CHAPTER TWELVE

"Sheppard," John growled into the phone, his head bowed as he tried to avoid the slightly mocking stares of those around him. He decided then and there that the payback he owed Sam would be intense and unexpected, because he could swear that a couple of the airmen around him, whose eyes were still on him, were mockingly humming their own rendition of the ring tone that Sam had set his phone to.

"Grumpy," Elizabeth said, her surprise and disapproval with his tone evident in her voice.

Cringing, John closed his eyes tight. "Crap. Sorry, Elizabeth. It's… been a weird day," he said earnestly. "What's up?"

"Well, I was just informed that I'm finished here, so I'll be back in Colorado Springs around nine tonight. You think you'll be up for a late dinner in town?" Elizabeth asked hopefully. "You said you'd show me some of your old haunts, and it's starting to look like we don't have much time left before we leave again," she added, a note of joy in her voice bringing a smile to John's face, however briefly. The Daedalus was back in the Milky Way, would be back in Earth's orbit for whatever repairs remained to be done in less than a week—apparently Hermiod wanted to give the hyperdrive a rest so they were going to have to make due with sublight engines for the rest of the trip. Once the Daedalus was repaired—which John had been told would take two days, three tops—the crew was to have two days of on-Earth leave time, which, while not enough to actually go anywhere, was enough to breathe non-recycled oxygen and experience actual daylight for forty-eight hours, not to mention enjoy the fact that they had soil under their feet. After that they were heading back to the Pegasus Galaxy.

The flash of happiness John felt when Elizabeth asked him to take her out to dinner disappeared as his surroundings came back to him in a rush. Peterson. C-17 on the tarmac. T-minus-36-minutes to departure. By the time Elizabeth arrived in Colorado Springs at nine he would be either at Nellis itself, in the BOQ (bachelor officer's quarters) or he would be somewhere within the Groom Lake facility (more commonly called Area 51) where the X-302's were stored and his training would take place. "You have no idea how good that sounds right now, Elizabeth, but I'm waiting for a hop to Nellis," John said.

"Nellis? Why are you going to Nevada?" Elizabeth asked. John could hear the frown in her voice, and knew that her forehead would do the adorable little crinkling thing that happened when she was confused; something that happened so rarely that it was usually an event in and of itself.

John smiled at the mental image he had of Elizabeth. He had an excellent imagination, especially when it came to Elizabeth, and he could see her, clear as day, in her hotel room, half packed suitcase on the bed, a cup of room service coffee on the nightstand, probably empty or near empty, most likely her seventh or eighth cup of the day. Dressed in casual clothes, since she didn't have any meetings and didn't need to impress anyone. Bare feet—that John knew for a fact, Elizabeth having confided in him several months earlier, that she rarely wore shoes or socks while home, preferring the feeling of her bare feet on the cool floor, which, she had said, was one of the drawbacks to being in Atlantis; the floors were not exactly bare-foot friendly.

"Because my forward thinking CO decided that the Jumpers aren't enough," John said. "Which, of course, we're going to have to talk about, because that is a betrayal of a very intense kind, Elizabeth."

"Yeah, okay, we'll talk about the intensity of my betrayal," Elizabeth said indulgently. John could practically hear her rolling her eyes. "You seriously have to leave today? I'm feeling very out of touch right now and I don't know how much help Rodney will be with that."

"If General Landry hadn't said 'don't miss that flight' like, a dozen times, sure, I'd hold off a day, but as it is I think the General would rather have Rodney marry his daughter than give me a reprieve here," John said with a slight smile, remembering how Landry had reacted when he caught Rodney flirting—in the way that Rodney flirts—with Doctor Carolyn Lam when he met her in the elevator a few days earlier. John was sure that Landry wanted to throw Rodney into the kawoosh of the Stargate. Carolyn had just found it amusing.

Elizabeth sighed. "How long are you going to be training?" she asked.

"No one's actually said," John admitted. "But I usually pick these things up pretty quick," he added. He wasn't bragging. He was simply stating a fact. In the time between Rodney showing him the Puddle Jumpers and Rodney and Elizabeth arriving, less than five minutes later, John had managed to figure our how to start a Jumper, cloak it, get it to hover in place, and, after a particularly random thought, how to do a barrel roll in place, though he couldn't think of any tactical advantage a stationary barrel roll would have.

"I know," Elizabeth said. "So, when you get back…"

"It's a date," John promised. Immediately he cringed, regretting the term he'd used to define their plans. 'Date' had too many connotations, most of them far more intimate than could be applied to their relationship that was, at most, a close friendship.

"Good," Elizabeth said with a smile that was clearly evident in her voice.

One military transport, an extended meeting with General Landry at the SGC, and a rushed meal in the Commissary with SG-1 (which, strangely, was pleasant, much like the few meals that she and Sam and Daniel and Teal'c had had during the few months Elizabeth had been in charge of the SGC, with none of the tension that existed when John was around) later Elizabeth officially had twenty-four hours with nothing to do before she had to get back to the SGC to deal with the million and one things that needed to be taken care of before they could go back to Atlantis.

Her professional life was, for the most part, under control.

It was her personal life that was in turmoil.

Flirty conversations with John she could deal with. They'd happened pretty much since day one. He was a natural-born flirt, seemed to do it instinctively whenever he came across anyone with double-X chromosomes, and when she was around him something seemed to happen to her, like a switched was flipped in her brain, and she could do nothing more than give as give as good as she got. They always flirted, it came as naturally as breathing to the both of them when they were in the same room, or, as of late, talking to each other over the phone.

Flirty conversations she could deal with. Hell, even the sex dreams—which often left her shaking and unable to look John in the eye for at least a day afterwards—were something she could deal with. John Sheppard was a sexy man, she was a red-blooded female, and, until shortly before she went to Antarctica and met John, she'd been having more than half-decent sex on a fairly regular basis.

But the dream she had had that morning after their conversation was no simple lust-fuelled fantasy sequence.

It was freaking domestic.

The city was quiet—the ZPM didn't give off the same soft hum that the Naqueda generators did—and Elizabeth had retired to her quarters early, not even taking any work with her when she left her office at the previously unheard of hour of 1700 hours. Even as she walked the familiar route to her quarters Elizabeth couldn't understand why she was leaving her office at what was, to her, a sickeningly early hour without Carson and Kate Heightmeyer dragging her away kicking and screaming with conversations of therapy and high doses of tranquilizers passing between the medical doctor and the psychologist.

Passing her hand over the control crystals outside her door Elizabeth waited a second for the doors to open before moving forward again. She'd walked before waiting too many times, usually while doing work on the run, to not pause when a door was controlled by the three crystals and the city's mental connection to it's in habitants that Elizabeth didn't even pretend to understand rather than the automatic doors that simply opened when they sensed a presence heading toward them.

When Elizabeth entered her quarters the lights didn't automatically come on like the usually did, which could only mean one thing.

"John?" Elizabeth called softly as the doors closed again. He didn't respond, so she said his name again, a little louder. That got his attention and he turned to face her, offering an affectionate smile in response to her welcome. "I thought we were meeting in the Mess," she said when she saw John relaxing in the big overstuffed chair that he had taken over as his own whenever he was in her quarters. Which they usually were since it was bigger than his and, to be perfectly honest, the Johnny Cash poster that John had hanging over his bed creeped Elizabeth out a bit.

"We were. At eight," John said, marking his page in War and Peace and putting the book down.

Elizabeth cringed. Over an hour later. Not a record by any means, but definitely not good girlfriend behaviour. "Oh, god, I'm sorry, John. I thought we were meeting at nine," she said earnestly. She dropped her jacket on the end of her bed. "Great. I thought I was going to be the bad girlfriend for being a few minutes late," she muttered. "Why didn't you radio me?" she asked as she crossed the room and crawled into John's lap, snuggling into his embrace.

"Because then I'd be the nagging boyfriend," John said, smiling against her neck.

"Did you eat?" Elizabeth asked as John began dropping kisses up and down her neck.

"Don't want food," John whispered against her skin.

Elizabeth laughed. "That wasn't my question," she said even as she angled her head so that John had easier access to the spot behind her ear. Whenever he touched her there, even if it was just when he tucked her hair behind her ear and his fingers accidentally—or maybe not so accidentally, considering that John knew how that spot affected her—brushed against it, her toes curled and any resistance she may have had melted away like an ice cube on hot pavement. John chuckled softly at how her words and her actions contradicted each other.

Just when Elizabeth was rapidly approaching the point where she was all for skipping dinner in favour of continuing what John had started to it's conclusion, suddenly and against her wishes, Carson's voice began echoing in her head, chastising her about her plummeting iron levels, about days on end that she would live on coffee alone, about how her body could only take so much neglect before it rebelled against her. And how John wasn't much better sometimes.

"John, I'm hungry," Elizabeth said, reluctantly pulling back from his ministrations. She affected a slight pout and made her eyes wide and guileless, knowing, with some satisfaction, that he would do anything she asked of him when she gave him that look.

Letting his forehead drop to Elizabeth's shoulder John sighed. "To the mess?" he questioned. Elizabeth nodded and got up, twining their fingers together and pulling John with her.

John stumbled twice on the way to the door and Elizabeth stopped and looked at him carefully. There were dark circles under his eyes, his shoulders were slumped slightly, his eyes were slightly glassy and unfocused, and he was wavering slightly on his feet. Raising her free hand to cup his cheek she tilted his head so that his eyes met hers. "You were asleep when I came in, weren't you?" she asked gently.

"Not intentionally. I just sat down to wait for you. Next thing I know you're here waking me up," John said apologetically.

Softening, Elizabeth mentally went over what she knew John had done that day. A four-hour long mission stemming from a supposed lead on Ford that came up empty, followed by several hours training new members of the expedition, a trip to the Mainland with Teyla to help find a lost Athosian boy that took another four hours of hiking through the dense forest of the Mainland, and, on top of all that, his regular duties around the City. Add to that the fact that she knew he hadn't been sleeping well lately, nightmares of alternate outcomes of the siege on Atlantis having been haunting him ever since they returned from Earth, and Elizabeth could understand why he looked like he was about to fall asleep standing up.

Changing directions, Elizabeth pulled John over towards the bed. She gently helped undress him and urged him to get under the covers without a word. Once he was tucked in she pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I'm just going to grab a quick bite. You want me to bring you anything back?" she asked as she ran her fingers through his thick hair. John shook his head and mumbled something about not feeling all that hungry in a sleep-thickened voice.

She continued running her fingers through his hair, whispering tender words of love every so often, until his breathing evened out and his body relaxed into sleep. Careful so as not to wake him she got up and…

… and woke up.

She hadn't meant to fall asleep after talking to John. It was, after all, mid-morning, nearing late morning, even, and she rarely slept past five thirty even after her latest of late nights. But she had packed everything she brought to DC with her, as well as everything she had purchased since arriving in DC—she had no idea what she would do with her new gown, or the four new suits she had indulged in when she realized that rotating through the same meagre selection for god-knows-how-long in strings of meetings that wouldn't end was not the best way to make a good impression on people who spent more on a single outfit than most people did on car payments—and she had finished her book two nights before and she'd already read two different papers, both reporting variations on the same stories that, really, had little to no effect on her life that she would be getting back to shortly, so she had lay down on the bed and closed her eyes against the beam of sunlight that hit her face and, without her consent, she had fallen into a deep slumber.

And she had dreamed.

Dreaming wasn't something that Elizabeth did often, and if she did she didn't remember any mental plays that went on while she slept. Sure, she had had more erotic mental wake-ups in the past year than she had during the first thirty years of her life, but, Elizabeth rationalized, it was inevitable when working so closely with a man like John Sheppard, the star of her fantasies and the man who had worked his way so far under her skin that he was officially a part of her. Working closely with John didn't help her keep her dreams, if she were ever to dream, in the realm of PG. And it certainly didn't help that, as late as she usually worked, he was always on duty a little later than she was (which, to be honest, Elizabeth was suspicious of, since the rest of his team, with the exception of Rodney, was known to retire fairly early, compared to other teams) and he always, without fail, radioed her to report what had happened in the control room since she had left, or to share some minor discovery that she would be hearing about in the morning senior staff meeting, or simply just to check in and say goodnight and maybe double check what time their senior staff meeting would be the next day since it tended to be the meeting that floated throughout the day to accommodate other meetings that had more of a clock on them, and so John's voice was almost always the last she heard before she went to sleep.

She realized she could rationalize most of the dream that way. She had been talking to John just before she fell asleep, and they had been talking about getting dinner together, away from everyone at work. The original plans had been put off by John, just like in the dream. The word 'date' had been mentioned during their conversation, but Elizabeth decided that John meant it in the same way you make a lunch date with your mother or your best friend—which, really, was what Elizabeth was doing. Making a lunch date with her best friend. So what if he was an incredibly attractive man who she had sex dreams about. He was still her best friend.

There was nothing more to it, Elizabeth decided.

Except for the pulsating rock in the pit of her stomach that reminded Elizabeth that she wanted what she had seen in her dream, in all of her dreams. The sex, the heat, the love, the tenderness, and, yes, even the domesticity.

Which was why, because she was with Simon and she didn't want to throw away the nearly five years they had been together before she left for Atlantis, Elizabeth decided that instead of staying at the SGC in the quarters she had been assigned like she had planned she would go back and live in her house, with Simon, assuming that he hadn't moved on. Because if she could convince him to join her in Atlantis the craziness in her head about John would stop and her life could go back to normal. Or whatever the Pegasus Galaxy equivalent of normal was.

So, it was with a deep breath that Elizabeth found herself taking the final few steps up to the door.

"Goa'uld System Lords, Wraith invasions, psychotic Genii rogue faction leaders holding a screwy gun to my head… and this freaks me out," she muttered, chastising herself for her cowardice. "Suck it up, Weir. It's just Simon. The worst thing that can happen here is he's moved on," Elizabeth said firmly before raising her fist and resolutely knocking on the heavy wooden door.

Taking half a step back Elizabeth waiting for the door to open. Simon's car was in the driveway and she could hear movement inside the house, so she knew that someone was home. The only question was who.

Nearly a full minute after she knocked on the door someone finally came to answer it. The door opened and Simon was standing there, completely shocked, Sedge standing a few feet behind him. Upon seeing her owner Sedge leapt forward, jumping up and putting her front paws on Elizabeth's shoulders, licking her face and generally expressing how happy she was to see Elizabeth again.

"I've missed you, too, girl," Elizabeth said, smiling at the warm welcome she was getting from her pooch. The welcome she was getting from Simon was nonexistent, after all. He was still just staring at her with a rather dopey look of confusion on his face.

Once Sedge had satisfied herself that Elizabeth smelled and tasted the same as she had the last time they had seen each other she let her paws fall from Elizabeth's shoulders and lay down with her head resting on Elizabeth's left shoe, not caring that she was half inside and half outside of the house, just basking in the joy of having her owner home after so very long.

"Hello, Simon," Elizabeth said softly, internally cringing at the memory of greeting the mist-Simon the same generic way when they had thought they had found a way home several months earlier.

" Elizabeth," Simon said at last, his shocked tone exactly the same as the tone that mist-Simon had used in response to her generic greeting.

The whole sense of déjà vu was getting to be a little much for Elizabeth, but she didn't know what to do to make it go away, what to do to change the bizarro holding pattern they seemed to be stuck in.

Simon blinked several times in quick succession, as if he wasn't quite sure that Elizabeth wasn't just a trick of light or something. Then he stepped forward, careful not to tread on Sedge who was content to stay exactly where she was for the time being, and pulled Elizabeth into a rather stiff embrace that she returned weakly.

Thoughts, unbidden and unwanted, floated through Elizabeth's mind as she and Simon shared a thoroughly awkward hug. Thoughts of another hug she had experienced recently. Thoughts of John. Thoughts of the gentle scent of the fabric softener used on Atlantis. Thoughts of the manly musk of sweat, hard earned both by terror and exertion, tickling her nose as she fought the urge to bury her face in the curve of John's neck. Thoughts of how, in that moment, despite the fact that they were in the middle of what looked to be their last battle, knowing that he was still alive, still there to fight, was enough to get Elizabeth through the next disaster that was thrown at her.

Forcing the traitorous John-thoughts to the back of her mind—she had yet to find a way to banish any John-thoughts completely— Elizabeth allowed Simon to lead her into the house, Sedge happily circling Elizabeth as the three of them headed for the living room.

Sorry it's been a while. Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to get out.

Love? Hate? Review!

TBC...