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dontwantmebackTitle: Play Me A Melody (18/18)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Veronica Mars/Heroes/Iron Man/Once Upon A Time
Pairing: John Sheppard/Veronica Mars
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Rockstar AU
Length: 2409 words
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Seven 1/2
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
Part Thirteen
Part Fourteen
Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen
Part Seventeen
First thing in the morning the day following John and Veronica's appearance on Emma's show, John was driving Veronica to the airport and Veronica was getting on a plane to LA. Teal'c met them at the airport and Rodney would be there waiting for her when they landed with a list of appearances and a schedule; John was back on the road home. No one knew how long she'd have to stay out there, or travel around the country filming programs to put to rest the rumours about them, and Teyla had decided it was better to do the majority without him there. It would convince more people, bring back more of their followers, if she was seen to be saying things without his presence, if he made himself known to be across the country from her. It looked more honest, she'd said, less like he was frightening her into saying things, and both John and Veronica were all for that.
It mattered to them both less that they got their fans back though than it did that they put right the lies about them, about John, and if doing that meant that Veronica was going to LA and no one could say when she'd be able to go home, then that was what they were going to do. It wasn't as though John couldn't go out and join her if they decided they were apart for too long. There was no reason he had to stay in Nashville when all he was doing was writing and there was no rush on that. Including the one with Veronica, he'd already released two albums in the last year and a handful of singles; the world could live without any new music from him for as long as it took him to get it done.
The apartment seemed oddly empty just knowing that Veronica was so far away. She hadn't been away nearly long enough for John to say he missed her, probably wouldn't say as much even if she was gone for weeks, but it was an odd feeling all the same. In the year since she had suddenly ended up moving in, there had hardly been a handful of nights John had spent home alone, and it had been a long time since he had. Being alone in the apartment was different than staying alone in a hotel while he was away for work. That was staying in a strange place and it was supposed to feel not quite right. Home was meant to be comfortable and with every night that passed with Veronica in LA it became less so and John started spending more and more time sitting at the label. Sometimes he wrote, a lot of the time he just hung around.
He got to some of the new talent, the ones coming in for the first time, gave them some advice that mostly consisted of 'stay away from duets'. It had turned out well for him, better than he ever could have imagined it would have, but it had caused a lot of trouble along the way; better to just avoid them all together, and one incredibly star struck young blonde girl with a guitar found it in her to ask if he regretted doing that first song with Veronica. He asked her right back how he possibly could; he'd found the woman he was going to marry, who he never would have spoken to otherwise. She wondered if they were ever actually getting married, they'd been engaged for almost the year Veronica had lived with him but no one had heard a word about wedding plans. And John realised they hadn't made a single one.
That evening when he called Veronica, had been doing so more and more frequently as the first week stretched into two, stretched into a month and she was still out west filming talk show after talk show, he flat out asked her if she thought they should get around to actually getting married, planning a wedding, and she laughed at him and asked what had happened to him to make him ask.
"Just talking to one of the new kids at the label," he evaded, and Veronica laughed at him again.
"Is she cute?" It was like she knew everything that happened, could read his mind or something, and John smiled to himself.
"She's young."
"Everyone's younger than you, though."
John just changed the subject, and like every other time it had ever come up, they didn't decide a single thing about their wedding. He asked when she was coming back, she didn't know but guessed it would be soon though, and John announced if she didn't finish up soon he was going to have to go out and join her. He'd gotten too used to having her around. Veronica just laughed at him, told him she'd be home soon and the next morning John got a text announcing she'd be on a plane home by evening, and John decided to work from home for the day. He thought briefly about trying to cook or something, decided better of it when he remembered that he was a terrible cook and they didn't really keep things for cooking in the house anyway.
So instead he just picked her up from the airport, grabbed her favourite on their way home and for a few weeks everything was quiet. The rumours about them faded, their names coming up in the magazines and on entertainment news less and less frequently. Not necessarily a good thing, Teyla reminded after some time. Sometimes bad press was better than no press at all, and she organised a few interviews and photo shoots for them, music magazines for the most part, one incredibly annoying bridal magazine cover shoot. An obvious reminder from their PR woman that they needed to get on with their own wedding, and it needed to be public.
Message received, John and Veronica sat down and looked at book after book of venues, decorations, colour schemes, saw dozens of designer dresses that neither of them knew a single thing about and sat through just as many tastings filled with foods they couldn't pronounce and didn't want to even think of eating. They both preferred a good burger or pizza to whatever French or Italian hors d'oeuvres were being offered, never cared much for the fancy foods or the twenty different forks that came with it, and every day their guest list got longer and longer, and they'd yet to send a single invitation, hadn't even decided on a date.
A movie offer came to John before they'd decided on anything. Some animated musical they wanted him to lend his voice to, and it really wasn't his thing but Veronica thought the idea was hilarious, Teyla told him it was surprising he'd even been considered for the part, let alone offered it, and O'Neill himself chimed in to say that a lot of big names like John were starting to move into voice work, he should do it. So John took the gig, went out to LA to meet with directors and artists and the other voice actors but did the few weeks' worth of actual recording at a studio in Nashville. And in between it he worked on his own music, wrote some songs he would never sing himself and instead sold them off to those new artists he'd met while Veronica was gone.
The wedding planning got sidelined again. By the time John was done with recording dialogue and a hundred takes of songs, Veronica was back in the studio to record her next solo album. John sat in some days, pleased to hear that now that O'Neill was in charge there was a lot more of the freedom she'd been originally promised, got to sing some of the songs she wrote herself and when it was finished and Veronica asked what he thought, John gave her the best compliment he could think of.
"Much less bubblegum than your usual stuff."
It earned him a punch in the shoulder and a kiss on the cheek.
They went together when she went on the promoting rounds, John writing music while she filmed and just keeping her company the rest of the time. Questions about when they were getting married poured in and by the time the album came out, to respectable sales considering the ups and downs of the last year, they'd managed to decide on everything but the date. Veronica had a dress with about a million little buttons on it, but otherwise simple and John had seen the designer's photographs and thought it suited her, and they had a guest list of a few hundred of their closes friends and their most famous acquaintances. They had caterers and florists and a location willing to drop everything at a moment's notice for a chance at what was being marketed as the wedding of the decade.
There was some time between the release and Veronica needing to go on tour, so John did something he'd been meaning to do for nearly a year. Since they were at their height in the media and before tabloids spread vicious rumours about them. He took them to Virginia.
He took them to the place he'd always thought of as his childhood home, with its vast fields of perfectly manicured grass and winding driveway, a stable of horses his father had never looked twice at but John had loved like his best friends. He doubted any of those he knew were even still alive, and it was strangely, unusually quiet so maybe there weren't any at all anymore. It had been a long time since he'd been back, who knew how much had changed. He couldn't even say for sure his family still owned the house, still lived in it at all. But the great thing about celebrity, about being a household name, was that even if they didn't, John could easily talk himself into at least letting them look around the property.
Veronica joined him where he stood leaning against the car, looking wide-eyed at the enormous blue house in the middle of perfectly green grass in front of them. "This is where you grew up?"
And John realised that he may have conveniently forgotten to mention, ever, that he'd grown up in wealth and privilege not too different from that he enjoyed as a celebrity, and he'd thrown it all away when he left home. He nodded, hands in his pockets, and walked toward the house. "About half the time. More than anywhere else."
"It's enormous."
"My father always liked displays of wealth." John never had; the size of his own house made him uncomfortable as he got older. He stopped bringing friends around and when he left he was actually happy to move into tiny barracks and shared housing. Even after he'd struck it big, he'd never once thought of a place bigger than his two bedroom apartment; even that felt big to him and looking now at the house, he was struck by how big it really was.
It turned out John's family did still live in the house, or at least his brother and his family did, and it was an incredibly awkward and tense moment at the door, neither John nor Dave knowing what to say to one another after so many years, before John's sister-in-law, whom he'd never met, came out wondering who was there, invited them in gracefully. She was every inch a wealthy man's wife, pretty and tidy, modest dress and bright smile, impeccable manners and incredibly graceful. And she would have made John uncomfortable if she wasn't so nice, too. She welcomed both John and Veronica in like family, announced she knew all about them and their story, of course knew who John was from the start but promised she'd never even thought of using his fame to garner favour with 'The Ladies.'
John didn't tell her he doubted she needed to garner favour at all, married to his brother. The Sheppard name was more than enough pull at the local country club, at every local country club near every house they owned.
They were invited to dinner and Veronica agreed before John had a chance to consider refusing, and when the children came home from school they were wholly ignored by Dave's teenaged son, but his pre-teen daughter took one look at Veronica and screeched. A huge fan, they learned when she calmed down, had been in the running for fan club president, and Veronica curried favour with her parents by signing every Veronica Mars themed item the girl could produce.
John and Dave finally spoke after dinner, exchanged half-expressed apologies, and they didn't quite make it back to family but they managed not to be strangers anymore. They left with a standing invitation to come back and one of their own to visit in Nashville, or LA if they happened to be there, whenever they wanted, and with a reminder to send wedding invitations to the family when the time came.
They had a break planned after leaving Virginia, a week at Veronica's place in Mexico. And about three days into that trip, John looked up from his seat in a beach chair, looking out at the ocean with his guitar in his lap, playing silly summer songs and inventing some his own.
"Think we should just get married?" he wondered, and Veronica lifted her head to look at him curiously.
"You already proposed to me, John."
"I mean...now. Here. Forget all the planning and the dress and the guest list and whatever the media wants from us."
"Just get married?" She paused to consider it, then nodded. "Okay."
They found someone to do it the very next day, got married just the two of them and a witness found at a local shop. No extravagance, no hordes of photographers vying for the first picture of them, no standing for hours on end and greeting people, and no being forced to give comments about how happy they were, spewing nonsense about the happiest day of their lives or whatever people wanted to hear. And nothing changed. Veronica kept her own name, their relationship had no shift in it, there was no fanfare about them.
Just an exchange of signatures and they put on a pair of rings.
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Veronica Mars/Heroes/Iron Man/Once Upon A Time
Pairing: John Sheppard/Veronica Mars
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Rockstar AU
Length: 2409 words
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Seven 1/2
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
Part Thirteen
Part Fourteen
Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen
Part Seventeen
First thing in the morning the day following John and Veronica's appearance on Emma's show, John was driving Veronica to the airport and Veronica was getting on a plane to LA. Teal'c met them at the airport and Rodney would be there waiting for her when they landed with a list of appearances and a schedule; John was back on the road home. No one knew how long she'd have to stay out there, or travel around the country filming programs to put to rest the rumours about them, and Teyla had decided it was better to do the majority without him there. It would convince more people, bring back more of their followers, if she was seen to be saying things without his presence, if he made himself known to be across the country from her. It looked more honest, she'd said, less like he was frightening her into saying things, and both John and Veronica were all for that.
It mattered to them both less that they got their fans back though than it did that they put right the lies about them, about John, and if doing that meant that Veronica was going to LA and no one could say when she'd be able to go home, then that was what they were going to do. It wasn't as though John couldn't go out and join her if they decided they were apart for too long. There was no reason he had to stay in Nashville when all he was doing was writing and there was no rush on that. Including the one with Veronica, he'd already released two albums in the last year and a handful of singles; the world could live without any new music from him for as long as it took him to get it done.
The apartment seemed oddly empty just knowing that Veronica was so far away. She hadn't been away nearly long enough for John to say he missed her, probably wouldn't say as much even if she was gone for weeks, but it was an odd feeling all the same. In the year since she had suddenly ended up moving in, there had hardly been a handful of nights John had spent home alone, and it had been a long time since he had. Being alone in the apartment was different than staying alone in a hotel while he was away for work. That was staying in a strange place and it was supposed to feel not quite right. Home was meant to be comfortable and with every night that passed with Veronica in LA it became less so and John started spending more and more time sitting at the label. Sometimes he wrote, a lot of the time he just hung around.
He got to some of the new talent, the ones coming in for the first time, gave them some advice that mostly consisted of 'stay away from duets'. It had turned out well for him, better than he ever could have imagined it would have, but it had caused a lot of trouble along the way; better to just avoid them all together, and one incredibly star struck young blonde girl with a guitar found it in her to ask if he regretted doing that first song with Veronica. He asked her right back how he possibly could; he'd found the woman he was going to marry, who he never would have spoken to otherwise. She wondered if they were ever actually getting married, they'd been engaged for almost the year Veronica had lived with him but no one had heard a word about wedding plans. And John realised they hadn't made a single one.
That evening when he called Veronica, had been doing so more and more frequently as the first week stretched into two, stretched into a month and she was still out west filming talk show after talk show, he flat out asked her if she thought they should get around to actually getting married, planning a wedding, and she laughed at him and asked what had happened to him to make him ask.
"Just talking to one of the new kids at the label," he evaded, and Veronica laughed at him again.
"Is she cute?" It was like she knew everything that happened, could read his mind or something, and John smiled to himself.
"She's young."
"Everyone's younger than you, though."
John just changed the subject, and like every other time it had ever come up, they didn't decide a single thing about their wedding. He asked when she was coming back, she didn't know but guessed it would be soon though, and John announced if she didn't finish up soon he was going to have to go out and join her. He'd gotten too used to having her around. Veronica just laughed at him, told him she'd be home soon and the next morning John got a text announcing she'd be on a plane home by evening, and John decided to work from home for the day. He thought briefly about trying to cook or something, decided better of it when he remembered that he was a terrible cook and they didn't really keep things for cooking in the house anyway.
So instead he just picked her up from the airport, grabbed her favourite on their way home and for a few weeks everything was quiet. The rumours about them faded, their names coming up in the magazines and on entertainment news less and less frequently. Not necessarily a good thing, Teyla reminded after some time. Sometimes bad press was better than no press at all, and she organised a few interviews and photo shoots for them, music magazines for the most part, one incredibly annoying bridal magazine cover shoot. An obvious reminder from their PR woman that they needed to get on with their own wedding, and it needed to be public.
Message received, John and Veronica sat down and looked at book after book of venues, decorations, colour schemes, saw dozens of designer dresses that neither of them knew a single thing about and sat through just as many tastings filled with foods they couldn't pronounce and didn't want to even think of eating. They both preferred a good burger or pizza to whatever French or Italian hors d'oeuvres were being offered, never cared much for the fancy foods or the twenty different forks that came with it, and every day their guest list got longer and longer, and they'd yet to send a single invitation, hadn't even decided on a date.
A movie offer came to John before they'd decided on anything. Some animated musical they wanted him to lend his voice to, and it really wasn't his thing but Veronica thought the idea was hilarious, Teyla told him it was surprising he'd even been considered for the part, let alone offered it, and O'Neill himself chimed in to say that a lot of big names like John were starting to move into voice work, he should do it. So John took the gig, went out to LA to meet with directors and artists and the other voice actors but did the few weeks' worth of actual recording at a studio in Nashville. And in between it he worked on his own music, wrote some songs he would never sing himself and instead sold them off to those new artists he'd met while Veronica was gone.
The wedding planning got sidelined again. By the time John was done with recording dialogue and a hundred takes of songs, Veronica was back in the studio to record her next solo album. John sat in some days, pleased to hear that now that O'Neill was in charge there was a lot more of the freedom she'd been originally promised, got to sing some of the songs she wrote herself and when it was finished and Veronica asked what he thought, John gave her the best compliment he could think of.
"Much less bubblegum than your usual stuff."
It earned him a punch in the shoulder and a kiss on the cheek.
They went together when she went on the promoting rounds, John writing music while she filmed and just keeping her company the rest of the time. Questions about when they were getting married poured in and by the time the album came out, to respectable sales considering the ups and downs of the last year, they'd managed to decide on everything but the date. Veronica had a dress with about a million little buttons on it, but otherwise simple and John had seen the designer's photographs and thought it suited her, and they had a guest list of a few hundred of their closes friends and their most famous acquaintances. They had caterers and florists and a location willing to drop everything at a moment's notice for a chance at what was being marketed as the wedding of the decade.
There was some time between the release and Veronica needing to go on tour, so John did something he'd been meaning to do for nearly a year. Since they were at their height in the media and before tabloids spread vicious rumours about them. He took them to Virginia.
He took them to the place he'd always thought of as his childhood home, with its vast fields of perfectly manicured grass and winding driveway, a stable of horses his father had never looked twice at but John had loved like his best friends. He doubted any of those he knew were even still alive, and it was strangely, unusually quiet so maybe there weren't any at all anymore. It had been a long time since he'd been back, who knew how much had changed. He couldn't even say for sure his family still owned the house, still lived in it at all. But the great thing about celebrity, about being a household name, was that even if they didn't, John could easily talk himself into at least letting them look around the property.
Veronica joined him where he stood leaning against the car, looking wide-eyed at the enormous blue house in the middle of perfectly green grass in front of them. "This is where you grew up?"
And John realised that he may have conveniently forgotten to mention, ever, that he'd grown up in wealth and privilege not too different from that he enjoyed as a celebrity, and he'd thrown it all away when he left home. He nodded, hands in his pockets, and walked toward the house. "About half the time. More than anywhere else."
"It's enormous."
"My father always liked displays of wealth." John never had; the size of his own house made him uncomfortable as he got older. He stopped bringing friends around and when he left he was actually happy to move into tiny barracks and shared housing. Even after he'd struck it big, he'd never once thought of a place bigger than his two bedroom apartment; even that felt big to him and looking now at the house, he was struck by how big it really was.
It turned out John's family did still live in the house, or at least his brother and his family did, and it was an incredibly awkward and tense moment at the door, neither John nor Dave knowing what to say to one another after so many years, before John's sister-in-law, whom he'd never met, came out wondering who was there, invited them in gracefully. She was every inch a wealthy man's wife, pretty and tidy, modest dress and bright smile, impeccable manners and incredibly graceful. And she would have made John uncomfortable if she wasn't so nice, too. She welcomed both John and Veronica in like family, announced she knew all about them and their story, of course knew who John was from the start but promised she'd never even thought of using his fame to garner favour with 'The Ladies.'
John didn't tell her he doubted she needed to garner favour at all, married to his brother. The Sheppard name was more than enough pull at the local country club, at every local country club near every house they owned.
They were invited to dinner and Veronica agreed before John had a chance to consider refusing, and when the children came home from school they were wholly ignored by Dave's teenaged son, but his pre-teen daughter took one look at Veronica and screeched. A huge fan, they learned when she calmed down, had been in the running for fan club president, and Veronica curried favour with her parents by signing every Veronica Mars themed item the girl could produce.
John and Dave finally spoke after dinner, exchanged half-expressed apologies, and they didn't quite make it back to family but they managed not to be strangers anymore. They left with a standing invitation to come back and one of their own to visit in Nashville, or LA if they happened to be there, whenever they wanted, and with a reminder to send wedding invitations to the family when the time came.
They had a break planned after leaving Virginia, a week at Veronica's place in Mexico. And about three days into that trip, John looked up from his seat in a beach chair, looking out at the ocean with his guitar in his lap, playing silly summer songs and inventing some his own.
"Think we should just get married?" he wondered, and Veronica lifted her head to look at him curiously.
"You already proposed to me, John."
"I mean...now. Here. Forget all the planning and the dress and the guest list and whatever the media wants from us."
"Just get married?" She paused to consider it, then nodded. "Okay."
They found someone to do it the very next day, got married just the two of them and a witness found at a local shop. No extravagance, no hordes of photographers vying for the first picture of them, no standing for hours on end and greeting people, and no being forced to give comments about how happy they were, spewing nonsense about the happiest day of their lives or whatever people wanted to hear. And nothing changed. Veronica kept her own name, their relationship had no shift in it, there was no fanfare about them.
Just an exchange of signatures and they put on a pair of rings.