Title: Our Mrs. Sheppard
Pairing: Sparky
Spoilers: This takes place sometime after The Tower, so I guess anything before that is fair game.
Disclaimer: I still don't own them or Firefly.
Summary: Sometimes John's off-world shenanigans catch up with him. And sometimes Elizabeth gets involved. Sparky.
Author's note: Hey guys! It's good to see that people are still reading this story. I have to say I never thought it would end up being this long. And because I used a Firefly plot for inspiration- go check out Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, if you haven't already. Its awesome!!
Chapter 13- Maid of Honor
"Thanks Teyla," Elizabeth said, taking the set of clothes handed to her before shutting the white curtain to change. She had woken up in the infirmary a little after noon feeling rather well rested. After the obligatory check of vitals she had radioed Teyla to bring her a change of clothes, not wanting to walk back to her room in the infirmary's white scrubs.
"It was not a problem." Teyla's voice called from the other side of the curtain. "I do not like walking back to my quarters in scrubs either."
Elizabeth finished dressing, now feeling much more like herself, and pulled back the curtain. "You know, with the number of times your team ends up in here, I'm kind of surprised you all don't have a change of clothes stashed away somewhere."
"It's not such a bad idea." Teyla smiled. "How sad is that?"
Elizabeth grinned in response and then started to leave the infirmary with Teyla following.
"Just a second missy." Beckett's voice called out before she had taken more than a few steps.
She halted and turned to see the Doctor walking toward her. "Carson, you said I could go. I told you, I feel fine. I just have a nagging headache, no dizziness or anything else," She said with a sigh when he reached her.
"Yes, you did tell me all of that. But I'm going to remind you, again, to take it easy for the next couple of days. You still have a concussion, which will take time to heal, and the effects of it may come back on you."
"Okay." She dutifully replied.
"I mean it Elizabeth." He said seriously.
"I know, Carson." She said, touched by his concern. "Thanks for everything."
"So what time is the debriefing?" she asked Teyla once they had exited the infirmary.
"At three," Teyla said. "Do you want to go grab some lunch? We have time before the meeting."
"Sounds good to me." They had fallen into the habit of eating lunch together every so often, giving them a chance to talk without being interrupted. In that time Elizabeth had come to regard Teyla as a close friend. More than most people on Atlantis Teyla understood the pressures of being a leader and it was nice to be able to discuss some things with her. Of course, there were other topics of conversation that Elizabeth tried to avoid.
After a quick stop by her quarters, they made their way to the mess hall. The fairly late hour of their lunch meant that the dining room was rather empty. Since it was a beautiful day outside, they decided to eat on the balcony, enjoying the view of the ocean.
"So how was your day yesterday?" Elizabeth asked before taking a bite of her sandwich.
Teyla raised an eyebrow. "Unlike yours, my day was rather uneventful. It was business as usual around here."
"That's good to hear."
"And then when you made the day more exciting, the hardest part for me was convincing Colonel Sheppard that he could not go through the gate to look for you himself." Teyla took a sip of her lemonade, watching her with a strange look. "He listened better than I expected."
John was one of those topics they didn't often discuss, one that Elizabeth tried to avoid given how uncertain she felt about the relationship between him and Teyla. "Thank you, Teyla. I'm glad you could manage to convince him." she said, dropping her gaze to the salad in front of her where she was trying to spear a troublesome tomato with her fork.
"We were all worried Elizabeth." Teyla continued, causing Elizabeth to look back up at her. "John especially so. I do not know if it was because you were arguing or something else, but...well next time maybe you should just take him off world with you."
Something else? Rather than try to figure out what Teyla meant, Elizabeth just rolled her eyes, "I think that is going to be unavoidable for a while. You know how overprotective he can be."
"Uh-huh." Teyla said after a pause, giving her another odd look.
"So, how are the Athosians doing?" Elizabeth attempted to steer the conversation in a safer direction. After asking she managed to knock her spoon off the table and in picking it up missed Teyla sighing and shaking her head before answering.
"They are doing great. You should come by the village when you get a chance. There have been many improvements since your last visit."
Elizabeth stopped by her office to grab a data pad before the meeting. Although Teyla said that John had hung out in her office yesterday, he must not have used the desk as everything was just as she had left it. The sight of the pot he had given her for her birthday caused her to pause, reminding her of how much things had changed since she was last in this office. She sighed and sank down to sit behind the desk, eyes still trained on the gift. What was she going to do about John? Or to put it more exactly, what was she going to do now that she had fallen for John. It would be difficult not to feel awkward around him now.
"Elizabeth."
She looked up to see John was standing a few feet from her desk, concern in his hazel eyes. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine, John. You just caught me zoning out" She explained with a reassuring smile, guessing the reason for his concern. Looking for the data pad in a desk drawer gave her the perfect excuse to break eye contact. She didn't want to fall into the trap of getting too caught up his gaze right now.
"When I stopped by the infirmary earlier this morning, I promised Beckett I wouldn't let you work too hard."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and stood to join him. "I should have known Carson was going to try and use you all against me. Really, it was just a bump on the head."
"Well how about you take it easy for the next couple days, just in case." He said as they made their way to the door.
"I'll try." She raised one eyebrow at him. "But I'm not making any promises."
John chuckled. Elizabeth was going to say more, but then he pressed a hand against her lower back to usher her out of the office, and the unexpected touch momentarily disrupted her thoughts. Yeah, I definitely need to figure out how to deal with this.
"All right." Elizabeth said once Rodney had taken his seat. She looked around the conference room, noticing that everyone had assumed their places. "It appears that we're all here, so if there are no objections, let's get started with the briefing."
There was a pause as everyone continued to look at her expectantly.
"And I guess I'll start," She said with a sigh.
Elizabeth launched into her side of the story, briefly summarizing her meeting with Alix in the morning, tour of the village, her capture and conversation with Imely. At this point Lorne, Ronon, and the others jumped in to talk about their experiences, but considering they hadn't spoken to any of the captors they only provided a limited amount of additional information. It took about a half hour to review the entire day before they came to the more pertinent issues.
"So how much do we think the Gandrians were involved in all of this?" Elizabeth asked to the room at large. Everyone else present had been to Gandria at least a few times with John's team having been the most frequent visitors.
"I have a hard time believing that Alix or the majority of the villagers had anything to do with this." Teyla said thoughtfully. "They just do not seem like that type."
Elizabeth watched as everyone around the table weighed Teyla's words. "So this is an isolated incident?" She prodded.
"That is what I think." Teyla answered with a shrug and few people nodded in agreement.
"I'm inclined to agree." Elizabeth said. "I think the town as a whole trades for food with the Genii, but only a handful of people know what they really are."
"They sure don't have the technology that the Genii have," Rodney added. After the experience with the Genii it had become their policy to do extensive scans of new allies.
"And it doesn't seem like the Genii would share their secrets with a whole set of villages that aren't too advanced." Lorne pointed out.
"I agree." John had been uncharacteristically silent during the meeting until now, although Elizabeth had noticed his jaw tighten when she talked about her capture. "A small group of Gandrians are in league with the Genii. It would make sense if it was some of the farmers. They probably would have had the most contact with the Genii out of everyone."
"But I thought you guys had a truce. Why would they break that all of a sudden?" Ronon asked.
"Ah, not to be the voice of dissension, but do we know for sure that these guys were working with the Genii?" Rodney spoke up, gesturing rather wildly with one hand. "I mean, you never saw the Genii, that's just what what's her name said."
Elizabeth internally groaned. This was one of the worst parts about working with geniuses. They didn't let the little things slide, even when you hoped they would. She had purposely left out portions of her conversation with Imely and the discussion she had overheard, not wanting to bring up the parts about John. Instead she told them only that Imely had admitted working for the Genii.
"We're sure Rodney. She admitted it to me and mentioned knowing about the Genii invading Atlantis." Elizabeth felt a little bad for telling them a half truth. "That's not something that is widely known and the Genii would only share that kind of information with people they trusted."
John raised his eyebrows, "You didn't mention that before."
"I thought I had." Elizabeth briefly glanced at him, feeling guiltier for misleading him specifically. "But to answer your question Ronon, I don't know why the Genii would act like this. We haven't had too much contact with them, but I thought we were getting along pretty well."
"Pretty well? Elizabeth, the last time you met with them, they tied you to a chair." John said incredulously.
"The question I have." Lorne interjected before she could comment that at least it had been comfortable chair. "Is why you and why now. We've all been visiting that village for the last couple of weeks, but now they decide to do this."
"I was wondering the same thing." John looked at her thoughtfully after he said the words.
Elizabeth was thankful for all of her diplomatic training. This was something else she had glossed over, more than a little embarrassed by Imely's assumptions of her and Sheppard's relationship. It now looked like she was going to have to double talk her way out of this one as well.
"First of all, we don't know that I was targeted specifically." This comment produced an array of disbelieving looks on the faces in the room.
"Elizabeth, the purpose of my engagement was-" John started, but she didn't let him finish.
"Okay, fine. I was the one being targeted. My guess is that they wanted to hold us hostage in exchange for something and thought the negotiating would go better without me here." See, not a complete lie, in fact mostly the truth, just lacking a few details.
"Without you here to negotiate." Teyla said slowly. "I guess so."
"Or maybe it was just my turn. But like I said before, Imely mentioned that the Genii had a time sensitive plan, so we need to be especially cautious on all off world missions for the next couple of weeks."
"Already done." John's eyes caught and held hers with an unexpected intensity. He continued in a tone that left no room for argument. "And you shouldn't go off world for a couple of weeks either."
Elizabeth really hadn't thought that far, but apparently John had. She shouldn't be surprised, like she had told Teyla before; he was nothing if not overprotective. "Okay."
There was a beat of silence until she broke away from his gaze. "Well, I don't think we have anything else to discuss, so meeting adjorned."
She was one of the first to leave the conference room, noticing Lorne pull John aside to consult about something. Good, maybe she would have time to herself to figure out a few things without having to deal with a certain Colonel, no matter how much a part of her would welcome or even wish for such an interruption.
TBC