A/N: Do not own SGA. I just own my OC's in this story.
I've been going back and forth on how I want to do this chapter…There are a few ways I was going to do this chapter. So, we'll see how it plays out. Enjoy!
Chapter 5
John Sheppard walked around with a smile on his face all day. Where normally he would be walking around looking down at a mission report or a data pad as he walked, he kept his head high and interacted with people he passed.
It caused him to get some pretty strange looks from people. He walked into his office and sat down. Immediately he got started on all his overdue paperwork. Usually he just pushed it off on Lorne until he was forced into doing it himself, but today was different. Today he actually wanted to get something accomplished and why not start off with all of his paperwork?
About two hours later, Lorne walked into the office and stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn't believe his eyes. John Sheppard was actually sitting there doing paperwork that he could've pushed onto him. "Can I be frank, sir?" John looked up and smiled. "Go right ahead, major."
Lorne stepped forward and sat down in the chair opposite of the desk. "Is everything okay? You're not dying or anything?" John laughed and set down his pen. "Not that I know of. Unless you know something I don't." Evan shook his head and looked at all the paperwork spread out about his desk.
"Oh, you mean the paperwork. Yeah, I just felt like doing it. Actually, I just finished the last report. Everything's all done for the week."
Lorne's head snapped up. "Okay, let's walk down to the infirmary. Just to be on the safe side."
Sheppard rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. "That's not necessary, Lorne. I'm fine."
"Sir, just humor me, will you? If you really are fine, awesome. I'll look like the idiot. But if something really is wrong with you, it's best to find out sooner rather than later."
John rolled his eyes, but stood up. "Fine. But I'm telling you, I'm in perfect shape."
They walked down to the infirmary and Lorne told Sheppard to sit on one of the beds while he went to find Beckett. He walked into Beckett's office to find him and Nikki looking over some research. Carson looked up when Lorne walked in. "What can I do for you, Major?"
"Well, sir, it's the Colonel." Beckett stood up and moved toward Lorne while Nikki's head snapped up and she stared at Evan. "Oh bloody hell. What has he done this time?"
"I'm not saying anything's wrong with him, well, actually I'm not sure. I just brought him here to be on the safe side." Carson raised an eyebrow, but let the man finish. "Doc, you and I both know the relationship the Colonel has with paperwork." Carson nodded. "Aye, he pushes it off onto anyone else until he absolutely has to do it. I don't think I've actually seen him do a lick of paperwork since I've known the man. Wouldn't be surprised if I never did."
"Well, see, that's the thing. I walked into his office and he was sitting there surrounded by piles of paperwork and it's only two weeks overdue. And he said when I walked in that he had just finished it. That was three weeks worth of paperwork he finished. In one day."
Carson looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his sockets. "And that's not all. The reason I went to his office was because a few people had come up to me and asked if there was something wrong with the Colonel. I shrugged it off at first, until more people started asking. We all know how withdrawn he is unless he's with certain people, but today he was walking around with a huge smile on his face and actually interacting with people the entire way to his office. And in the mess hall this morning for breakfast. McKay, Ronon, and Teyla all confirmed that he was acting weird. So, I figured it wouldn't do any harm to drag him down here and have you take a look at him. Just to be on the safe side."
Beckett scratched the back of his head and wrapped his head around everything for a minute. "Aye, I agree. That is very odd behavior for him. If he's just suddenly happy, then good for him, but I haven't heard any rumors or anything about something happening for him to suddenly be so damn happy. Have you?"
Lorne gave him a small smile. "Well, I heard one, but I didn't believe it." Carson narrowed his eyes and was about to ask what it was regarding, but the slightest shake of Lorne's head stopped him from doing so. "Okay, Major, let's go check out our Colonel." Nikki watched as the two of them walked out of the office.
Is he really just happy about tonight, or is something really wrong with him…, thought Nikki. She walked to the door of Carson's office and watched as he and Lorne walked up to Sheppard.
"Hello, Colonel. How are you feeling today?"
"Listen, Doc, I'm fine. Really, I am. Lorne's just overly anxious." He gave Lorne a look and Evan chuckled. He hoped it was just him being anxious.
"Well, I'll be the one to determine that. Lie down and let me run some tests just to be on the safe side."
An hour and a half later, Carson walked back over to where Lorne and Sheppard were standing. "Well, every test came back fine. Physically there's nothing wrong with you."
Sheppard turned and looked at Lorne. "See! I told you. I'm fine. Now can I please go back to work?"
"Colonel, has anything been going on lately? Anything new happening in your life that has suddenly caused such a drastic change?"
Sheppard blushed and looked down at the group for a fraction of a second. "I'm sure you've already heard the rumors. It wouldn't surprise me, but if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a meeting with Elizabeth." Right as he was about to walk away, he caught site of Nikki at the other end of the infirmary. She was watching him and she gave him a sassy smile and winked. He gave her a small smile back. He didn't want to get caught by the two inspectors who were staring insistently at him.
He turned around and walked out of the infirmary. Lorne and Beckett had both seen the look in his eyes and the smile that flashed across his face. They turned to where he'd been looking, but no one was there. They looked at each other and narrowed their eyes. "Major, I suggest you keep an eye on him." "Agreed."
sgasgasgasgasgasga
John walked into Elizabeth's office and plopped down in a chair. She looked up from her laptop and raised an eyebrow. He just smiled at her and sat there. "So, you wanted to see me?"
She looked at her watch and then back up at him. "Yes, half an hour ago." He smirked and looked down at his own watch. "Yeah, sorry about that. Lorne insisted that I go to the infirmary. Don't worry, I'm fine. Nothing to worry about. I'm in perfect health, like I tried to tell Lorne."
She nodded her head and looked back down at her laptop screen. "Yes, I know. I got the report from Beckett a few minutes before you walked in. Is there anything going on? Anything you would like to talk about?"
He rolled his eyes and then looked into hers. "Elizabeth, I'm fine. I'm happy. Why does everyone seem to have a problem with that?"
She closed her laptop and gave him her full attention. "No one has a problem with that. It just seems like there's something more there than you just being happy. I rarely see you in a bad mood, but this is more than I think I've ever seen from you. I just want to make sure you're okay. I've heard cases where something traumatic happens to someone and they cope by being so in denial, they're overly happy." She took a breath before continuing. "I know your dad died recently…"
His head snapped in her direction. "You really think I'm in denial about my dad dying? That happened weeks ago, if not months. I've accepted the fact that he died. Hell, I accepted the fact that I may never see him again the day I walked out of his house over ten years ago. This has nothing to do with my dad."
Elizabeth nodded and frowned. "Then what does it have to do with? Because frankly I'm lost."
He shook his head and looked away. "I'm not in denial about anything. I promise you that."
"Then what?" She narrowed her eyes and looked at him very seriously. "You don't have another consciousness inside you or another being that's taken over your body and trying to make us all think you're the real John Sheppard?"
He just looked at her. "No. There's no other consciousness in my body. Damn it, I can't believe this." He stood up and started pacing the floor. Elizabeth stood up as well. "I can't be sure of that, now can I? How about I just put you in the brig for awhile until we figure this whole thing out."
He stopped and turned to face her. "You're kidding me, right? There's nothing wrong with me! Beckett even confirmed that. I'm the real John Sheppard, Elizabeth. You know that, I know you do. Why can't I be happy without someone thinking there's something wrong with me?"
She sighed and shook her head. "You're right. I'm sorry, John. But you know how things are in this galaxy. You can never be too careful." He nodded and looked away. "Mind if I at least take a jumper ride to clear my head?" She nodded and watched him walk out the door and up the stairs leading to the jumper bay.
sgasgasgasgasga
About two hours later, John set the jumper back down in the jumper bay. He'd gone for a nice long ride to clear his head and get back into his good mood. What was so wrong with him being happy? No one seemed to get it.
He made his way to the mess hall. Lunch was in full swing and his stomach had been growling for the past half hour. He walked in and immediately spotted his team sitting at their usual table already eating. He got his food and made his way over to the table.
When he sat down, the table got silent. He looked at his team and they were purposely looking away from him. "Okay, what the hell is going on?" He could feel his good mood slipping away and fast. McKay looked up at him with worried eyes. "Nothing, nothing's wrong. Why would anything be wrong?" Ronon must have kicked him underneath the table because he shrieked in pain and grabbed for his leg. John looked around the table at his teammates. He couldn't believe this. Not a single one of them was meeting his eye or looking in his direction.
"Wow. You know when everyone else was treating me like a ticking time bomb, it didn't affect me all that much. But to have your own team not be able to look you in the eye. Yeah, that cuts deep." He stood up from the table and just walked away. He was about to explode, he could feel it.
He heard them getting up from the table and coming after him, but he just didn't care at the moment. He walked out of the mess hall and down one of the more unpopulated corridors, just in case it came to blows when they finally caught up with him.
"John, wait! Please!" Teyla finally caught up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He stopped and turned around. His team was standing there with worried expressions on their faces. He vaguely saw Nikki standing a little ways behind them. "Why? To give me that same look everyone else on this base has been giving me all day? You think I don't notice it? That everyone has been looking at me like I'm about to explode? Well, now I am."
"John, we are just worried about you." "Worried? About what? About me being happy for once? For me opening up a little and interacting with people? For me doing my job and getting some overdue paperwork done? Yeah, real cause for concern there."
McKay took a step towards him. "You know…we're here if you ever need to talk." He nodded his head. "Yeah, I can see that. Just like everyone else is, right? See that's not the first time I heard that today. Ever since this morning, people have been giving me weird looks, but I shrugged it off. Then Lorne drags me down to the infirmary so Beckett can check to make sure I'm okay. Beckett thought there was something mentally wrong with me. And then Elizabeth thought I was in denial about my dad dying. And then she thought I was possessed and almost had me dragged down to the brig, for crying out loud!"
He looked at all three of them, standing there watching him with concern. "So you know what I did? I took a jumper ride to clear my head. Forget about this morning and get back into a good mood. It worked. I was looking forward to lunch and hanging out with my team. With my friends. And then they wouldn't even look at me. How the hell am I supposed to react to that, hm?"
"Look, Shep, we didn't want to tick you off.." John laughed. "Yeah, well nice job with that. I'm happy. Today was supposed to be a really good day and it just turned to hell. I haven't been that happy since before my mom died. You guys are the closest thing I've had to family in a very long time. You know what's funny about that?" He looked from Teyla, to Ronon, and then to McKay. "My real family didn't want me to be happy either."
He turned and just walked away.
Sorry guys...it was originally going to be something totally different in this chapter, but as I was writing it, I had an idea and I just went with that instead...I'll try my best to have Chapter 6 up as soon as possible to make up for this one! Don't hate me! Review please!