suit is a loan from Dahlia Radim, a decent fit if a little wide in the shoulder, and her hair is tolerating the heat better than expected, but the rip is a spanner in the works and there’s sweat rolling down the back of her neck and today is so very important, she has to get this right, she has to—

“Breathe, Alžběta,” says Radek, his mouth finally pin-free.

Elizabeth’s lungs are starting to strain, stubbornly holding her breath in her chest so that her heart feels like it’s echoing off her rib cage. 

“Breathe,” Radek says again. She exhales until her lungs are empty, and then inhales until her body is full of something that almost feels like calm. She looks down at Radek’s quick fix as he tidies up the kit and runs a lint roller down her sleeve. None of the thread was the right shade of green, but his stitches are so well hidden that it doesn’t matter one bit. It’s like the rip didn’t even exist, and if that isn’t a shining example of her life since she arrived here, she doesn’t know what is.

It gives her the same warm feeling in her chest as the memory of Rodney, uncharacteristically quiet and amiable, joining John on stage just a few songs into a set instead of being hounded on at the last minute in what Elizabeth has realised is more of a New Athos tradition than any real aversion on Rodney’s part. If John had an inkling there was something afoot, he didn’t show it, just beamed a smile at Rodney’s half-turned back and strummed his way from a sultry song into a sappy one. To say the whole bar held its breath when Rodney pulled a ring box out from behind the keyboard would be an understatement. Not a sound was uttered when John’s fingers veered sharp on the strings, his eyes wide and fixed on the ring, and he all but dropped his guitar as Rodney dropped to one knee in front of half the town. Elizabeth remembers the silence to be thick with apprehension as they all waited for John to reply. She can’t remember the things he said to Rodney, barely heard him over the rambunctious cheering after the first “yes, yes, yes, of course”, but she can remember that John’s hat tumbled from his head as he kissed and kissed and kissed Rodney from his brows to his jaw, one hand cupping Rodney's face in reverence.

Rodney didn’t even complain that the other hand was digging the guitar into his back.

Elizabeth is struck by the intimacy of the memory, how it was their moment, but it was also everyone’s. There’s a joy in community that goes beyond the ordinary, a family found rather than assumed. It had been so easy to say yes when Rodney asked her to be his best woman, easy to help him plan a wedding in under a week, easy to stand by his side as he and John promised themselves to each other in vows that were incredibly lopsided, but no one could doubt that John's unscripted half a dozen words were as heartfelt as Rodney's thirteen card meticulously rehearsed speech.

But now it’s Elizbeth’s turn to stand in front of the grooms and the guests and share a little of the love she has for all of them and for this small town that has become more of a home than anything she has felt since she was a kid swinging on her gramma’s porch.

She heads to the bar, passing through Ronon’s enthusiastic décor, and takes her place at the top table, watching everyone pour into the room. People she knows well, people she would like to know better.

Ronon, who doesn't think twice before stepping in, and who has spent the past week mediating between a sullen John and a frantic Rodney when things like napkins and frosting seemed life or death.

Halling, who gave her a home when she had none, and Jinto, who laughs with her and not at her when she fumbles with her ASL at breakfast and accidentally says something she would never normally say in the presence of a child.

Torren, who held Rodney’s hand all the way up the aisle with his red firetruck tucked securely under the other arm, holding on to Teyla, whose love glued the cracks of her aching heart and made it stronger for all that it had been shattered into pieces.

Then Rodney, so fiercely protective of Teyla he made Elizabeth work hard to earn his respect, given at first reluctantly and then utterly without reserve, and John, whose sincerity and affection live in the words he’s not saying.

There’s a speech in Elizabeth's pocket that she’s agonised over every evening since Rodney’s proposal. It’s deep and meaningful and heartfelt, and completely inadequate in the face of Rodney and John’s love and commitment as they take their place between her and Ronon.

Maybe she should do a John and wing it, another first after a long career choosing her words carefully to connect disparate cultures.

Elizabeth stands, taps her glass with a spoon, until all eyes in the room fall on her. She takes a breath...