Friend Bear
Summary: John finds out something unexpected about Elizabeth. Weir-Sheppard friendship fluff.
Spoilers: No direct spoilers, but anything up to the "The Eye" is free game.
Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis and its characters do not belong to me.
Author's Note: This is dedicated to my best friend, Gail, who either by accident or design got me one of the best Christmas presents ever.
The door slides open and Major John Sheppard is silhouetted against the dim lighting of the hallway. For once, he finds it annoying that the automatic lighting system in the city is significantly muted in the late night hours. There isn't enough light from the hall to illuminate the interior of the room. John takes a few steps forward and the door closes, leaving him in almost total darkness. He walks to the edge of where he knows the bed is, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
John can now just barely make out the form lying in the bed. Squatting, he puts his face within inches of Dr. Elizabeth Weir's nose. She's laying on her stomach with her head turned towards him on the pillow. He experiences a brief moment of hesitation, but carries on anyway.
"Elizabeth?" John asks.
It came out in the softest whisper, but her eyes are immediately open and alert. John figures it's a product of living in a city where soul-sucking monsters can attack at any moment. Elizabeth bolts upright, her hand automatically turning on the bedside lamp. Both of them recoil at the sudden light.
John's vision recovers first. He look up at Elizabeth who is now in a half kneeling, half sitting position on the bed. He's hit by a sudden pang of disappointment. The blanket has fallen away to show that Elizabeth is sleeping in sweat shorts and a t-shirt.
What did you expect? he thinks to himself. A negligee isn't the smartest thing to sleep in considering where you live.
Elizabeth is now looking at John with narrowed eyes. She's noticed that, while he's still in uniform, John is not wearing his combat vest.
"Are we being attacked by the Wraith?" she asks.
John frowns at the unexpected question. "No..."
"Then why are you here?" Elizabeth asks in an accusatory tone.
"Um…uh…well…you see," John stutters. He didn't really stop to think how stupid this was going to sound. "My team just back to Atlantis. You…uh…weren't in the command center. I was…um, uh…concerned."
Elizabeth flops back down on the bed with a groan. She turns her head on the pillow to glare at Sheppard.
"Do you have any idea how many hours I've been awake?" she asks in a snarl.
John can't help but smile, impressed that she can say anything at all with her teeth clenched like that.
"Don't you smile at me, John Sheppard," Elizabeth scolds. She turns on the bed to fully face him. "I've been awake for fifty-two hours! Do you have any idea how tired a person gets after fifty-two hours? I gave Peter specific orders that I was not to be disturbed unless the Wraith were knocking on our front door."
Elizabeth watches as John's brow furrows in thought.
"I never thought to talk to Grodin," he says.
Another groan of frustration leaves Elizabeth as she points at the door.
"Get out!" she practically screams.
John stands, but doesn't move toward the door. Elizabeth is looking at him as if she'd like to stab him with the nearest sharp object.
"In my defense, your absence from the command center was pretty conspicuous," John points out. "You're always there when my team comes back from a mission. If anything, just to make sure I didn't screw up again."
He's relieved to see that Elizabeth's expression softens a little.
"Your mission was to check on those kids and make sure their shield was still operational. It was an easy assignment."
"But I do have a tendency to screw up even easy missions," John reminds her.
Elizabeth is silent for a moment and John thinks she's going to disagree with him. She cocks her head to one side and says, "That is true…"
"Hey!" he exclaims, a little offended.
"You said it, not me." Elizabeth sits up on her elbows. "Did you screw it up?"
"No," John responds indignantly.
"Good. I knew you could do it."
"Really?" he asks.
"If I say yes, will you let me go back to sleep?" Elizabeth responds with a grin.
"Not with that attitude, I…"
John trails off as he notices something orange and fuzzy sticking out from underneath one of Elizabeth's pillows. He leans over and grabs it before Elizabeth can tell what he's doing.
"Hey! Give that back," orders Elizabeth as John holds the object out of her reach.
"I can't believe it," John says in mock shock. "The Dr. Elizabeth Weir brought a teddy bear – no, a Care Bear – to Atlantis?"
"It's Friend Bear," Elizabeth clarifies, crossing her arms in front of her indignantly. "If you must know, my brother got me that before I left for my first diplomatic mission. I've taken it with me wherever I've gone since."
"I know it's Friend Bear," John says as he hands it back to her. "We only had one television in the house and my sister forced me to watch those shows whenever they were on."
"I didn't know you had a sister," she says. Elizabeth had read his service file, but not his personnel records.
"Yup. Older sister that loved to torture me. Lisa lives in Florida now with her husband and three kids. I don't get to see them very often."
"I have two older brothers," Elizabeth says in return. "Made dating a living hell for me. Joseph is FBI and lives in New York. Matthew is in the CIA and lives in DC when he's in the US. Neither are married or have kids."
"Whew! Weren't you the overachieving family," John says with a smile. "Lisa's a schoolteacher and her husband runs one of the big hotels down there. Their kids, Jason and Jeremy, are eight and five."
They smile at each other for a minute before John points something out.
"I think that's the first time we've had a discussion about something outside of work."
"John," Elizabeth reminds him. "We're in another galaxy, living in city abandoned by the Ancients, basically just biding time until the Wraith attack. What exactly is outside of work?"
"I don't know," John shrugs. "But it's nice to know that you're…uh…"
"Human?" she asks. Elizabeth knows that a lot of people still think she's unapproachable.
"No. I was going to say 'a friend'." John thinks it sounds sappy - which is why he hesitated - but is rewarded with a smile from Elizabeth.
John lets out a little cough, embarrassed, before asking his next question.
"Why were you up for 52 hours anyway?"
"You know," she responds. "I'm really too tired to remember."
"Alright, alright," John says, finally taking the hint. "I'm outta here. I could use a nice hot shower anyway."
John is two steps away from the door when Elizabeth sits back up and yells, "Wait!"
He spins around in surprise and faces her.
"What?!"
Elizabeth has her eyes closed, as if in pain.
"I just remembered one of the reasons why I've been awake," she states.
"And…" John prods.
Elizabeth opens her eyes to look at him.
"You haven't talked to Peter or gone to your quarters?" she asks.
"No," John answers. He's now thoroughly confused.
"One of the engineers tried to improve the water delivery system," Elizabeth explains. "Unfortunately for you, he ended up turning on all the showers in your wing full blast and flooded your room."
"What?! Are you kidding me?" John asks.
"Sorry. I was getting ready for bed the other night when I heard the sound of water." She points in the direction of her dresser. "I managed to save your book. And got your clothes cleaned."
John now notices the pile of clothing and his book sitting on top of her dresser.
"How come your room didn't get flooded?" he asks.
"Different side of the hallway. You know," Elizabeth says with a yawn. "You really shouldn't keep your clothes in a pile on the floor. Even if they are dirty."
"They were clean," John says.
"Even better reason to keep them off the floor."
John's shoulders droop dejectedly.
"My bed?" he asks.
"On one of the balconies drying out," Elizabeth answers.
"My shower?"
"Currently non-operational."
John's shoulders droop even more and Elizabeth curses herself for being affected by his lost puppy look.
"You can use my shower," she says with a sigh.
"Can I sleep in here too?" John asks. "Your bed is plenty big enough and I really don't want to go hunting for an open room."
"Sure," Elizabeth shrugs, already pulling the covers back over her. "Why not? It will give the rumor mills something to talk about. Half of them think we're sleeping together anyway."
John stops in the middle of pulling off his boots.
"You know about that?"
"Uh-huh," Elizabeth responds as she places Friend Bear on the bedside table. "I even know who started them."
John finishes taking off his boots and grabs a pair of sweats off the dresser.
"Who was it?" he asks before going into the bathroom.
"Peter."
"Grodin? Why would he do that?" John doesn't see the engineer's motive.
"Well…let's just say he has a crush on a certain Athosian and thought that starting a rumor about us would squelch the rumors about you and her."
"Sneaky little bastard," John mutters as he goes to take a shower.
Elizabeth doesn't know why the rumors don't bother her. They apparently don't bother John either. She wonders if she's just too tired to care that he's in her shower. Why it doesn't seem wrong when he climbs into bed twenty minutes later smelling of her shampoo and soap. Or why, in the middle of the night as they shift in their sleep, the most natural position ends up with her head on his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her.
The End.
Sorry. Had to throw in a small amount of Shweir shippiness in there at the end. I can't promise anything, but I'll probably write a sequel to this someday.
And for anyone who's wondering…I had a Friend Bear when I was a kid. It disappeared sometime in high school and my friend, Gail, got me a mini one as part of my Christmas present this year. I was so happy to get it that this story popped in my head.