A/N: Okay instead working at work, I was writing this chapter when my supervisor wasn't looking, and I don't know how I even managed to write this much. Anyways thanks for all the reviews, reviews always have a way to make one feel all fluffy inside. I think there would be one more chapter for this fic. Maybe I'll slack off at work again and write the next chapter. ;) Anyways enjoy!

Thank you Astrochick for Beta-ing this chapter, and because I also have a practical mind wink wink I decided to add a couple more things into the chapter. ;)

Chapter 2

John was ready to claw his eyes out from boredom. How these nerds sat at the briefing room table and babbled about what looked like a night-light for over an hour was beyond him. John was starting to wonder how Elizabeth sat through these types of meetings every single day. He thought the usual mission briefings were boring, but this was just plain torture.

He sat next to Elizabeth in the conference room, instead of across from her in his usual seat, because of their present sticky situation. He watched her as she sit with her chin resting on her free hand as she listened intently to the four babbling scientists. She tended to nod every once and a while to something some doctor said. She was silent most of the meeting except to ask a question or two about the advantages or disadvantages of their new findings.

John couldn't believe that Elizabeth could actually retain interest to what these scientists were saying for the past hour. Either she was a very good actress or she was actually interested in what they were saying. From the blank look on Elizabeth's face, John concluded that she was as bored as him. However, ever the diplomat, she was able to retain her composure and patiently sit through all the meetings and briefings.

He suddenly felt a growling coming from his stomach. He was still hungry. When he suggested getting lunch after they left the infirmary, Elizabeth said that there wasn't enough time and they went straight to her office to prepare for this boring as hell meeting. Actually hell wouldn't be boring, he thought for a moment, but it didn't matter if hell was boring or not. He was bored and hungry. The Powerbar Elizabeth gave to ease his hunger temporarily, only lasted the two minutes it took to travel from his mouth to this stomach, and he was hungry again. He could really use a turkey sandwich right about now. Then his thoughts turned back to Elizabeth. Maybe that's how she stayed so thin, she hardly had any time to eat.

"That sounds like good news, keep up the research and keep me apprised. Meeting adjourned." John heard Elizabeth say signaling the end of the meeting.

As soon as the last scientist shuffled out of the room, John pleaded to Elizabeth, "Can we go eat yet? I'm starving. If I was McKay, I would have passed by now out and you would be dragging my body around."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at John's exaggeration. "Yes, we can go eat now."

They arrived at the mess hall to find several other crew members having a late lunch. Those who did not hear about the Major and Doctor's situation couldn't stop themselves from staring at the two holding hands. Those who have heard of the two's awkward predicament also could not help but stare at the sight as well.

Elizabeth was uncomfortable and embarrassed, while John was annoyed and hungry. John gave a death glare to a scientist that was sitting at the table across from them.

"Do they have to keep staring at us? It's like they've never seen two people holding hands," he complained, taking a bite into his sandwich, while Elizabeth was picking at her gob of food with her fork. She put a piece of chicken, at least she thought it was chicken, in her mouth and involuntarily made a face.

"Actually they've never seen the two of you holding hands," a voice noted from behind them.

"Rodney," Elizabeth said.

"Mckay," John greeted with a warning tone in his voice. Rodney sat himself down across from them. "Why are you here?" John asked.

"Don't worry Major. I'm not here to gloat or make fun of you and your sad attempt to win a bet with me. Carson sent me to look for the two of you," he said as he picked off a piece of what looked like chicken from Elizabeth's plate. "Is there lemon in this?" he asked.

"When Beckett separates us, you better hope there's lemon in here." With that small threat, John got up without any warning to Elizabeth, which caused Elizabeth to jerk out of her seat abruptly. She managed to grab her tin cup of water as John dragged her along to towards the infirmary.

When she caught up to John, she saw he was still eating his sandwich.

"You should have warned me," she said.

"Warn you about what?" he asked with his mouth full.

"Warn me that you were going to get up like that. I wasn't done eating yet."

"Oh, I thought you were done. You were kind of fiddling around with it," he explained making a swirl with his finger.

"It's not the most enjoyable food," she noted.

"That's why I stick to the sandwiches, at least what's left of them."

"At the rate you and Rodney eat them, we won't have any left by the end of the month," she reminded.

"Then I'll have no choice but to eat that gunk you were eating earlier."

"In time, we won't even have that 'gunk' left either, but we would have plenty of Tava beans."

"Yum," John simply said.

Moments later they stepped out of the transport and arrived at the lab. Carson was analyzing the green substance through a microscope.

"So what's the diagnosis Doc?" John asked with cheerful hope.

"Frankly, I don't know what it is. But from the analysis the substance has the basic components that make up the most basic types of glue, which are mostly organic components."

"Wait," John stopped Carson, "Organic components?"

"Organic components, like acrylic polymer, borax, polyethylene glycol," Rodney started to rattle off when he entered the lab. "All these components are the basic ingredients for glue, glue sticks, and such, but we also found cyanoacrylate which is the main ingredient for super glue."

"So what are you saying Rodney?" Elizabeth asked.

"What I'm saying is that there is a possibility that this thing is basically your basic chop suey mix of glue. And maybe the usual cleaning methods of glue would work," Rodney explained.

"And those usual cleaning methods include?"

"Acetone or warm water should do the trick."

"Are you sure this would work?"

"Actually, there is something else," Carson managed to interject. "There is something else odd that we found in the samples."

"What is this 'something else'?" Elizabeth asked not sure she wanted to know.

"We still don't know, it's nothing we've ever seen before," Carson said.

"I knew you were going to say that," John muttered.

"But we are going to try the home earth remedies first. If they work, they work. If not, then you're stuck with the Major a while longer," Rodney said matter-of-factly.

"That is very reassuring Rodney," Elizabeth said sarcastically. "All right Carson, keep me apprised of your results."

"Okay where to?" John asked when they walked out of the lab. Elizabeth only had to give John a look and he groaned. "Not another briefing."

"Yes, just because you are incapacitated, doesn't mean everyone else stops working."

"Incapacitated? That sounds a bit harsh. I wouldn't say I'm incapacitated. I'm only stuck holding your hand." Elizabeth gave him a look. "Not that holding your hand all day is a bad thing," he tried to save himself, "This kind of reminds me of the time when I was handcuffed to a buddy of mine back in college."

Elizabeth gave me a questioning look.

"We were in college and drunk off our asses. It was a dare and we thought what the hell and clasped the cuffs on our wrist. Couple of hours later we realized that there were no keys to the cuffs, and there were no locksmiths open at two in the morning. So I ended having to go every where he wanted to go."

"So where did your friend want to go at two in the morning?"

"Apparently he wanted to go bow down to the porcelain god after too many shots of bad liquor."

Elizabeth made a face of disgust, "That is a little too much information, Major." Then Elizabeth had a thought of horror cross her mind, "You don't need to go to the bathroom right?"

"No, not yet," John replied with out thinking much about the question.

"Good," said Elizabeth with some relief, "Can we walk a little faster. I'm going to be late for my 15:00 briefing with Sergeant Bates."

John made a face and quickened his pace to keep up with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was trying to concentrate on the details of Sergeant Bates last mission, but no matter how hard she tried to concentrate, every slight movement John made only distracted her.

She could tell he was becoming restless. Not to mention her arms were falling asleep from hanging from the side of the chair for so long. She also had a constant urge to bring her left hand up on to the table, so she could clasp her hands together as she leaned forward. But because she was stuck to the Major, she leaned back into her chair to the point where she was almost slouching like the bored Major next to her.

She stole a glance at the Major, and saw he looked beyond bored. He was starting to fiddle with his jacket pockets, and he found a comb in one of the pockets. Elizabeth nearly burst out laughing, when she saw the confused expression that crossed John's face when he found the comb. It was obvious he had never used it, or knew it even existed until now. Luckily, Elizabeth remembered Sergeant Bates was still talking, and she masked her laugh as a cough.

John was amused to find to comb in his pocket. The small black comb made him think about the Fonz on that old show Happy Days. He remembered the Fonz being cool. The man snapped his fingers and women came flocking to him. When he snapped his fingers… He never really snapped his fingers for any response before. He'd have to try that later.

As he was thinking up possible scenarios of what would happen if he snapped his fingers, he absent-mindedly slid his thumb over the comb's teeth making a slight zipping noise, which started to distract Elizabeth even more since she was paying more attention to John then to the last bit of detail Bates was reporting.

Next she felt her left arm moving slightly. She looked down to see that John had decided to use the comb as an extension of his arm to scratch an itch on his hand. Apparently his itch had also crossed over to her hand, and instead of scratching his own hand, he was scratching hers as well.

Elizabeth had reached her limit. With a quick flick of her wrist, John was jolted out of his musings, and he gave a sharp look in Elizabeth's direction. She promptly ignored him, and prepared to conclude the briefing.

"Thank you, Sergeant. I'm glad your mission went well. You may leave."

"Thank you, Ma'am," Sergeant Bates promptly replied and exited the conference room as the doors opened.

"What was that all about?" John asked after the Sergeant and his team left the room.

"What was what about? That was a briefing, John, you know what briefings are. We have one everyday," Elizabeth said rising from her seat.

John got up from his seat as well. "You know. When you flicked your wrist and—"

"Scared you?" she finished.

"No, more like," he thought for a second, "surprised me."

"I'm sorry I 'surprised' you," she said, starting to walk towards her office. "You look like you were having a little too much fun for a minute there."

"As a matter of fact, I was having fun, and you interrupted."

"I'm sorry I interrupted," Elizabeth replied, as they walked through the busy control room. Suddenly John decided to snap his fingers. Everyone including Elizabeth stopped to look at him oddly then returned to what they were doing.

"Hm, nothing happened," John mumbled to himself.

"What was that all about?" Elizabeth asked confused. She was starting to wonder if that green blob wasn't as harmless as they thought.

"I was wondering what would happen if I snapped my fingers like the Fonz." Elizabeth stared back blankly at him, and then continued to walk into her office. John thought back to what he just said and realized he sounded crazy. "You think I'm crazy."

"We are all a little crazy, John. You're just that you are acting a little strange."

"I'm only acting strange because I've been sitting in briefings more hours then I usually sleep. I could have been watching football or reading my book."

"How is your progress of reading that book?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'm on page seventy-seven, and I'm still right on schedule."

Elizabeth sat down at her desk and flipped open her laptop and started scanning through some reports. John pulled a chair next to her so he wouldn't have to stand. He sat there watching Elizabeth work.

"How do you do this?" John suddenly asked as he picked up the gold pocket watch that was lying on her desk.

"Do what?"

"Go to briefings and meetings all day, read reports, deal with me, and etcetera?"

"It's called being the commander of this expedition. As for dealing with you, I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I requested to have you on my team."

"You're having regrets?" he asked.

"Not a chance," she said with a smile. Elizabeth returned to her work, while John started to get bored again and put the pocket watch back on the table. He reached across her table and grabbed on the statue on the left corner of her table. He set the small statue in front of him and observed the details of the sculpture of the miniaturized terracotta warrior.

"Of all the office decorations on earth, why bring this?" John asked.
"Because it's nice," Elizabeth said without looking up.

"Does it have sentimental value?"

"Yes," she said slowly. She hesitated and continued, "My boyfriend, Simon, gave it to me."

"Boyfriend? Back on Earth I presume?" Elizabeth nodded. "So how's the long distance thing working out for you?"

"I don't know."

John furrowed his eyebrows in question. "What do you mean?"

"I mean. When I came here, I didn't exactly tell him in person."

"On the phone?" Elizabeth shook her head. "E-mail?" She shook her head again. "A letter?" he tried again.

"Video," she supplied. John made a face. "So I don't know how Simon took the news. He may hate me for all I know. Or he might even had moved on already," Elizabeth said.

"Do you miss him?"

"Not as much as I should," she confessed. "I mean, ever since we got here. I've been so busy trying to keep everyone alive. I hadn't really had time to think about Simon. The last time I even thought about him was when we went to that mist planet and imagined we went back to earth. Even then all I could think about was…you."

"Me?" John asked curiously.

"And how Atlantis would fall apart with you in charge," she added quickly.

"Thanks, I think," John replied. He put the statue back in the corner of the desk.

Elizabeth looked over at John and decided she should give up working. As long as she was stuck to John, she would be too distracted to work.

"All right, I'm done for the day. What do you want to do?"

"John sat there and thought for a bit. "Usually when I'm bored I like to take a stroll to the southwest pier. It has the best view of the city, especially at night."

"The southwest pier. Isn't that where you took Chaya on for a 'picnic' when she came a couple months back?" She thought out loud. "So how was it? Did you have fun?"

"The 'picnic' you are referring to was strictly business. Besides I don't picnic and tell," he said with a wink.

"I thought it was kiss and tell."

John looked at Elizabeth and tried to decipher the meaning of her statement. He wondered what Rodney told Elizabeth about his fling with Chaya. Maybe Elizabeth didn't know and she was trying to get him to tell. Either way he wasn't going to crack.

"Let's go then," he got up and started to lead Elizabeth to the southwest pier.

Just as they got up ready to go, the intercom called for Elizabeth to head to the lab.

"What now?" John wondered, "They couldn't have found a solution already, could they?"

"I don't know. Let's go and find out," Elizabeth shrugged and went to the nearest transporter.

They arrived at the lab to find smoke everywhere.

"What happened?" Elizabeth asked coughing through the choking smoke.

"You know how acetone is highly flammable?" Rodney managed to cough out.

"Yes, we know, but what happened?" Elizabeth asked again as she tried to wave away the smoke.

"Well, the green blob sample reacted badly with the acetone, instead of dissolving, it caused it to ignite," Rodney explained. "Good thing we tested in the lab first."

"No kidding," John muttered.

"What about water?" Elizabeth asked.

"Good news is water doesn't do anything to it."

"That is good news?" John said.

"Of course, you wouldn't have to worry your hands blowing up in case water was spilled on it. Just keep away from acetone or any flammable chemicals."

"Thanks for the advice," John commented. "Come on, lets go before we suffocate to death in here." John waved away some more smoke and lead Elizabeth to their previous destination of the southwest pier.

By the time they reached the southwest pier, it was already dark, but the view was still spectacular.

"I thought we'd never get here. How many detours did we have? I lost count after Rodney decided to blow up the lab by putting acetone on the blob."

"I think about five detours. Including your little detour to the mess hall for your picnic basket, and the detour to the little boy's room for you," Elizabeth added and made a face when she remembered the experience of going to the men's room with John. She had never been so embarrassed in her life, but nature eventually caught up to her as well, and she was forced to make John come into the women's room with her. She didn't know how he felt, but she knew if one could die of embarrassment, she died at least twice already that day, and the day wasn't over yet.

"Don't even start. You had to go to the little princess's room too, and besides I was only being prepared. It's a long walk out here, and look, it's about time to eat dinner." He set the basket down and pulled out a blanket. He tried to unfold the blanket with one hand without success. Elizabeth reached over and took one end of the blanket, and with team work they were able to open the blanket and laid it on the floor.

John thanked Elizabeth for her extra hand and settled the basket next to him. He led Elizabeth to sit on one side and he sat on the other.

Elizabeth sat down and admired the view. She was gazing up at the stars, while John started shuffling through the basket, and laying things out on the blanket.

"Despite the fact that our hands are stuck together and this isn't a date, this is almost quite…," she paused, searching for the right word, "romantic," she finished.

"Well you know. I got to take that extra step of gluing my hand to a girl if I want to date her. It never fails they always go on the dates. Whether they want to or not," he winked. Elizabeth chuckled at his joke.

"Too bad this isn't a date," John said casually.

"If this was a date, what would you do?" Elizabeth asked curiously.

"Well, I'd serenade you, recite poetry, tell you how beautiful your hair looks, say how your—," he stopped for a second to look into Elizabeth's eyes, "green eyes shimmer like emeralds. You know stuff like that."

Elizabeth was amused by John's exaggerations.

"You're quite the Romeo," she commented. "No wonder Chaya was quite taken by you, and willing to put her planet at risk to spend a day with you," she teased.

John ignored what she said and handed her a bag that looked to contain a sandwich.

"I hope you don't mind sandwiches for dinner. It was the easiest food I could get with only one hand available."

"Let me guess, Turkey?" Elizabeth asked.

"Of course," he said with a boyish smile.

"You know that turkey makes you sleepy right?"

"Yes, how else do you think I sleep so soundly after my hard day of work?"

"Because you had a hard day at work," Elizabeth answered his rhetorical question.

"You know what? You've been hanging around Rodney too much. That's not good you know. He's starting to rub off on you."

"And being stuck with you for an indefinite amount of time is good for me?"

"Of course, my wit and charm can rub off on you." Elizabeth rolled her eyes. The only thing of his that would rub off on her was probably his after shave, she thought.

"Too bad acetone and any conventional method of cleaning off super glue doesn't work on this," Elizabeth sighed.

John pretended to look hurt, "You're sick of me already?"

"As amusing as you are Major, it has been a long day and I'm tired. I have a feeling Rodney and Carson aren't going to figure this out by our bed time."

"I see where this is going. So you're place or mine?"

"What?" Elizabeth's eyes widened in surprise.

"Well, as for sleeping arrangements, we obviously can't go to our respective rooms. One of us will have to sleep over at the other's place."

Elizabeth hesitated. He was right. Maybe they could crash in the infirmary, but the infirmary atmosphere was not really where she wanted to end her day, but it was an alternative.

"What about the infirmary? We could crash there," Elizabeth suggested.

"Yeah, but all those beeping machines make me uncomfortable, and those beds. They aren't as comfortable as they look. Believe me. I know."

Elizabeth let out a sigh. She didn't feel like having John spend the night in her room, frankly because it was her room, her quiet place. John's room was neat from what she remembered. She guessed she could spend the night at his place, but people would talk.

"So my place then?" John asked after Elizabeth's silence.

"John, people would talk," she finally said.

"People always talk. Besides it shouldn't matter if what ever they talk about isn't true."

"Okay, if you were someone else and you saw your expedition commander holding hands with the lead military commander all day, and they end up disappearing from the main part of the city with a picnic basket. Then they end up spending the night together. What would you think?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'd think they were 'so doing it'," he joked.

"Okay, the infirmary it is."

"Elizabeth, I'm kidding. Everyone knows about our little problem right now. No one is going to talk about us. Other then, 'next time you see a green blob, don't touch it, or you'll ended up like Doctor Weir and Major Sheppard.'"

Elizabeth was still hesitant. He said, "Come on, we'll stay in my room. I'll even let you have the bed."

"What about you?" Elizabeth asked.

"I can fall asleep any where, even sitting in a chair." Elizabeth smiled when she remembered him falling asleep waiting in the infirmary for her to speak with the older version of herself.

"All right," she finally conceded.

The hallways were quiet and empty since they started heading back from the southwest pier quite late. After they finished their picnic dinner, they sat and gazed at the stars and soaked in the cool evening breeze. Elizabeth was relieved that John had no qualms about staying out there either. It was nice and he enjoyed Elizabeth's company, when she wasn't on commander mode. This evening they were just two friends admiring the Atlantean view.

Before they reached John's room, they made a couple pit stops. First John insisted on them stopping by the mess hall to drop off the picnic basket, while in fact he was looking for a midnight snack. Then Elizabeth decided, she wanted to go to her room and grab an extra blanket just in case.

By the time they reached John's room, Elizabeth was exhausted, and John could tell Elizabeth was trying a bit too hard to keep her eyes open.

"All right, you get the bed," he said when they walked in to his room. He pulled a chair over next to the bed and moved his night stand so he could prop the chair by the wall close to the bed.

Elizabeth sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. After pulling the covers back, she laid her head down on the pillow and immediately felt sleep come to her. The last thing she remembered was John's scent on his pillow and sheets before she fell into a dreamless sleep.

When John finally settled himself down in a comfortable position in the chair, he saw that Elizabeth had already fallen asleep. He pulled the blanket over her shoulder since it slipped off when she stirred a bit. He leaned back into the chair with his head against the wall. He used the extra blanket Elizabeth brought to cover himself.

He didn't think he would ever fall asleep in this position, or if he did, he would wake up very cranky tomorrow.

He turned his head to watch Elizabeth sleep, she looked at peace and beautiful as she dreamt of less chaotic times. John kept his gaze on Elizabeth and eventually fell asleep as well.