Jennifer's Offworld Date
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, MGM owns Stargate Atlantis; I have no affiliation with them and therefore am simply borrowing their characters. I promise I'll put them all back when I'm good and ready!
Summary: This is a birthday present for theicemenace. Ice, thanks for all of the help you have given me with my writing, your beta assistance, and above all your friendship. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I do want to apologize for the delay in completing this. Your birthday was almost two months and I'm just getting this done. Forgive me, even those of us with the best of intentions find ourselves sidetracked. I'll try to be closer next year.
Chapter 1: Asking Her Out
Dr. Rodney McKay looked up as his computer chimed. After searching for a few seconds, he tracked the chiming sound to his upper-left computer monitor and he opened the reminder that was blinking in the center of the screen. He read it quickly and realized that once again, he was close to running late. It was February 7th and if he wanted to ask Jennifer out, he would have to work quickly to have everything setup in time. Still thinking about it, he set the reminder to snooze one day. He could afford to delay his preparations by another day. There still was time, not to mention the fact that he was Dr. Rodney McKay, worker of last minute miracles. If anyone could do it, Rodney could.
Dr. Jennifer Keller looked up from her microscope guilty for eavesdropping on her two nurses: Marie and Josephina discussing their plans for Valentine's Day. "Was it that time of the year again?" She thought to herself. This was the worst time of the year for her, it always had been. All through high school, college, and even med school she was the only one dateless. And then to make the time of the year even worse, her mother, Vicky had died on Valentine's Day about five years ago. She had been on her way to meet her father, Alex for dinner when a drunk driver hit her. She died instantly. Her father had never gotten over it and continued to believe that it was his fault. Suffice it to say that Jennifer felt miserable around Valentine's Day. She was in no mood to celebrate herself but if her staff wanted too, she wasn't going to stop them. But that didn't mean that she had to sit there listening to them discussing it like a group of hormone-ridden teenagers. "Where had that come from?" She wondered to herself. "Maybe this Valentine's Day thing is getting to me." She looked down at her laptop pinged announcing a new email. She read it to herself, wondering what it was about. Slowly her mood changed from curiosity to full blown infuriation.
"From: Colonel Carter, Samantha scarter(at)atlantis(dot)pegasus(dot)sgc(dot)af(dot)mil
To: Atlantis Personnel, All personnel-all(at)atlantis(dot)pegasus(dot)sgc(dot)af(dot)mil
Subject: Valentine's Day Party
As commander of this base, it is my duty to see to the recreational needs of all personnel, regardless of whether they are military or civilian. To that end, when I was requested several months ago to grant a full day off, I decided that in the interest of morale, it would make sense for all personnel to be given a mandatory holiday! Apparently, that wasn't enough for many of our colleagues. I was requested to allow a Valentine's Day party and dance and against my better judgment, I allowed this request. In all fairness, since we are having a party, I have decided to make it a semi-formal affair as well as make attendance mandatory for all senior personnel including all department heads. There will be no exceptions to this rule whatsoever. If anyone requires assistance obtaining clothing for this dress event, Teyla has promised Athosian assistance with making and trading for what is required. Additionally, we will be running two extra dial-ins with Earth this week to get supplies for the party. If you need anything from Earth, that would be time to get it.
Please direct any enquiries about the fraternization regulations to Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, our USAF Military Commander.
Thank you for your cooperation. I'm sure you will all enjoy yourselves.
Colonel Samantha Carter,
USAF Base Commander,
Atlantis Base, Pegasus Galaxy
Jennifer frowned when she looked up from her laptop. Her good mood had all but completely evaporated. She grumbled to herself, wanting to know whose stupid idea this party was. She could understand wanting to raise morale but forcing senior staff to attend was too much. She had half a mind to ask John to "convince" Sam that it was too much but that would be going too far. Just because she could expose their covert relationship was no reason for her to demand anything. Plus there were better things to ask for if she was going to blackmail them, like that large stash of chocolate that they hoarded.
Frustrated and angry, Jennifer left her office intent on going to the mess hall and picking up dinner. She planned to eat in her quarters; she was too frustrated to deal with people's company right now. On her way to the Mess Hall she bumped into Rodney.
(Insert Page Break Here)
"Jennifer! Just the person I was looking for. Do you have a couple of minutes?" Rodney asked her, bouncing up and down.
Jennifer growled softly to herself, then smiled, and thought that maybe this is what she needed to cheer herself up. "Sure Rodney, I was just going to dinner. Want to join me?"
"I think I will, then I can ask you that all important question that I came for!"
"Lead the way then…"
"Na ah uh, ladies first, always."
"Such a gentlemen, Rodney, I didn't know you had it in you." Jennifer teased gently.
"There are a lot of things that I hide from everyone Jen." His smile was back and it was intoxicating. Jennifer found her bad mood evaporating rather quickly in his presence.
Dinner was a good break for both of them. Rodney was able to escape the hectic hustle and bustle of his lab and Jen was able to forget about her date troubles for the time being. Of course, both of them knew it wouldn't last but neither one of them wanted to break the peace. Finally Rodney did.
"So, you saw that email about the Valentine's Day party stuff?" He asked her.
"Yeah… Rodney I'm not really in the mood to discuss it."
"You are not going to go?"
"I have to but, you know, Valentine's isn't the best part of the year for me."
Rodney waited, hoping she would elaborate and then bravely decided to forge on. "Jen, you see the reason I was asking is that I was hoping you would go with me. We can go out for the day. I can get a jumper, we can go to a beach or something and then come back for the party, please Jen, it would really make it special for me if you would join me."
She laughed a little, her mood brightening as she realized that this might be the best Valentine's Day she'd ever had "Very well, Rodney. I accept your date."
He grinned, leaned over the table and gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek. "It'll be great Jen, I promise!"
She got up, gave him a hug and together they walked out of the Mess Hall and to the transporter, each headed back to their respective quarters in a great mood.
Thanks go to DaletheChu for her help by allowing me to bounce ideas off of her and her beta assistance with this story. Trust me; it would be much worse without her help!
I have to state that the email addresses I used are as far I as I know completely false email addresses. If they are real, then they are definitely not publicly accessible as atlantis(dot)pegasus(dot)sgc(dot)af(dot)mil is not a resolvable domain name. af(dot)mil is the real site of the United States Air Force and I would believe the Atlantis team addresses would be based off of a sub-domain of the SGC's which would be probably be based off of the Air Force's. A very common argument on many Stargate forums is whether the SGC would eventually separate from the Air Force and become it's own branch of the military under the Department of Homeworld Command. This would be similar to how the United States Air Force split off from the Army in the past. If MGM states that this is what eventually happens, then the addresses would probably lose the (dot)af at the end becoming atlantis(dot)pegasus(dot)sgc(dot)hwc(dot)mil or even atlantis(dot)pegasus(dot)hwc(dot)mil. Honestly, there's too much speculation here but I liked the way the one's I chose look and I plan to stick with them. I have to apologize for the way they are formatted, I started out typing them as normal email addresses look but Fanfiction(dot)net decided that they weren't allowed. This was the best I could do, I feel the email addresses are important to the story as they add a little something special to it.
Enjoy the ride, and Happy Belated Birthday to IceMenace!