Authors Note: For xakliaaeryn who requested a fic about the 6 weeks spent on Earth during The Return and afterwards.
Week 6
"I know you're there Weir, so just pick up the damned phone!"
John's voice rang out through her apartment and she sighed heavily. She was in the middle of writing and didn't want to be disturbed, but that fact obviously hadn't occurred to John Sheppard because the man would not take her silence for an answer.
"Come on Elizabeth. . ." He tried again. "Eliiiiiiiiiiizabeth. . . ," he drew her name out.
"What?" she demanded with a sigh, finally picking up the receiver. As he began to try and chat her up she could just hear that shit-eating grin on his face. Part of her wanted to reach through the phone and smack it off of him. The other half just wanted to hang up on him.
"So, whatcha doin' tonight?" he finally asked.
"Nothing, why?" As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she had said the wrong thing and she could hear his grin getting wider.
John quickly laid out a flimsy excuse about some kind of party at O'Malley's. Something about SG-1's ban finally being lifted, and they were all going out to celebrate. She hemmed and hawed and tried to talk her way out of it, but he was having none of it.
"I'll see you at 9," he told her. "Wear something fun!" was the last thing he said, hanging up before she could again try and talk her way out of it.
Elizabeth could only stare at the receiver in her hand as she cursed John Sheppard's very existence. She couldn't say no to the man since she got home and he knew it.
**
"See? Wasn't this a good idea?" he asked her with a smile as he drank another beer. She simply played with the label of her now empty bottle.
"She'll have another," he told the bartender when she didn't answer him.
"John . . ." she started to protest. She had told herself that she would stick around for an hour or four beers, whichever came first, and then take off.
Unfortunately for her, John Sheppard had never seen fit to stick to her plans, spoken or not, and was currently keeping a beer in her hand and her body as far from the door as possible.
He ignored her and said some dopey toast that all the SG teams seemed to use before he clicked the neck of his bottle against hers and took another drink.
It was going to be a long night.
**
"You know what?" she asked him sometime later.
He had finally gotten enough alcohol into her that she had loosened up, even consented to a few dances. He had stepped in and rescued her from one Marine who was a little too handsy for him.
"What?" he asked as he swayed her drunkenly around the small dance floor.
"I really didn't want to come out tonight."
He snorted, and assured her that he had realized that several beers ago.
"I know it sucks being back here after what we saw, but you can't hide forever hoping this will magically go back to the way they were," he told her.
She considered this for a long moment.
"I'm not hiding," she finally announced to him. "I'm strategically retreating," she finished, trying to sound as dignified as she could.
He burst out laughing, recognizing a Rodney McKay excuse when he heard one. He teased her about that being the best she could do and she muttered that she'd get back to him later. He accepted that answer and waltzed her around the floor a few more times before they headed back to the bar.
**
"You, Dr. Weir, are drunk," John slurred slightly as he escorted her to her door.
"And I suppose you're sober?" she asked him as she fumbled for her keys. It had been far longer than she cared to admit since she had been this drunk.
John shrugged slightly as he tried to help her get her keys organized. They both watched as the keys slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.
"They are very far away," John commented sadly, staring at the keys on the ground at his feet.
"Baby," she muttered as she awkwardly bent over and picked up the keys. She managed to get the door open on the second try and the pair all but fell into her apartment.
"Letting the standards slip I see," John remarked as he took in the cluttered space. Elizabeth had been so fastidious on Atlantis that he almost couldn't believe this was her place.
"No glass walls," she offered as an explanation. He sighed heavily as he remembered Atlantis. Once again she seemed to share his thoughts. A heavy silence fell over the pair as they tried to decide what to do next.
"There is one good thing to being back on Earth," John said as he stepped closer to her.
She looked at him cautiously as he invaded her personal space. She didn't say anything while she waited for him to continue.
"You're not my boss anymore," he whispered in her ear. She pulled back from him slightly as this thought permeated the alcoholic fog her brain was currently pickling in.
"I'm not," she agreed slowly.
"Which means that I could do this," he leaned in and kissed her softly. "And no one can say jack about it." He couldn't help but watch as the tip of her tongue shot out and quickly licked her bottom lip.
"You're right," she replied after a moment. "It also means that I could do this," she leaned in and kissed him in return, but her demonstration was anything but soft. "And no one can say jack," she finished when she finally pulled away, the pair trying to catch their breaths.
"And no one can stop me from doing this," he said as he quickly spun them around so that she was pushed back against the door of her apartment while his mouth descended on hers again before quickly making it's way down her neck.
She sighed and tilted her head, giving him better access and John instantly took that as a sign to proceed. Things heated up very quickly after that and it wasn't long before Elizabeth had a naked leg wrapped around John's thighs while he had his way with her.
Week 6, day 3
Elizabeth groaned as she woke the next morning, her head pounding. She had foggy memories of stumbling to bed with John after they had recovered from their frenzy against her door. She flung her hand out to the other side of the bed, searching for John only to find the bed empty.
She listened for the shower or some other form of life but heard nothing. Eventually, she pulled herself out of bed and padded into the kitchen, intent on securing some aspirin, water and orange juice.
As she reached into the fridge for the orange juice, she found a note tapped to the jug telling her that he had to get back to the SGC for a mission and that he'd call her when he got back.
Elizabeth read the note over a few times as memories from the night before began to flood over her. She indulged for a long moment, remembering the feel of him on her, around her and in her before finally closing the fridge and heading to the shower.
Week 6, days 5-7
When a day or two passed without hearing from John, she wrote it off as him being stuck off world. And given that man's ability to find trouble, she wouldn't have been surprised.
But without John around to force his way into her life and make her live it again, she withdrew into herself again, ordering far more take out than she should and neglecting personal hygiene in favor of writing down just one more chapter.
Near the end of the week, Carson barged into her apartment telling a story about how John had been delayed on his mission, but that Rodney was flying into town and he, John and Rodney were going to have diner together and she should join them.
She wanted to bow out but unable to come up with a valid reason as to why she couldn't go out, Carson effectively railroaded her into going, assuring her that he'd be there at an appropriate hour to pick her up.
Week 7
Elizabeth sighed contentedly and smiled to herself as she looked around her office. Sure, it was still mostly empty save for the few boxes that had trickled in. The Expedition was slowly being recalled and returning via the wormhole thanks to the ZPMs left behind by the Ancients. But at the moment it was still mostly herself, John, Rodney, Carson, Teyla and Ronon who made up the main staff of the city.
"Going for a cleaner look this time around?" Elizabeth turned quickly to see John resting casually against the doorframe of her office.
She swallowed hard, not really sure what to say to him. The dinner with the boys wasn't the place to bring up what had happened between them. And then, before dinner was even over, the SGC had called them all in to work out a plan to nuke the city. A plan that had gone very sideways after some rushed hypothetical planning by the group.
"Maybe it'll help me stay caught up on the paper work," she finally said. "Less distraction."
She saw him do a quick check to make sure that they were really alone and she swallowed hard again.
Apparently they were going to do this now. She cut him off before he could really get started telling him not to worry about it, that it was fun, but nothing more and she understood if he. . . she didn't get to finish the thought as he swept in and took her face in his hands, kissing her deeply.
"I have thought of nothing else," he said when he finally pulled apart from her.
"Oh," was all she got out. After a moment she and John shared a laugh about how he had reduced the eloquent diplomat to one words answers.
"The IOA," she finally said, some sense creeping back into her head.
"What they don't know won't hurt them," he said with a shrug, letting his hands fall and skim down her shoulders until he could grasp her hands. "Kavanagh is long gone and, luckily, seems to have been the only bad seed we've ever gotten on this mission."
"We've been lucky," she said absently, thinking of some of the troublemakers she'd dealt with during her short stay as SGC commander.
"We'll just have to be responsible about this, not let it change our working relationship. I have a job to do and so do you, simple as that."
She sighed and hesitated before he jumped in again.
"Can you really possibly worry about me any more now than you did before?" he asked her.
They shared a laugh, as she admitted that no, she couldn't. She did assure him that she would mother hen him far more once he got back though. John heaved a sarcastic sigh and rolled his eyes.
"Yes mom," he dragged out, trying to sound really annoyed.
"I'm not your mother, John Sheppard," she reminded him softly before ducking her head and capturing his lips.
Week 9
"You're reckless!"
"I've always been reckless!"
"You ignored my direct order!"
"Your order was stupid and wrong and you know it!"
"You are out of line Colonel!" she yelled at Sheppard, well aware that she was reaching the same volume she had when Rodney had blown up 5/8th of a solar system.
John had really done it this it this time. She had decided that the latest request for a trade agreement from the planet of the week was too risky. The society was too secretive and they refused to negotiate on the many "To Be Decided" conditions in the proposed treaty. She and the senior staff had decided that the unknown was too big a factor and that the treaty wasn't worth it.
Seeing how tempted the military man was with big shiny space guns, the planet had gone all out to entice John to convince him to use his influence over Elizabeth to get her to agree to the treaty.
Instead, he had ignored her order to pack up and leave and had used the jumper's cloak to sneak into one of their less guarded facilities and secure Rodney some of the minerals that made their weapons possible. Both men had the hope that they could engineer something of their own from it.
"No one got hurt. We didn't get caught and we got the mineral. It was an acceptable risk!" he fired back.
"It wasn't your call to make!" She took a deep breath and dropped her voice. "Just because you share my bed does not mean that you can override my decisions John Sheppard. I am still your boss."
"And you're good at that, aren't you?" he fired back, still mad at her.
Neither was really noticing how the fight was shifting from professional to personal until it was too late.
"A boss on the job I can handle, a boss in the bedroom not so much," he fired at her as he came to the end of his latest tirade.
As soon as he saw the muscle in her jaw twitch, he knew he had stepped over the line and regretted his words immediately.
"I think you had better walk away," she told him, her voice deathly still and quiet. "You better walk away and stay away Colonel."
The pair stared at each other for a long moment before he offered her a cocky salute and spun on his heel, stalking out of her office.
Week 10
"This is ridiculous," Teyla said, watching as the leader of Atlantis and her military commander continued to keep things exaggeratedly formal.
"You're telling me," Rodney groused around a mouthful of food.
"He spent only two nights on your couch before he left, suck it up," Ronon grumbled around his own mouthful.
Sheppard had been on his couch since leaving Rodney's. The Satedan didn't mind. He was used to close quarters. However, he wasn't used to seeing John so short tempered.
"Are they still arguing about he choice to obtain the ore sample last week?" she asked.
"It's something more than that," Ronon said.
He watched the couple with a practiced eye, having been the only one out of the group in a long-term relationship before.
"Someone crossed the line and neither is willing to admit fault." The group paused and fell silent as they cast their eyes on Ronon.
"What line?" Rodney finally asked.
"The one that separates professional from personal." Ronon said no more on the subject as he finished the last bite on his tray and stood, leaving the mess hall.
Week 10, day 5
John stood outside of Elizabeth's quarters, psyching himself up to request entry.
Ronon had finally had enough and had literally beaten some sense into him last night.
Bruised and sore, he had spent most of the night thinking about what had happened and realized that things were only going to get better if he sucked it up and apologized.
This fight wasn't like the other's they had during their short relationship. It wasn't just going to go away with a little time and distance. He finally took a deep breath and rang.
"Hey," he said, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck when she finally answered.
She arched an eyebrow at him, crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "For going against your orders, for saying the things I did. . . I was so far out of line that I couldn't even see the line."
She listened to him fumble an apology a little longer before she took pity on him and let him come into her quarters. He kept rambling a little while longer before she put him out of his misery.
"Apology accepted," she told him quietly.
For the first time in nearly two weeks, a smile broke out over John Sheppard's face.
She wandered over to the bed, but he didn't follow, instead he started to make excuses about her being tired and how he should go.
"Don't fights like these usually end in really hot make-up sex?" she asked casually.
John stopped in his tracks, turned on his heel and rushed over to her.
"It couldn't hurt," he said as he quickly gathered her into his arms.
Week 16
She did not like this plan at all. So what if the Replicators were building ships? Oh, she knew just how dangerous the human form Replicators in this galaxy were, but they had been keeping to themselves since they had rescued Atlantis from them.
As far as Elizabeth was concerned, they should seek out a diplomatic solution first and then resort to weapons if necessary.
Of course, the Air Force didn't see it that way and after what had happened the last time the IOA had backed one of her major tactical decisions, they weren't taking any chances and had sided with the military as well.
Enter Colonel Ellis and his Nuclear Bomb of Plenty.
She quickly decided that she didn't like Ellis at all. In fact, she thought he was a bit of a prick.
And that was how they now found themselves scrambling to find enough power to fly the city off Lantea.
Oh sure, the nuke plan had worked, except for the part where the Replicators sent a Stargate that was essentially a weapon to destroy them once and for all.
"Stay safe," John whispered to her in a quiet corridor.
"You too," she whispered back, her forehead resting against his. Neither of them thought this was going to be easy.
"You need to go," she said after a moment.
He took a deep breath and nodded before pulling away, kissing her hard and then taking off down the corridor towards the transporter that would take him to the chair room. Elizabeth took a moment to steal herself before she marched back to command.
Week 16, day 2
John scrubbed his hands over his face as his listened to the ever-growing number of system failures that Atlantis was suffering. He was tired of listening to this list, but he had to listen to something to keep his mind off of what was happening to Elizabeth.
She was dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Keller and her team were doing everything they could to save her, but they all knew it wasn't going to be enough.
The tech giving the report finally finished and John waved him off, taking moment to himself before he stood and headed towards the infirmary.
"Oh, I was just coming to see you," Rodney said when he ran into John. John eyed his critically for a moment, noticing that McKay was exhibiting more than the normal caffeine twitch.
"You did what?!" he demanded when Rodney told him about activating Elizabeth's nanites to save her life.
The pair yelled at each other for a while longer, John insisting that he shut them down again and Rodney refusing.
Eventually, Sheppard pushed past McKay and stalked into the infirmary, intent on giving Keller a piece of his mind, but his train of thought stopped as soon as he saw her.
She was perfect again; her cuts and bruises gone, the hair they had shaved away back perfectly in place. She was Elizabeth Weir again.
His heart leapt for joy while the military commander in his continued to fume.
The pair shared a look and he understood. He ripped into Rodney a little longer before the other man brought forth his plan to use Elizabeth to steal the ZPM that the city so desperately needed.
Week 16, day 3
Elizabeth could only watch in disbelieve as the entire Replicator city came into view in her mind's eyes. All she had to do was wonder where something may be located and she was automatically taken there. She could see every corridor, passageway and Replicator in the city.
Rodney was peppering her with questions, excited beyond belief with the information he was gathering.
"What?" he asked when her breath suddenly caught in her throat.
She had found the Replicators' central processing core and had gotten access to the latest copy of their operating code.
Her nanite infused brain took a few seconds to debate the pros and cons of telling Rodney about what she had found before she decided to let it fall by the wayside.
The Replicators had no idea where they were now. They didn't know they were on the planet and they had no idea where they were going to resettle.
"Nothing," she answered him. "It's just very overwhelming," she supplied instead.
When this had all started she had thought it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie and now that she had the chance, she was going to follow through with that.
Epilogue
Week 58
"So, we made it a whole year," John said casually as he found Elizabeth leaning against the balcony that was just outside of the command center.
"We did," she said with a contented sigh. She leaned into him a little as he came to stand beside her.
"Regrets?"
"I could have done with a few less fights, and a few less nanites, but no, not really."
John nodded in approval, he felt the same way. He was still pissed at Rodney for choosing to reactivate Elizabeth's nanites. He had a feeling that he always would be, but at the same time, he was incredibly grateful that he had reactivated them.
"What about you? Regrets?"
"I could do with a little less IOA crap," he said with a shrug.
Since the Replicator incident, the IOA had dug as many of their fingers into as many of the Atlantis pies as it could, keeping tabs on everyone and looking for any excuse to oust Weir from command.
She and Sheppard had gotten very wise very quick and did everything possible to keep that from happening. So far it was working.
"So, I was thinking … " he said after a long moment.
"Oh this can't be good," Elizabeth said with a smile. He gave her a little shove before reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a little box.
"Found this off world," he said, tossing it to her. She arched an eyebrow as she caught it and opened it.
"Well, if you really want to," she said casually, seeing the ring inside the box.
"Might be fun," he said with a shrug, trying to stay casual and not give away how nervous he really was.
"We do like fun," she agreed as he reached over her shoulder and plucked the ring from the box. "Don't drop it," she told him and they both laughed when he nearly did just that.
"Evil woman," he muttered in her ear as he slid the ring onto her finger.
"Like you'd have me any other way," she countered, twisting slightly to pull him into a kiss.