Authors Note: A shorter chapter here but I wanted to get something posted. I hope you all enjoy it and thanks for the reviews.

Chapter 25

Elizabeth could feel John's eyes on her even before she opened her own, she remained still for a while, waiting to see how long it would take him to stop but got bored after the first few minutes. "I cannot be that interesting," she smiled and finally opened her eyes to find him laid down next to her in the bed, a small smirk on his face.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to say something," he stated.

"I was waiting to see how long you would keep staring at me for," she replied "You knew I was awake?"

"Yeah, you're breathing changed," he said and she smiled again and shook her head, stretching out in the bed before turning onto her side to face him.

"How long have you been awake?" she questioned and he shrugged.

"About twenty minutes," he replied and she glanced passed him to the small alarm clock beside the bed which told her it was heading on for 10am, she never usually slept in this long.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asked as she started to sit up. She had reports that needed to be looked through from the various planets that were still reporting shadow attacks. John grabbed her arm and pulled her back down so was once again lying next to him and she sent him a mild glare for it. "We have things to do."

"We don't arrive at Taldis for another three days, that's plenty of time to get everything done, we don't need to jump out of bed at the crack of dawn every morning, we're in space, we don't even get dawn," John told her and Elizabeth looked at him for a moment before sighing and curling into his side, her head on his chest.

"Fine, I'll give you ten minutes," she replied and John laughed.

"If that's all I can get out of you then I guess I'll take it," he stated and Elizabeth looked up at him, her chin still resting on his chest.

"Fifteen minutes?" she said feeling slightly guilty even though she knew she had no reason to be. The mission kept them both busy and they'd agreed when they started this relationship that it wouldn't get in the way of work, that their duty had to come first. John ran his fingers through her hair, kissing her forehead as she settled back against his chest.

"It's quiet," Elizabeth said.

"Might have something to do with the almost sound proof walls," John replied and Elizabeth laughed.

"Yeah but we can still usually here someone arguing out there even through the almost sound proof walls," she stated and felt John shrug.

"Everyone seems to be getting along better, even with Dex and Teyla," John told her.

"Well so far they haven't done anything wrong since we brought them on board, they've followed orders, mostly kept to themselves, Teyla's helped destroy three of the shadows without complaint or hesitation despite what it does to us, the risk to us," Elizabeth summed up. It had only been a couple of days since their confrontation on the bridge and there were still too many unresolved issues between them to count. She had to admit though that Teyla had done very little wrong since coming aboard the Venture. "I suppose they've given us no reason not to trust them as far as this mission is concerned."

"What do you think they'll do after this mission?" John asked her and Elizabeth shook her head slightly.

"I have no idea, I doubt they'll go back to the Vernai, hell the Vernai would probably kill them given the chance now but they still don't have much love for the Alliance so maybe they'll just find themselves somewhere quiet to live out the rest of their days," Elizabeth suggested knowing it was unlikely.

"You think Dex is the type to settle down somewhere quiet and spend his days chopping wood for the fire?" John questioned incredulously and Elizabeth laughed at the mental image.

"Maybe not," she replied. "Who knows what they'll do."

"Hopefully something that won't land them back in their jail cells because I'm sure the council are just looking for a reason to put them away when this is all over, they weren't happy about letting them out in the first place," John said and she looked up at him again.

"I'm sure they have enough sense to stay off their radar," Elizabeth stated and John shrugged again and smiled.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see," he replied leaning down to kiss her, once, twice, three times and she pushed herself up so she could kiss him properly, his hand going to the back of her neck and his fingers threading through her hair. Her hands found the hem of his t-shirt and she pushed them underneath hearing him groan at the contact before flipping them over, the weight of his body pushing hers down into the bed as he continued to kiss her.

"I thought I was only getting fifteen minutes," he mumbled against her lips.

"You got an extension."

"That was one time," Lorne protested as he input the alternate route to Taldis to avoid the Vernai cruiser they'd been warned was in the area. The last thing they needed right now was to run into the Vernai again. The ship board computer accepted the changes and immediately altered their route, it would take another day to reach Taldis but it kept them away from the Vernai who could easily delay them by a lot longer than that.

"Actually it was three times," Laure replied, leaning back in the chair by the sensor console with a smug grin on her face.

"You're counting?" Lorne questioned incredulously.

"Of course I'm counting, I save up any information that I can use to torment you with," Laura told him, smile widening. "And you epically embarrassing yourself in front of women when you're drunk is definitely information worth saving."

"Remind me why I put up with you," Lorne said as he turned his chair to glare at her.

"Because life would be boring without me, and probably much shorter, you'd be dead by now if I weren't around," Laura responded with a shrug and as much as Lorne wanted to protest that statement he knew it was probably true.

"You'd be dead without me too you know," he said almost sulkily.

"I know, but we were talking about why you put up with me not the other way around," Laura told him as Rodney and Carson walked onto the bridge.

"There you are love, I was looking for you," Carson said as he spotted the two of them.

"You found me," Laura declared cheerfully throwing her arms up in the air as if to prove the point. Somewhere over the last few days the atmosphere on ship had shifted, a lot of the tension from the previous weeks were gone and Lorne didn't even feel the need to fight with Dex and Teyla which up until recently had been a necessity in his daily routine. Even Elizabeth seemed to be a little more relaxed now that all the constant fighting on the ship had ceased, it probably helped that three of the shadows were destroyed; they were almost half way through this insane mission. Laura had mellowed out considerably now that she was back to her former fitness level; she'd hated not being at a hundred percent after her run in with the shadows.

"I was about to make dinner and I figured I'd take a vote on what everyone wants," Carson told them and quickly laid out the choices.

"You shouldn't have to always be the one that cooks Carson," Lorne stated feeling bad that the doctor seemed to have taken the responsibility solely on himself with Elizabeth as the occasional assistant.

"I'm hardly going to let any of you do it," Carson replied. "None of us would survive, besides, I really don't mind, I enjoy it."

Laura and Lorne both gave their votes, the doctor turned chef disappeared from the bridge again to get everyone else's votes.

"You changed our course," Rodney exclaimed from beside him where he was leaning over the console. "It's going to take us another day to get there, why would you take a longer route?"

"Because there's a Vernai cruiser in the way on our previous course so unless you want to run into them I suggest you leave it," Lorne told him, smacking the scientist's hand away from the console before he could mess with anything.

Laura walked into the infirmary to find her husband still hard at work. He'd received another transmission full of medical files from the alliance, all of them pertaining to victims of the shadows and since then he'd practically locked himself up with them, surfacing for food and sleep only. She wondered over to his desk and sat down on the edge of it, waiting for his attention which, after a few moments of his eyes scanning the paper he was reading, he gave to her.

"What can I do for you love?" he questioned.

"Buy me new guns, blow Rodney out of an airlock, cook me nice dinners, leave the infirmary for more than fifteen minutes at a time and for something other than food or sleep," Laura listed off casually and Carson smiled as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm sure we've not long since had this conversation."

"I have a lot of work to do Laura, if there's something in these files that might help Elizabeth and Teyla when we reach Taldis tomorrow then I want to find it," Carson told her and she nodded her head understandingly.

"You know you tell me, and everyone else, that if we work ourselves into the ground we're no good to anybody and even the work we do get done will probably need doing again because we're likely to miss something," Laura told him, repeating his words from the numerous lectures he'd given her over the years on taking better care of herself. She was pretty sure everyone else on the crew, minus Dex and Teyla, could tell him the same thing.

"You're right," Carson said sitting forward again and standing up.

"I know," Laura told him with feigned smugness. "And like you said, we get to Taldis tomorrow and we'll all be busy again then."

"So I should spend some time with my wife while I can," Carson finished for her, moving to stand in front of her where she was leaning on the desk. "So what do you want to do?"

Laura looped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. "Oh I can think of a few things," she replied suggestively.

Carson kissed her. "I hardly think the infirmary is a good place for that, Rodney could walk in at any second," he mumbled against her lips.

"And ruin all my fun as usual," Laura replied, standing up straight and kissing him again. "I guess we'll just have to take this elsewhere. I do remember saying I wanted you to leave the infirmary anyway."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?"

TBC