A.N. Yeah, I kind of suck as a human being. What can I say? My muse ran away from home. Let's just be happy I got her back, yeah? And as a reward, I give you the moment that you have ALL been asking for. Now, what is this moment, you ask? Well, you'd better read!

Also, if you like SG-1, check out my new story called "Queenling". It's a bit more original, and I've really enjoyed writing it. My muse had taken a vacation from that one too, but I figured I owed it to you guys to update this story first. I hope you enjoy both reading the new fic and this new chapter!

Cheers!

Compromising Positions: Chapter 14

Four Legs and Two Faces

When swearing, Elizabeth always preferred to do so in a language other than English. Preferably a language with a harsher tone, such as German or Russian. Swearing in the romance languages of Spanish, French, or Italian was simply not as satisfactory. Besides, Elizabeth always felt terribly guilty when she swore in English. It was as if she could feel her mother's disapproving glance all the way from the Milky Way. Her mother always hated it when she swore: it was unladylike. Swearing in a foreign language was Elizabeth's personal loophole.

Although, at the moment, her language of choice was a dialect of Arabic. As she sat behind the wan glare of her laptop, drumming her fingers tensely, Elizabeth maintained a constant stream of profanity gushing from her lips. It was her hope that the murmuring, calm quality of her tone as well as the fact that her language of choice was not English, or European in origin, would disguise her displeasure from the girl sitting happily on the floor in front of her desk, playing with a coloring book.

Three days had passed since the accident at the shipyard planet. John had been released from the infirmary the day before, upon certain conditions set by Carson that Elizabeth had no doubt John hadn't adhered to. He had supposedly returned to his paperwork and overseeing security while he allowed himself to heal. Myka's mother had not regained consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time during this period, although Dr. Keller was hopeful that she would make a full recovery soon enough. Dr. Emily Cunningham had, as a matter of course, made arrangements for a coworker of hers to care for her daughter should she become indisposed. However, while Elizabeth was able to convince Myka to stay in the other woman's quarters at night and in the morning, the girl begged to spend the time during which she was not doing schoolwork or sleeping accompanying Elizabeth. Considering the circumstances, Elizabeth didn't have the heart to deny her: hence the girl sitting on the floor of her office. Fortunately for Elizbeth, Myka was shockingly well behaved, and rarely disturbed her. She simply played quietly by herself until Elizabeth addressed her, after which she would release a torrent of speech like the opening of floodgates before quieting again. Overall, Elizabeth found Myka's company to be rather enjoyable, and was working on indoctrinating the child with Solitaire.

John adored Myka as well. Elizabeth had visited him with great frequency while he was in the infirmary—at least twice a day—and since Myka had latched on to Elizabeth like a small, curly-haired leech, John had seen her as well. The three of them had actually had a lot of fun together, and always found time to play a game or tell a few stories. The stories that John told always had both Elizabeth and Myka alike in stitches by the end. Teyla and Ronon had dropped by once, and Teyla had kindly braided both Elizabeth and Myka's Lapis Lantea beads, which they had been wearing around their necks, into their hair. Myka had been utterly delighted that her and Elizabeth's hair matched, and had insisted that the little Athosian attempt to do so with John's bead as well, but John had put his foot down on the idea, much to Myka's (and, Elizabeth suspected, Teyla's) disappointment.

But Elizabeth wasn't so happy at the moment, hence the swearing. It was rather crude, but Elizabeth decided that the catharsis was worth it. Not only was Rodney encountering more and more problems at the shipyard planet, attacks from the Genii were becoming more and more frequent while her teams were offworld. The Wraith had been suspiciously quiet, but she was feeling the pressure from Earth. The shipyard planet, as of that morning, had been given the official designation of Spes Nova. Plans for new bases and fleets, all stemming from its acquisition, were flying across her desk at a speed that made her dizzy. Everyone wanted a piece of it. Every country, bureaucrat, and military branch was grasping at Spes Nova and its bounty with greedy hands, and it was all Elizabeth could do to keep some semblance of order. After all, she was the authority on the Pegasus galaxy.

Only adding to her problems were the shamefully large amount of complications arising from Lantea's new status as colony of Earth. The idea of control was nebulous. In essence, Elizabeth was engaged in a full-scale war for power over Atlantis, and to a greater extent, Spes Nova. If she had anything to say about it, control over Atlantis would rest with the IOA, the United Nations, and a council of Stargate program veterans all working in tandem, and Spes Nova would become a protectorate of Atlantis. This, at least, would give Earth a semblance of shared control, and would be greatly preferable to the ridiculous and dangerous squabbling that Earth's leaders were currently engaged in. America, Russia, China, and England were having an all-out barefisted brawl over the new ships and the planet, and frankly, Elizabeth was sick of it.

She just didn't know how she could end it. She didn't have that kind of power.

Feeling sick, Elizabeth slammed her laptop shut and dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. Having exhausted her repertoire of curses in the Arabic dialect, she switched to Japanese and began again. Myka, in her blissful and beautiful innocence, merely began to hum to herself as she continued to rub a blue crayon on a page of her coloring book, and Elizabeth envied her. She was thankful for the sweet little child as well. Her presence was inexplicably calming, and it kept her grounded.

"Language, 'Lizabeth. Language!" John scolded from her doorway, dimpled grin gracing his face. He had been recovering well, obviously, despite the healing burns on his arms and back that left his skin angry and raw.

Whipping her hands away from her face, Elizabeth pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at the man. She was not in the mood for his cheeky attitude. "Do you have the reports I asked for?" she snapped.

John's smile faded somewhat. "Yeah, 'Lizabeth," he told her gently, gingerly placing a manila folder into her outstretched hand while running his other hand through his perpetually messy hair. "You said you needed it."

Feeling a little bad for speaking so sharply, Elizabeth nodded her satisfaction and didn't protest when John took his usual seat on the edge of her desk, and reopened her laptop to return to her work.

Having apparently finished her drawing, Myka stood and, with a huge smile illuminating her face, bounded right up to John. "Colonel!" she squealed, grabbing onto his hand.

John laughed. "Hey, squirt!" he greeted with a warm smile, ruffling her curls. "You been taking care of Dr. Weir for me?"

The little girl nodded solemnly. "Me and Bananas maked sure we got lunch, just like you said," she informed him in her pert little British accent. From behind her computer screen, Elizabeth frowned, not appreciating the fact that John had enlisted a five-year-old to babysit her, nor the fact that it was so adorable that it almost cracked her bad mood.

She was cranky, dammit, and John was ruining it.

"Hey squirt, why don't you go and pick out some pictures to give to Chuck and Amelia so I can have a little chat with Dr. Weir, ok?" John suggested. "Then I'll take you down to the mess hall for a snack."

Myka started to pout before pausing to consider the offer. After a moment, she nodded and returned to her spot on the floor. Knowing that John wanted to speak to her, Elizabeth stood and moved to their balcony, making sure that Myka was still in her line of sight. Had she not been so frustrated with her laptop at the moment, she wouldn't have given in so quickly, but as it was, she hadn't much fight left in her. She was back to working full time, and she was exhausted.

John had followed her closely, and now faced her with a serious expression on his face.

Oh, God. John was being serious. That was never a good sign.

"Yes?" Elizabeth queried apprehensively.

As if sensing her tension, John relaxed his posture considerably. "Elizabeth. Are you all right?" he asked, searching her face.

Elizabeth bristled. "Of course I am!" she hissed. "What makes you think that—"

"'Lizabeth," he interrupted softly, shooting her a look.

Elizabeth sighed and deflated. Angry John she could handle. Juvenile John? All in a day's work. Literally. But gentle, caring John was something that she rarely encountered, and had no defense against. She crumpled before him like wet paper.

"I'm tired," she admitted, breaking eye contact. She knew he could read her eyes as if she bore her soul on her lapel, and couldn't bear to let him see her so frustrated. "I'd like to say that I've had worse, which I suppose I have. But… not like this. Not on this scale. I'm in over my head, John. I'll come through it. I always do. But… it takes a lot out of me."

John placed his hands on his upper arms and applied slight pressure. "I know you will," he informed her. "You're the best, but winning comes with a price. Even for you."

Elizabeth gave him a halfhearted half-smile before looking away from his face again.

Lifting her chin with his fingers and directing her eyes back to his own, John frowned at her. "Hey. Don't be afraid to ask for anything you need," he insisted. "You have a city full of Earth's finest, and they all practically worship you. Even McKay. They've got to count for something, right?"

This time, Elizabeth did smile. "Just them? What about you?" she asked.

"That's easy," John laughed. "They practically worship you, but I do worship you!"

Deciding that John was probably her favorite person in the world at the moment, Elizabeth squeezed his hands tightly (she didn't want to cause him pain with a hug) and walked gracefully back into her office, pulling her military commander and best friend behind her. "Mykes!" she called out to her blue-eyed little charge, who stood up eagerly at the sound of her voice, dusting her hands of on her miniature Atlantis uniform. "Let's go get those snacks now!"

And so it began that Dr. Elizabeth Weir began collecting allies. Having worked in her field for as long as she did, gathering much respect because of that, Elizabeth found that more people on Earth were willing to listen to her than she had initially anticipated. It took her the next two days, with only three hours of sleep between them (although she made sure to take Myka for a snack and then dinner after she was released from her classes, as well as visit her mother, who was able to stay awake for longer and longer periods of time) to draft her proposal for the control of Atlantis. This was no mean feat, as Atlantis remained a military outpost, despite having acquired the status of colony. However, upon sending it to Generals Landry, O'Neill, and Hammond as well as Colonel Carter, who had returned to Earth, Elizabeth was pleasantly surprised by how quickly her proposal spread and was supported by various leaders around the world. She suspected that it was being pushed by her friends and allies in the Stargate program, but she honestly didn't mind. Traction was traction. If she played her cards right, she might just get her way.

She was excited, but Elizabeth was experiencing growing feelings of apprehension. Tension was building all around her. There was, of course, the immense pressure from the precarious politics on Earth, but from Atlantis herself as well. Then there were the factors of the Athosians, who were having a rough time of it on the mainland, her teams on Spes Nova who were working themselves into the ground to get the warships into the air, her teams' troubles with the Genii and the suspicious silence from the Wraith, and her strengthening bonds with both little Myka Cunningham and not-so-little Colonel John Sheppard. Elizabeth simply couldn't escape the feeling that things simply couldn't go on as they were. Something was bound to snap. Everything would come to a head, and soon. She just wasn't quite certain how she would handle it when it did.

Elizabeth was enjoying her first real sleep in two days on the couch in her office when the call came through her earpiece. "Dr. Weir, please report to the infirmary immediately."

One didn't argue with the earpiece. Though she had dearly wanted to protest the summons, Elizabeth was soon very glad she didn't, because as soon as she arrived at the designated area five minutes later, a startling scene greeted her. Sweet Myka, with her dark ringlets and large eyes, was absolutely inconsolable. The child had hidden beneath an empty bed, clutching Bananas the monkey, and was weeping. She sounded afraid. Dr. Keller and a young nurse were desperately trying to coax her out and calm her, but it clearly wasn't working. Myka just ignored them.

An unfamiliar sense of panic gripped Elizabeth's heart, and she dashed over as quickly as she could and knelt on the ground, green eyes wide. Myka saw her coming, and immediately stretched out her arms towards her: asking to be held. This was a demand to which Elizabeth immediately complied, pulling the child from behind the bed and into her lap, where she buried her face, slick with tears, into Elizabeth's neck. Jennifer and the nurse both appeared faintly bemused that Elizabeth had had such an easy time of it.

"Myka, sweetie, what's wrong?" Elizabeth cooed, looking, concerned, at Jennifer, who was rather white. "Why aren't you in your class?"

Punctuated by hiccupping cries, Myka's response took some deciphering, but was understandable with concentration. "W-we were in class and M-Miss Stackhouse was t-teaching me my nuh-numbers but then she went to h-help Reicher and then Marq s-said that h-his Mum said my Mum was going to… going to d-die so I sneakeded away during potty break and came to suh-see her but she was sleeping, an' then Dr. B-Beckett came so I hided and he… he taked the baind-aids off of Mummy's face and… and… and…" At this point, the child dissolved into fresh tears.

Elizabeth frowned, still a little unsure. "… Jennifer?" she asked softly, glancing helplessly at the young doctor.

"Carson went in to change Emily's bandages and check up on the mesh we inserted as preparation for the skin graft," she explained quickly. "Myka saw him pull of the bandages and…" Here, the woman trailed off, gesticulating at the sobbing child in Elizabeth's lab, and Elizabeth realized what must have happened. The sight beneath those bandages couldn't have been too pretty, and probably terrified the living daylights out of a child who feared for her mother's life.

"Dr. Weir, is… is Mummy going to die?" Myka wailed.

Elizabeth's heart clenched, and she held the girl tighter. "No, of course not," she soothed, before deciding that bluntness would be the best approach here. "She could have, but she didn't, even though she was hurt. Myka, have you ever fallen and scraped your knees?"

The child nodded, head still pressed into Elizabeth's neck.

"Something like that happened to your mother, only a lot bigger, and not just on her knees," Elizabeth explained. "She's been asleep a lot for the past few days because Dr. Beckett and Dr. Keller want her to get better, and sleeping will help. I know it looks a little scary right now, but she's not going to die. We're taking good care of her, and soon she'll be as good as new."

Silence. Then, "… Promise?"

A small smile crossed Elizabeth's face. "Promise," she agreed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She could hear Jennifer getting to her feet and moving a little ways away as the nurse returned to whatever she'd been doing when the incident occurred. But she didn't move, and stayed on the floor, motionless, until Myka fell asleep. Only then did she find an empty bed towards the back of the infirmary, tuck Myka into it, and take a seat on the mattress of the adjacent cot, stolen data pad in hand. (She nicked it from Carson's office. He had certainly done the same thing to her often enough, and she figured that turnabout was fair play.) She had noble intentions of actually getting some work done, but ended up just falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.

It was the thought that counted anyways, right? Besides, after all the work she'd done in the last two days, Elizabeth supposed that she deserved it.

Elizabeth didn't wake until much later in the evening, and did so slowly and sleepily. It was a nice way to wake up, all things considered, and she appreciated the moment accordingly.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, love!" Carson greeted her cheerfully in his lilting accent from across the dim room, as he fiddled with some obscure bottles in a cabinet.

Elizabeth frowned at her watch. It was eleven thirty in the evening. "Carson, why didn't you wake me?" she bemoaned, scrambling to her feet and looking around frantically. "And where's Myka?"

"I called Rachel over the comm. link and had her take the wee lass back to her quarters," the man replied, making a note on a clipboard and walking over. "I was going to wake you, of course, but dear Jennifer wouldn't hear of it. Said you hadn't been sleeping properly." An accusatory eyebrow quirked on the doctor's forehead.

Elizabeth simply huffed. How did that infernal woman always know?

For his part, Carson just chuckled. "Run along now, Elizabeth dear," he instructed lightly. "I'm sure some terribly important forms are waiting somewhere to be filled out. Can't leave them waiting until tomorrow now, can we?"

"Cheeky," Elizabeth muttered, glaring at the doctor without real vehemence. He winked at her, and despite her pouting, Elizabeth grinned back. Carson was a good man, and she really did adore him. "Fine, I'll leave! I'll just go to bed now!" she announced with a dramatic sigh.

"Oh will you now?" the doctor queried skeptically, crossing his arms over his lab coat. "You'll really sleep?"

Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully. "Probably not," she admitted, making her way out of the infirmary before Carson could force a sedative down her throat.

"Eat a bloody meal once in a while!" he called after her.

"I can take time to eat and sleep when I'm dead!" she threw back saucily over her shoulder before breaking into a slight jog, bursting into the transporter, and making her escape.

Elizabeth being Elizabeth of course, she made a point to return to her office. Valuable working hours had been squandered, after all, though she did pause at the mess hall to snag a cup of strong Athosian tea.

The night staff working the control room didn't even offer her a second glance when she entered the 'gate room. She worked at odd hours of the night far too frequently for that. If she were being honest with herself, Elizabeth genuinely enjoyed working at night though. Atlantis was quiet then, and Elizabeth always caught herself gazing lovingly out of any nearby window. The lights of the city afforded the velvet of the night sky a gentle golden glow, and were reflected upon the endless ripples of the ocean like thousands upon thousands of candles floating on the water. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and it was at times like these where Elizabeth found herself feeling profoundly grateful for her decision to leave Earth behind for the Pegasus galaxy. Atlantis may not have been her place of birth, but it was her home, and every so often, the quiet of the night would remind her of that. Tonight, her emotions seemed to be running closer to the surface, and she was feeling this far more strongly than she ever had before.

After spending the better part of an hour and a half working, the call simply became too strong for Elizabeth to ignore, and she wandered outside onto her balcony and leaned against the railing. She was feeling oddly spiritual tonight: as if she was connected to the world around her, and she was collecting little pieces of calm from all of its parts to store in her own heart. Maybe this was a result of having brought some comfort to a little girl whom she had come to care a great deal for, or maybe she was simply reverting to her natural state of being: Elizabeth did not know. Tonight was special. It didn't really matter why.

Under normal circumstances, Elizabeth would have been surprised when Colonel John Sheppard materialized from the office behind her and joined her against the railing, looking out over the city wordlessly, with a serene expression upon his charming features. As it was, it didn't even occur to her to question what he was doing here, much less why he was still awake. He just was.

Together, they remained where they were for an indeterminate period of time, motionless and silent, drinking in the darkness and the quiet and the kiss of the city's lights and the ocean's breeze like they were nectar. Like nothing existed except for the moon and the sky and the city and the ocean and John and Elizabeth and that strange and wild beauty that only the Pegasus galaxy could lay claim to. For the longest time they said nothing, but in the end, it was Elizabeth who finally pierced the easy silence between them, with an unusually tender and unobtrusive voice, so as to preserve the sanctity of the time and place.

"You know, according to Greek mythology, the first people that existed weren't like people today," she murmured, unmoving save for her mouth. "They had four legs, four arms, and two faces each. They were powerful and beautiful. But Zeus… he feared them, and all they could become, so he split them all in half, so that each human had only two legs, two arms and one face. Each member of the human race was, from that day until the end of time, doomed to spend the entirety of their mortal life searching for their other half: their soul mate." A small smile tugged at Elizabeth's mouth. "I've always thought that that story was beautiful."

She turned her head and looked at John, not surprised in the least that he had already done to same to look at her. She wasn't entirely certain why she had said what she did, but it felt right. She could tell from John's eyes that he thought so, too. Elizabeth had always been able to read John's eyes, and he hers. They hadn't always gotten along, nor had they always made an effective team, but as they learned from themselves, each other, and Atlantis, that had quickly changed. Together, they were unstoppable. Anyone who knew them could see it, and every day, their bonds only grew stronger, even if neither one had the courage to admit it to anyone or themselves.

Elizabeth was admitting it now, though. She couldn't not. She met John's eyes with her own without fear or hesitation, and laid herself bare before him: no walls, no hiding, and nothing restrained. The time was right, and Elizabeth didn't have the will to deny John anything anymore. She was strong. Strong enough to take on an entire planet or an entire galaxy, or even two, for the sake of the people she loved. Strong enough to look John in the face and know that he deserved to see her as her, and no one else. Strong enough that, were an incident like Kolya's kidnapping of John to occur again, she could leave him to die because she knew that was what he would want. She was strong enough to hand John the key to her soul and trust that he wouldn't abuse that power. Life was short, and life was brutal. It would chew you up and spit you back out like a colossal meat grinder. But it was also beautiful, and beauty could only be fully appreciated when it was shared.

It had appeared that John had reached similar conclusions. His crystalline eyes were luminescent with determination, pain, fierceness, a sweet tenderness, and an overwhelming sense of fulfillment and wonder. Everything that he was, Elizabeth could see, just as he could see her.

She knew, and he knew it too. It didn't need to be said out loud, or even acted upon. It was there, and that fact brought Elizabeth enough joy that she didn't need anything else. But she wanted it. Fluidly, she moved her arms to drape across John's shoulders, considered him for a moment, and brought her lips to mesh forcefully with his.

What followed was perhaps the best kiss that Elizabeth had ever experienced.

This wasn't because it was hungry or passionate or tender. It was because the way that John's lips moved against hers, the way that his hands caressed her sides, and the way she elicited shivers from him as she twined her fingers into his hair felt like the most natural thing in the world: like it was simply an extension of the connection that they exercised each and every time their eyes met. They were speaking, and confessing their secrets, without saying a word.

She knew, and he knew it too.

At long last, they broke apart, gasping slightly for air. Raising a hand, Elizabeth cupped John's cheek, full of both jubilance and fear to the point where she felt she might explode. And honestly, she wouldn't mind. The expression of happiness rippling over John's face was worth it.

"Thank you, Elizabeth Weir, for being my salvation," he murmured to her, holding her close.

She smiled, giving him another swift kiss. "Thank you, John Sheppard, for being mine."

They parted then, as silently and as synchronously as they had come together, and while Elizabeth slept alone in her bed that night, her dreams flowed with the transcendental emotions of the evening. Their time would come, she knew, and it would come soon.

Because she was in love with John Sheppard, and John Sheppard was in love with her. She knew it, and he knew it too. What would become of it, she didn't know, but Elizabeth was willing, for the first time, to give herself a chance at happiness. The morning would bring what it would bring, but she would always have the memory of the surreal night on the balcony, and that was worth more than anything.

A.N. *GASP* Oh diabolical authoress, WHAT have you DONE?! A mushy romance scene? WHY?!

(Feel free to beat me to death with a blunt object. I just couldn't resist! I blame my estrogen.)

Feedback is SO WELCOME you have NO IDEA. Seriously. Leave a review. They feed my hungry muse.