"What are we doing here?" Elizabeth asked John an hour or so later as she stood in the middle of one of the training rooms in Atlantis. He picked up a set of sticks that were by the door, inspecting them.

"We're here to practice."

"Practice what?"

Satisfied with the sticks, John stepped over and handed them to her. "You can't figure it out? I thought you were the one with the Ph.D."

"Cute. You're aware that I have no idea what to do with these, right?"

"Yep. That's why you're here to learn."

"I'm still trying to figure out why."

John smiled. "I know that you can talk yourself out of almost any situation. But I want to make sure that for any situation that 'almost' doesn't cover, you're still going to come home safe."

Elizabeth considered that for a moment. "All right."

"Good."

"But I'm still not going to carry a gun."

John grinned. "We'll work up to that eventually." He got his own sticks, then came back to stand beside her. "We'll start slow today. Just tell me when you've had enough and that'll be it, okay?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Deal."

"All right. Now, stand like this, knees bent. That'll help with balance…"

He went over all the basics that Teyla had taught him a year earlier. "Concentrate on anticipating my next move," John said before he took a couple light swings at her. Elizabeth blocked each one. "Good. Why am I taking it easy on you?"

She swung at him with her free hand in retribution, but he easily blocked it and managed to grab her, one stick at her throat, the other at her waist. He could feel her body stiffen against him. "Do you trust me?" he asked.

Trust. It was such a hard thing. Did she think he was going to hurt her at that moment? Of course not; it was John. Was he capable of hurting her if he – or anything that took over his body – wanted to? Absolutely. Was it worth the pain of recovery if she put her trust in him and later found out that it had been misplaced?

Elizabeth closed her eyes, trying to force herself to relax. "Yes," she finally whispered. He let her go, and she turned around, although didn't put any distance between them. "Do you trust me?" she asked. John nodded. "Tell me when to stop."

"Deal," he whispered just before her lips touched his.

"Oh, Teyla," Rodney called to his teammate as he saw her in one of the hallways. "Have you seen Dr. Weir? I can't find her anywhere."

"Um…I believe that she has something scheduled for the rest of the evening," she told him.

Rodney sighed. "Okay, how about Colonel Sheppard?"

"He has a training room reserved."

He rolled his eyes. "Figures. Well, twirling a couple sticks around doesn't even register on the radar compared to what I've been working on and need to discuss." He started to brush past her.

"You may want to wait," Teyla said, putting a hand on his chest to stop him. Rodney frowned.

"For what?"

She tried her best to hide a grin. "I am sure that Colonel Sheppard – or Dr. Weir – will be happy to speak with you in the morning, but I do not believe they should be disturbed at this time."

It took a minute for that to click. "You mean…oh! Did you actually see them?"

Teyla put on her best innocent look. "I'm uncertain as to what you are referring to."

Rodney snorted. "Yeah, I bet. What's today?" He looked at his watch. "Perfect! Zelenka owes me ten dollars." Teyla smiled as she watched him hurry back down the hall.

Late at night, Atlantis was usually extremely quiet and calm. There was no one around to hear the city's two leaders giggling like children as they cobbled together ice cream sundaes in the mess hall.

"Why didn't you tell me we had this stuff?" John asked as Elizabeth spooned out Fudge Ripple into bowls.

"Because I got it on special request the last time the Daedalus did a supply run."

"You got a private stash of ice cream?" She smiled innocently and nodded.

"Being expedition leader has certain perks."

"Damn. Remind me to stay on your good side."

"How's the chocolate syrup coming?" she asked. They'd had to improvise, using the cocoa powder that was supposed to be for milk, plus butter and vanilla and sugar.

"It's coming. You know, I heard a few of the crewmen tried making homemade ice cream earlier this year."

"How'd it work out?" Elizabeth asked.

"Well…they claim it was sabotage. Somehow they wound up putting a bit too much salt in."

"How much is a bit?"

"Um…let's just say they used more salt instead of sugar."

"Oh, God!"

"Yeah. It wasn't pretty."

"I'd much prefer to just trust Ben and Jerry's."

"I'm sure." He poured chocolate sauce over both of their bowls, and they both took tastes. "God, I forgot how good this stuff was."

Elizabeth smiled. "It's nice to have someone to share it with."

"So…are we going to talk?" John asked after a few moments of silence. "I mean…Everything's going to be different now.

"We could pretend it never happened."

"Would that really help?"

"Probably not…I should have left you in Antarctica."

"Aw, just think about how much less interesting your life would be if you'd done that."

She grinned. "True."

John knew that Elizabeth would not be happy if she knew what he was doing. However, he'd thought it through over the past several weeks since he'd learned her secret, and had decided that he had to do something. Right now, his team was checking in with the kids on M7G-677; McKay had begrudgingly been dispensing chocolate when John took their jumper, alone, and headed off for a little side trip. None of them knew where he was going, but they knew better than to ask, and had all agreed to cover for him with Dr. Weir.

John dialed seven chevrons into the puddle jumper's DHD and waited for the gate to connect before flying through the event horizon. He cloaked and landed the ship immediately, grateful that different planets had different rotations and his arrival happened to occur in the middle of the night.

Sneaking through the forest was relatively easy with a life signs detector. Getting into the Genii's underground complex was a little bit harder, but still doable with patience. It took a bit of lurking in the shadows and listening to officers passing by, but he figured out where he could find Prenum, and the older man was even alone in an office when John got there.

"Okay, you practically made this too easy," Sheppard said as he shut the door to the room behind him. Prenum started to get up, to call to the guards that should have been outside. "Don't bother," John told him. "They won't hear you." He held up Ronon's gun. "I borrowed this from a friend. It's actually got a stun setting. I much prefer these, however," he displayed his P-90, "Because with these, you could just be fooling around with it, and if the thing just HAPPENS to go off…chances are you'll inflict a pretty good amount of damage."

"W-what do you want?" Prenum asked him.

"Oh, wait, wait. If we're going to talk about demands and deals, then there's something I need to do first." He pulled out a scrap of cloth from the pocket of his flak jacket and stepped over to the Genii officer. "Sit," he commanded. Prenum didn't move. "Okay, you have three choices: you can sit on your own, I can use my friend's gun to make you sit, or I can use my gun." The man sat down. "Wow, you DO have a brain cell or two up there that's still working."

John took the cloth and used it to blindfold him. "What is the meaning of this?" Prenum asked.

"You don't remember? I just figured you should get a taste of what you do to your own prisoners. Of course, if I was you, I'd be a bit worried right now as to exactly how far I'm going to go with this, because we both know this isn't all that you do to prisoners, is it?"

Prenum swallowed hard. "You won't make it out of here alive."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it'll be worth it." There was the unmistakable sound of a knife being unsheathed. "I came prepared, today," John said with a grin. "See, guns are fun and all, but they're far too quick."

"You won't kill me."

"I won't? I've already killed…what? Sixty or seventy of your people? What's one more drop in the bucket?"

"I didn't do anything to her myself."

"No, you just let it happen. Maybe even ordered it. So I wonder what I'm going to just…LET happen."

"This galaxy won't simply bend to the whims of outsiders!"

John scratched one sharp line down the side of his face with the knife. "You can bet on the fact that us 'outsiders' won't bend to the barbarism of planets of cowards." Prenum kept his mouth shut. "You're right about one thing, though. I'm not going to kill you. At least not today. I'll let it be a surprise for you, when you can't even see it coming. That would only be fair, right?" He took the knife and drove it into the top of Prenum's desk, enjoying the fact that the man jumped about a mile. "I'll be seeing you again," John promised as he started to leave. "Although I'm not sure if you'll actually see me." In one move, he took Ronon's gun and knocked the man out with it; that was the only way he had a chance of getting off the planet in one piece.

It hadn't been the retribution that John had really wanted to deliver, but he knew Elizabeth wouldn't have condoned killing him. John just hoped that Prenum had felt some amount of the terror that he'd inflicted. That would have to be enough for the time being.

"Off-world activation!" Elizabeth heard one of the officers in the control room call out from her spot in her office. She headed out there. "I'm reading Colonel Sheppard's IDC."

"Lower the shield," she ordered. The team came into the gate room a moment later. "How did things go?" she asked them as she came down the stairs. John smiled up at her.

"Very well."

TBC...(only one part left. and it's pure fluff.)