callmemajor

For some reason, the door to the Bar has been consistently showing up in Lorne's mother's laundry room the entire time he's been visiting her.

So it's a somewhat gentle whirring, a pleasant warmth, and the scent of fabric softener that greets them when he leads Jack through the door.

"It's not as exciting as Atlantis," he says with an apologetic smile.


[ooc: Adult content within.]

Lorne always thought his next trip back to Earth would be a happy occasion. He figured he’d visit his mom, maybe his sister, see if he could get a door to Milliways to show up so he could bring Jack somewhere with jets.

He didn’t expect to walk through the ‘gate carrying a casket, certainly not one draped with a Scottish flag.

During the funeral, Lorne watches Carson’s mother. She’s surrounded by friends and family, people Carson knew, cared for, healed. He isn’t at all surprised to see so many people there. He’s almost surprised there aren’t more. Mrs. Beckett looks tiny, dressed all in black, dwarfed by the crowd of mourners.

Afterwards there’s food. Lorne supposes it’s a way to cope. Something to do when things get too awkward for speech. He spots Mrs. Beckett across the room and makes his way over to offer his condolences.

He wants to say, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. God, please yell at me. Hit me. Do something. All I had to do was go fishing with him. I killed him. It was me. It was just a fucking painting…”

Instead, he takes her hand and whispers, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She hugs him as though it were his son who’d died and says, “I’m so glad my boy had friends like you. I’m so glad he wasn’t lonely.”

Lorne can’t stand the way she looks at him like he’s some kind of hero, can’t stand the way Carson’s nephews gaze adoringly at his uniform. He wants to tell them he’s not what they think, wishes they’d glare at him instead. He’s sure his guilt is written across his face, and he almost wonders why no one has yet called him a murderer.

He carefully extracts himself from her embrace and mumbles some sort of excuse, suddenly desperate to get some air.

Threading his way past family members, friends, colleagues, he pushes the front door open and steps outside.

He’d say he’s getting tired of being called in to save Team Shep’s collective ass, but he’d be lying. He gets a little kick out of gloating about it afterwards. “Guess who had to call in the backup, yet again? Oh, right, sir. That’d be you.”

Still, he is getting a little tired of the trill of fear that runs down his spine when he thinks that maybe this time will be the one where he’s too late and they lose someone.

Like Teyla. Teyla who got stuck in some sort of energy signature life-boat with god knows how many other people.

Or like Sheppard, who crash landed a centuries-old spaceship into an unknown planet.

But this wasn’t that time. This time, he made it there, and Beckett patched everyone up, and the post-mission physicals were routine and boring, just the way he likes them, and the debriefing was put off until tomorrow to give them all a chance to recover.

So Lorne, tired and dirty and probably more sweaty than he’d like, trudges back to his quarters, having lost the helmet of his spacesuit somewhere along the way, and opens the door.