CHAPTER TEN

John had to admit that he had been mildly surprised with the house that Sam lived in. When he and Sam had lived together their place had been, for lack of a better term, a hole. Shag carpeting, sticky windows, bad plumbing, and a questionable landlord, not to mention no A/C and heating that was intermittent at best. Still, despite its faults, it had been home, and they had tried to make it less gross and creepy, but their limited budgets had made that difficult.

Sam's house, however, was nothing like the apartment that had been John's first truly happy home. The floors were hardwood with decorative area rugs in abstract patterns that accented the furniture. The style of the décor was modern, though the house had some classic touches to it in the architecture that produced an intriguing dichotomy that shouldn't have worked but did none the less.

If it weren't for all the boxes that contained most of her belongings the house would have definitely felt like a true home.

It felt weird, being in Sam's house without Sam there with him, especially since it was his first visit to the house, and having Rodney with him, subtly poking around, made the whole experience even weirder. Still, John had promised Sam that he would check on her house for her, and that he would water her plants while he was there. John didn't know if it was because Sam actually wanted him to check on her house and water her plants of if she just wanted to make sure that he left the Mountain for more than sleep in the hotel room he had moved into as soon as he had been allowed to leave the base. Either way, though, John did as he had been asked, checking her house—nothing seemed out of place, though it was hard to tell since every room was in various stages of being packed up—and making sure her newspapers and her mail were brought inside so that people wouldn't know that the house had been empty for several days, and he watered her plants—there were explicit instructions beside the watering can on her kitchen counter, including several topics of conversation she had determined her plants enjoyed (how she came to those conclusions John didn't want to know) and he followed the instructions as far as plant food and water levels were concerned, but he decided to skip the talking thing, if only because he had always thought that people who talked to their plants were a little bit crazy.

John was just making sure that he had managed to get to all of the plants that Sam had—she had a lot, and none of them were in places that John would have thought to look for plants in—when Rodney's voice broke through the silence of the house. "What's with all the soft science texts?"

Following the sound of his friend's voice, John found the astrophysicist in Sam's bedroom. With a disapproving look on his face John manoeuvred Rodney out into the neutral terrain of the living room.

Rodney let out an unintelligible complaint before flopping down on the couch. "I could be making headway on any number of projects right now," he groused.

Rolling his eyes, John left to do one last sweep around the house. After making sure that the house was locked up tight John dragged Rodney out to the car.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Rodney asked.

John pulled a few package receipts form his jacket pocket and handed them to Rodney. "Things we couldn't get shipped," he said by way of explanation.

"There's a lot of George Clooney on here," Rodney said, frowning at one of the receipts.

"Teyla," John said, and Rodney nodded, immediately understanding. He might not act like it, but John knew that Rodney knew more about his team mates than he would ever admit, from things like Ford's high school soccer career to John's distanced relationship with his sisters to how Teyla would often talk to her mother and father as if they were still alive when she didn't think that anyone was around to hear her. "You hungry?" John asked, his stomach reminding him that he hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, which had been a long eight hours earlier.

"Starving," Rodney replied.

"Dinner?" John inquired.

"No citrus," Rodney warned.

"I promise," John said with a smile as he pulled made a turn off the road he was on and started heading toward one of his old haunts that, he had been pleased to notice on the way to Sam's, was still open for business.

Though the music wasn't terrible and the food was almost half-way decent, Elizabeth had managed to reach a state of total overload much faster than usual, she assumed because she had nearly a year where she hadn't had to attend anything that required more than a clean uniform and, once, a very itchy headdress that she had only worn because it was the only way they would get the people of a planet they had stumbled upon to trade for their local resource.

Jack had been swept away by a group of military types not long after the two of them had arrived at the party, leaving Elizabeth alone, not really knowing anyone in the room—her political crowd had been slightly different than the one that had gathered for the current shindig—and after making small talk with the one person she had recognized (vaguely, from a diplomatic mission she had been on nearly six years earlier) for a few minutes Elizabeth found herself, once again, alone in a sea of people.

Parties and galas and the like were not Elizabeth's favourite part of the job, and she was finding it even less appealing after a year of being in the Pegasus Galaxy—to say that she was out of the loop was the understatement of the century. Though she had tried to catch up on world events that she had missed, but, while she was fairly comfortable talking about the big, and relatively unchanging, omnipresent issues, she hadn't had the time, nor the inclination, to delve into the gossip and the little things about life on Earth, which was what most of the conversations she was hearing bits and pieces of were consisting of. She had never liked the gossip and whatnot that seemed inevitable in gatherings of a group nature, had always tried to avoid those kinds of situations, though, unfortunately, she had never had much success in doing so.

With a flute of champagne in hand and a congenial smile on her face Elizabeth worked her way through the room, stopping only once to exchange pleasantries with Colonel Checkov and his aide before escaping to the silence and isolation of the balcony.

The balcony overlooked the Potomac, which, while not as soothing as the ocean under Atlantis, was still quite picturesque.

"Feel like home?" Jack asked, causing Elizabeth to jump. "Sorry," he said with a smile.

Elizabeth shook her head. "The doors back home… they make a 'whoosh' sound," Elizabeth said.

"A 'whoosh' sound?" Jack asked, eyebrow arched.

"Just another way that Earth is different from Atlantis," Elizabeth said with a half-hearted shrug.

Jack leaned against the railing beside Elizabeth. "You really miss it, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Elizabeth agreed. "And with the Daedalus having trouble with its engines its going to be even longer before I get back there."

"You know… a lot diplomats of your stature—hell, of any stature—would kill for the chance to be in this room with these people all at once without the threat of war hanging over our heads," Jack said.

"Yeah, but they don't know that the concerns of Earth's international politics are, quite frankly, lame compared to those of this galaxy, not to mention of the whole universe. The Goa'uld and the Wraith and god knows what else is out there that we haven't even run into yet… when you compare that to disputes over oil or whatever the world wants to fight about this week our disputes are pretty petty."

Jack cringed. "Don't tempt the fates of the whatever by sayin' there's evil out there we haven't pissed off yet," he chastised.

"Sorry," Elizabeth said as she rolled her eyes. She'd never believed in fates or jinxes or anything of the sort, though she did have to concede that, despite their innate ability to get out of whatever they found themselves in, since SG-1 started going through the 'Gate—hell, even a year before there even was a SG-1 to go through the 'Gate—the luck that the Tau'ri had had was less than good. In fact, it sucked in a big way. "You're wrong about one thing, though," Elizabeth said as she turned to go back inside, knowing that she couldn't hide out until the party was over, despite how badly she wanted to, her newly developed, though thankfully rather minor, case of Demophobia making the solitude of the balcony very appealing.

"What's that?" Jack asked.

"We are at war," Elizabeth said before pulling open the door and slipping back into the ballroom.

Though his belongings were still in various boxes and he was beginning to think that maybe he should leave them where they were so it would be easier to escape, General Hank Landry made a conscious decision, as he had every morning since taking over command of the SGC—little Sergeant with annoying psychic powers and all—to stick it out, at least for one more day. There was always tomorrow to turn tail and run, though he had never done that in his life and he was almost entirely certain that he didn't want to start.

So, coffee, care of the psychic Sergeant, in hand, Landry sat down at the heavy wooden desk and mentally reviewed the litany of direly important tasks he had to complete in the next hour if he wanted to finish the things that were supposed to be finished the day before in time to start the current day on time. Not running on schedule was one of the big things about the SGC that bugged Landry, though, considering how good everyone was at their jobs—he hardly got to yell at all anymore, which he was sure was the reason his blood pressure was spiking as of late—the fact that things ran as closely to schedule as they did was saying a lot. He shuddered to think what life would be like if they didn't have the best and the brightest doing what they did best.

He was up to date nearly on schedule; the day before hadn't been too busy so he hadn't had too much spill over left to take care of. All he had to do was make two phone calls—both ending with him leaving a message with a voicemail, which required him to stick to cryptic and practised lines that would mean nothing to anyone who didn't know what they mean—and scan a stack of requisition forms—he decided that he didn't want to know why off-world teams needed copper wire, aerosol extra-hold unscented hair spray, and metal nail files added to their standard equipment; there were some things he just didn't need to know, he'd just signed the forms, remembering the words of advice Jack had offered when he had given the command over to him: "No matter how weird is seems, these people don't screw around with their gear; just sign the damn forms 'cause most of these kids make MacGyver lack imagination."

Finally freed of the previous day's agenda, Landry turned to his morning schedule, frowning when he read the first thing he would be doing.

MEET WITH SHEPPARD re: X-302

To be honest he didn't know Sheppard, had only been able to tell who he was when the four Lantians stepped through the wormhole because Sheppard was the only American, other than Doctor Weir, to return to the SGC that day. The little flags on their jackets were probably incredibly helpful on Atlantis; back at the SGC it just made the four Lantians stand out even more than they strictly needed to as outsiders in the little SGC world most people inside Cheyenne Mountain lived in.

Landry had read Sheppard's file from before he left for Atlantis and, though he questioned the decision to let him go with all that was outlined in his record, Landry had to admit that, given his natural ability with the Ancient Technology Activation gene, he was definitely an asset. Giving him a command, however, was not something Landry thought was wise, and he planned to rectify that as soon as he could.

However that wasn't what the meeting that morning was about. The meeting that was due to start as soon as Sheppard arrived was about the X-302 fighter planes, bastardized fighters of both Goa'uld and Tau'ri technology.

Despite Sheppard's record, Landry had to admit, the Major could fly.

Anything.

The list of aircrafts he was checked out on—both planes and helicopters—was over two pages long, and the skill with which he flew any given craft was, from what Landry could tell, legendary. It was undeniable: the man was born to fly.

Even the SGC's golden child, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, had nothing but praise for the Major, though Landry had noticed that the two of them were spending a lot of time together so he had to consider that Sam's opinions were tainted by something other than professional respect. The SGC grapevine—which was notorious for both speed and dirt-tracking ability—had informed Landry, though indirectly, that Carter and Sheppard had known each other for years, and a quick glance at their respective files had confirmed that they were in the same class at the Air Force Academy.

Landry was just about to try to find Sheppard's file in the heavily secured hidden cabinet that held the information on Atlantis—very little was left on computers lest the security protocols they had in place weren't good enough, and paper files were easily disposed of if needed, the Trust having reached so many levels of various world governments that the thought that they might be in the SGC was not a far stretch—when Walter Harriman appeared in the doorway.

"Ahh, Radar, what is it now?" Landry asked the recently promoted Chief Master Sergeant.

"Major Sheppard is here," Harriman said, ignoring the MASH reference—he'd heard it before, both because of his short stature and because of his ability to anticipate the needs of his superiors; the former he blamed on his parents, neither one being over five foot three, and the latter he simply chalked up to being damned good at his job.

Nodding, Landry motioned for Harriman to let the Major in. Harriman nodded and disappeared from sight and a moment later Sheppard appeared, his posture straightening, though not coming to attention, just inside the doorway. He was wearing his uniform (dark BDU pants, a black tee shirt, and his black-and-grey jacket with Atlantis patch on the right shoulder and an American flag patch on the left, his combat boots clean but clearly well-worn) with his hair doing the same bed-head thing that it had every time that Landry had seen him, and his face was freshly shaven. His eyes were subtly but quickly taking in everything in sight—the exits, potential weapons both defensive and offensive, the boxes, the files, and, finally, the General himself—and, though he seemed quite relaxed, which seemed to be a perpetual state for John Sheppard, Landry could tell that the Major was anything but relaxed. He was, if anything, on guard, as if expecting an attack of some kind at any second. Landry recognized the look—most true warriors had that look, even when in what was supposed to be friendly territory.

Landry's respect for Sheppard immediately increased.

"I need you to be at Peterson at 1100 hours. There'll be a C-17 waiting to take you to Nevada," Landry said without preamble.

"Sir?" Sheppard said, slightly confused.

"General O'Neill and Doctor Weir convinced the Pentagon that Atlantis should have a few X-302's to back up your… Puddle Jumpers," Landry said, frowning at the name of the Winnebago-like ships that he had been briefed on, both by the files of Doctor Radek Zelenka and by Sheppard himself. "They've got a bit more firepower," he said.

"The Jumpers are equipped with drones," Sheppard pointed out, immediately jumping to the defence of his beloved Puddle Jumpers.

Landry nodded. "They are. But you are limited in speed, manoeuvrability, and defensive measures. The 302's, though not as intuitive as what you're undoubtedly used to by now, are a more viable weapon in battle." He located the file with the information Sheppard would need and handed it to the Major. "The Daedalus will be leaving a compliment of X-302's in the care of Atlantis when it takes you all back," Landry continued, "and, seeing as you seem to be checked out on any bird out there, Doctor Weir and I figured you'd like to get inside the cockpit of your newest ride before you get back to your war zone."

Sheppard nodded, though he wasn't sure how much training he would really require—flying had always been mostly intuitive for him, even before encountering the Puddle Jumpers on Atlantis that, quite literally, read his mind, and he had never been the type to learn from listening to an instructor, he was a kinetic learner; he learned by actually doing things rather than listening and reading and memorizing, though he was skilled at learning those ways, too.

"If you get a chance, talk to Colonel Carter about her experiences with the 302's. You two seem to get on well with each other," Landry said.

"Colonel Carter and I have known each other for a long time, sir," John said, jumping to the defensive, mostly out of habit. Past CO's had thought that there was something going on with him and Sam, and, while it wouldn't be great for his career, it would be a harpoon to Sam's career, one that she would, likely, not survive. John had had to face the thought of leaving the Air Force so many times that he knew he had options out there. And, while John knew that Sam had just as many, if not more, options open to her, the Air Force was her life, it was what she loved most, and John would do anything to keep Sam from losing that.

Landry nodded. "So your files say." He took a beat and then said, "You'll be at Peterson on time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Colonel Carter is due back in two hours. Talk to her, then head out," Landry said. John nodded. "Dismissed."

With one more nod, John executed a quick about face and left the office.

I haven't really been doing the A/N thing for this story on this site, but this chapter warranted it.

Demophobia, also known as Enochiophobia, is the fear of crowds, not to be confused with Agoraphobia, which is the fear of being caught out in open spaces.

Now, I know that a lot of people wanted John to show up at the party, and, honestly, I wrote a version where he did, but I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted it to. So that version was cut, but, don't worry, in the next chapter or two Elizabeth will be back at the SGC. Promise.

The bit about Sam talking to her plants is from an episode in, I think, season 3 where she admits that she figured out how to save an alien race because she talks to her plants.

And, of course, I had to include a MacGuyver reference, especially since I was making yet another Radar O'Reilly (with regards to Walter Harriman) reference in the same section.

Thank you for your birthday wishes.

Manic Penguin