Chapter Four: Together We'll Make It
"You know, I love you." John said as he sat on the balcony that extended from his room with Elizabeth.
"Oh really?" Elizabeth asked as she leaned against him.
"It's true, there's just something about you Lizzy." John said as he kissed her cheek.
"Lizzy?" She asked, amused by the new nickname.
"It's cute." He said.
"If you're ten." Elizabeth said.
"It's cute for ten year olds and you." John said with a smile.
"Alright." Elizabeth said giving in.
"Marry me." John said wrapping his arms around her.
"What?" She asked not believing she heard him right.
"Marry me." John repeated.
Elizabeth turned to face him, her eyes sparkling. "Alright." She said. He leaned in and kissed her deeply.
"Elizabeth, Elizabeth." Elizabeth heard the sound of her name and her head shot up. When she opened her eyes she saw Rodney looking at her humorously. "Power nap?" he asked.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. "Of course not, I was just resting my eyes." She said.
"Of course." Rodney said.
"What can I do for you, Rodney?" Elizabeth asked shortly, she was far too exhausted and far too cranky to see the humor Rodney found in the situation.
Rodney cleared his throat and pointed in the way that he always does when he's about to get to business, understanding, through Elizabeth's tone of voice, that today was not the day to be cracking jokes. "We are supposed to be having a briefing," He paused to look at his watch. "twenty minutes ago." He said.
Elizabeth stood up. "I'm sorry, I'll be in there in just a minute." She said grabbing her files. After she had collected everything she needed she headed off to the briefing room where everyone was seated waiting patiently. "I'm so sorry." She said sitting down at the head of the table.
"It's alright, no harm done." John said.
"Are you alright Doctor Weir? You look somewhat ill." Teyla said.
"I'm fine. I'm just a bit exhausted from last night's events." Elizabeth explained. She didn't waste any more time with small talk, but instead she got right down to business.
As soon as the briefing was over Elizabeth stood up, but was stopped by Carson.
"Elizabeth you've got to go sleep." Carson said.
"Carson, thank you for the concern, but I haven't got the time." Elizabeth said as she collected her things.
"Rodney said you were asleep at your desk. You're going to run yourself into a stress heart attack if you don't start getting some sleep." Carson said seriousally.
Elizabeth nodded. "I promise I'll take it easy Carson, for now I absolutely have to get back to work." She said as she left the room.
After the briefing Elizabeth's day just kept getting worse. Everything will go wrong when its most inconvienent, Elizabeth remembered as she was running around the base. Nothing seemed to be going the way it should, and everyone had a problem they needed her to fix. By the end of the day she was a wreck. She made her way to the balcony that she always went to when she needed time alone, and she sat down against the wall and watched as the waved rolled by. She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in them as she started to cry. Every tear seemed to be one more problem just washing away. Suddenly she heard someone clear their throat which made her immediately stop her tears as she looked up.
"What are you doing here?" She asked as she wiped her tears away.
"Coming to make sure you're alright." John said as he sat down next to her.
"I'm fine, honestly." She said.
"Obviousally." He said shortly. He turned to her. "You can't keep it all in all the time Liz, you've got to open up to someone or else you're going to explode." He said. Elizabeth couldn't help, but laugh a bit at the thought. "See that, you need to do that more often." He said with a smile as he reached out and grabbed her hand. "Now talk to me, tell me what's bugging you." He said.
"I care about you more than I'm supposed to." She said softly as she looked past him, afraid to see his reaction.
"Well, see, that I can't help you with." He said.
Elizabeth's heart nearly shattered as he said that. "I, I understand." She said going to pull her hand out of his grasp.
He held tightly to it. "No you don't. I can't help you with that because I've been struggling with the same problem for months now, and I still haven't figured out a way to go about solving it." He said.
She turned to him and looked him in the eyes, searching for the truth. What she saw was so much more. They were filled with so much love and so much respect that she could hardly look away.
"I love you Liz." He said softly as he pulled her in for a kiss.
Elizabeth and John spent the rest of the night sitting on the balcony together. They talked about everything that came to their mines, and for a long time they just sat there together watching the stars in the sky, and reveling in each other's presence.
The next morning Elizabeth woke up as she felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She stirred for a second then opened her eyes to see John sitting next to her still asleep. After wiping her eyes and stretching a bit she looked at her watch, 6 o'clock. She leaned over and shook John to wake him.
"John, its 6 AM." She said quietly.
He groaned and opened his eyes slowly. "Huh?" He asked.
"It's 6 AM we fell asleep out here." Elizabeth explained.
"Oh geeze, I've got to get up." He said as he rubbed his eyes.
"If I don't go I'm going to be incredibly late." She said.
"No, it's fine. If anyone should be on time, it should be you." He said with a smile.
She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss before running off towards her quarters.
After a quick change Elizabeth walked into the control room.
"Did you get a good night of sleep last night, Ma'am?" Lieutenant Thorton asked.
Elizabeth nodded. "Almost too good." She said with a smile as she walked into her office. She was nearly floored by the amount of files and papers that were laying on her desk. She normally had at least an extra hour working on them so they never piled up that high. She was in for a long day.
"Elizabeth." Carson said walking in.
She smiled. "Good morning Carson." She said.
His eyes fell on the stack of papers and he looked at her interested. "Did you just get in?" He asked.
"I took your advice and got a decent night's sleep last night." She explained as she sat down, and looked over a few of the papers on the top of the piles.
"Well, it seems to have helped." He said seeing the unchanging smile on Elizabeth's face.
"It did." She said. She looked up from her papers. "Sorry, but what was it you needed?" She asked nearly forgetting his reason for being there.
"I wanted to talk to you about Rodney." Carson said walking farther into the room.
"What about Rodney?" Elizabeth asked. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to know what Rodney had done this time.
"He volunteered me to be some guiney pig in his experiment." Carson said.
"What do you mean guiney pig? What did he volunteer you for?" Elizabeth asked giving Carson her full attention.
"The scientists under him keep coming up to me and making me touch things and use things." He explained.
"Because you have the gene." Elizabeth said understanding what Rodney was doing.
"Exactally!" Carson said.
"Alright, I'll talk to him. For now tell them no when they ask you to do anything." Elizabeth said.
"Thank you." Carson said before he walked off.
Elizabeth got to work right away reading through papers and signing things. She was reading through a report that one of Rodney's scientists had written when she heard someone clear their throat from her doorway. She looked up and saw John leaning against the wall with two cups of coffee in his hands.
"I saw you running towards the control room, I figured you slept in a bit and you probably didn't get your coffee." He said handing her a cup.
"Thank you, I got more sleep then I meant to last night." She said.
"It was good for you though. You look great today." He said taking a seat.
"Thank you." She said with a smile. Elizabeth could hardly believe it. As if spending an entire night with John wasn't enough, he was now sitting across from her complimenting her. She put her hand under her desk and pinched herself just to make sure she wasn't dreaming. It all seemed too good to be true.
"What are you thinking about?" John asked.
"Just thinking it's all too good to be true." She said.
"I spent quite a while last night thinking the same thing." John confessed.
Elizabeth was about to say something when she looked up and saw a few of the people from the control room looking in on the two of them. She cleared her throat. "I've got a few reports that seem to have some errors and I'd like to double check them. I'm busy right now, but is there any way you can come back later this evening and work on those with me?" She asked.
John was a big confused for a second then realized that someone else must have been paying attention to their conversation. "No problem." He said standing up. "I've got to get going, I'm supposed to be overseeing some research on the puddle jumpers in a few minutes." John explained.
"Alright, see you later." Elizabeth said.
"I can't wait." John said winking at her before he left.
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Authors Note: It's not over! Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression of the end! I've got a lot more story in me, I promise!
