1. New Amsterdam:
A/N: New Amsterdam was a short-lived show about a New York cop who is, for all practical purposes, immortal. He is cursed to live until he finds his true love. Consequently, he's lived for about 400 years, had numerous wives, and more than a few descendents. It was cracktastic.
John Sheppard glanced over at his new partner, Teyla Emmagen, as she slid onto the bar stool next to him.
She looked over her shoulder at the scene : the thick cloud of cigarette smoke that hung in the air; the din of voices, the clink of glasses, and the music floating in from a far corner; the well-worn veneer of a bar that had seen too many customers and not as many remodels.
John loved every inch of it. It was as much home as anything had ever been. Then again he could barely recall those places he'd called home before the Boston Tea Party.
"Nice place," Teyla commented.
John took a sip of his club soda. "Evening, Detective. Didn't expect to see you here."
"Dex said this was your usual haunt." She glanced down the length of the bar. "Is it possible to get a drink here?"
John nodded to Rodney who was drying a glass near the end of the bar. He'd had eagle-eyes on them from the moment Teyla had sat down. "Rodney, pour the detective a drink, would ya? Put it on my tab."
"You don't have a tab," Rodney retorted.
"Now is as good a time as any to start one." He downed his club soda and shook the empty glass in Rodney's direction, the ice cubes clinking against the side.
Rodney ambled over. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, filling it up. He looked expectantly at Teyla. "You must be the new partner. What can I get you?"
"Scotch, neat."
"A drinker after my own heart," John said, eyeing the bottle of scotch that Rodney pulled from the collection behind the bar – an eighteen year-old Glenlivet – and quickly took a sip of his club soda, trying to soothe the sudden urge to drink something stronger.
"You're drinking club soda, Sheppard."
John bobbed his head with a hint of a smile. "I've been sober for 15,501 days."
She seemed to be getting used to his strange statements because she just raised her eyebrows and said, "Uh-huh."
"Don't believe me?"
"I do not know what to believe, Sheppard, except that you must have lined a number of pockets to pass your psych eval."
Rodney flipped the towel over his shoulder before pointing at John. "She's got your number." To Teyla he said, "Maybe you'll be around longer than his last five partners."
Kids. No respect for their parents these days, John thought as he gave Rodney's retreating back a dark look. "So why did you hunt me down, Teyla?"
"You did not answer your phone," she replied, taking a sip of her scotch.
John smiled. "And you were worried that I might be lying on the side of the road somewhere?" He fingered his glass. "Did you know that when Lincoln was assassinated, it took up to three months for many people in the Midwest to hear about it? It's amazing how far communication has come in such a short time."
"Let me guess: you were a poor wheat farmer in Indiana when Lincoln was shot."
Rodney snorted loudly at that.
John ignored it. "Surgeon in Maryland, actually."
Teyla sighed. "We are supposed to be partners, Sheppard. That means when you get information pertaining to a case you call me, and when I get the same, I call you. You might be confused on how that works but I am not."
She was feisty, he had to give her that. He liked feisty, especially in a partner. It was an attribute he admired in those who had everything to lose. But, he thought, maybe that was why they approached life head-on – there was no satisfaction to be won from playing it safe, and the potential to fail was the same as the potential to succeed.
He threw a look Rodney's way to where he had started arguing heatedly with a regular about an unpaid tab. Fondly, John recalled that Rodney's mother had possessed that same inner fire, but she'd also been one of the sweetest souls he'd ever met. John sometimes wondered how Rodney had neither inherited his mother's sympathetic nature nor John's own easy-going temperament. But Rodney had a character all his own – willful, stubborn, and endlessly loyal – and John knew that that was as much a legacy to him and Susan as anything else.
"So what did you need to tell me?"
"CSU found several sets of fingerprints that do not belong to anyone in the family, including one on a round still in the chamber."
John swiveled to face her. "It's not the husband's?"
Teyla looked amused. "No. And Dex found out that Mr. Nelson had an ex-wife."
"Amicable split?"
"Anything but." She pulled her notebook out of her jacket pocket. "These are her work and home addresses."
John glanced at them then nodded.
"Dex was not pleased that your hunch might be accurate again," said Teyla. She stared at John's reflection in the mirror behind the bar. "He is still clinging to the hope that it was a simple murder-suicide."
"Nothing about murder is ever simple."
"Now you are guru as well as a detective. I will let the captain know he should be paying you double."
Rodney snorted down a laugh having wandered close enough to hear the conversation again. When John looked at him, Rodney said, "I like her."
John smiled crookedly and raised his eyebrows at Teyla. "You earned Rodney's stamp of approval, and believe me, that's no easy feat."
"And you?"
John cocked his head to the side, studying her for a moment. "Keep up the good work."
"Was that an answer?" Teyla asked Rodney, who shrugged.
"It's as much of one as you're going to get from him. You'll get used to it." He poured another finger of scotch into her glass. "Here. On the house." When she raised her eyebrows, Rodney said, "You're gonna need it."