Title: No Such Thing
Summary: Nancy Sheppard arrives in Atlantis to review Mr Woolsey's good work. Remnants AU.
Characters: Everybody.
Pairing: Sheppard/Teyla, Sheppard/Nancy, Teyla/Kanaan
Rating: T
Spoilers: Season Five.
Memos were sent every few minutes on Atlantis. It was a fact that John Sheppard had comes to terms with. It was a fact that John Sheppard deleted almost all of them that weren't from Teyla or Ronon. He especially deleted memos from Rodney and Woolsey and waited until they called him over the radio for whatever important meeting/discussion/experiment the memo had detailed.
As it was, he wished he'd read the memo about the mission he and his team had embarked upon earlier that morning. He hadn't understood Rodney's grumpier than usual demeanour, nor cared to interpret the sideways glares Ronon through his ways and he didn't think to question why even Teyla seemed none-too-pleased with going on the mission. When he'd gotten the memo from Woolsey, titled "Next Mission: Please Read", he'd simply responded with an automated "Sounds good" email memo in response.
As leader of the military in Atlantis, John Sheppard got a lot of memos.
It was only now he wished he spent more time reading them.
The blue goo they had to trudge through to get to the relatively advanced town on the other side of the ravine stuck to everything. It was in his boots, his hair, it covered his gear, his gun – his hair – and when he looked at the members of his team and saw the blue smears across their faces and necks and arms, he knew he didn't look much better.
It was then he'd understood McKay's grumbling about just why they couldn't take a puddle jumper. He sighed, heaving his pack and his P-90 farther away from the deepening sludge, he trudged on, trying to ignore the slurping, sucking sound the goo made as they hefted one foot out and then the next and the next and the next.
Then it started raining and John had stopped, dropped his hands to his sides and let the goo wash over his fingers. He stared up at the falling dollops of water, cursing the grey clouds that swarmed from the horizon. From the corner of his eye, he could see Teyla and Ronon share a glance as Rodney continued whining about everything he could possibly think of.
They waited a few more moments, feeling the rain soaked through their gear before John decided it was time to turn back and call it a day. He was wet, cold, covered in goo, his legs were sore and he'd been listening to McKay whine on and on and on for almost an hour. He hated to think it, because he knew that whenever he did something always happened, but he wondered just what could make his day any worse than it already was.
When they stepped back through the Stargate into the welcoming warmth of Atlantis, John wished he hadn't thought the thought. Because instead of the gentle, welcoming, calming warm thrum that usually greeted him, he felt the strangest tickling of unease in the back of his mind.
He glared at Woolsey when the leader of Atlantis smirked knowingly down from the balcony above and John swore incoherently under his breath, just loud enough for his team to her. Unamused, they handed their sticky goo covered P-90's over to the waiting Marines and walked off without them. After exchanging a few words with Woolsey – still dripping blue goo onto the floor – he followed their sticky trail into the corridor.
It was then that the whispers he'd heard, the tickling he'd felt swamped him and he stumbled slightly at the ferocity of it, using the wall as support as he waved off a few startled SF's. Closing his eyes, he saw the outline of Atlantis, saw the glowing dot in his mind's eye above him in the control room and he shuddered.
He recognised the sensation but the City didn't and John felt the confusion swarm through him; the city's, his own – he wasn't sure.
He stood upright and turned back to the stairway that led up the control room, slipping on the combination of slick surface and soppy goo, holding onto the railing as he went, ignoring the city's pleas for him to turn around and have a shower and to deal with whatever lay beyond later.
There was no threat to the city but John felt the irresistible tug anyway.
The distance from there to Woolsey's office seemed doubled – tripled – as John made his way there, sensing his trepidation rise with each step he took.
On the tunnel, he stalled, his eyes fixing on a head of brown hair that he was all too familiar with. He frowned, his lips forming a confused line as he tilted his head from side to side.
When Woolsey spotted him, he gestured to the person sitting in front of him and Nancy – John's ex-wife Nancy – turned around slowly in her chair.
As she eyed him up, from his blue smeared face, to his sodden fatigues, John closed his eyes and really wished he paid more attention to his memos.