(A/N) I have no idea how the American school system works. Forgive me. also ignore the fact I'm starting yet another story without finishing any of my others. hahaha oops
There is a kind of poetry in everything we do.
He thinks it all begins when he joins the air force, he thinks his life starts now when he is twenty-one, naive and trying to touch the sky.
He won't realise until later that he never really began, that that was like the calm before the storm and his life didn't start until the everything had been destroyed. When he was lying, breathless and crippled, unable to lift his head to see the clouds he used to ride.
He flew well. There is no denying that, he was a good pilot and a good fighter and a good guy to have watching your back. The problem with John Sheppard, who could shoot and shout and run like nothing anyone had ever seen before, was that he was never a good soldier.
The army knew this and he knew this but they kept him anyway. When he finally went down, a literal blaze of glory that only a man like him could ever hope to achieve, the general pinning his medal on him with one hand and shoving his discharge papers at him with the other had told him he should be relieved. Never-mind that his buddies were dead, never-mind that he couldn't fly or stand or sleep. "Be relieved son" he had said. "Any longer and it wouldn't have been insurgents who shot you down."
So eight years later that was how he began. In a hospital. The same way most lives begin now that he thinks about it, his just started a little later.
The room was greyer than he had expected. It was intended to be warm and welcoming he supposed, but it just seemed to drain the room, making it somehow even more clinical than the four walls he had spent the last two months of his life staring at.
His right fist tightened around the carved head of his cane as his left twisted the doorknob a little tighter, just waiting for someone to notice him. The walking stick had been a present from his father, not delivered in person of course, he was a busy man after all. No, he had gotten it in the mail and the wooden wolf snarling on the top was probably some sort of hidden message he didn't care enough to decipher. It was something he needed but not something he wanted to think too hard about, let alone spend his own pitiful savings on so he had kept it.
When his doctor had tried to encourage him to go to a chiropractor she'd almost found herself with a lupine-shaped indent in her forehead. Lucky for her John still had some form of restraint and had merely reduced his outward expression of distaste to a glare that had her scurrying from the room without a backward glance. He could limp along well enough by himself, he'd figure it out. Not like it really mattered anymore anyway. He was floating and grounded all at the same time.
Which was the reason he supposed that he now found himself halfway through the doorway of this somewhat dreary office. Just as he was contemplating making a break for it, the blonde head at the desk popped up and a squeak permeated the thick air. "Oh!"
Crap. Nothing for it now. Straightening his shoulders into some semblance of his former self he stepped forward, dragging his left leg slightly as he did so. Opting to ignore the minuscule shift in the girl's face he swung himself lazily round to face her desk.
"John Sheppard here to see Dr Emmagan."
And okay, she was just blinking at him.
"Dr Emmagan? Apparently she can fix my head? They tell me I'm a little bit crazy." He probably wasn't helping but this was supposed to be an office for mainly veteran clientele, she should be used to people looking a little worse for wear.
Lucky for the bewildered looking assistant (he had just started making cuckoo noises and circling his finger next to his head to make his point), the door to what was presumably his therapist's office swung open and a no-nonsense female voice told him to come in.
Right then. Time to get this over with.
He had to say that the good doctor was not what he was expecting. Oh she was soft-spoken, diplomatic and looked at him as if were about to break, been there, done that thanks, but she was also young, golden-skinned and had an edge to her that showed that maybe she knew what she was talking about.
They had been having an okay conversation as John pulled out the usual bullshit he'd been spouting these past months and she nodded along, smiled reached over to get the stamp for his form. "So, doc if you just sign that and I can be on my way." He grinned at her, a typical easy grin he'd perfected in the face of authority staring down its nose at him.
John had genuinely thought she was going to, and then she'd paused. "Be on your way to where exactly Colonel Sheppard?"
Okay, ouch. She had him there.
They had a silent staring match for a few minutes before she slowly recapped the ink on her stamp and leaned back in her armchair.
"People come to me when they get discharged, John. I deal with all kinds of people, men and women alike who are making plans for their future or running from their past. You are neither. You don't know where you've been or where you're going and I'm not going to sign that form there" here she helpfully swept her hand towards it as if he didn't already know what she was talking about "until we both believe you want something. You may be out of the air force but they have an obligation to you until I say they don't. So drop the act."
She wanted the mask gone? Fine he could do that. Matching her posture he let his expression smooth out and lay his cane at his feet.
"Alright. What do you need?" Blank tone, blank face.
Dr Emmagan smiled then, an easy hopeful thing as she leaned forward with an outstretched hand "No John, it's about what you need."
That was how most of his therapy went, they'd chat for a while he'd pretend he was fine and every session would end with him looking longingly at his papers and call-me-Teyla shaking her head.
And then six weeks and 12 sessions in, as he entered her office with his cane swinging slightly by his side it all changed.
"I've found a place for you"
There was a brief halt in the conversation where he almost interrupted before thinking better of it. They both knew he still didn't have anywhere to go.
"It's out in the open air, countryside for miles around, and there's plenty to do, you'll like it."
He may trust her a little at this point but that was an awful lot of evasion for what should have been a simple description. "What will I be doing exactly?"
She acknowledged he'd caught her out with a slight dip of her head but let her triumph show as she pulled out a file from her top drawer.
"Teaching-" Holding up her hand to stop his instantaneous protest she waited until he'd closed his mouth.
"It's a boarding school for boys 6th grade to 12th grade and from what I understand you know a little bit about boarding schools." Okay, pointed reference much. "You'll be mainly a PE teacher but I believe they'll need you for some maths lessons as well, they prefer to have staff with a wide range of skills."
PE teacher? He gestured at his leg helplessly but he could already see she had made up her mind.
"Fine then. What do I get out of it, you say anything like peace of mind Teyla and I will be out of here, stamp or no stamp."
"You get a chance, John, you need something to do and these boys need someone to guide them. You have a degree, you've led men before, I honestly believe this position will be perfect for you." With her earnest expression boring into him he wasn't sure he would have been able to find it in him to say no even if he wanted to.
"Alright, alright." He held up his hands in surrender "I know when I'm beat."
So this was it. Purgatory over.
That was how Colonel John Sheppard found himself in Humboldt county California, vast iron gates of the Bulwick Banton's school looming in front of him.
Slinging his duffel over his left shoulder he used the head of his cane to knock three times. Better late than never eh?
To be seen
Unbound and free
Is a privilege
We are eager to receive
So we spread our wings
And we reach out high
Straining for
The unblemished sky