Stargate Atlantis: Art Imitating Life

[awanderingbard]

Title: Art Imitating Life
Characters: Major Lorne, misc. Atlantis people
Rating: G
Word Count: Approx. 500
Spoilers: General for Season 4
Summary: Lorne has a special gift.
Author's Notes: Writtten for bringthehappy. The prompt was 'Lorne, precognition'.




Lorne wasn’t really psychic. That involved mind-reading and seeing dead people. He wasn’t clairvoyant; that involved seeing things already in progress when you weren’t at the scene. He knew this because he had looked up those terms in a dictionary years ago. He’d settled on ‘precognitive’ (adjective, having knowledge of a future event or situation, esp. through extrasensory means.).

He’d always drawn. He used to paint, but had gotten out of the habit. He’d always sketched, though – on napkins, on files, on soda bottle labels. He couldn’t help it, his hand worked of its own accord. His mother did it too. He couldn’t count the number of times a signed school report had been returned with a rolling meadow or a frolicking deer on the back of it. He’d gotten used to the teasing of his teammates – none of it mean-spirited of course. When you’ve led your men in and out of danger a couple of hundred times, you could wear a chicken on your head and proclaim yourself King of the Cluck and they would still respect you. He found drawing relaxing and, in his job, he needed a little relaxing.

The first time it had happened, he’d drawn the exact skyline of Atlantis weeks before he’d arrived there. He’d decided that was a fluke. Likewise when he’d sketched a young boy playing with a toddler, only to receive an excited e-mail from his nephew who’d just found out he was going to be a brother. It kept happening, though. He’d draw ruins or strange dog creatures before encountering them on a planet the next week, or a small cottage before one of his men would show him pictures of the new house he and his wife had bought.

Of course, he didn’t ever know about anything useful. He couldn’t tell you that you were going to be killed in a wraith attack next Tuesday. He couldn’t tell you not to push that big red button because you’d start a meltdown in the Dantarian’s smelting plant. He only saw pleasing and happy things. He wondered if some alternative future self had somehow merged with his own brain and occasionally gave him insights. On Atlantis, anything was possible. In the end he had decided he didn’t care. He had more important things to worry about.

Today he was sketching on the back of a napkin in the mess, waiting for the right moment to intervene between Jordan (who was reading out a love letter) and Sanders (who’s girlfriend the letter was from).

“Did you hear?” Gregory interrupted, slamming down his tray on the table.

“What?” Lorne asked. Gregory always had gossip.

“Teyla’s pregnant!” he said.

Lorne’s hand stopped moving and he looked down at the napkin. An Athosian woman was peering happily down into a tribal-looking cradle. He felt the familiar tingle go down his spine and shook his head a little, smiling.

“I know.”

Comments

[semisweetsoul.livejournal.com]

This is really nice.