Spoilers for "The Return" Thanks to Shannon for betaing.
He wandered from planet to planet collecting artifacts. John hated it at first. It was boring. His team wasn't his team. They were well trained, talented men and women, but they were not his team. His scientist wasn't as much fun to pick on as Rodney. His marines were quick and crack shots, but they weren't Teyla and Ronon.
The worst part was coming home. He'd step through the gate, squeeze through space and time and arrive in the unfeeling cement gate room. It wasn't as pretty. The ramp was clunky. The red chevrons were all wrong. The gate was loud and slow. He started to write his mission report in his head as he walked towards the glass. He looked up and waved at Walter. The little technician waved back before he went back to work.
Walter was a good desk man. Carter was brilliant, and much more humble than McKay. General Landry was entirely competent. Dr. Lamb was cute and even rather funny in a dry sort of way. Something was missing. John followed the light with his eyes and turned his elbow so the nurse could test his blood. He'd been able to get used to most of it. Catch up on two years of football games on ESPN and drink some of the beer he'd been missing.
None of it filled the void. Not even football made Earth feel like home because she wasn't there. She wasn't there to smile at him, to congratulate him for a job well done. He'd thought about calling her. Inviting her to one of the new movies that had come to theaters without them. It seemed stupid. John showered the dirt from his body and rubbed shampoo through his hair. What would he say? Should he ask her out for a drink?
John blushed in his shower. Maybe alcohol, Elizabeth, and him weren't the best mixture. He shut off the water and reached for his towel as he tried to ignore the part of him that suggested getting a drink for old time's sake could be a hell of a good time.
Trevor, one of his marines, snapped a towel at him with a wicked grin. "You have a phone call, Sir." His cell phone was in the heap of his clothing on the floor of his locker and pitifully out of batteries.
"Thanks." He pretended to ignore the towel snap as he walked towards the door. As soon as his man turned, John repaid the whap with a grin. "See you tomorrow at 0700 airman."
"Yes, Sir." Trevor called after him as he escaped the locker room. "Bright and early, Sir."
Chuckling as he headed down the corridor, John ducked into his temporary quarters. He picked up the phone and tapped the blinking light. "This is Colonel John Sheppard."
"Hello John." Carson was his usual bubbly self as he bounced off of hold. "Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?"
"Of course! I could never turn down dinner with you and McKay. You're my two favorite men with which to eat." John flopped onto his bed and reached for his Game Boy.
"Actually, I've a bit of a surprise for ye." Carson could barely contain what was the best bit of news he'd had for awhile. "Elizabeth's coming as well."
John's Game Boy flashed and beeped as his character failed a jump and died in a pit on the side of the screen. He dropped it for a moment. "That's great! How'd you talk her into it?"
Carson's voice fell slightly. "I had to coerce her a little bit." He sighed and pulled himself together. "She's not been herself since we came back. It's obvious by her apartment. I hate to say it, but the place was a mess. She had dishes everywhere, and clothes. It looked like my apartment back in medical school."
John meant to pick up his Game Boy and tackle his puzzle again. Elizabeth's apartment shouldn't be a mess. Her office was always neat. Her things were always in their proper place because she liked to be organized. Her apartment should be organized because she was Elizabeth. "But she's going to come."
"She's going to come. I'm picking her up myself." Brightening a bit, Carson promised to see him at seven tomorrow and left the line.
John tried to return to his game, but it no longer held much interest. He shut it off and stared at the ceiling. Elizabeth was a constant and one of the few things he counted on in his crazy life. Being back on Earth was hard enough, if she wasn't handling it either, what was the point? Maybe he should get out. Find a new way to exist. Fly jets for big shot businessmen or test motorcycles.
He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing himself on a beach in Tahiti, kicking back with a blue something topped with an umbrella. He just started to feel the breeze on his face when his mind snapped back to the present. He'd been drinking with Elizabeth. Laughing with her as they danced with the villagers of Ceol. Then they were pulled into a line. Standing together with the rest of the couples. It felt like a dream as he watched himself. John could feel his head swim as he held her hand. Taste the rich sweet ale as he drank it and smell the smoke of the fire.
They followed the villagers, walking up to an altar. His memory faded, becoming a mass of half-remembered ghosts. Elizabeth was smiling at him, her green eyes brilliant in the candle light. It was a chalice, heavy carved stone with two handles on the sides. Their hands locked over it, sharing the weight as they took their turn. John remembered feeling something pass through him, something that came from Elizabeth's eyes and ran cold down his spine.
John jumped out of bed, slamming his feet into the floor. He reached into his desk looking for paper, anything. The first thing he found was the envelope from his cell bill. Grabbing a pen from the next drawer, he scribbled the symbol onto the envelope as he left his room. He needed an expert, someone who knew something about ceremonies and alien writing. The first person he ran into was a genius, but not of the correct variety.
Colonel Carter moved politely out of John's crooked path through the corridor as she protected her dish of blue Jell-o. " Where are you off too?"
"I need a dictionary or-" John held up the envelope to her and pointed to his scribble. "Something- someone who can tell me what this is."
She pulled him out of the center of the hall and glanced at his drawing. "It looks like a Celtic knot. I think I bought one in Ireland, on vacation." Sam handed it back and shrugged. "Daniel's in his office. He usually knows what to do with strange symbols."
"Really? That would be great. I don't think I'll be able to sleep. It keeps popping into my head while I'm trying to dream about tropical islands." John followed her as he studied her Jell-o. "Where'd you get that?"
"Mess hall." Sam tossed her head back down the hallway, her short blonde hair fluttering. "Want some?"
Moments later, Jell-o in hand, John followed Sam into Daniel's private library. He was buried a series of parchments, rustling them as he made his notes. He neither heard nor saw his visitors. It wasn't until Sam tapped his shoulder that he came out of his trance. "Brought you a question."
"Oh?" Daniel turned to John thoughtfully. "Pick up something on your last mission?"
John shook his head and passed Daniel his sketch. "I saw this a few weeks ago, on a trade mission in Pegasus. It was on a cup of some kind. A big one, with curling handles."
"Well, many cultures incorporate eating or drinking into their religious rites." Daniel went to his shelves and collected four books. "Jack got into trouble with that ten years ago. He ate this dessert and ending up sleeping with an alien woman who infected him with nanites."
"Nanites that increased his aging and nearly killed him." Sam licked Jell-o off of her spoon and grinned naughtily. "Took me weeks to fix that one." She carried Daniel's books as he headed for his wall of parchment.
"Elizabeth- Doctor Weir and I-" John bit his lip, trying to stop himself. "Woke up hung over with no idea how we got there." He kept the way they woke up to himself.
"That's probably simpler than nanites." Daniel moved his things away and spread out his new parchments. Laying John's drawing over them he went through quickly. "It's an early Gaelic design, probably used by people in a culture like one of early Ireland. Their music and clothing are probably pretty similar."
Shrugging as he watched Daniel work, John couldn't be sure. "I've never seen early Ireland."
"Yes- No, I suppose you wouldn't have." Daniel continued scanning, taking the top book out of Sam's hands and paging through it. "Here you are. It's a symbol of Queen Mab. She was a mythical creature in the time of King Arthur. Supposedly she was the queen of the fey. The fairy people, many cultures worship her for luck and protection." He shut the book and turned to John. "Where did you see it again?"
"On a cup, a big heavy one." John took his envelope back and flipped it over to draw on the back. "Kind of like this, with the symbol on both sides. It was on a table in the front of the room. We all drank from it, women on one side, men on the other."
"Interesting." Daniel took the book from the bottom of Sam's pile and flipped through it to what he wanted. "It sounds like a harvest or planting ritual."
"Harvest. It was fall, they invited us to celebrate. Doctor Weir thought it would be good for our trading relationship if we spent some time with them." John finished off his Jell-o and held the empty cup carefully away from Daniel's precious old things. "Did we?"
Daniel's studious expression broke into a smile. "You participated in a fertility ritual. It says here that Queen Mab rewarded her followers with long lives and many children. What was the fertility rate on that planet? How many children did you see?"
"A lot?" John tried to keep his mind from running away. Fertility rituals were one thing. Waking up drunk lying next to his boss after one was something else. "I thought it was just because they were farmers. I can't be certain without going back and I don't suppose I will anytime soon." He shook his head slowly. "I think each family had at least eight children. Maybe more."
Sam shared Daniel's amusement as she tried to come to John's assistance. "It makes sense. If your planet is being culled every five decades or so, you need to keep your population as high as possible to prevent being wiped out."
"That's an extraordinary birth rate." Daniel paged through the book, checking to see if he'd missed anything. "I can't say more without visiting the planet personally, but consider what we know about the ancients, it's entirely possible that Queen Mab was one of them. An ascended being who gifted this planet with her protection."
"If she ascended she's probably still around, laughing at us for getting smashed?" John wondered as he furrowed his eyebrows. "That's not too bad, I guess."
"There's not much else I can tell you without knowing more about the ceremony itself." Daniel returned his books to their shelves and tucked John's drawing away in a drawer. "I can give you a better picture to show Doctor Weir. It's the tree of life, a fairly common symbol of prosperity."
"It doesn't mean we're both going to remember going crazy and murdering children?" John offered sarcastically as he pulled his palm pilot form his pocket and handed it over to Daniel.
"No, most of the legends of Queen Mab are fairly benign. The worst you could do is dance naked around a bonfire." Daniel's exaggeration struck a nerve.
John took his palm pilot back gratefully and stared at the archeologist in horror. "Dancing. Naked."
Sam patted his shoulder. "I wouldn't worry too much. We've yet to meet an ascending being with a video camera."
She'd waited until half past six to even start getting dressed. Elizabeth knew she should have left her laptop far earlier than she had. This dinner was important. Far more so than she'd dare to admit to herself. Being her team again was the closest she could get to going home, and she was going to look like a wreck when she saw them.
Tying her hair back on the top of her head, Elizabeth left her sweatshirt on her bed and pulled her favorite red sweater on over her tank top. Leaving her socks behind on the floor she chose shoes, changed her mind and chose again. She picked yet another pair of shoes before Carson knocked politely on her door. Nothing seemed right. All of Earth felt strange, as if she was the alien. It had only been two years since she'd left the Milky Way, but she already felt like she'd spent her whole life in Pegasus.
Just getting into a car again seemed odd. The SGC was thoughtful enough to furnish Carson with a black government issue sedan. The smell of new leather infused the car. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Her stomach twisted again, as it had all morning. Elizabeth had never been carsick in her life, but it seemed like today was an exception.
"You feeling all right?" He turned to her with a knowing glance as he pulled into the parking lot. "You look a little pale."
"I'm all right." She pulled her arms tight across her chest and let the chill evening air bolster her. "It's been an odd couple of days. I guess I haven't been feeling quite myself." Elizabeth's forced smile was almost natural looking. The skin of her cheeks were too pale, even almost pinched around her eyes.
"I'm sure a bite of dinner will fix ye right up." Carson patted her shoulder and urged her onward. "Come on now. Rodney's been looking forward to seeing you."
"You're right." Her smile was better, brighter even as she followed him into the restaurant. "I'm sure I'll have a wonderful time."
Rodney was already seated, the wine had been ordered and he was attacking the
basket of bread. Carson pulled out her chair politely. As she thanked him, Rodney realized that he should do something. He got awkwardly to his feet and saved himself by pouring her a glass of wine. "Doctor- Elizabeth- it's great that you made it. I-" He handed her the glass and nearly spilled it all over her lap.
Rescuing it as gratefully as she could, Elizabeth settled down into familiarly easy banter with Rodney. Carson started the debate between kinds of appetizers. While Rodney extolled the wonders of crab cakes, he snuck up behind her as quietly as he could. His hands dropped heavily on her shoulders. Jolting for a second, Elizabeth knew it was John. It was the smell of him. It wasn't quite what she remembered, he had cologne now that he was back on Earth, but it was John. She relaxed, leaning back into her chair.
"Hello Boss." John slid into the chair at her right hand. "It's been awhile." He couldn't look at her enough. He had to study her, memorize her face once again. It had been years since he'd seen her smile. He smiled at her, trying to coax joy out of her eyes. "I was starting to think you'd become a hermit."
She envied his calm. He looked at ease in his black button shirt, quiet and serene. More at ease than she could conjure. It was odd to see him. Especially here, on Earth, in a restaurant like a normal couple having dinner with friends. His hand was just a moment's reach from hers on the table cloth. Taking it would be right, natural even. "I got so used to watching everything all the time. It feels strange to just have me to look after."
"I suppose that would be odd." Rodney piped up as he looked over the menu. "Feeling that alone."
"I think you just missed us." John's smile turned wicked. "Life's no fun without Rodney and me getting into mortal trouble at least once a day." He pointed out his choice to the waitress and leaned closer to Elizabeth. "We thought about having Carson here call you, explaining the deadly peril Rodney got us stuck in this time."
"Me?" Rodney's eyebrows shot up indignantly. "It's not-"
Carson shook his head sympathetically. "Actually Rodney, I've had to treat you more times than I've had to treat the Colonel. You're up by a few injuries."
"You're making that up." Rodney sputtered as he reached for the bottle of wine.
"I'm not actually." Carson laid it out for Rodney, explaining his careful tally of everything he'd had to repair over the last two and a half years.
John took his eyes away from the confrontation and chuckled to himself as he scribbled on his palm pilot. "Do you remember this?" Passing it over to Elizabeth, he tried to calm the nervous racing of his heart. Maybe it was his dream. His own pathetic mind's attempt to explain why he'd managed to forget sleeping with her. The touch of her hand against his made the restaurant fade away until only her skin remained.
He never got a chance to hear her answer. Dinner exploded into conversation. They were all starving, not for the food, but rather the chance to be with the people they had been with every day until the came back to Earth. To speak easily and be understood without question or explanation.
After the appetizers, Elizabeth's smile came easily. Rodney could laugh and blush without feeling self-conscous as his cheeks went to red. Carson couldn't have stopped grinning if he tried. As they argued about the proper way to cook a steak, John refilled Elizabeth's glass. "Since you're not driving, you can finish the bottle."
"Oh Colonel, Now if I didn't know better I'd think you're just trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me." Elizabeth felt the words slip out of her mouth before her mind realized how inappropriate they were. Her cheeks flashed as scarlet as her sweater.
"You're a catch Elizabeth; you're intelligent, gorgeous, for a brunette, and in charge of an immensely powerful city." Rodney blurted out over his dessert menu, burying his eyes in it as soon as he realized what he'd actually admitted. "As a friend-"
Carson shook his head at John and whispered secretly behind his hand. "He can't help himself, he'll just keep talking."
"As a friend, I find you very attractive, but just as a friend I would never-" Rodney finally found a way to stop talking when the server arrived to take his order.
Elizabeth reached across the table to pat his hand gently. "Thank you Rodney." The wine was going to her head and mixed with her nausea, the combination made the room spin around her. "I appreciate your confidence. It's really rather sweet."
Carson and John shared a glance before they weighed in. "You really are quite lovely." Carson offered innocently.
Nodding over his plate, John shrugged. "Lovely works."
"So, tell me more about Cadman." Elizabeth gracefully dodged any more discussion of her attributes and passed it off to Beckett, making it his turn to blush. "Did you ever get to take her to the ballet?" As soon as John and Rodney start to tease poor Carson, she snuck a look at John's palm pilot. The picture sat there, waiting for her to recognize the design. For a moment it was completely foreign, a mass of lines that curled around themselves.
Then it started to look familiar. It had been on the cup, facing her as she held it up for him to drink. There was something special about it. She remembered asking a village elder about its meaning and watching the old woman rock with laughter and promise that someday she would understand.
Someone's cellular phone, John's as he picked it up, began to ring. Then Rodney's, then her own leaving poor Carson sitting there in confusion. Somewhere in the chaos she passed her credit card to the server and waited for the slip.
John touched her shoulder as she signed her name, making her pen jump out of place just as she started the "W". "I was just kidding that you'd pay."
"Oh it's all right." She salvaged her last name as handed a copy to the server. "I make more than you anyway. Besides, It's not like I have much for expenses." She wrapped her arms around her chest and decided not to acknowledge her stomach's sudden aversion to her dinner. "Where's Carson? He'll have to drive me to the SGC."
"He went with Rodney already. McKay's too excited to drive carefully anyway, it'll be good for American-Canadian relations if the good doctor drives him over." John retrieved his coat from the coat-check and tossed it over her shoulders. While they'd been eating the night had gotten chill, and her nervousness must be making her look cold.
John's jacket smelled more strongly of him, old leather and jet fuel. Elizabeth followed him without question, too concerned about Atlantis to pay much attention to her feet. Trading yet another slip in to the valet, John stuffed his hands in his pockets, feeling about as suave as he had at the prom. "I had Doctor Jackson look it over once I remembered it."
"Look at what?" Tilting her head in confusion, she turned to him without the slightest idea what he was talking about.
John tapped her purse, where she'd tucked his palm pilot and forgotten about it once they had all been summoned. His dress shoes shuffled slightly on the sidewalk as he leaned closer. "I'm going to need it back when you're done."
"Oh!" Tearing it out of her purse, Elizabeth pulled it up again. The design was a abstraction of a tree, done in the complex knot form of the old Gaelic tradition. "What did he say?"
John leaned in closer, near enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. "I think we're in trouble." The valet pulled his black BMW convertible around and traded the keys to him. He tipped the valet and opened Elizabeth's door for her.
She raised an eyebrow at the gesture but got into the car with a smile. "What kind of trouble?"
Revving the engine as he pulled out of the lot, John shifted into a higher gear and met her eyes for a moment. "According to Jackson it's a symbol of some fairy queen from Ireland. He thinks we participated in some kind of fertility ritual."
Biting her lip as she started to giggle, Elizabeth ducked reflexively as he closed the top. "He's just making fun of you. He has to be, it's probably a practical joke." She tightened her fingers in his jacket, pulling it tighter over her chest.
"He seemed pretty serious. You know, it would make sense." John whipped the roadster around the corner and onto the freeway. "Every fertility ritual I've been to here in the Milky Way has involved drinking and carrying on. Weddings, prom, office parties..."
Elizabeth shivered even as the heat started to blow through the dash. "It doesn't mean we were intimately involved in the ritual."
"I think waking up naked next to you is pretty intimate." John shot back as he made his exit off towards Cheyenne Mountain. "At least, it's not something I do with all my bosses. Waking up next to my commander from Antarctica wouldn't have been nearly as much fun."
"I think we're all right. Fertility ritual or not, the only people who were there were you and I. It can't affect our working relationship because we have no working relationship at the moment. I have only the greatest respect for you John, knowing that we've seen each other nude isn't going to change that." Elizabeth dug her security card out of her purse to pass through the checkpoint into Stargate Command.
Waiting for the guard to wave them through before he answered, John pulled into his parking place on the second level. He shut off the car and continued to wait as he put his thoughts together. "And when we have a working relationship again? when we go home?"
"We'll be fine." Elizabeth insisted as she released her seat-belt. "We'll protect our people and the city." Placing her hand on his shoulder, she leaned closer. "And we'll do the best we can."
Her lips glistened with moisture and her hand nearly burned through his thin, black dress shirt. She was cute in his jacket. Black made her eyes seem all the brighter, even in the darkness of his car. He lowered his hand to her knee, making her jolt with surprise. "You're an optimist."
Her fingertips ran across his hair, dancing behind his ear as she moved down to his chin. Elizabeth's heart pounded in her ears. Her blood ran hot through her body, tingling her fingers. "Always."
Before he thought about what he was doing, he kissed her cheek. Startled, she turned towards him, and his kiss ended up catching the corner of her mouth. His stubble scratched faintly against her lips but it was over before she could pull away. John could taste the hint of her lipstick as he watched her smile. "I was right about you." His door clicked shut as he left the car.
"What?" Shaking off the kiss without acknowledging it, Elizabeth took off his jacket and left it in the car. Opening the door and getting out of the car after him, her heels clicked on the smooth cement of the parking ramp as she caught up to him.
John shut them in the elevator and sent them down to level twenty-eight. After the elevator began to move, he answered. "You're a hopeless romantic."