Fic! Atlantis fic!

[elly427]

Title: Wrong side of the bed
Author: elly427
Summary: Simon needs to figure out how to fall out of love with Elizabeth.
Spoilers: Sort of post "Letters from Pegasus" which I have not seen. Slight spoilers for "Home."
Rating: PG. Simon/Elizabeth
A/N: My first Atlantis fic. For mylittleredgirl, for sending me most of the first season, for which I'll always be grateful. Sorry this isn't Shep/Weir.

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Simon loves Elizabeth and has since she told him she loved him. That was the first time it occurred to him that he actually did love her.

..

Elizabeth made the first move, had approached him at some fundraiser and offered to buy him another drink. He’d smiled, charmed, and tucked her business card into his coat pocket. He hadn’t planned on calling her but he couldn’t get her smile, her laugh, her eyes out of his head, so he’d called and they’d had lunch and three dates later they’d ended up back at his place, and things had pretty much progressed from there.

...

Simon knows he can't compare with exploring an unknown galaxy; their love is too comfortable, too easy, too lazy Sunday afternoons spent gardening and watching CNN and not talking to compete.

....

Elizabeth was always good about sharing the bed and he'd taken the left, she the right and they'd never even talked about it. Even now, her empty water glass and a book on the UN mission to Rwanda sit waiting, like she's just away on a business trip. At first that was how he got himself to sleep, told himself she was away when he woke up in a cold sweat at three in the morning from a dream of her falling and he rolled over and she really wasn't there. He was never like this when she was in Korea, Iran, Libya and he wonders what makes things different now.

.....

Simon walks the dog and waves to the neighbours and pretty soon they're going to realise Elizabeth's been away for much, much longer than usual. And soon he's going to have to sell the townhouse in Georgetown because that was always Elizabeth's place and he's been there maybe five times and he she they don't need it now.

......

Elizabeth's cousin's husband calls to let them know her cousin and the newest Weir-Petrovich are doing fine and the baby looks a little like Elizabeth's father. Simon doesn't bother to lie, doesn't bother to say much except that Elizabeth can't come to the phone. He hears the squall of a baby in the background and wonders if that would have done it, knows neither of them wanted a child but for a split second wishes otherwise.

.......

Simon isn't counting, but he knows it's been months since she left when the other partners at the firm invite him and Elizabeth to dinner and he thinks it's strange his closest co-workers don't know she's gone. He wants to shout it in the middle of the office, wants to climb on top of his expensive mahogany desk and tell everyone she's gone, she's gone to another fucking galaxy and she chose the unknown, chose what must have looked like certain death instead of him. He thinks the secretaries will remark about his use of the f-word and not his insane ramblings as someone calls a doctor to lock him up and he can't stand the thought of being that ordinary, so he shakes his head and pretends to smile and makes up plans so he can gracefully refuse Jim's invitation.

......

Elizabeth's sweaters still smell like her skin and Simon wants to move on but he's been left in an impossible position. As much as he hates Elizabeth for making the choice he'd forgive it all, these months of waiting and wanting and not knowing if she'd just come back, if she'd just walk through the front door and lean down and pet the dog and sit across from him at the table and help eat the pasta he's made too much of out of eight years of habit.

....

Simon has to learn how to be single again, has to move past the phase where he keeps expecting her to walk through the door, has to stop watching Law and Order because she's the one who likes it, not him, has to learn he can buy orange juice with pulp because he likes it and she won't take a mouthful and turn her nose up in a little moue, has to stop himself from freezing and coming wide awake in the middle of the night when he rolls over onto her empty side of the bed.

...

Elizabeth has been gone for longer than he cares to remember when he accompanies another woman home, young, beautiful and from the temp pool and far too impressed by his name on the letterhead. They have sex and he can't help but compare, dislikes the unfamiliarity of her body, wishes she shivered when he brushes fingers along her ribs. He comes and stifles a groan in her neck, almost wishes he had to disguise a different name but it's not quite like that and he falls asleep in a strange bed without a thought.

..

Simon needs to figure out how to fall out of love with Elizabeth and since he doesn't remember falling in love with her he can't quite manage, isn't quite dealing, is still sleeping on his side of the bed when the solider shows up at his front door with another package.

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