So sorry for how long this one took, and it is so short. I hope to get the next one up sooner. BTW I am still amazed at how many Alerts I still get.
This is set in the Episode Trio (4x16), so there are Spoilers for that one. (Duh)
John Sheppard had just seen off Sam, Rodney, and Jennifer and was now officially in command of Atlantis. At first glance, a wonderful job, being the boss of an entire city but he then remembered the stacks of paperwork his normal job required, and he couldn't fathom how much paperwork Sam had to do on a daily basis.
Better tackle some of the paperwork before the next catastrophe hits!
With that in mind, he trotted off to his office. The moment he sat down, his second in command, Evan Lorne, came in with another stack of papers.
"Don't tell me I have to go through these too!" he groaned.
"Sorry, sir. Most of these are requests for leave on earth for family functions. It seems to be wedding season on earth." the other man replied, smiling, and dropped the stack on the table.
John picked up the first few folders and skimmed through the names. Most of them hadn't had leave in forever, and so he was leaning towards granting all of their requests, but when he checked the dates, they were virtually all for the same time frame. Bewildered as to what could be so important back on earth that half of his personnel wanted leave, he called back his second in command.
"Lorne? Could you come to my office again!"
Oh great, now he is telling me I can't go.
But Evan made his way nonetheless.
"Sir?"
"Do you have any idea why all these people want to go back at the same time? Is there a festival or something?" Evan let out a silent sigh of relief and then smiled.
"No Sir, but I believe it is wedding season back home. Cadman said so, and as a matter of fact, I know that Stackhouse and a few others really have invitations to family weddings."
"Ah well, can't really say no to that, huh?" John said.
Letting his eyes wander around his desk John caught sight of a post-it.
'Upcoming IOA visit - new IOA member.'
Great, now I have to prepare for that too.
"Lorne, we may have a problem. It looks like the IOA is sending a new delegate in a few weeks. Probably with the next Daedalus supply."
"Sir, that would be with the end of all the leave, so there would be no problem, right?"
"I guess so. But nonetheless, we have to go through all the security protocols and maybe talk to the Athosians so we can present some of our allies."
"Shouldn't we wait for Colonel Carter to go through all this? Maybe she has more info as she has written down."
"Sounds like a plan, but I want to have the common stuff in place, and with all the leave coming up, we have to adjust the off-world roster too." And so the two military men started reworking their schedules.
Back on earth, Nancy was on her way to the shooting range. General O'Neill had ordered some light weapons training as preparation for her trip. When she arrived, a military weapons instructor showed her the general handlings of a handgun. Safety on and Safety off for at least twenty minutes until she could do it nearly without looking. After that, she had to shoot the damn thing and, as expected, missed the circles on the paper totally.
"At least you got an arm, and that hurts like hell, too!" the instructor tried to make her see her bad aim as a good thing.
"Thank you." she gave back with a smile.
After her stint at the range, she went back to the world of wedding planning and turned on her private cell. A blinking symbol informed her that she had gotten a new voicemail.
"Hey Nancy, I just read your wedding announcement. Congratulations, and I hope you will be happy."
Despite her divorce from John, she had kept in contact with Dave, and you could say they were still friends, but to invite him to her wedding would have been inappropriate and awkward too. Anyways she called him back.
"Hello?" she heard him answer.
"Dave, it's me, Nancy. Thank you for your call."
"No problem. I just wanted to say congrats and that I am happy for you."
"Thank you again, and I hope you understand why we didn't invite you despite you being a good friend and all."
"I understand completely. I am, after all, the brother of your ex. But maybe we can meet for lunch or something just to talk?"
"That is a great idea." And so the twosome decided to meet a week later because Dave was in town on business.
Back on Atlantis, John's coffee break was harshly interrupted by the sound of Chuck's frantic voice.
"Unscheduled off-world activation! Dr. Keller's IDC! Colonel Sheppard and medical to the control room immediately!" and he took off running.
On his way, he met Lorne, who looked as concerned.
"What happened?" John asked the control room crew.
At that moment, he saw the two doctors carrying his commanding officer through the iris. The medical staff rushed to Jennifer's side immediately, and they put Sam on the stretcher. Through the jumbled voices, he heard Dr. Keller instruct everyone to prep the OR for Sam and someone to take care of McKay's hands while she was going to scrub up. John turned to Lorne and said
"You go and check out what is going on with Carter. I will try to find out what happened from McKay."
"Yes, Sir, and thank you, sir!" Lorne replied. Sheppard understood him.
Dealing with an erratic Rodney McKay wasn't pleasant, and the Major had done so before.
Two hours later, Sam's leg was fixed, but she would need to go back to earth for extensive physical therapy. So it was decided that she and all the personnel with leave coming up would gate back with the next check-in in three days, and John would stay in command and 'not burn the place down. As Sam put it before, exhaustion made her fall asleep.