Chapter 2

Two weeks after that god-forsaken planet the wound on Lorne's temple was nothing more than a red mark, Dr. Bole had cleared him for active duty and he has found his balance once again. That was what he called his deliberate avoidance of Sheppard, at least.

It wasn't as though Sheppard was acting any different from usual. It was that now Lorne could see things he never saw before: a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, never lingering too long but dragging across his shirt instead of being lifted. A brush of fingers when passing something from hand to hand, even when not necessary. A casual look in the middle of a staff meeting, and while there was nothing special about it, it was that Sheppard always managed to look just in time to catch Lorne's eye. A short lift of his head when Lorne entered the mess hall, nothing more than a quick scan in the direction of the line, but it was that it happened every single time like Sheppard was waiting for him to come in. Passing in the control room or the halls surrounding the gate platform just when Lorne's team was about to embark on a mission, always on his way to someplace else and mostly with someone walking with him, but he always glanced at the gate platform.

It was the small things, small enough that if Lorne didn't know that Sheppard had a thing for him he would've disregarded, writing them down as a part of Sheppard's mannerism. It was things he never really noticed before, mainly because he never really looked for them.

Most of the time things went smoothly between the two of them. They would talk, work, joke and do everything the way they always did. Sheppard hid his interest so well that Lorne easily forgot about what happened in the Jumper with all the other things to occupy his mind. But sometimes Sheppard would do one of those small things, things that he shouldn't, things that showed how extra aware he was of Lorne, and what happened in the Jumper would flash in Lorne's mind with the intensity of a lightning bolt. And if he was near Sheppard when that happened he would lapse into confused silence, unsure of what to do and hyper aware of everything that Sheppard was doing.

So he took to avoiding Sheppard as much as his position as Sheppard's 2IC allowed him, and when he had to work in close proximity to Sheppard – which was often since they shared an office and their workstations were facing each other – he busied himself with work.

Lorne was working on his latest mission report (one that had a most irritating 'niceness' theme to it) when Sheppard sauntered into the office and made a bee-line towards their shared computer to put on a Johnny Cash song. Lorne smiled despite himself.

Early on, when Lorne was first elected Sheppard's 2IC, they swapped computers and chose the songs they each liked from the other's files. They later snagged an old laptop and compiled a huge playlist that went on shuffle mode to listen to while in their office, but Sheppard always cheated and started it with a Johnny Cash song.

"Anything interesting?" Sheppard asked, seating himself in front of his computer and, according to the constant sound of the bigger Ctrl key and the smaller Delete key, started emptying the spamming mails in his inbox.

"Nice," Lorne answered, resigned. Sheppard looked at him over the top of his laptop screen.

"Nice?" he asked, eyebrows raised. Lorne merely shrugged and nodded. "As in McKay's gonna sell his left kidney to go there, nice? Katie Brown will go into epileptic fits about it, nice? Ronon will actually have more than one sentence to say about it, nice?" Lorne shook his head, entertaining Sheppard. "Surfing nice?" Sheppard asked hopefully, and Lorne smiled.

"It's just… nice, sir. The climate was nice, the gate's location was nice, the topography was nice, it's uninhabited, which was nice and the indigenous fauna and vegetation was… nice," Lorne finished lamely, and Sheppard smirked.

"I bet Sam's gonna love that particular report," he said.

"Nah, she'll understand. One of our Beta sites in the Milky Way was very similar to this planet. All you have to say about it was… nice. It could make a good Gamma site, though, which it the most important thing about it." Lorne was not concerned. He knew Carter's work from his time at the SGC better than Sheppard.

"One of our Beta sites? Just how many were there?" Sheppard asked, curios. He liked listening to Lorne's stories about the SGC, though Lorne had no idea why because he mostly dealt with coordinating Earth's operations on other planets and regular check-ins with Earth's allies and friends.

"We had a few. Some were compromised, one suffered a massive earthquake and one had these weird storms with sulfur residue in the rain. That was nasty. Everyone had to sit still for fear of doing something that would ignite the entire camp," Lorne retold.

"Hmm," Sheppard returned to deleting his mails. "Anything else on the agenda? Oh, here, I'm forwarding this to you, it's something about some changes they made in the Pentagon."

"I'm sure it would make a fascinating reading material, sir," Lorne shared Sheppard's lack of enthusiasm. He switched from his word processor to his task manager and looked up again, only to find Sheppard watching him with that unsettling, intimate warmth in his eyes. His gaze turned mild when Lorne looked into his eyes, and Lorne cleared his throat self-consciously.

"Uh… Reed is sick. He caught that weird virus from MP4-051 so I took him off the patrol roster."

"What, that strange thing that makes you grow green stripes on your nose?"

"Yeah. Dr. Neaves said its clusters of the germs that make it look green. Said it could eat its way to their nasal septum and then he started talking about reconstructive surgeries and… well…" Lorne and Sheppard both shuddered. Most of Stevens' team returned with that thing, all lying in the infirmary in isolation, sporting bright green stripes on their noses and happily comparing who has the biggest ones.

"Fine, but put Billick in his stead."

"Already did." A part of the reason why Lorne and Sheppard were a good combination was that they thought alike. It was another reason for keeping Lorne's thoughts regarding any sexual or romantic entanglement to himself. "Also, I have the reports from the armory. We're missing a dozen magazines, two knives, two M9's, two P90's, fours canteens, one Taser, twenty shock grenades, and fifteen TAC vests, out of which we'll need seven fully equipped," he continued, passing Sheppard a sheet of draft paper upon which he had made the final counting.

"Luckily the Deadalus is due to arrive today with an armory meant exactly for these sorts of things… Fifteen TAC vests! How?" he asked, eyes falling on the numbers.

"Five were lost when my team was taken captive, three more were stolen from Sherman's team when they were participating in that peace ritual, two were torn apart and five were taken out of commission due to physical deterioration. I sent you a mail about it," Lorne answered, and then remembered. "Oh, and while you're finally here, Coffman requested to return with the Deadalus to Earth. Apparently his sister is getting married," he passed on the appropriate formal documents for Sheppard to sign.

"That's nice to hear…" Sheppard stopped and looked at Lorne suspiciously. "What do you mean, 'while I'm finally here?'" he asked, indignant. "What exactly are you implying here, Major?"

Lorne looked away. It simply slipped his mouth, that 'finally'. It was true that Sheppard usually worked from somewhere that wasn't their office, though he still spent considerable amount of time in the office as well, contrary to the popular belief that he didn't even go near paperwork. But given his newfound knowledge, Lorne wasn't really complaining.

"It's just that usually you work from a remote terminal in McKay's lab or in the mess hall or…" he never got to finish that sentence because Sheppard had balled the draft paper and threw it at Lorne's head. Lorne dodged it out of instinct.

Startled, Lorne looked up into amused gray eyes. He felt himself smiling broadly and, reaching his hand slowly and clearly visible to Sheppard, he swapped the paper ball into his hand and launched it back to where it came from.

Sheppard ducked. "Are you declaring a war, Major?" he drawled, amused. If there was one thing that could be said about Sheppard it was that he loved playing the kind of childish games that had an adult edge to them. After they landed on New Lantea he and McKay couldn't get enough of playing Asteroids.

"I was merely performing defensive maneuvers, sir. It was you who declared war," Lorne answered politely. He could see Sheppard's hand itching towards the paper ball, and reached into his waste basket in return. When Sheppard threw the next ball, Lorne ducked and fired two of his own.

"Hey! Two is an act of aggression!" Sheppard said from beneath his table. Lorne could see his boots crinkling in the way boots did when one was crouching, but nothing came for a while from Sheppard's side. Eventually he ventured up to collect some much needed intelligence, and was promptly pelted with at least a dozen or so paper balls in various colors.

Lorne beat a hasty retreat towards a little nook beside the door, providing cover-fire for himself with the abundant ammunition from his waste basket. He found himself smiling in response to Sheppard's smirk.

"You're never going to make it, Lorne. Surrender now and I'll spare you," Sheppard warned, his voice barely holding back laughter.

"You have it the other way around. It's your ass that's going to get kicked by me," Lorne promised in return. "Sir," he added politely, and in a well organized and well timed sortie he managed to throw a handful of balls at Sheppard just when Sheppard was about to do the same, sending him down in search of cover.

"Let me make you an offer, Major. If you surrender now, I'll clean my part of the office and you'll do the rest. If I'll be forced to defeat you, and I will, you're cleaning the entire office. Alone. And unlike you, I haven't emptied my waste basket in a very long time," Sheppard called at him, and Lorne chuckled.

"Who's the loser?" Lorne asked, allowing himself to be carried away in Sheppard's juvenile game.

"Whoever gets hit first," Sheppard deadpanned, sounding positively wicked. "You surrender?"

Lorne chuckled. "Never," he stated, and the battle began in earnest. Sheppard was throwing balls at him by the handfuls, raining colorful papers all over the floor for Lorne to collect when his own balls ran out. Lorne, on his part, was smiling so hard his face hurt, and Sheppard was laughing endlessly, long barks echoing lowly around the office.

Neither of them managed to hit the other. Sheppard, despite the obvious fun he was having, seemed as determined to hit Lorne as he was to hit a Wraith hive ship, but Lorne couldn't care less. It was fun, it was refreshing and it was not a mission report. If it was an official down time it would've been perfect, but this was nice too.

Sheppard was barricaded under the table and was quick to take cover and roll away from Lorne's well aimed balls. Lorne was hidden behind one of the jutting walls beside the door, and was as equally good at hiding and avoiding as Sheppard was. Somewhere in the background the Lovin' Spoonful started playing something that made Lorne's heart beat in time with the music.

"No one ever told you not to mess around with pilots, Major?" Sheppard inquired over the beating drums and wailing keys, a little short of breath from laughing and diving in and out of his cover. "We always hit out target."

Lorne snorted at that. "I am a pilot. No one ever told you not to mess around with a mining engineer? We made it our job to always hit the target," he retorted, and received a full shower of balls in return, along with a chuckle.

"Touché," Sheppard acknowledged, rose up and started shooting balls one after the other in a row. Lorne, giddy with childlike exuberance, tried to hit Sheppard at the same time, moving out of his reach and throwing Sheppard's balls back at him.

And then it happened. Sheppard was laughing, Lorne was chuckling, Sheppard was throwing a ball and Lorne was quickly pressing into his little bunker. The door opened and Sheppard's ball, already badly aimed since Sheppard tried to take cover and still fight at the same time, hit Colonel Caldwell straight in the center of his forehead when he stepped inside.

"Crap," Lorne heard Sheppard before he saw Caldwell, the soft hydraulic sound of the opening door gone unheard in the rush of battle and music. He surged forward with a heavy load to launch at Sheppard, but when he saw their visitor his fingers went loose, releasing all the paper balls.

Their office was a mess, they were caught doing something inappropriate while on duty and in retrospect the entire concept of paper balls fight was infantile. Lorne couldn't help but echo Sheppard's sentiment. He also couldn't really make himself regret it.

Caldwell, however, seemed very much amused after he got over his initial shock. "Colonel, Major," he greeted. "Who's winning?"

Sheppard looked at Lorne, a little lost. "No one is, sir. You interrupted us in the middle of the most crucial maneuvers," Lorne supplied, smiling. Despite Sheppard's resignation of the man, Caldwell was never anything but kind to Lorne. Lorne wasn't in a position to win and actually maintain command over Atlantis and while Sheppard was, Caldwell seemed to be well over it by now.

Caldwell snorted. "Would you like me to go wait outside while you two finish?" he asked dryly, and Sheppard quickly stepped around his table and approached Caldwell and Lorne.

"No need for that," he threw a paper ball at Lorne's chest casually. "He just lost," he said pleasantly.

"Cheat," Lorne replied, without real heat. He knew that Sheppard would help with the cleanup. If he wouldn't, Lorne could start forwarding Sheppard the many mails that were supposed to have been under his care but found their way to Lorne instead.

"I see," Caldwell said, leaning against the Ancient door frame and pulling a bag Lorne hadn't noticed before up from the floor. "How about some real men's sport, gentlemen?" he asked, taking out a bright red, brand new football.

Sheppard's eyes lit like a Christmas tree. He turned to Lorne and smiled broadly. "See this? This is what counts as nice in my book," Sheppard said excitedly. Their last ball went sailing into the sea when one of the marines forgot where they were and tried for a field goal. The ball went straight into the water and the day after it Atlantis was already floating in space.

"You're like a kid," Caldwell said, chuckling. "Tell you what. My boys would love stretching their legs, and Marks couldn't stop fiddling with this ball the entire trip. So I'll round the men while you clean your office, and we'll meet you at the southeast pier at 1900," Caldwell didn't wait to be acknowledged, simply turned and walked away with a wave of his hand.

"As long as he doesn't bring Jameson with him I'm game," Sheppard said, looking out into the hallway. Lorne turned to look at him.

"Why?"

"He's Canadian. He kept fouling the team because he couldn't remember the proper size of the end zone and kept running too far," Sheppard complained. None of them had the courage to face their office yet.

"Theirs is bigger," Lorne pointed out, amused.

"Size doesn't matter. It's the quality of it that does."

"Yeah? According to whom, exactly?" Sheppard grinned at that, and together they turned around to look at their office.

It was messy, and it would take some work.

"You know, strictly speaking the first one to lose was Caldwell," Sheppard commented, touching the crystal to close the door behind them. Lorne looked at him from where he bent to retrieve a large bag to stuff all the papers and send them off for recycle.

"I'll leave it to you to inform him of that, sir," he replied dryly. "And just how long has it been since you last emptied your waste basket?"

"Too long."

center####/center

Lorne had to admit, he liked the paper balls fight better. He never was much of a football fan, though being an American kind of made it mandatory. Although he had the perfect build for it, he was much more into swimming. And he was happy to see Sheppard laughing as much as he did during their paper ball fight, despite his single minded stubbornness to win. As a matter of fact, he couldn't really recall anyone outside of Sheppard's team that managed to make Sheppard this carefree. He was strangely proud of it, despite knowing why it was he that Sheppard allowed himself to be a bit more relaxed around.

They had played football, or touchdown due to lack of proper shielding and boundaries, many times before. It helped bring the men together, alleviate stress and create good interaction between them. It went unsaid, but there was always the possibility that they will find themselves cut off from earth so creating a good working relationship was a priority. The scientists played Volleyball together on the mainland every month to that very end, and sometimes to mingle together with the military personnel.

Lorne's team was now proceeding into their third down and was well on their way to get to the 40 yards line, even though they began defensive. The score was 36:38 in their favor. He and Sheppard were on the same team, Sheppard was a halfback while Miller was the quarterback. Lorne was their fullback and Liutenant Mark Stuart from the Deadalus was their center. Rivers and Stackhouse were wide receivers, though no passes were allowed.

The game was loud and hot, the noon sun on New Lantea a lot warmer than that of the original Lantea planet. The men were sweating in their Air Force issued t-shirts and crying jeers and encouragements at each other. Lorne suspected that it was only the presence of Caldwell, who was refereeing, that kept them from outright cursing.

Despite it being fun, Lorne himself was hot and sweaty after what seemed like hours of playing football. The breeze wasn't helping to cool him off and his tags slid unpleasantly against his wet chest. The rounds were slow in progress, each team brilliant in their respective roles at defense and offense, and scoring a touchdown was hard.

Lorne was breaking through Frank Levine's defensive lines so that Sheppard could run through the gap and throw the ball back at Miller. Miller was smiling like a madman, securing the ball against his chest and breaking into a run while both Marks and Hutchinson made a valiant attempt at a sack.

Miller passed the ball to Sheppard before being captured, Sheppard passed it to Lorne and Lorne had to jump over Rivers' large frame on the ground before he could pass it to Donovan, one of their tackles. Donovan changed his direction, running across the field instead of towards the end zone that was swarming with defensive liners. He threw the ball wide in Sheppard's direction and Sheppard rose high, but he never stood a chance.

The ball flew in a perfect arch, grazing Sheppard's fingers before falling straight into the ocean.

"Not again! Come on, that was a brand new ball!" Sheppard said angrily, the game grinding to a halt. Donovan, who had passed the ball badly due to being in the process of being smashed face first into the pier under Keeper's weight, flushed with shame. The other guys were swearing under their breaths and looking longingly at where the red ball floated on the waves, swaying gently.

"Come on, don't get your knickers in a knot, Donovan. Just go and get it. There's a ledge near the ocean just beneath us," Marks said, thumb pointing over his shoulder at the edge of the pier where there was a small ledge that was only four feet higher than the ocean.

"Donovan? He can't swim. Even if he was a fish he would probably have drowned," Miller said jokingly. Lorne jumped at the opportunity.

"I'll go get it," he said, heading towards the edge of the pier. Donovan looked at him with adoring, thankful eyes, and Lorne sighed. The newcomers, like Donovan, were ridiculously easy to impress and highly stressed out. Everything was new and scary to them, which was understandable, but Donovan acted like Lorne had just saved him from the Iratus bug.

"You sure?" Sheppard asked, eyebrows going up. He was as soaked as Lorne, the front of his shirt wet and dark and his hair messier than usual from various tackles.

Lorne smiled at the men gathering to see him off. "While you jocks were busy in high school running after balls across a field and sweating, I joined the swim team," he explained as he sat down to take his boots off. The sweat was trickling down his skull and into his eyes and the nearest available cold water was sea water.

The metallic surface of the pier was less hot than he would've expected it to be under his bare feet when he stood up and smiled at the sweating soldiers that gathered around him. The marines who had their hair shaved were glistering with large beads of sweat on their scalps and faces, and some of them tried in vain to wipe it off using their soaked shirts. Sheppard, who was standing a few feet away from him on the wide ledge, scratched at his head irritably.

"Besides," Lorne added when he positioned himself to jump head first, "I don't know about you, but I'm so hot I'll probably boil in a few seconds." With that he jumped, a perfect headspring that took him deep into the cold water.

It hurt, at first. It was too cold to jump into after his body temperature went so high, but by the time he surfaced again and wiped his eyes with his hand, it was great. He turned and started at an easy freestyle towards the floating red ball just far enough away to make him work for it but not strain his already strained muscles.

The ocean was cool and invigorating. The water soaked his clothes and slid between his fingers and through his hair. It was clearer than the water on the original Lantea planet and less salty, with a blue quality of a sea instead of the green of an ocean. When he opened his eyes, he could see well into the darkness of the enormous depths beneath him.

Grabbing the ball, Lorne was back before it was even five minutes. By that time though, their entire little football league had peeled off their socks and was listening to Sheppard and Caldwell.

When Lorne reached the ledge, Sheppard turned to him and smirked.

"Having fun are we, Major?" he drawled, but Lorne wasn't fooled. Sheppard had the same glint in his eyes that he always had when he had an idea. The last time he had that glint in his eyes he climbed four floors up on the outer edge of the control tower and had no problems going down that exact same way.

"It's actually very nice inside, sir," Lorne handed Sheppard the ball and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"Well, you seemed a bit like a mermaid there, so we thought we'd all join you for a quick dive. At least, all of us who can swim," Sheppard said, crouching. He smirked at Lorne.

Lorne obliged the unspoken request and asked the banal, "So why don't you just jump in?"

"The Colonel, it seemed, hasn't quite had enough of playing games today," Caldwell remarked, amused. "Apparently not even you can make a dent in his stamina," he added, and Lorne looked up, surprised. Caldwell didn't even seem aware of the innuendo, but Sheppard did and winked at him when Caldwell turned his back.

"The game goes like this. In their turn, the men will reach out a hand towards the water for you. Their job is to pull you out of the water. Your job is to pull them in," Sheppard said, and didn't even try to contain his glee. Lorne frowned.

"One by one?" he asked, suspicious. Sheppard could be a cheat sometimes.

"Strictly speaking, yes. Only one is allowed to touch your hand, but the person who touches your hand can also touch anyone else he likes," Caldwell explained readily. He hadn't taken his boots off so Lorne knew he wasn't going to jump in. He was going to sit by and enjoy this just like he enjoyed their football game. One of his redeeming qualities though was that he genuinely did like seeing his men loosen up and having fun.

"Wow, that's just so fair," Lorne muttered sarcastically. He thought it over. He had the advantage because pulling down was easier than pulling up. But they had the bigger numbers. "Okay. But I won't be swimming in one place waiting for you guys to pull me up. Everyone reach their hands over the pier and I choose where and when to grab someone's hand," he argued.

Caldwell smiled. "Agreed."

The men lined up in a row, bending to reach their hands over the edge of the ledge. Seven of them remained seated a little further back.

Lorne dived. It was a weird game, but it was interesting. He could see the line from underwater and chose the right edge. They could see him and he could see them, but no one could know when he was about to appear, and with the right leverage he could take them out.

He surfaced at the right end of the row and grabbed Stuart's hand, so quickly that Stuart was in the water and screaming over the temperature before his friends could even comprehend what had happened to him.

He swam in circles in front of the row, going to the left end of the row and back to the right, twice. When he surfaced next, again at the right end, he grabbed Williams and managed to drag him underwater along with Stackhouse, who was trying to help him.

"Come on! Lorne's beating the crap out of you and he's only one man!" Lorne could hear Sheppard gloating at the men. On his next attempt he came from so deep underwater that the center of the row saw him coming only when it was too late. Levine went in.

But when he grabbed Marks' hand he was nearly pulled out of the water when Miller, Rivers, Hutchinson and Kleinman all grabbed Marks' clothes and heaved him back. Smirking, Lorne allowed them to pull him up a bit before dropping his full weight on Marks' hand and causing Marks and the guys around him to stumble into the water in a cluster.

Lorne was now really having fun. The men around him were swimming and diving in the water, jeering at their friends to mend their defenses and cheering whenever there was another splash. Edison did Lorne's work for him when he actually lost his balance when Lorne touched him, and his frantic flailing brought both him and Dorsey, who tried to help him, down into the water. Toriel and Hansen fouled themselves when Hansen took hold of Lorne's hand when Lorne was reaching for Toriel, and were both pushed unceremoniously into the water by Caldwell as punishment.

That left only Sheppard.

Lorne surfaced near Sheppard, still not reaching his hand to him. Sheppard was good with surprises. He was smarter than the new marines and more resilient than some of the Atlantis veterans that were already in the water. He was adaptive, and Lorne was running out of techniques.

Except one.

Sheppard crouched, hand still outstretched, and smiled at him. It wasn't anywhere near the boyish smile he sent Lorne when they were alone, but his enjoyment was clear. "I'm hot, Major," he teased, and Lorne couldn't help but grin. Too true, and they both knew it.

Lorne reached his hand and held Sheppard's, not pulling. Sheppard's hand moved a little so that their fingers interlaced together and Lorne felt the heat from Sheppard's palm on his water-cooled skin. The hold was tight, their arms stretched.

Sheppard looked at their joined hands, unreadable for a moment. Caldwell was looking at them expectantly.

"I must say I'm disappointed, Major. I was looking forward to your next stunt," Sheppard said finally.

"My next stunt is as simple as can be, sir. Please, come in," he said, earnestly. Sheppard looked at him, surprised for a moment, before a quiet chuckle escaped him. Caldwell, beside him, simply burst out laughing.

"If you can't beat them, join them?" Caldwell asked.

"No, sir. I know that I stand very little chance after revealing all my tactics to the Colonel, and he is the only one who's still standing on the deck under the sun. I was hoping he could see the… mutual benefit it would bring if he allowed himself to be pulled in," Lorne explained.

"Well, you're right about that. But if I'm going to throw the game I want a rematch," Sheppard bargained. Caldwell muttered something about stamina under his breath.

"Fastest swimmer?"

"Fastest diver," Sheppard replied, and Lorne smiled.

"I was a member of the swim team," he warned.

"Did they make you shave your chest?" Sheppard teased.

"Didn't have to back then. I'm a late bloomer," Lorne answered, direct. He suddenly remembered that he and Sheppard were still holding hands and that this conversation, coming from anyone else, would be considered as flirting. It didn't helped that everyone else was privy to the exchange and so wouldn't think something weird was going on between the two of them.

"Ready?" Lorne asked, and without waiting for an answer he tugged Sheppard into the water and followed with a lungful of air.

The muffling water in his ears helped him escape the echoes of Sheppard's teasing voice. He swam deeper and deeper into the water, never doubting for a moment that Sheppard was behind him. The warmth of Sheppard's skin still haunted his hand even though he was deeper enough underwater that the temperature turned colder.

Lorne swam, his anger at himself for going along with Sheppard's antics fueling his motions, until something caught his eye and he stopped in his tracks.

Floating in place, he had exactly a second to appreciate the sight in front of him before Sheppard's hands came around his waist and his body impacted Lorne's back. Lorne felt some of his carefully conserved air bursting from his lungs at the impact, and spared only a moment to turn and mark the concern and somewhat put out Sheppard with his finger towards the surface before starting to ascend.

Ascending from nearly twenty feet in one fast move was not a good thing for his ears, but his lungs were bursting. Breaking up onto the surface of the ocean, Lorne took in a few gulps of air before his vision stopped being hazy. Sheppard surfaced beside him, a concerned look in his eyes.

"You okay? You simply stopped," he asked. They were near the pier while the other men were still swimming about further away, but Lorne's still rapid heartbeat in his ears drowned their voices. Caldwell wasn't anywhere in sight.

"I'm fine," he confirmed. "You just knocked some of the air out of me," he added.

"Sorry, I didn't see you stopping until I've nearly slammed into you. Why did you stop?"

Now Lorne smiled. Even if he technically lost the competition, he was in the company of one of the few men on Atlantis who could really appreciate what he had found. "You want to see something cool?" Lorne asked, looking around him to make sure no one listened. No one did.

"I'm always in favor of cool," Sheppard said, suspicious. "What kind of cool are we talking about? Because your definitions are something that needs working on," he added. Lorne shook his head, still smiling.

"Come with me and you'll see," Lorne promised. Sheppard nodded. "Take a deep breath," Lorne said, and they both dived back in.

Sheppard swam next to Lorne, so close that they brushed against each other on occasion. The water became darker when they swam beneath the pier, and when Sheppard hesitated, Lorne touched his shoulder and motioned him forward. It wasn't far.

A few seconds later they reached a good point. They wouldn't be able to stay for long, but they could enjoy it in the time they had. Lorne pointed above them and saw that Sheppard squinted for a bit before a huge smile made its way to his face.

Right above them was Atlantis' star drive pods. They were large and rectangular and set in two deep slots that ran across the length of the pier above them. Every now and again a few red lights would come on for a second, something Lorne guessed was either for warning Jumpers in the water againt collision or to sent feedback to the control tower regarding the pods' condition.

Sheppard patted his shoulder and smiled, raised his thumbs and then pointed a finger up. Lorne nodded. Their air was beginning to run out and they had to save some for the way back up.

Coming up to the surface, Sheppard grinned at him openly. "That was cool, Major," he confirmed, out of breath. Lorne smiled and concentrated on regulating his own short breath. Around them the sea was empty, and a look at the ledge showed that all of the men were already wringing the water out of their shirts and sitting in a sunny spot to get dry.

Lorne started making his way to the ledge as well when Sheppard's voice stopped him. Sheppard swam to him and Lorne noted with amusement that his unruly hair was still sticking up in places, creating strange cowlicks on his head even after being under all that water.

"Listen," Sheppard began, casting an eye at the curious marines. "Don't tell anyone about the star drive pods. You're a pro and I've grown with a pool in my back yard, so we can both handle ourselves in water. But I don't really want to think about what would happen if one of these clowns decides he wants to have a peek as well," Sheppard explained, and Lorne nodded.

"Of course, sir," he said, and then registered what Sheppard had said. "You grew up in a house with a pool? Just how rich are you?" he asked before he could think of it better.

A sour expression crossed Sheppard's face. "It doesn't really matter," he said, the tone of his voice closing the conversation on the subject.

When they reached the ledge Stuart helped Lorne out of the water and Lorne turned around and reached his hand for Sheppard. He must've pulled harder than necessary, or Sheppard pushed with his legs against the ledge, because Sheppard came out of the water faster than planned and lost his balance, slamming into Lorne and knocking them both down.

Lorne landed with his back against the ledge and Sheppard landed on him, and they both groaned. However the initial pain of the impact was forgotten when Sheppard, in his haste to scramble off of Lorne and to check on him at the same time, dragged his chest across Lorne's and Lorne could feel his perked nipples through his clinging shirt almost as if they were both naked.

Lorne hissed, willing himself to concentrate on the pain instead of the sensation of Sheppard over him and still scrambling to get away. That was just great. Two years of serving under Sheppard and he hadn't touched the man as much as he had just today. And it would naturally happen when Lorne was just discovering that Sheppard had a crush on him. The thing was, he couldn't not react. And if he reacted now then everyone would see because his wet pants were clinging to body and then all hell would break loose. Crap.

Somebody helped him up, and pain flared across his shoulder-blades. The pain was a good distraction, though he groaned when the movement jostled the hurt area.

Caldwell was by his side in a second. "Everyone alright?"

"I think Major Lorne hit his shoulders pretty bad. He fell right on the seam, and Colonel Sheppard fell right on top of him," Stuart was saying, and Lorne craned his neck to see a seam in the ledge. It was more like a small tunnel, about three inches wide, probably to drain rain and sea water away. In front of him Sheppard was rubbing his jaw and looking at Lorne, concerned. Again.

Suddenly all Lorne wanted to do was go to his quarters and sleep, somewhere away from Sheppard and away from concerned eyes. This was the one thing he wasn't allowed to do, of course.

"Can you move your arms, Major?" Caldwell asked, then changed his mind. "Forget that, I'll look myself," he then tried to lift Lorne's wet and clinging shirt up at the back, the men all gathering around him to see. The only person who stayed in front of Lorne was Sheppard, looking guilty and uncomfortable.

The shirt wouldn't come up. It was too wet and too sticky with sweat and salt to be lifted away. "Sheppard, give me a hand here. It'll be easier to push the back up if the front is lifted, but don't roll it because it will create pressure that can hurt him," Caldwell instructed.

"Sure," Sheppard said, voice neutral and eyes downcast, seemingly on his task. His hands slide beneath Lorne's shirt and pushed the wet fabric up, fingers grazing Lorne's suddenly over-sensitive skin. It was a caress in anyone's dictionary. Double and triple crap.

Lorne wanted to faint. As a matter of fact he wanted to tell Sheppard to pull the shirt all the way up, grab Sheppard's hands and place them all over his skin and then beg Sheppard to fuck him raw. But thinking it would still cause unfortunate results in his lower region so he stuck with feinting, which sounded like a nice way to bring this sorry escapade to an end.

If he thought about the other, not feinting option maybe the others won't really notice at first – they were all busy clustering around Caldwell and enthusiastically listening to his experiences as a field medic at the beginning of his career – but Sheppard will. Sheppard, whose eyes were still downcast, whose hands had a fine tremor to them where they had no choice but to touch Lorne's peaked nipples, who was swallowing convulsively.

"I'm sorry," Sheppard said, voice ragged and low. Lorne wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. He might be sorry for having a crush on Lorne or he might be sorry for crashing into Lorne.

"It's not exclusively your fault," he replied, equally low and ragged, and wasn't sure what he was replying for. It wasn't Sheppard's fault that he crashed into Lorne, and it wasn't really his fault that Lorne was responding to his crush.

Somehow it seemed ludicrous to have almost twenty people clustering and looking at his bare back without anyone noticing the sudden tension that ran almost visible between Sheppard and him.

Caldwell was probing his back, hitting all the sore spots. "You'll color up prettily, Major," he announced cheerfully, jolting both him and Sheppard. "I don't think you have anything serious, but you should have Keller scan you just in case. To the infirmary with you," he patted Lorne's arm. Sheppard dropped Lorne's shirt almost as if he was burned by it, and Lorne turned around quickly.

"Great," he said. His voice wasn't still quite back to normal yet, but Caldwell's tolerant smile and the others' gentle pats made him think they were ascribing that to his injury. "On we walk, to the infirmary," he added with no small amount of relief.

"Not walking. It's useful to have connections with a man who's in command of a spaceship with beaming technology," Caldwell said, and reached for his earpiece. "Meyers, can you locate my signal? I'm on the southeast pier with Major Lorne. We need to be beamed to the infirmary," he said, and a moment later there was a flash of bright white light that left them blinking at a surprised Dr. Keller.

Lorne breathed carefully in. He wouldn't mind it at all to allow Dr. Keller to prod his aching back and berate him for doing something as stupid as going into the freezing water in the dead middle of an ocean if it meant that he would be in a private section with no visitors for a while.


A/N: To all of you football fans - I'm sorry but I don't understand the first thing about it. Wikipedia helped a lot, though.