Prompt 48.04

[paian]

Five people John Sheppard included in his will, and what he left to them.


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Comments

Part 1/2

[skieswideopen]

1. John actually had two wills. One was informal, filed only on Atlantis, naming recipients of various items he has in his quarters. Keepsakes, really, since he didn't have anything especially valuable on Atlantis (though admittedly, valuable was a relative term when the Daedalus only showed up every couple of months).

In this will, he left his guitar to Teyla. He'd rarely played it since coming to Atlantis, and wasn't even sure why he'd brought it except that he'd had it for more than twenty years and had dragged it across every continent on Earth, and so discarding it now was kind of unthinkable. He thought Teyla might appreciate it, even though she wouldn't have any memories associating it with him. He'd been to enough Athosian celebrations to know how important music was to them, and he'd seen Teyla slip out to watch Sergeant Mazer strum his way through "Stairway to Heaven" on quiet nights on Atlantis. He thought she might even learn to play it.

2. Ronon got a soapstone carving of a horse that John had received as a gift from Nancy early in their relationship and kept around for sentimental reasons. He'd originally left Ronon his surfboard, thinking that he'd take the Satedan out and teach him one day. And then that day came, and it ended as disastrously as Ronon's attempts to teach John those ridiculous Satedan fighting games that invariably left him hoping on one foot with both hands tied behind his back. So he changed it over to the horse, which Ronon tended to gravitate toward whenever he was in John’s quarters. He'd turn it over and over in his hands while he talked to John, and John suspected that it reminded Ronon of home, or childhood, or something else precious. He also left Ronon his collection of action movies, not sure that Ronon would remain on Atlantis long enough to watch them once John was gone.

3. The other will had been drawn up by the family lawyers, and now sat in their offices. Occasionally, when he was back on Earth, he'd pay them a visit and have it updated, because he wasn't quite as careless about money as his brother thought.

The first provision of the that will left all of his shares in the family company to his brother and any children his brother might have, because he also wasn't as careless about family as his brother thought, and he really didn't want the company his father and grandfather had built up to fall into strange hands. He just didn't want to have to run it himself.

4. The formal will also left a good chunk of his money--tied up in a trust fund until John was 25, but now his to control, because his father had never expected this kind of rebellion when he set it up--to Rodney. When John watched Rodney bitch about yet another ridiculous IOA or Air Force decision, he knew, as if he could see straight through to the other man's core, that one day Rodney was going to walk away from the whole program, his previously boundless enthusiasm crushed and left for dead by politics and expediency and morally questionable decisions. And when Rodney left, John didn't want him forced to take another position where politics might rule his life. As he saw it, what he was really giving Rodney was freedom.

(He'd made similar provisions for Elizabeth in his will, for similar reasons. He'd almost changed it the last time he was on Earth, but then decided to leave the money in trust for her, just in case.)

Re: Part 1/2

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

I like the one with Ronon and the horse- I like the idea that it reminds him of something, that we don't really know what but that John was perceptive enough to notice.

And number four. *thinky noises* I always assumed he had no financial stake in his family's business at all. But if he did- yeah. Of course he would.

Re: Part 1/2

[skieswideopen]

I don't think they were every very clear on what John's relationship with his family was. He was still talking to them when he got married, obviously. And his brother knew how to get in touch with him and tries to do often enough to comment that it sometimes seems like John doesn't get the message. On the other hand, it also seems like he stopped talking to his father a while ago and he never talks about his family, so...yeah.

I tend to think John has some money and shares. I think his parents would have taken steps to make sure he was taken care of while he was still young, and there wasn't any way to rescind that, even if their fight was bad enough that he wanted to.