Revelation Completed

Title: Revelation
Rating: NC-17 (adult readers) due to S.L.V
WARNING: Act 1 contains non-con - may be triggering
Spoilers: Some spoilers for S1-4
Summary: On the brink of death, Todd risks an untested serum and is thrust into a spiral of madness and instinct. Meanwhile, Kenny must persuade the inhospitable Wraith Sentinels to transfer the Queen's young to the Nursery facility. On Atlantis, Haddad continues the desperate race to save Keller, that may lead her to follow Beckett into the deepest peril she has yet faced. (WARNING: Contains Non-con essential to the story.)
Disclaimer: MGM own Stargate: Atlantis. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no revenue is being made from copyright material. No infrigement intended.

Acts 1 through 4 now available.

Author's Note: Look guys, the rating says it all, but I'll spell it out. This contains explicit scenes, and the non-con warning appears at the header of the Act's page below the image, and on the Atlantis home page. Act 4 contains depictions of explicit battle. You HAVE been warned. Many thanks gospikey for hard work in Beta.

Previous Episodes:
Harm's Way (1), Chain of Command (2), Enmity (3), Mantle (4), In Truth... Freedom (5), Letting Go (6), Beyond the Third (7), Deliverance (8), No Way Back, (9) Apostasy (10) and Crossing Lines (11) can be accessed here.

In the Eye...

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Beauty is... always has been, and always will be in the eye of the beholder. To look merely at a persons physical personal is a shallow seeking that will always yield a shallow result. For me, to share with a romantic partner is much, much deeper than that. Yes, there must be a certain amount of something in the physical for that person to catch my eye, but the true attraction comes from getting to know the other person, leaning who they are deeply - inside - in the dark as well as the light.

I consider myself blessed... I share my life with the most wonderful, romantic person that could ever be, and I love her dearly.

Limitations

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Our strength will continue if we allow
ourselves the courage to feel scared,
weak, and vulnerable.
-Melody Beattie

We are all frail. We all make mistakes. We all fall prey to a thousand emotions and exaggerations. But these things make us rich, not weak - if we are wiling to face them squarely. In truth, it is not the issue of our humanity that defeats us, but rather our refusal to accept who we are and to live accordingly, limitations included.

If the above holds true, then I must be a multi-millionaire. Each day I go through is a journey through those thousand emotions... one moment I can feel at peace, another feel as though I am coming apart, and it can take a single word, a single though or image to switch from one state to another. I have little choice but to face them honestly because they are so overwhelming - but I do not always face them /honestly/... and in that is my refusal to accept... it is that which defeats me.

Take yesterday (the day from which this entry was taken), my day was calm enough, though busy. I was actually doing reasonably well with multitasking for a change - at least I thought so... and then I had a collosal fail.

I mis-spoke something because I spoke of it only from my perspective, my viewpoint, and to be fair, how else could I have seen it. A video feed had frozen during noisy credits, but I could still hear an audio feed. I made an incorrect assumption, and when asked if everything was working okay, I said yes. In point of fact it wasn't. Anyway, condensing facts, because I had said yes, and others emotions and frustrations were involved, I was accused of lying, therefore got defensive, therefore shut down... my usual failings, and in the end, after a long chain of cause and effect, ended up crying in front of my computer because I coudn't not express my pain. It really wasn't that big of a deal, and I don't say this to cast anyone in the role of right or wrongdoer. We are who we are and each react out of our own experience. That's the honest truth. No matter how good and caring and compassionate we are, that personal honest reaction is still there and I'd rather it were than it were not, even if it causes me temporary upset.

Thusly I accept others for who they are... now, if only I could do the same for myself. Does the fact that I cannot seem to represent one of my own limitations?

Whole

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

To let knowledge produce troubles, and then use knowledge to prepare against them, is like stirring water in hopes of making it clear.
-Lao-tzu

This cycle of producing troubles and the preparing against them is very much like pulling a thread that really should have been left alone. The more we pull it, the more the fabric unravels, and now we must re-sew it all. Or very much like planning too many things, or committing to too many people in too short a time, and then exhausting yourself and those around you trying to make it all happen.

I am like this... and probably out for feeling not good enough or a desire for approval or recognition I make commitments, not always to others - though sometimes - but most usually to myself.

I made a goal for myself at the beginning of the year, and here we are a quarter of the way through the year, and I am still no closer to achieving it. Why? Because I also made promises and commitments to so many other things, not the least of which, in today's socio-economic climate, the simple need to be able to survive... physically, emotionally and financially.

Yet, knowing that much of it cannot be helped that /those/ commitments must be met to fulfil my own basic needs, doesn't help with the feeling of frustration that... I have pulled a thread, and my fabric is unravelling, and because of that... I feel unsuccessful. I do not feel 'whole.'

But what I need in order to feel this wholeness is something that is elusive at best, because it is also driven by the needs of another for their own 'wholeness.'

The thought of wholeness, and interconnectedness brings to mind the idea of the Andorian bond in Star Trek - four beings bonded in their version of 'marriage' (way oversimplified, but... I hope I'm pardonned for that), where none feels truly whole without the support of their bond. It doesn't mean that we have to agree with one another, or even share the same goals, ambitions or thoughts... but we do need the respect and understanding of our bondmates in order to feel ourselves fulfilled, even in the simplest of things.

Truly, we are all interconnected...

...and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)