Perspectives 1.5
Suspicion: John

Orithain

Disclaimers: Do you think I’d be sitting here if I actually owned them?

Trust is such a little word but such a very big thing.

Someone should make that into a bumper sticker.

And then I’ll staple copies of it to the foreheads of some of the people around here. Like Bates. That guy really burns me.

I can see that he’s a good Marine and that he’s good at his job, but damn, he gives new meaning to gung ho. Hrm, gotta remember to use that expression around Rodney. He’ll get that look on his face like he just stepped in something his cat hacked up.

But getting back to Bates... Actually, he has a similar expression, and it’s reserved solely for screw-ups who get shoe-horned into a mission at the last minute, kill his commanding officer, and to add insult to injury, end up as his CO. Every time the guy looks at me, I know he’s wishing I’d been the one to die instead of Sumner.

Huh.

I wonder if that’s part of his problem with Teyla? Sumner died after being captured with her people, and she’s their leader. Maybe in some weird way Bates blames Teyla for the colonel’s death.

Or maybe he’s just a hardass Marine doing his job, trying to keep a handful of scientists alive, cut off from home, and dealing with a CO who never bothered to read the book, never mind follow it.

It doesn’t really matter when you come right down to it. He is a soldier, and he’ll follow my orders. It’s a good thing it’s never likely to come to a showdown between Elizabeth and me. I think everyone but Elizabeth knows what would happen. But she trusts me not to let that happen.

I guess maybe she does know, at that.

She trusts me. I don’t think anyone’s trusted me since my mom died. Well, except Tim Finnigan, but he knew that if I told anyone what we did that summer we were sixteen, I’d be outing myself too.

And I... I trust my team. Ford, Teyla... and Rodney.

Rodney.

I’m not sure how I came to trust the single most irritating man in two galaxies—and considering Kavanagh and Bates, that’s saying something—but I do. I know that he’ll bitch and moan and bitch some more, but in the end, he’ll come through.

And then when it’s all over, he’ll shove some new piece of Ancient tech under my nose and demand that I turn it on. Ford’ll laugh and try to name it, and Teyla will give us that amused look while she watches our backs.

Yeah, trust is a pretty big thing.

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