This is purging. Of evil. From evil people. Written in a few hours, but too much angst right from the top to fit the first sf_friday48 challenge. It has no title other than "The Insanity Below is Not My Fault." Sometime out beyond current SGA and BSG canon, because it's the only way I could get him alone on a jumper, which means that this isn't your standard issue John Sheppard and that identifying Cylons isn't a problem any more. Whatever. I wanted it out of my head.




"Oh, thank the gods, it really is something that flies."

John didn't think he was supposed to hear those muttered words, but he'd learned ages ago that jumpers concentrated sound like an alley funneled wind. And they were the first words he'd heard in, hell, more than a month, so...

"You see the way it's on the ground?" he casually asked.

"Frak!"

At that, he finally scooted out far enough that he wouldn't knock himself out on the controls sitting up, and for a moment he just blinked.

She was a fighter. Warrior, John corrected himself immediately, since she held the crouch she'd dropped in to easily, her hands up and stiff, ready to attack or defend. Plus, she was as sleekly muscled as Teyla had ever been. And attractive, he noticed as she blew her hair out of her face with an impatient puff. Not pretty, but...a mess, actually: blond hair pulled sharply back, but short enough to escape all over, and her clothes that hadn't seen water that wasn't rain in a very long time from the looks of stains on her tight tank top and loose pants.

Before he could take in any more, her head cocked, eyes narrowing, like she was trying to gauge the best way to knock his head against the controls anyway.

It was a surprise to feel a small huff of a laugh escape him. "I wouldn't," he said quickly, and only partly to cover the sound.

She frowned. "Wouldn't what?"

With a sigh, he brought up his right hand and the pistol that had been snug between his leg and the center console.

Her chin went up, and he elaborated, "Try it."

When he flipped off the safety he saw her recognition of the sound, and he hardened his voice to an almost-growl, hoping that would be enough.

"My ship."

A bit of a smirk twitched up the corner of her mouth. "But. It is a ship," she said.

So she knew what a gun was, but wasn't going to be intimidated by it. John shifted, pulling up his left knee for a more balanced stance. Like he could have a stance while sitting on his ass. "It's a ship on the ground," he pointed out, saying it slowly, just in case she was all muscle and no brain; you never could tell.

"Yeah. But it wasn't on the ground before." Her smirk grew. "So it flies."

Hell. He couldn't just shoot her. But he could sneer right back at her smirk, hope that sarcasm would throw her more than a threat. "It somehow managed to not look like a crash from wherever you were the other day?"

She snorted, and straightened without relaxing at all. "No. Looked like a really impressive crash."

Strike three. "Well, thanks," he said with a tight smile. "I do try."

She smiled back, so bright and cheerful that it made him blink again. "You did good. Congratulations. Now," the smile dropped away, and she took a deliberate, challenging step forward, "why don't you put down the weapon and get it fixed?"

~~

He should have shot her.

John decided that five days later, after Kara -- nice name; crazy woman -- had suddenly ground out a noise and landed a solid kick on the console.

Nose-to-nose with her, he pointed out, "Okay, already damaged. More damage is not going to help."

She arched against his hold, almost breaking free, but he just shoved her back against the bulkhead and made sure to keep her legs wide so she couldn't knee him again. That was when he should've shot her, he thought: right after he gritted his teeth and managed to straighten up enough to see her pointing his gun at his head.

"Never know until you try," she said brightly with a wide and false smile, her eyes hard and frustrated as she bucked once more.

"Jesus." He leaned in. He wasn't much heavier than her, or much stronger, he'd discovered that painful day. But he had leverage, too, and she had even less of a problem with kicking his ass than Teyla, even if she hadn't tried in a couple of days, so he used everything to hold her flat between him and the metal. "If thumping it on the side worked, do you really think I'd spend so much time twisted down there with the wires?"

Kara opened her mouth. He glared, putting as much cold command into it as any look he'd ever sent a subordinate. Her mouth snapped shut and her lips twisted.

"This would be so much easier if you could just be yanked out," she muttered.

John pressed in again, feeling the unyielding heat of her against every part of him, just like she pushed against every fact that he kept trying and trying to get her to understand. "It doesn't matter how urgently you have to get to where-ever. You don't have--"

"Yeah, yeah, special little genetic gene, or whatever," she said quietly. Musingly, he thought, and he automatically eased back at the about-face in tone before tightening his hands on her wrists again.

"How long are we stuck here playing with wires?"

He watched the tip of her tongue flick at her lips, slick against chapped, and snapped his eyes up to see her examining him, weighing him. For what? And when had he looked down at her mouth?

"Longer than if I had what I need," he said without thinking.

An eyebrow went up. "What?" she prompted, almost back to that cockiness that he'd gotten used to in the last few days, like she was going to go off and fetch whatever he needed, because obviously he couldn't do the job.

"Who, actually, but--" Grimacing, he stopped. Both of her eyebrows were raised now, speculation taking over. Annoyed with himself, he let go of her and stepped away.

Kara didn't move away from the bulkhead, though. If anything, she slouched further as she brought her feet together and shoved her hands into her pockets, pulling her baggy, too long pants even lower, and he was not looking at the pale strip of her stomach -- skin and muscle, that was all; he saw more when she stretched out kinks in her back, damn it -- that the move exposed.

"Long way away, huh?" she asked. "That sounds familiar."

Maybe shock would keep her quiet for a while, he thought as he turned his back on her and. "Dead," he said flatly.

He was almost to the hatch when her hand closed on his elbow and she spun him around to land on the left bench gaping at her scowl.

"People die." She slapped a hand on his chest, and then a knee landed between his thighs, pressing and threatening all at once. And John would have brought his hands up -- would have said to hell with the pain and broken her hold, and maybe her arm -- but then, leaning in as close now as he'd been before, she said: "And other people live. And, gods, if there's anything I've learned, it's that there's no reason; that's just what happens."

John turned his head away, once again, from a pained frown drawing lines between sympathetic eyes.

"There's no reason," she repeated, softer. "No reason that it wasn't you."

Whether it was that knowing statement, or her hand moving slowly from his chest to his shoulder, to his heart, and up to cup his neck, John didn't know. Something. Anything. With a shudder, he let it go.

"It's always not me."

Her hand clenched, almost hard enough to be painful enough. Then her other hand was pulling his head around, and he didn't get a chance for another breath before her mouth was on his, teeth and tongue and nothing soft.

Now his hands came up, landing blind, one finding her shoulder, the other her hair to hold on, to feel something more than the sharp drop into her kiss. Anchored, he struck back, feeling her grip release and close again harder on his jaw as he thrust his tongue forward to meet, not just take hers. It wasn't anything as concrete as strategy, he just wanted to draw her into something more than an attack on his senses, but pleasure flared on every level when, breathless moment later, his teeth on her lip made her moan first.

He leaned to the left and they finally came together again, closer, if that was possible, than when they'd been standing against the wall. With a rough sound he bore down, thinking that padded benches were a really great idea, but Kara pressed right back, and John ended up on his back with one foot still on the floor and Kara's hips rocking deliberately, steadily down into his.

Another sharp squeeze on his neck snatched his attention from the pulse that was racing to keep up with her. He gasped as Kara pulled away, her tongue lingering behind; maybe tasting, maybe taunting.

"Let me, you idiot," she breathed.

Her hands were back flat on his chest, and John felt her push upright and opened his eyes to see her crooked smile as she twisted on him, twisting him tighter. It was the shadow under the challenge, though, hiding behind the spark in her eyes, that he forced himself to respond to.

"Only...if you let me."

The shadow darkened, stilled her movement, spread. For a moment John thought, That's it. There's HER breaking point, and he tightened his hand on her shoulder, locking his elbow, ready to shove if she tried that right jab again. Then she folded. Her spine curved, forehead coming down to rest against his as her breath washed unsteadily across his face. She didn't say anything out loud, but with someone who was all about offense as defense -- it hadn't taken that long to figure that out -- John counted that as a good sign.

He slid both of his hands down to lay flat at the small of her back, offering warmth instead of heat. When she ducked her head, he moved, pretty sure, almost positive, that his instincts were finally kicking him in the same direction as someone else's again.

##