With no mission to occupy him Cam went for a long jog before checking on Jennifer in the infirmary, finding she was still in surgery he headed back to his quarters and became restless. He booted up his computer and scanned the database, coming up against the same dead ends as before. Not to be deterred he looked at old mission reports hoping to find another picture of the symbol hidden in the photos. Eventually he gave up covering old ground and headed back to the infirmary. Seeing Jennifer was still occupied he decided to venture down to McKay's lab. When he arrived he was surprised to see Sheppard sitting at one of the work benches playing with a chair, while Daniel and Rodney looked at a screen. The second John saw Cam he straightened his back and greeted.
"Sir."
"Sheppard." Cam nodded. As he spoke McKay turned and glared at the Colonel.
"Sorry about having to scrub your mission today." John said to Cam, wondering what had upset McKay. "At the time I thought I need more teams to deal with the fall out."
"It's ok, I understand." Cam replied, sitting on a spare chair. "Is everything ok now?"
"More or less. SGA3 and 7 are tidying up the mess on the planet. Two of Corbin's team have been released from the infirmary but the doc is still working on Lewis. What brings you down here?"
"I was just wondering if they had made any progress." Cam replied, nodding towards the two scientists.
"Not yet." Daniel called distractedly.
"How about with Lorne's idea?" Cam pressed.
"Was that the 'just locate a planet with a volcano plan'?" McKay asked, managing to convey his feelings of distain.
"That's the one." Cam said.
"Do you know what a stupid suggestion that was?" McKay asked, glaring at Cam. "I mean do you have any idea how hard it is to locate planets with volcanoes."
"See I would have thought that between the database and the MALP scans not as hard as you're about to suggest." John said.
"Yes I can waste my time trawling through the database in order to find planets the Ancients have talked about having volcanoes, yes I can go through every MALP reading, not to mention the sensors from the Jumpers. But all that will tell you is there are planets with volcanoes. And for the record most planets have volcanoes. So all that will have happened is I have wasted my time to produce a list that will be as useful as if I plucked names at random."
"He always this crabby?" Cam asked.
"This isn't crabby. Wait until he's gone three hours without coffee." John replied before turning serious and asking. "So what do you want to do about your mission?"
"Tomorrow we'll head back to the planet and give Daniel a bit more time with the translations, but I think Lorne may be onto something. In which case we'll have to widen our search, or hope Teyla's contacts give us something." Cam answered, just as John's radio demanded his attention. Waving a hand at Cam to apologise for the interruption John answered the call. As he spoke Cam's interest was immediately drawn to the conversation through John's words.
"Sheppard here…Hey doc…nice work….doc, get some rest."
When John finally terminated the call he looked at Cam. Noticing the intense look the Colonel was giving him he explained.
"That was the doc. She has just finished patching up Lewis and it looks like he'll be ok."
"That's good news." Cam replied.
"Yes it is, now if only Rodney managed to extract a clue from what we got from the temple, today would start looking brighter."
"I can't do miracles." Rodney snapped. "And I work much better with peace and quiet."
"Really?" Cam asked. "Cos I heard it was impending death that got you working." In response McKay turned and gave Cam a stare that would cause most people to wither. In response though Cam just grinned at him before looking at Daniel and asking.
"Where's Vala?"
"Don't know." Daniel replied looking up from the screen. "She mentioned something about exploring and disappeared."
"McKay can track her if you're worried." Sheppard offered. His suggestion though set Rodney off again.
"That's right. It's not like I am trying to do anything else. Oh wait I am."
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure an alarm will sound if she causes too much trouble." Cam said propelling himself off the chair. "Well I'll be off. Let me know if there's any progress."
"Will do." Daniel replied as he went back to looking at his screen.
"Ok McKay what's happened?" John asked after Cam had left the lab.
"What do you mean?"
"Between you and Colonel Mitchell. You were glaring at him."
"I was not glaring." McKay argued before Daniel chipped in.
"Yeah you were."
"Well wouldn't you if he'd tried to kill you?"
"If he wanted to kill you he wouldn't have warned you about the lemon." Daniel pointed out.
"Something you guys want to fill me in on?" Sheppard asked wondering what he had missed.
"Just that Mitchell is trying to worm his way into Jennifer's life and is willing to kill me in the process." McKay explained, not giving an answer that John was expecting. Pulling a face the Colonel tried to digest the words as the conversation kept flowing on around him.
"Oh, you're jealous." Daniel said, suddenly realising that Rodney had feelings for Jennifer.
"Please, what do I have to be jealous of? Jennifer would never go for a testosterone fuelled ape. Wait, do you know something?"
"Like?" Daniel asked.
"Has Jennifer fallen for him?"
"You're asking the wrong person." Daniel waved him off, not willing to break Cam's confidence.
"Is that what last night was?" McKay went on.
"Rodney." John called. "Don't you think you are being a little paranoid?"
"You tell me? You were on Earth with them. What's with the bike?"
"Bike?" John asked confused.
"Cam likes bikes." Daniel shrugged.
"But Jennifer hates them." McKay countered as once again John was left on the side-lines.
"True, but Cam still got her on a bike. Twice if his stories are to be believed."
"Twice? Stories? This has been going on since Earth hasn't it?" McKay asked before turning to John and waving a finger at him. "And you knew didn't you?"
"Knew what?" John asked, his face conveying his confusion.
"Deny it all you want, but I'll remember this." Rodney warned.
-00—
By the time Jennifer had finished operating on Lewis she was exhausted. Too tired to argue with John's recommendation of rest she informed Marie she was taking a break and silently disappeared to her quarters, deciding on a shower before getting food. As she entered her quarters and saw her bed she debated sleeping for thirty minutes before taking a shower, but in the end the shower won out.
Stepping into the hot, steaming shower stream she felt herself relax and the stiffness in her muscles, from bending over an operation table, melted away. As the water washed over her she found herself thinking of the night before and Cam. As the thought of the Colonel took over her mind she lost herself in daydreams.
Finally stepping out of the shower she found her robe and headed back into her main quarters, shivering as the cooler air hit her. Towelling her hair she glanced at her alarm clock and realised she had less than thirty minutes of her break left. Sighing she walked to her wardrobe, pausing when she heard her door chime. She debated ignoring it but eventually her curiosity got the better of her and she opened the door. As she did so her residual weariness was washed away.
"Hi." She smiled, despite deep down feeling nervous about the encounter wondering if Cam was here to say it had all been a mistake.
"Hey." Cam returned also seeming slightly unsure.
"You want to come in?" Jennifer offered moving to the side.
"Thanks." Cam said entering the room. As the door shut he suddenly noticed that Jennifer was standing before him in only a robe and with dripping hair. "Bad time?"
"Just grabbing a shower on my break." Jennifer shrugged.
"I heard everyone was going to be ok. Well done." Cam replied.
"Thanks."
"Anyway you left this lot in my quarters and thought you'd like it." He said handing Jennifer a bag full of the presents and the remainder of the cake.
"Thanks." Jennifer said smiling. When she caught sight of the cake her grin broadened. "Oooh, cake. Great I'm starving."
"Yeah, see that isn't meant to be a substitute for lunch." Cam said scrunching his eyebrows.
"No time for lunch. I'm due back in the infirmary in twenty-five minutes."
"You know you should eat, especially as you missed breakfast." Cam reminded her.
"I'll have cake." Jennifer shrugged. "You want to join me?"
"On one condition." Cam replied, walking up to Jennifer so that their bodies touched. "You have dinner with me tonight."
"I think that can be arranged." Jennifer replied as she stood on her toes and kissed Cam. Within seconds the cake was forgotten.
A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Next chapter up in the next couple of days.