A/N: Okay, I'm sorry for jumping like this through the timeline... but for this one, we need to go back to *consults timeline spread sheet* shortly after Raising the Stakes, that is, Laura and Evan still think what they're doing is secret and Tom and Maureen... well, let's not talk about that now. Let's keep that for later. Instead, let's talk about Team Kemp again. They don't actually appear here but I love the fact that they still could drive Tom crazy. And I really hope that at some point we will see the Team Kemp story that belongs to this in English. I haven't given up faith yet.

Also, I haven't given up faith yet that mackenziesmomma might one day find her way out of beta hell again. Fluffy handcuffs, huh?

Made for Walking

"These boots are made for walking,
and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these boots
are gonna walk all over you."

Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots are Made for Walkin'"

"So…" Sheppard says and is about to bring up the next item on the to do list when suddenly the door bangs open.

Or would have banged open if it weren't a sliding door. But, and that's part scary, part amazing, the man who just stormed into Sheppard's office can actually make it appear as if the door just banged open.

"I quit!" Moore announces and… and that's it. He announced that and then he's about to turn around and just march out again.

Thankfully, he's fast and alert enough to stop him with a reasonably matter-of-fact, "Quit what, Major Moore?"

It's not like he doesn't have a fair idea what Moore might be wanting to quit but he certainly will not let him get away with just charging into the office of their superior, interrupting a pretty important meeting and embarrassing himself in front of said superior. Even though Moore's probably the only one he knows who somehow could get away with something like that. He got away with being half-drunk, half hung over and still acing that near un-aceable International Law exam at the Academy, after all.

Consequently Moore, of course, doesn't look much impressed. He just turns around and rolls his eyes. "Team Kemp. They're fucking insane." So… what's new about that, he wants to ask but Moore isn't finished yet. "Seriously, I think they all have a death wish. And they're your problem now."

Again, there's an attempt to leave the room but this time Sheppard thinks he should have a say in it as well. Simply raising his eyebrow and looking just a little ticked off, he reminds Moore, "They're your problem now, sir."

"Of course, sir." For a moment, Moore actually manages to look something like contrite but it could also have been a trick of light because the next thing he says is, "Anyway... I'm outta here. Do what you want with them, I'm done." And then… he is gone.

What the… and why's Sheppard looking at him now, all expecting and discreetly pissed off. Unfortunately, the only thing coming to his mind is a kind of impatient sounding, "…what?"

Sheppard just shrugs and volunteers, "He's your Academy buddy."

And that makes this my responsibility how, he's tempted to ask but of course this is his responsibility because it had been his idea to push Team Kemp through the Thomas Moore School for Spy Hard Asses, the crash course version. It's their turn for the routine covert observation they put on the Genii and unlike the rest of the teams that had been in rotation before them, none of them has any record with insertion and covert ops. He sighs. "Oh, fine," and gets up.

"Just make sure he doesn't break anything, Major. Or anyone," Sheppard adds, still not looking really happy about this and well, that's perfectly understandable. He's not happy about having to resolve this either, seeing as despite his usual antics, Moore usually also has good reasons for being in a huff like that.

"Will do, sir. I'll get back to you once I got this under control." His CO nods, with a "yeah, you better" expression on his face and he takes that as his final clue to leave.

So… where to find Moore? Usually, he'd take the direct route to Maureen Reece's office but first of all she was scheduled for a linguistics department meeting at the moment and secondly… for some reason he has a feeling there's something keeping Moore away from her office. Has been keeping him away from it for a while now, actually. Something's… up with them but right now, he prefers not to think about what the hell that could be. They're adults, they can very well sort it out between the two of them. Or at least he hopes they can.

Anyway, he needs to… ah, look who's stalking down the corridor towards the workout room. With a few measured strides, he reaches a pretty much seething Thomas Moore. "You know… I never pegged you as a drama queen, Tom."

For a moment, there's grim silence and determined tromping on from Moore for a couple of steps. Then, "I wasn't being a drama queen. I was being dead serious."

Yes, and a drama queen. But… it probably wouldn't serve his agenda very well to stress that again. So instead he tries to keep the eye rolling to a minimum and says, "Really? Coulda fooled me."

"Just fuck off," Moore growls and he's tempted to correct him, like Sheppard did, just to rile him up.

"Just fuck off, sir." Okay, and he very obviously couldn't resist the temptation.

Moore answers that with a grunt and… stops. Huh. "I mean it, Evan. Just leave me alone. Training Team Kemp was a stupid idea and you better find someone else because I ain't gonna do it anymore."

Now that's just bullshit. It was a very good idea to ask Moore to do that, seeing as since Major Mikhail Stoikov, Russian Army, left Atlantis a couple of weeks ago, Moore is the only officer left with some real Black Ops experience; the only one who actually got schooled on insertion, sabotage… and he doesn't want to think about what else they probably taught him in spy school. Okay, not-spy school. Anyway… "You do realize that it's not just your decision, right?"

"This time, it is. Seriously, Evan, this… this is madness." He raises an eyebrow.

"Care to tell me what "this" actually is?" Because he'd really like to know. Honestly.

At first, it looks like Moore won't volunteer any information but then he rolls his eyes, shakes his head and says, "Their… idiocy. Seriously, you wouldn't… Look, I gave them a task. Totally normal thing to do when training people, right?"

He nods, trying not to look too skeptical. "Sure."

"Right. So… I just gave them a box, with some tools in it. The kind of weird assortment that looks like you can't do anything with it." He nods again. Yeah, he knows those as well. "And I gave them their premises, an objective and an ETA. Nothing really hard," he doesn't really believe that, seeing as Moore and the rest of the world seem to have slightly different definitions of the term "nothing really hard", "and with the combination of their skills, they could totally have solved it in less than half the time objective I gave them. And now guess what they did."

He shrugs. "Took a minute too long?"

Obviously, it's a miracle Moore just didn't kick the wall behind him in frustration. "No, they nearly went at each others' throats." Damn, must not laugh, must not laugh, must not… "This is not funny, Evan. I swear two seconds into the exercise, Kemp and Wells were ready to take it to the shooting range and the two Fs were egging them on. The only way I could prevent bloodshed was that I bellowed them into the ground and made them sit in timeout. In their respective quarters."

Uh-huh, yeah right. Bloodshed. As if.

Except. Moore isn't prone to exaggerations. He likes to show off now and then but he never exaggerates in professional matters. And okay, it's not like he can't imagine the scene; in HD. So yes, ever since Wells came back from her forced stay on Earth the relationship between her and Kemp had seen an improvement… but that improvement mainly had been that they didn't take their hostilities to the fairground anymore. Obviously, that hadn't meant that the hostilities stopped.

Damn, he should have known that.

But then again, he kind of did which was another reason why he'd chosen Moore to do the training, convinced that if there was one officer able to keep Team Kemp on a short leash without alienating them, it would be him. Okay so… he knows it'll probably be futile but… you can still try, can't you? "Okay, so… that sounds like a fuck-up alright. But until then they were cooperative, weren't they?" The gloomy look on Moore's face doesn't look like he agrees but he holds his tongue which is a good sign that despite not wanting to, he does agree. "So… just try again?" Okay, he could order Moore to just do it but… he does get the problem very well.

However, Moore doesn't exactly make it easy for him not to make it an order. "Fuck it, Evan, I have a lot of better things to do with my time. You remember that team I command? Yeah, that's one of them." Why is it that the moment Moore says that, he thinks that it's rather one team member than the entire team that Moore means?

Oh, maybe because since about two weeks or so ago, Reece and Moore are avoiding each other like the plague. To their credit, they're actually trying to be very discreet about it but… you just can't keep a secret in Atlantis for very long. Granted, he's trying to do it anyway with Laura but… that's not the issue right now.

There's a moment where he considers pussyfooting around it, trying to phrase what he's about to say very carefully… but decides against it in the end. Pussyfooting around an issue was never part of their friendship and it sure as hell won't start to be one now. Giving Moore a frown, he says, "Tom, that thing between you and Reece, whatever it is… get a grip on it."

Suddenly, he can see Tom's walls go up, as if he's digging himself in even more rapidly than an infantry grunt and he says dangerously low, "None of your fucking business, Lorne." Jesus fucking Christ, what did they do?

On second thought… he really doesn't want to know. Even though he probably should want to know that. Ah, hell. "It is when it concerns my soldiers. And that's both of you."

Sometimes, bringing up the duty argument actually helps in reasoning with Moore. Today, though… it looks almost like there's no reasoning whatsoever with him. He sighs. "Look, Tom, I don't really care what it is…" which kind of is a lie, "as long as it doesn't affect your performances."

It only earns him a defiantly sounding, "My performance is fine, thank you."

And yes, he did notice that Moore was only talking about his performance and he wonders which one of the myriad reasons that come to his minds for that is the true one. Which is, in the end, another one of those questions he doesn't really want to have an answer to. So he concentrates on the issue at hand. "Actually, taking it out on Team Kemp is not what I'd call top notch performance."

Now it's Moore who's rolling his eyes. "I wasn't taking it out on them. I was training them."

He can just barely keep from sighing. "That's not what I meant, Tom. Training them was fine… quitting that training just because they annoy you is not." There, that should really be convincing enough…

"They weren't just annoying me. They were very obviously not interested in being trained." Okay, no, it wasn't. Not that he expected differently but… it's getting just a little tiresome, mostly because he has no idea who else he could ask to train Team Kemp for that, except Sergeant DeLisle and he has a feeling that Moore will make the Sergeant unavailable for him the moment he walks away with having quit the training.

So… mission objective number one: keep Moore from quitting. What could he… oh, right. Well, that was a no brainer. "No, they were just being themselves. Don't tell me you can't handle Team Kemp being themselves."

Moore doesn't say anything, even if he looked like he'd wanted to. Instead he glowers at him but he thinks he actually sees the moment Moore finally sees reason. And yeah, only second or so later, Moore growls, "You can be such an asshole."

True, of course. He'd never admit to that but… appealing to Tom's ambition and stubbornness was a little low but desperate times demand desperate measures. So he just shrugs. "But I'm right."

Moore makes a face. "That's why you're an asshole."

Oh come on. He rolls his eyes again. "Get over it, Tom."

Moore just grunts, "Fine," but doesn't make a move to announce to Team Kemp that their time on the naughty step is up.

He feels the need to… encourage Moore a little. "Come on, you so very much want to get back and kick their asses."

"I said fine," Moore snaps but then… he obviously can't hold back a little smirk when he adds, "And okay, yeah, I do."

Yeah, right, that's what he thought. Grinning a little himself now, he just asks, "What are you waiting for then?"

With a little overdramatic sigh and then a squaring of his shoulders that's equally just for show, Moore replies, "You got it."

But… still here. Need to change that, if they really want to send Team Kemp into the dangerous world of undercover work. "Course I do. Get going."

For a moment… he thinks Moore will continue just standing there and talking nonsense – and he just now starts to realize that the only reason Moore is still here is that he's making a pretty good target for mocking – but then he simply nods and grins and gives him an only half serious, "Yes, sir." With that, Moore turns around and he turns around and they both… "And give my regards to Lieutenant Cadman when you see her tonight."

What the hell? And why is he suddenly… hey, Moore's not supposed to be running away now and did he just hear him laugh out loud, just like he always did at the Academy when he'd scored another point in the endless game of annoying everyone and their mother with catching them unawares with all kinds of crap from their personal life?

That's just… it's… ah, hell, he will get back at him for that some day. Now, though… he has to finish that meeting with Sheppard and also find a way to tell Laura she needs to find another route to his quarters. Oh well, at least… he's got something positive to tell Sheppard and something amusing to tell Laura now and really, that's more than he could ask for today. Really could have gone worse.