Chapter 8

Even though she had spent most of her life travelling, living with so many different cultures that varied from each other in so many ways that it made her head spin at times, Elizabeth was having trouble acclimating to life on Earth after a year in Pegasus.

All the people, the chaos, it reminded her of the panic of the siege or, during one particularly bad rainstorm, the Genii raid on Atlantis. The sound of traffic (especially rush hour with all the honking horns and nearly palpable anger) brought the sounds of Wraith darts to her mind, making her fingers itch for a weapon, any weapon, from the gun the nearest guard had holstered at his hip to the butter knife sitting beside her plate—a desire that, in and of itself, was troubling and more than a little strange considering she had gone though both the Genii raid and the Wraith siege completely unarmed, and, while she knew how to shoot a gun if needed (John had seen to that early on) and knew the basics of fighting with a knife (Teyla had been training her, though their schedules rarely lined up and Elizabeth's knee often gave her too much trouble to do the moves that the Athosian instructed her to do) Elizabeth knew that defending herself against the things that she felt were attacking her on Earth the way her instincts were telling her to was among the worst ideas ever. Gunning down people who walked up behind her on the street or attacking the waiter with a butter knife because he had long white hair would get her locked up, Elizabeth knew, and she would never see her city again.

Which was completely unacceptable.

Being at the SGC had been a change, for sure, but it wasn't entirely different from home (security, military types, scientists, John and Rodney and Carson, a few other people that she was close to, a lot of people she knew well enough to have a conversation with but wasn't close to) so Elizabeth had been able to deal with being in the mountain, though there were some changes that were so glaring (being underground instead of being on top of the ocean, not being in charge, no balcony to escape to, no ocean waves or salty breeze to lull her to sleep) that she had to make a conscious decision not to think about them. Besides, the SGC was safe, she didn't need to monitor what she said, she could say 'Atlantis' and not have people look at her like she was crazy, and no one thought that it was strange that she was a little jumpy from time to time—everyone at the SGC had been through something that haunted them, it was an accepted part of the job that no one liked but everyone dealt with.

But DC…

Elizabeth had always adapted well. She could go from a snow-bound negotiation to the desert heat with little more than a flight and a change of wardrobe. She could pack up her life in a matter of hours and move halfway around the world if the job required that of her. Hell, she had left her home galaxy with little more than a few days notice after Daniel had figured out that Atlantis was in the Pegasus Galaxy and not, as they had expected, the Milky Way.

Still, Elizabeth was finding that she had a new appreciation for quiet.

She never thought that she would consider life around Rodney McKay and John Sheppard 'quiet', but she had discovered that the lack of quiet that they brought to her life was much easier to deal with than the incessant noise of life on Earth.

On their third full day of meetings, her fourth day in DC, her breakfast order of room service had come with a bottle of extra-strength Advil and a note from Jack—he had, somehow, managed to cancel their morning meetings and he expected her to be well-rested and tension free by the time he came to pick her up at lunch. Under the plate that her egg-white omelette with havarti and avocado there was an envelope with a list of spa treatments that were available in the time she had off, along with a note that simply said 'call John'.

Curiosity beat out morning hunger, and Elizabeth called John from her SGC cell phone. She knew it was early in Colorado, but she also knew John well enough to know that, if he wasn't already awake, he would be soon and wouldn't mind the wake-up call.

Three rings later Elizabeth was greeted by an out-of-breath utterance. "Sheppard," John said, breathing heavily.

"Did I interrupt something?" Elizabeth asked, alarmed, thoughts of the closeness shared between John and Samantha Carter flashing through her very active imagination—despite the assurances she had been offered before leaving the SGC.

"Morning run," John said, still breathing heavily and completely oblivious to the reasons for the tension in Elizabeth's tone. "What's up?" he asked before taking a long draw from the water bottle he'd brought with him on his run.

"You and Jack are in cahoots," Elizabeth accused.

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, Elizabeth, but if I did I'm sure I would have a witty retort to your accusation," John said.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Seriously, John. First I get a note from Jack saying that our morning meetings have been cancelled, then I get a pamphlet for the hotel spa with a note saying to 'call John'. You two are in cahoots."

"Okay… first of all I don't think you should say 'cahoots' anymore. Ever," John said seriously. "Second, I really don't know what you're talking about—I wish I did, but I don't. And third, you do realize that it's four in the morning here, right?"

"Yeah, well, you're already up and running, literally, so it's not like I pulled you away from lusty dreams of Carmen Elektra or anything."

"She's not my type," John replied automatically. "So… again I ask… what's up? And don't you dare say anything about me being in cahoots with the General. In fact, take it step by step. It is only four in the morning for me, remember?"

Rolling her eyes again, Elizabeth said, "Jack cancelled our morning meetings."

"Okay, I'm with you so far," John said.

"And I got an envelope with my breakfast with a list of spa treatments available in the time I have off today," Elizabeth continued while looking the list over, mentally scheduling as many treatments as she could in the few hours she had away from the world of intergalactic diplomacy. It had been a long time since she had treated herself to something to frivolous and utterly girly as a spa day—half day, technically—that Elizabeth was determined to make the most of it. Still, she was disappointed that she didn't have any girlfriends around to go with, spa days being much more fun with friends around. Elizabeth made a mental note to bring Teyla to Earth sometime to do the girly bonding thing that was so incredibly hard to do while running a city and fighting a war that had been raging for ten thousand years or more.

"That's handy," John commented.

Elizabeth frowned. Either John was a better actor than she knew or he truly didn't know what was going on. She wasn't sure which option was more appealing. "Isn't it thought?" Elizabeth replied. "In the envelope with the list was a note."

"And what did the note say?" John inquired cautiously.

"Call John," Elizabeth said.

There was a long pause before John spoke again. "That's it? 'Call John'? No wistful poetry, no secret admirer bullshit, nothing to indicate the sender?"

"Honestly, I thought that you had sent it," Elizabeth said.

"Hence your slightly indignant insistence that General O'Neill and I are in cahoots."

"I was not indignant," Elizabeth protested. John laughed, the deep, resonating sound of his laughter a balm to a soul-deep wound Elizabeth didn't even know existed. "Okay, maybe I was a little indignant. But I thought two people I consider close friends were ganging up on me."

"Ganging up on you… to give you a day at the spa..." John said slowly. "What atrocious friends we must be, to wish something so terrible upon you when you haven't taken more than five minutes for yourself in as long as we've known you."

Elizabeth smiled widely. "You are in cahoots with Jack!" she exclaimed.

"Just a little," John said sheepishly. "But you deserve a day off, Elizabeth. You deserve a lot more than that, but it took a lot of work to swing a few hours. And, for the record, this conspiracy goes beyond just myself and the General. Samantha, Doctor Jackson, and Carson were in on it, too. They ended up doing most of the hard work—apparently I'm not globally renowned like they are. Samantha managed to score a deal with President Hayes and Carson, apparently, has quite the relationship with the bigwigs in the British Isles. General O'Neill claims that the Russian ambassador was fine with taking the whole day; something about cherry blossoms and national monuments. And Jackson… well, he basically swayed everyone else. Seriously, watching the guy work… if he's half as good at dealing with people on an intergalactic scale as he is on a global one… life is going to be a lot easier when we get home."

"I can't believe you guys did this for me. This is so incredibly sweet," Elizabeth said.

John cleared his throat, feeling more than somewhat awkward about what he was about to say. "Well… I can't speak for everyone… but, speaking for me… you definitely deserve it. And more. And, I realize I haven't exactly taken great strides in making your life easier… so… thank you for putting up with me… and sorry for… all the crap I make you put up with."

The Lantian delegation had been on Earth for nine days when Carson left for home to see his mother and the rest of his family and friends. John had suggested to Rodney that he look up his sister who he'd sent the tape to when everyone was saying goodbye to their loved ones, but Rodney had let out an unintelligible growl before hunching over a laptop, his spine curved at an angle that made John's back ache in sympathy. It wasn't until later that John found out that Rodney's message had been among the data that was garbled by the compression codec and therefore had never reached his sister.

Sam was off-world on one of the wrap-up missions she'd said she had to go on, making sure that relations with other worlds would continue despite the fact that the main team would no longer be going through the 'Gate, and Elizabeth was still in DC. John hadn't heard from Elizabeth since their talk the day she'd had the morning off, though General O'Neill was sending updates to General Landry, which were shared at briefings that John attended.

Which, really, seemed to be all that John was doing. Attending briefings, hearing about the things his friends were doing, and spending a lot of time wandering the incredibly dull military-grey halls of the SGC. He'd wandered into a science lab by accident and, intrigued by the equations on the white board, had stayed to study them, finding a flaw and fixing it out of habit, and when the scientist whose lab John was in found him tinkering with the math on the board he was less than pleased. Until, of course, he discovered that John had solved the problem he had been having and that the reason his prototype wasn't working was that his calculations were so incredibly off that he was lucky he hadn't blown up the entire complex. After that John had learned to avoid the floors with the science labs on them, unless he was with Sam, because word had gotten around and suddenly every scientist on base wanted the math whiz Major Sheppard to do something for them, too. Not because they couldn't do the math themselves, either, but because they all had some perverse desire to see John's math skills in action. And, while John liked numbers, he didn't like being a freak show exhibit. Besides, there was a reason he never went beyond masters in the courses of applied mathematics and practical mathematical theorem that he had taken between years at the Academy.

He had wanted to hold off on going into town until his friends could join him—he had promised Elizabeth that he would show her his old haunts, had planned to go out for some classic American cuisine and excellent imported beer with Rodney and Carson, and he and Sam had lists of movies that they wanted to watch and pick to pieces together—but, with everyone he was willing, if not eager, to spend time with busy doing other things, whether they be work related to personal, John was so incredibly bored that he was almost tempted to volunteer to take a few days leading a security detail on one of the scientific outposts that the SGC had set up, if only to get out of the Mountain for a few minutes.

Which was saying a lot since John had gone to some pretty creative lengths to avoid scientist babysitting detail over the past year.

Knowing that Rodney needed to leave the Mountain sometime—he had hardly left his lab since the whole debriefing nightmare ended, and then only to go to the Commissary or to his quarters for a few hours of sleep—John decided it was time, as Rodney's best friend (and to be honest John wasn't exactly sure when that had happened, becoming Rodney's best friend, but John knew that it was true and, though he had yet to admit it aloud, the same was true in reverse) to take action.

"Hey, Rodney. I'm going into town to pick up some things. Wanna come along?" John asked, leaning against the counter just inside Rodney's temporary laboratory.

John knew that such a simple invitation wouldn't work, but, with Rodney, John had learned, it was easiest to deal with him in a certain way. Starting off easy and working his way up to a direct order—though John doubted it would get that far, considering his secret weapon—was always much more effective with Rodney than simply ordering him to do something. The civilian scientist often balked at the fact that he was being ordered around, which was why it was easier to use what he and Elizabeth had termed the 'sliding increments of authority'.

"I'm busy," Rodney said, not looking up from the device he was working on. John had heard about Sam's little outburst with the Canadian before they left for P9T-934 about the Ancient plunger—John's internal cheer of vindication when he found out that he had been right about the device had, wisely, remained entirely internal—and since then Rodney had become even more reclusive than usual, which was, honestly, beginning to worry John.

"I get that," John nodded. "But you haven't been out of the Mountain since we got here. Whatever you're working on will keep for a few hours."

"I highly doubt that. This is very important work, Sheppard," Rodney said.

"I'm sure it is," John said, placating the irritable genius. "Fine, I'll leave you to your very important work," he said, making a move to leave. He stopped, turning around again to face his teammmate. "You wouldn't happen to know the way to the Memorial Park area, would you? It's been a while since I've been in the States, let alone Colorado Springs, and I promised Samantha I'd stop by her house, check on things for her, while she's off-world."

The ploy worked, just like John knew it would, and Rodney finally looked up from his project. "Memorial Park? Yeah, I think I know where that is," the Canadian said. John was fairly sure Rodney had no clue where Memorial Park was, let alone how to get there from Cheyenne Mountain, but, fortunately, John knew Colorado Springs about as well as he knew Atlantis—the unexplored parts of the lost city being the parts of Colorado Springs that had changed since he had graduated from the Academy.

"So, you coming?" John asked.

Rodney looked down at himself, then at his watch, then back down at himself. "I've been working for thirty hours or so," he said.

"Go take a shower. I'll be in the Commissary when you're ready to go," John said, pleased with how easy it had been to get Rodney out of the lab.

Nodding, Rodney backed up his data before shutting his computer down and leaving the lab. Once John was sure that Rodney was, in fact, heading for the locker rooms he headed for the Commissary to wait for Rodney to be ready to leave.

Though John knew he should be feeling at least a little guilty about using Rodney's hopeless crush on Sam to get some company on his shopping trip, he didn't let himself register any guilt-related feelings. He would save those for the next time he saw Sam.

"Major, a subspace message just came in," Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman said as he fell in step beside John.

"From the Daedalus?" John asked, hoping that he had hid the fact that the short 'Gate technician had scared him, appearing out of nowhere the way that he had—the way that John noticed he had a tendency to do whenever he was away from the Control Room.

"Yes, sir," Walter said. "Colonel Caldwell reported that the hyperdrive is down; they're moving on sublight engines at the moment."

John sighed. "But they made it though the dead space between the galaxies, right?"

"Not quite, sir. Colonel Caldwell's message was relayed through the span to the Delta Site, our closest outpost to the edge of the Milky Way."

"So… the message is a little dated," John surmised.

"Only by a few hours, Major."

"Okay. So… I assume that the Asgard… Haemorrhoid… is working on the hyperdrive," john said.

"Hermiod, sir, and yes," Walter said. "But your return to Atlantis..."

"Is going to be delayed," John said with a nod.

"Yes, sir," Walter said.

"Alright. Thank you, Chief," John said, effectively dismissing Walter who nodded and peeled off, heading back to the Control Room.

John sighed heavily. " Elizabeth is not going to be happy about this," he said to himself.

TBC...

Love? Hate? Review...