A/N: WOW I am SO psyched! I already have TWO comments! Heh, I know, weird things make me happy. I ran about my house squealing: "COMMENTS!" until my mum was annoyed. Lots of whumpage of all kinds, and snarks and all the goodies! And even some hinting at other ships... heh, but its not what it seems... ... dununununununu... right, on with the story! (Also, seriously, the comments totally motivated me! So keep 'em comin'!)
-MythDreamer
"I take my hat: for how can I make cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?"
- T. S. Eloit, Portrait of a Lady
Faux Wood Blinds
Chapter Two - Like None of it Ever Happened
"What kind of name is 'Sage Ilia Gilbert'?" Rodney McKay muttered to Radak Zelenka, who shrugged.
"What do I know of crazy American names? Yours sounds like 'knee of rod', whatever that means."
"I am not-" Rodney was cut off by John.
"Sage Ilia Gilbert?" He had come out of his pre-briefing stupor and ceased clicking the ballpoint pen in his hand.
Rodney glowered at him. "Yes, that is the name of the scientist who is in charge of the new team."
"I thought her name was Lia," John replied softly, his thoughts suddenly back on the Daedalus, tuning out Rodney and Radak's conversation about names. Could it be? He had met Lia only once on the ship, and only for a moment, that is, if you call having her pointed out as she walked out of the room a meeting. In fact, he had not even seen her face, and now that he thought about it, the more he thought it was odd. Surely its not Lia...
His thoughts were interrupted as Elizabeth Weir came in, followed by the woman in question. As soon as he saw her face, John knew it was her and mentally kicked himself for not realizing it the moment he saw her on the ship. How did I not recognize her? Her coppery hair was loose, shorter than when he had last seen her -three years ago - but she still had that windswept look and those far away eyes. The kind of eyes that would make you cringe if they pinned you down. Elizabeth sat down and cleared her throat. Rodney and Radak stopped arguing, after they realized that every one was starting at them. Lia slipped into a chair and folded her hands on the table, then looked to Elizabeth.
"Rodney, I trust we have your full attention?" Elizabeth said, fighting a smile.
"Yes, ma'am." He shot Radak a look that said 'we will finish this later' and then smiled innocently at Elizabeth.
"Good, then I would like to formally introduce Dr. Lia Gilbert. Lia, this is Rodney McKay, Radak Zelenka and you know Lt. Col. John Sheppard."
Lia smiled at each man as they were introduced and when she got to John, she held his gaze for a moment. "Indeed I do." She turned her gaze back to Rodney. "I want you to know, Rodney, that I do not plan to take over your team, I am just here to supervise the exploration of the city, and to help with man power."
"Of course, but your team knows so very little about the ancient technology-" Lia raised her hand, cutting him off mid-rant.
"My team has read, and reread all of the reports concerning the Atlantian technology, and all are highly qualified. I'm sure, if we don't understand something, you will be plagued with more questions that you can answer."
John was still clicking the pen, his eyes locked on her. God, she's beautiful. Her arguments seemed to be satisfying Rodney because the scientist's usual high-pitched complaints were not interrupting his train of thought. What happened between us? What went wrong? Suddenly John became aware that he had been asked a question.
"Huh? What's that?"
"I wanted to know if you had anything to say on the matter?"
"Er..." What matter? "No."
Elizabeth frowned at him. "Well, then that's it."
As they got up from the table, Rodney muttered, "Flyboy is already drooling over Dr. Gilbert."
Radak laughed, and John just threw them a glare as he brushed past them and across to the control room. He headed for the jumper bay, he was supposed to pick Teyla up from the mainland later and felling like he was, he figured leaving a little early might give him some alone time. To his dismay, he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him.
"I don't want to hear any of your snarks, Rodney." John said without turning, his voice raised.
"John."
He stopped. That was not Rodney. "What, Lia?"
"I... erm... this is really awkward."
"Yeah, well, it doesn't have to be." He kept walking, heading for jumper three.
Lia followed him, walking quick enough to catch his arm. "John, wait."
He stopped in the shadows of the jumper. "Wait for what? Wait for you to 'find' yourself?" He snorted. "I see you did a great job of that."
Lia could feel the heat of anger rising in her. "I waited to. I waited for you to get out of the Air Force, for you to come back from the middle-east. Waited for you to write me, call me, god John, I waited for you to tell me you loved me!" Her voice echoed a little on the last word, so she dropped her tone. "This... this isn't what I meant it to be."
"Then what did you mean for it to be, huh?"
"I don't know. I just... I didn't know what would happen..."
"Lia..." He could see she was about to cry.
"No, its okay." She let go of his arm, "Lets just start over, okay?"
"Like none of it ever happened?"
"None of it." She wiped her eyes, took a step back from him, said, "I'm Dr. Lia Gilbert," and held out her hand.
John looked from her hand to her face, sighed and took her hand. "Lt. Col. John Sheppard, but you can call me John."
Lia smiled at that. "A pleasure to meet you, John. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do." With that she released his hand and walked quickly out of the jumper bay.
oooooo
Elizabeth watched John storm from the room and run up the stairs to the jumper bay, Lia on his heels. That's odd. Rodney and Radak, still sniggering over John being, in their words, 'starry eyed' over the new scientist, trooped out of the conference room. Shaking her head, Elizabeth returned to her office, powered up her laptop and sat down. Now what on earth was wrong with John now? He was usually distant at meetings, daydreaming or amusing himself by harassing Rodney, but he had just spent the entire meeting staring at Lia like she was a ghost risen to haunt him. Even his face had been pale, and the pen. She thought she would have gone insane if he had clicked it any faster. There was something up, and then, after Rodney's remark, Lia had followed him out of the room.
Elizabeth jumped slightly when Carson Beckett stuck his head in her office.
"I think you had better come see this."
"What is it, Carson?"
He rolled his ice blue eyes. "Kavanagh."
oooooo
Rodney and the infamously stuck-up Kavanagh were inches from each other, yelling over each other, spittle flying from bared teeth. A typical conversation for the two scientists. As usual the lab had emptied and someone had sent for Carson, who had gone for Elizabeth. They stood in the doorway of the lab, arms crossed, watching the two scientists, who were yelling so loud that they had so far not heard any attempts to distract them.
"I DO NOT SEE THE NEED TO HAVE YET ANOTHER SCIENTIST, MUCH LESS A WOMAN, GIVING ORDERS AROUND HERE!"
Rodney spluttered. "YOU ARE THE MOST SELF CENTERED JERK EVER! JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T WAN ANY COMPETITION IN PROVING THAT YOUR EVEN MORE OF AN IDIOT THAN YOU REALLY ARE- FOR GODSAKES, GET A HOLD OF YOUR SELF!"
"ME? SELF-CENTERED? YOU ARE OVER LOOKING THE FACT THAT YOU ALWAYS CLAIM THE TOUGHEST PROJECTS, AND THEN FLAUNT THE FACT THAT YOU ACCOMPLISHED THE TASK!
"THAT'S BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE HERE IS COMPETENT ENOUGH TO DO IT!"
Elizabeth shook her head and walked up to the two men. "Rodney!" she grabbed the arm of his coat and shook him, then did the same to Kavanagh.
The two men stopped yelling and looked at her.
"Gentlemen, this is not professional behavior."
Rodney's face went from angry red to pink. "Kavanagh seems to have a problem with Dr. Gilbert and her team being here."
"Then," Elizabeth looked pointedly at Kavanagh, "he should take it up with me."
The scientist spluttered, his glasses flecked with foam from Rodney shouting in his face.
"Well? What seems to be the problem, Kavanagh?" Elizabeth spoke with steel in her voice.
"I should have been present at the meeting this morning, I was unaware that a new scientist was coming to take over the Atlantis research." He left off the fact that he did not like the idea of taking orders from yet another woman.
"If that is the problem, I will reassign you to the off-world science team."
He stared at her. "No... it won't be a problem." He threw a glare at Rodney and stormed out of the lab.
Elizabeth turned to Rodney. "Try not to do that, okay?"
"Right, whatever."
"Rodney."
"Okay, okay!" He raised his hands in surrender. "I'll try not to loose my cool around him. Snarky bastard."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at him and sighed. "Okay, Carson, I guess you can go to the mess hall and tell the lab-techs its safe now."
Carson, trying to suppress a smile, left the room. A moment later they heard his laughter in the hall. Rodney grumbled and went back to his laptop, stared at the screen for a minuet, trying to remember what he had been working on before the argument. After about three seconds he gave up.
"Elizabeth?"
She stopped just before going out the door. "Yes, Rodney?"
"Do you want to go get some lunch?"
TBC
