Title: Memory
Author: A.j.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Liz.
Rating: PG

Summary: Homesickness and reality.

***

Elizabeth remembers crying over coffee in a small café in Milan. The sun warm 
in her eyes and the smell of flour and sugar in the air.  It had been 
midsummer, so the air had been hot and dry even at 9am.

The memory hits her while she’s brushing her hair, preparing for the day’s 
first briefing.  The brush clatters to the counter under her mirror, bouncing 
once before hitting the floor, forgotten.

She misses Earth like an ice pick to the spine. Suddenly. Violently. 
Paralyzing and huge in her head.

Because she is not home. It is a place she lives with people she’s beginning 
to care about. The corridors are becoming familiar and easier to ignore as 
mundane or every day. But even in six months, it is not home. It is different 
and scary and unstable.

She didn’t know she’d miss her home planet until she was made overwhelmingly 
aware that her planet was actually home.

She is fraying and she knows it. Feels it deep inside and can’t quite work 
her hands fast enough to tie off the knots. She can feel everything 
stretching tight behind her eyes. Pulling. Breaking.

And she doesn’t know how to make it better.

-fin-