AN: Thanks to all of you who reviewed, and thanks go to my new beta Miran.

AN: John's thoughts are in italics.

Escape

Chapter 2 Saved By a Clothes Washing Story

John made it to Elizabeth's room without any interruptions. He pushed a button, and the door whooshed open, closing behind him as he slipped inside. He looked around, taking in the large room.

Little had changed since he'd been there last. He did, however, notice a certain picture of Simon was gone, and in its place was a picture of her family. John smiled. He was surprisingly glad that she had removed the picture.

John had only met Simon once, but he had concluded that he was a stuffy, boring, old geezer. Elizabeth could do a whole lot better than this Simon guy. 'She needs someone more heroic, who's willing to take chances. Someone that's not boring or old. Someone like - me,' John thought. 'Did I just say what I think I said? I can't be falling in love with my boss, can I? That just has to be wrong.'

He pushed the thought from his mind and stepped over to her closet. John opened the doors and scanned the collection of clothing inside. There were several cute outfits, and John was surprised. He only ever saw her in her uniform, and it was hard for him to picture her in anything else.

'She defiantly has good taste.' Like most guys looking through women's clothes, he tried to find what would look the best on her but be comfortable at the same time. The first thing his eyes were draw to was a cute, tiny, shirt and matching skirt. 'This is hot!' He thought, holding up the outfit. 'But I don't think Elizabeth would be happy if I brought her this,' he shrugged as his better judgment took over.

Putting the shirt and skirt back, he looked around some more. 'This looks like Elizabeth,' he said, pulling out a red cotton tank top. 'I'm bringing this one.' John put the shirt on the bed and looked in the bottom of her closet, where she said he could find her jeans, and grabbed the first pair he saw. 'These are tiny! She must be a size four or something.' He laid her jeans on the bed and started looked for underwear and a bra. 'What undies and a bra!' He'd love to see what she'd look like with just those articles of clothing on but to pick it out for her seemed like an invasion of privacy. He didn't feel comfortable looking through that drawer. He took a quick look, pulled two items of clothing out, and quickly shut it. He respected her privacy and didn't want to look too much around in her stuff.

He looked at the clothes he had laid out on the bed, but something was missing. There was a slight chill in the air. 'I forgot a sweat shirt.' He looked one more time through her closet and found a blue one. He was holding the sweatshirt and jeans up to the mirror in front of him again and tried to picture her in the outfit. 'Elizabeth will defiantly look sexy in this. Whoa, get off that train of thought, Sheppard,' John ordered himself. He was still holding the clothes up when the door opened.

"Lt. Colonel Sheppard!" Caldwell said, as he stood there shocked.

John dropped the clothes in a fraction of a second. "It's not what it looks like, sir," John said displaying his deer-caught-in-the-head-lights-look.

"It looks like your trying on Doctor Weir's clothes."

"That's exactly what it looks like, but that's not what I'm doing."

"Explain."

"Doctor Weir wanted me to bring her a few things."

"So, you know where Doctor Weir is?" Caldwell asked folding his arms.

"I didn't say that. All I know is she's taking the rest of the day off."

"I still need to find her."

"I can't help you with that, sir. She's unavailable at the moment." John's mind traveled back to her in the tub. "Very unavailable."

"Why aren't you in uniform?" Caldwell asked.

'Didn't you get the memo,' John thought, irritated. 'We all have the rest of the day off…the rest of the day I tell you!' John would have liked to say that out loud, but instead he said, "Nothing is scheduled to be done until tomorrow. Elizabeth thought it would be a nice idea to give everyone the rest of the day off."

Caldwell didn't look pleased. "I see. But, you know where she is, don't you?"

If Caldwell hadn't been in the military, John would have really told him what he thought of him. 'This guy's a real pain in the butt. Didn't he just ask me that two seconds ago?'

"I don't have any idea where she is," Sheppard lied. "I'm supposed to do her a favor and take these clothes to be washed," he thought fast. 'I hope he bought that. I suck at lying.'

"When you see her, tell her I need to speak with her."

"Yes sir," Sheppard replied, but Caldwell was already out the door. The Colonel let out a sigh of relief. He was very happy Caldwell bought his story. 'Go John…go John. Ok, enough,' he ordered himself. He folded up Elizabeth's clothes and took them with him back to his room.

To Be Continued…