SG One Sweet Love's Ficathon Entry
“Dr. Keller?”
The woman who had been just declared serene and collected in emotional situations in her employee review gave a shrill scream and turned. “What?!” she demanded, waving her scalpel in Laura’s general direction. “Oh, Nurse Calabreze,” she said, recognizing her ‘attacker’. “Right. How can I help you?”
Laura smiled and said something unpleasant in Italian. “I was wondering how goes new patients.”
“Crappy,” said Dr. Keller as she emptied the contents of her clipboard into the trashcan at the end of her desk. “I’m recommending that you give Patient 1203 two CCs of morphine before his next examination; his facial burns are giving him discomfort.”
“Right,” said Laura, nodding. “And the boy?”
Keller, who was turning to drop both the clipboard and the scalpel in the Haz Mat disposal bin by the supply closet, paused. “The boy?” she asked, frowning. “He should be fine. I thought I gave the nurses directions to keep him away from the burn victims.”
“He tries to get in now,” explained Laura. “Nurses are keeping him away.”
“Good,” said Keller, distracted, and she emptied her hands and her gloves into the disposal bin. “Once you’re done with 1203, check in with 1199, who seems to have something of an escape complex.”
“Right,” said Laura. Once she was sure Keller was out of sight, she rolled her eyes and dropped her Attentive Physician routine.
Sometimes, Keller could be a little too intense when it came to the infirmary.
~
Earlier that morning, Jennifer Keller had woken up annoyed.
There had been a dream. Ronon Dex, a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, and a bottle of Redi-Whip had been involved.
She was supposed to be Chief Medical Officer, damn it, not a hormonal teenager. Even when she’d been a teenager she wasn’t the . . . simpering type. Jennifer certainly wasn’t a Strong Woman on the level of Sam Carter or Teyla Emmagen, but she came pretty damn close. She made it through conversations with Rodney without hitting him over the head with a blunt object, didn’t she?
Dr. Jennifer Keller did not swoon. She made pithy remarks and stitched up annoying Runners without morphine to teach them a lesson.
She did not think about their warm hands. She did not have dreams involving a dairy product that she’d have to fill out about twenty different release forms to get her hands on.
Bad Jennifer.
She stumbled out of bed, bribing her body with the promise of coffee, and poured herself into her stingy bathtub. As water dribbled down her shoulders and soaked into her hair, she told herself to be professional. There would be absolutely zero jumping, molesting, ogling, or handcuffing of colleagues, she told herself.
That she had to actually remember that was probably not the best sign.
For about fourteen seconds she distracted herself by making a mental list of the supplies that she needed to get next time Carter sent out a request. Second number fifteen, Jennifer nicked her leg with her razor and thought of Ronon.
Argh.
~
The next day, Laura Calabreze walked into the infirmary with the mother of all headaches and a bitching mood. Marc had just broken up with her for the idiotic American bint who was the Earth-Pegasus liason’s assistant’s assistant.
Laura hated blondes.
So hearing Jennifer Keller scream bloody murder at the sight at a trio of flowers did not make her feel any better.
~
“Oi. What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Jennifer, pointing at the boy who was about to finger the petals of a bouquet of rather lovely ochid-esque flowers on the spare cot next to him.
“Are these for you, Dr. Jennifer?” asked the boy, gesturing to the flowers. He looked a little disconcerted.
“Ugh,” she said, pulling on a set of gloves and gingerly picking up the bouquet by its rustic twine. It was a very pretty bouquet, actually, in a wild kind of way.
Were the flowers not poisonous, she no doubt would have been flattered.
“Give me your hands,” she said, stripping off the gloves and putting on a new set. “Did you touch the flowers and put your hands in your mouth?”
“No,” said the boy, putting his hands in hers. “Why?”
“This flower is poisonous when digested,” she said, swabbing his hands with disinfectant. The petal’s oil wasn’t supposed to be a toxin absorbed through the skin, but one never could really tell with Pegasus greenery. Besides, he couldn’t be trusted to wash his hands before his next meal.
“Oh,” said the boy. “Oh!” He’d brightened and opened his mouth when -
“Keller!” She paused and lifted a hand to her ear.
“Yes?” she asked.
“We’re bringing in Rodney! Something happened, prep a bed.”
“Roger,” she said, then turned to Laura Calabreze, who had been skulking nearby. “Calabreze, prep a cot for Dr. McKay.” As Laura scuttled towards the next cot, Jennifer cut her off. “Not there, the bedding needs to be changed. Over there.” She flapped a hand in the direction she meant.
She dumped the rest of the little cup of disinfectant over the boy’s hands and instructed him to rub it in then wait for it to dry as John Sheppard appeared in the doorway, lugging behind in the semi-unconscious body of Rodney McKay.
“What now?” she asked, smothering a rather unprofessional sigh.
“Testing something with Zelenka. He keeps gibbering about flying bits of something,” said John. “Tell him he’s an idiot and send him back.”
“Of course,” she said. “Well, dump him on the bed Calabreze just set up in the corner.”
The boy looked normal as Sheppard settled McKay face-down onto the bed, so she sent him to find Teyla and the rest of the refugees with lollipop and a bottle of pills with instructions for the Athosian woman. “Tell her to send for me if something happens,” she said.
He nodded, looking less than enthusiastic about leaving. Jennifer, feeling bad, gave him another lollipop.
“McKay said those were bad for you,” said Ronon as the boy scampered past him, still looking depressed.
“McKay also thinks that hockey makes sense,” said John as he wandered over. “Nah, the kid just has a crush on Keller and doesn’t want to leave.”
“Don’t be crazy,” said Jennifer, slinging a stethoscope over her neck and replacing her gloves. “He wanted sugar.”
Ronon and John exchanged an amused glance.
“And,” she added, “if you make any Sexy Nurse jokes, Sheppard, I will make your next routine physical extremely painful.”
“It’s already painful,” croaked Rodney into the mattress of the hospital bed.
“That’s because you tell me I’m an idiot,” said Jennifer cheerfully. “I reciprocate in kind.” She turned to look at John and carefully avoided looking at Ronon. “Do both of you need to be here?”
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look . . .
She looked.
Ronon, highly amused, watched Jennifer turn pink.
Scratch that. Red. Like the stitching on Teyla’s favorite skirt.
“Ronon,” said John either not noticing Jennifer’s change in coloring or choosing not to not do so - or not caring, which was also a possibility - “Carter wants you to hand in your report about the village.”
Ronon scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “What information? We went in, we got blown up, we set off some rounds and saved the village.”
Jennifer turned Rodney onto his back and shoved a thermometer into his mouth.
“You blew up half the village,” said John.
“We didn’t hurt anyone. It was an accident,” replied Ronon, looking unconcerned. “McKay didn’t say that his explosive rounds were that . . .”
“Explosive?” finished Jennifer, pulling out the thermometer and noting its normalcy. “What are your symptoms, McKay?”
“I got hit in the head,” he said, pointing at his hairline. “Zelenka is under the impression that the best way to refine an experiment is to throw equipment at me.”
“You’re fine,” said Jennifer. “No broken skin, no tenderness. You want a lollipop?”
McKay pouted.
“Anyway,” she said, turning around to survey John and Ronon, “I can understand Carter’s concern. Think ya used enough dynamite, butch?”
“Not dynamite,” said McKay. “Titanium . . . alloy . . . How many times do I have to say it before you start to realize what I’m saying? Are you ignoring me?”
Jennifer snickered and ignored him as McKay dramatically swooned and made noise about having not recently updated his will and the general incompetency of his present company.
“Carter,” said John. “Now, Ronon.”
“What about me?” asked Rodney pathetically.
“You can stay,” sighed Jennifer. “I suppose I can babysit you during my break.”
They left McKay moaning and groaning in the infirmary, and Jennifer lugging a little half-table, half-tray filled with paperwork to his bedside. The last Ronon saw of her, she looked up, gave a wink and eye-roll, and turned to her patient.
~
Day Three of the Worst Week in the Life of Jennifer Keller, the boy returned in time to see Keller toss her daily offering to Anubis into the HazMat disposal bin.
“Hello Dr. Jennifer!” he said, skipping into her office. “Teyla sent me to ask for acprine.”
“Sorry?” she asked.
“Ascprine,” said the boy, annunciating carefully. “For the head.”
“Aspirin?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling toothily at her. “One of the girls hit Mr. Rodney in the head with the ball.”
Jennifer manfully stifling her laugh.
“Here,” she said, giving him the bottle and grinning at him. He turned pink, mumbled a thanks, and ran out.
~
Thursday morning, Jennifer woke from a terrifying three-hour sleep.
There was Ronon. There was swooning. There was gratuitous chest-displaying. There had also been Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers. With machetes.
“Aargh,” warbled Jennifer in the shower, choking on water. “Cleanse the mind, cleanse the mind,” she said to herself. She’d never been much for yoga, though, so that failed rather badly.
She was pulling her hair into a haphazard bun, stepping through the doorway into the hall, when she almost stepped on the single blossom at her feet.
Three doors down, John Sheppard woke with a start at the sound of a strangled bellow. He stumbled out of bed, grabbing his gun and praying that nothing too bad was happening, when he burst into the hall to find . . . nothing, except a splotchy yellow footprint in front of Keller’s door.
~
It was mid-afternoon, in the middle Ronon’s usual Friday ass-kicking of Marines, when Jennifer found him. He was in the midst of kicking one in the stomach when he saw her. The Marine took the opportunity to slam him across the head with a pointy elbow, and Ronon knocked out his knees.
“Pause,” he said, and turned towards Keller, whose hair was in a messy bun, and had dark circles under her eyes. One of the Marines slumped onto the floor, and the drop made her start and jump a foot in the air.
“Hey Doc,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Sorry,” she said, looking miserable but not the least bit apologetic. “I need your help. Will you meet me here later? Like, eleven?”
“Sure,” he said.
He returned to (slightly distracted) ass-kicking. There were a few catcalls, before Ronon viciously slaughtered them. The Marines all left with bruises.
She went back to her office, where she methodically shredded her gifted bouquet.
At eleven, they met. Jennifer had heard that cafeteria was serving brownies until midnight, and he trailed her across Atlantis with his hands in his pockets. So far, she hadn’t mentioned why she needed to talk to him and he hadn’t asked.
They were settled with little ceremony, Jennifer with a plate of melting brown squares, and Ronon with a cup of something masquerading as a palatable beverage. They began in relative silence, Jennifer consuming her brownies with single-minded determination that gave away how little she’d been eating lately, and Ronon thinking about how to best breach the subject on his mind.
He’d opened his mouth when she looked up, met his eyes, and said, utterly serious, “Ronon. Someone’s trying to kill me.”
“What?”
“Someone has been trying to kill me all week,” she said, and pushed away the messy remains of her brownies. “I need your help, obviously. To find out whom it is and hopefully stop them before I mess up and have a fatal encounter.” She wriggled her nose and folded her arms across her chest. “I thought you would be the man to help.”
Yes, he damn well hoped he’d be the man to help if someone was trying to kill her. He just didn’t know why she hadn’t told him sooner.
“What happened?”
She gave a few non-covert glances around them, seemed to realize that it was eleven-fifteen at night and the cafeteria was entirely empty, then leaned across the table to whisper in his ear - giving him a prime view down her definitely non-military-issued shirt - “They’ve left poisonous flowers everywhere this week, where I can slip up.”
She looked offended when he began to laugh.
“Me,” he finally said.
“You?” she asked. “You? You - you’re trying to kill me?” She sprung to her feet and inched around the table to his side, so as to be nearer to the exit.
“I,” he said, and then had to swallow to keep down the laughter, “gave you flowers. Non-poisonous, harmless, normal flowers.”
“You got me flowers?” she said dumbly, freezing. “You do - that is, in Pegasus, when a guy gets someone flowers, is it, y’know, a casual thing, or - hey, what you do you mean they aren’t poisonous? They were definitely in Rodney’s slideshow last month, the one he assembled with the biologists about Hazardous Things You Should Definitely Avoid if Your Puny Little Minds Can React in Time To Do So, Of Course. There was a greenery section.”
Contemplating this, he carefully inched towards the edge of the table. “They weren’t poisonous. I promise. I picked them myself, and I haven’t died yet.”
He was at the end of the table.
“What are they, then?” she asked.
His hands settled on her hips, right over the seam between her pants and her non-military-issued shirt. “Flowers. Isn’t that an Earth custom?”
“Er,” she said. “Yes, yes it is. But” - here she paused - “you do realize - I mean, it’s not a friendly thing to do.” She looked confused as to what exactly his hands were doing where they were. “Or, not just a friendly thing.”
“You mean that sending flowers is a sign of courtship?” He smiled. His hands moved towards the small of her back. “I know. That’s why I picked them.”
“Them? The flowers?”
“The Athosians put them in bridal wreaths,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
It took a little pressure, and she stumbled into his knees, and her mouth fell on his.
~
Saturday morning, the boy came to Dr. Jennifer’s office. She was sitting at her desk, out of her lab coat, talking to the scarily tall Satedian that the boy had seen once. The bridal wreath flowers, the ones that the boy had seen her throw out at least twice that week, were woven into her hair.
His face fell.
“Oh,” she said, seeing him. “Hello. How are you?”
“Fine,” he said sullenly. He hid the flower he’d picked behind his back. “Teyla sent me to, ah,” - he wracked his brain - “ask for more ascpirin.”
“She should still have the bottle I gave to Rodney,” said Dr. Jennifer.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
“Is that everything?” she asked, smiling at him. He half-nodded, and the Satedian looked at him, almost smirking. Something about his body language told the boy that he understood. Also, that he wasn’t going to tolerate more visits to Dr. Jennifer.
He left quickly after that, because midway into their staring match, the Satedian had gotten that weird look his father got sometimes. He turned, once, before leaving the infirmary, and he watched a large brown hand catch behind Dr. Jennifer’s head, sliding fingers over petals, before brushing her neck. They laughed. They kissed.
The boy stifled a pout.
The woman who had been just declared serene and collected in emotional situations in her employee review gave a shrill scream and turned. “What?!” she demanded, waving her scalpel in Laura’s general direction. “Oh, Nurse Calabreze,” she said, recognizing her ‘attacker’. “Right. How can I help you?”
Laura smiled and said something unpleasant in Italian. “I was wondering how goes new patients.”
“Crappy,” said Dr. Keller as she emptied the contents of her clipboard into the trashcan at the end of her desk. “I’m recommending that you give Patient 1203 two CCs of morphine before his next examination; his facial burns are giving him discomfort.”
“Right,” said Laura, nodding. “And the boy?”
Keller, who was turning to drop both the clipboard and the scalpel in the Haz Mat disposal bin by the supply closet, paused. “The boy?” she asked, frowning. “He should be fine. I thought I gave the nurses directions to keep him away from the burn victims.”
“He tries to get in now,” explained Laura. “Nurses are keeping him away.”
“Good,” said Keller, distracted, and she emptied her hands and her gloves into the disposal bin. “Once you’re done with 1203, check in with 1199, who seems to have something of an escape complex.”
“Right,” said Laura. Once she was sure Keller was out of sight, she rolled her eyes and dropped her Attentive Physician routine.
Sometimes, Keller could be a little too intense when it came to the infirmary.
~
Earlier that morning, Jennifer Keller had woken up annoyed.
There had been a dream. Ronon Dex, a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, and a bottle of Redi-Whip had been involved.
She was supposed to be Chief Medical Officer, damn it, not a hormonal teenager. Even when she’d been a teenager she wasn’t the . . . simpering type. Jennifer certainly wasn’t a Strong Woman on the level of Sam Carter or Teyla Emmagen, but she came pretty damn close. She made it through conversations with Rodney without hitting him over the head with a blunt object, didn’t she?
Dr. Jennifer Keller did not swoon. She made pithy remarks and stitched up annoying Runners without morphine to teach them a lesson.
She did not think about their warm hands. She did not have dreams involving a dairy product that she’d have to fill out about twenty different release forms to get her hands on.
Bad Jennifer.
She stumbled out of bed, bribing her body with the promise of coffee, and poured herself into her stingy bathtub. As water dribbled down her shoulders and soaked into her hair, she told herself to be professional. There would be absolutely zero jumping, molesting, ogling, or handcuffing of colleagues, she told herself.
That she had to actually remember that was probably not the best sign.
For about fourteen seconds she distracted herself by making a mental list of the supplies that she needed to get next time Carter sent out a request. Second number fifteen, Jennifer nicked her leg with her razor and thought of Ronon.
Argh.
~
The next day, Laura Calabreze walked into the infirmary with the mother of all headaches and a bitching mood. Marc had just broken up with her for the idiotic American bint who was the Earth-Pegasus liason’s assistant’s assistant.
Laura hated blondes.
So hearing Jennifer Keller scream bloody murder at the sight at a trio of flowers did not make her feel any better.
~
“Oi. What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Jennifer, pointing at the boy who was about to finger the petals of a bouquet of rather lovely ochid-esque flowers on the spare cot next to him.
“Are these for you, Dr. Jennifer?” asked the boy, gesturing to the flowers. He looked a little disconcerted.
“Ugh,” she said, pulling on a set of gloves and gingerly picking up the bouquet by its rustic twine. It was a very pretty bouquet, actually, in a wild kind of way.
Were the flowers not poisonous, she no doubt would have been flattered.
“Give me your hands,” she said, stripping off the gloves and putting on a new set. “Did you touch the flowers and put your hands in your mouth?”
“No,” said the boy, putting his hands in hers. “Why?”
“This flower is poisonous when digested,” she said, swabbing his hands with disinfectant. The petal’s oil wasn’t supposed to be a toxin absorbed through the skin, but one never could really tell with Pegasus greenery. Besides, he couldn’t be trusted to wash his hands before his next meal.
“Oh,” said the boy. “Oh!” He’d brightened and opened his mouth when -
“Keller!” She paused and lifted a hand to her ear.
“Yes?” she asked.
“We’re bringing in Rodney! Something happened, prep a bed.”
“Roger,” she said, then turned to Laura Calabreze, who had been skulking nearby. “Calabreze, prep a cot for Dr. McKay.” As Laura scuttled towards the next cot, Jennifer cut her off. “Not there, the bedding needs to be changed. Over there.” She flapped a hand in the direction she meant.
She dumped the rest of the little cup of disinfectant over the boy’s hands and instructed him to rub it in then wait for it to dry as John Sheppard appeared in the doorway, lugging behind in the semi-unconscious body of Rodney McKay.
“What now?” she asked, smothering a rather unprofessional sigh.
“Testing something with Zelenka. He keeps gibbering about flying bits of something,” said John. “Tell him he’s an idiot and send him back.”
“Of course,” she said. “Well, dump him on the bed Calabreze just set up in the corner.”
The boy looked normal as Sheppard settled McKay face-down onto the bed, so she sent him to find Teyla and the rest of the refugees with lollipop and a bottle of pills with instructions for the Athosian woman. “Tell her to send for me if something happens,” she said.
He nodded, looking less than enthusiastic about leaving. Jennifer, feeling bad, gave him another lollipop.
“McKay said those were bad for you,” said Ronon as the boy scampered past him, still looking depressed.
“McKay also thinks that hockey makes sense,” said John as he wandered over. “Nah, the kid just has a crush on Keller and doesn’t want to leave.”
“Don’t be crazy,” said Jennifer, slinging a stethoscope over her neck and replacing her gloves. “He wanted sugar.”
Ronon and John exchanged an amused glance.
“And,” she added, “if you make any Sexy Nurse jokes, Sheppard, I will make your next routine physical extremely painful.”
“It’s already painful,” croaked Rodney into the mattress of the hospital bed.
“That’s because you tell me I’m an idiot,” said Jennifer cheerfully. “I reciprocate in kind.” She turned to look at John and carefully avoided looking at Ronon. “Do both of you need to be here?”
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look . . .
She looked.
Ronon, highly amused, watched Jennifer turn pink.
Scratch that. Red. Like the stitching on Teyla’s favorite skirt.
“Ronon,” said John either not noticing Jennifer’s change in coloring or choosing not to not do so - or not caring, which was also a possibility - “Carter wants you to hand in your report about the village.”
Ronon scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “What information? We went in, we got blown up, we set off some rounds and saved the village.”
Jennifer turned Rodney onto his back and shoved a thermometer into his mouth.
“You blew up half the village,” said John.
“We didn’t hurt anyone. It was an accident,” replied Ronon, looking unconcerned. “McKay didn’t say that his explosive rounds were that . . .”
“Explosive?” finished Jennifer, pulling out the thermometer and noting its normalcy. “What are your symptoms, McKay?”
“I got hit in the head,” he said, pointing at his hairline. “Zelenka is under the impression that the best way to refine an experiment is to throw equipment at me.”
“You’re fine,” said Jennifer. “No broken skin, no tenderness. You want a lollipop?”
McKay pouted.
“Anyway,” she said, turning around to survey John and Ronon, “I can understand Carter’s concern. Think ya used enough dynamite, butch?”
“Not dynamite,” said McKay. “Titanium . . . alloy . . . How many times do I have to say it before you start to realize what I’m saying? Are you ignoring me?”
Jennifer snickered and ignored him as McKay dramatically swooned and made noise about having not recently updated his will and the general incompetency of his present company.
“Carter,” said John. “Now, Ronon.”
“What about me?” asked Rodney pathetically.
“You can stay,” sighed Jennifer. “I suppose I can babysit you during my break.”
They left McKay moaning and groaning in the infirmary, and Jennifer lugging a little half-table, half-tray filled with paperwork to his bedside. The last Ronon saw of her, she looked up, gave a wink and eye-roll, and turned to her patient.
~
Day Three of the Worst Week in the Life of Jennifer Keller, the boy returned in time to see Keller toss her daily offering to Anubis into the HazMat disposal bin.
“Hello Dr. Jennifer!” he said, skipping into her office. “Teyla sent me to ask for acprine.”
“Sorry?” she asked.
“Ascprine,” said the boy, annunciating carefully. “For the head.”
“Aspirin?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling toothily at her. “One of the girls hit Mr. Rodney in the head with the ball.”
Jennifer manfully stifling her laugh.
“Here,” she said, giving him the bottle and grinning at him. He turned pink, mumbled a thanks, and ran out.
~
Thursday morning, Jennifer woke from a terrifying three-hour sleep.
There was Ronon. There was swooning. There was gratuitous chest-displaying. There had also been Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers. With machetes.
“Aargh,” warbled Jennifer in the shower, choking on water. “Cleanse the mind, cleanse the mind,” she said to herself. She’d never been much for yoga, though, so that failed rather badly.
She was pulling her hair into a haphazard bun, stepping through the doorway into the hall, when she almost stepped on the single blossom at her feet.
Three doors down, John Sheppard woke with a start at the sound of a strangled bellow. He stumbled out of bed, grabbing his gun and praying that nothing too bad was happening, when he burst into the hall to find . . . nothing, except a splotchy yellow footprint in front of Keller’s door.
~
It was mid-afternoon, in the middle Ronon’s usual Friday ass-kicking of Marines, when Jennifer found him. He was in the midst of kicking one in the stomach when he saw her. The Marine took the opportunity to slam him across the head with a pointy elbow, and Ronon knocked out his knees.
“Pause,” he said, and turned towards Keller, whose hair was in a messy bun, and had dark circles under her eyes. One of the Marines slumped onto the floor, and the drop made her start and jump a foot in the air.
“Hey Doc,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Sorry,” she said, looking miserable but not the least bit apologetic. “I need your help. Will you meet me here later? Like, eleven?”
“Sure,” he said.
He returned to (slightly distracted) ass-kicking. There were a few catcalls, before Ronon viciously slaughtered them. The Marines all left with bruises.
She went back to her office, where she methodically shredded her gifted bouquet.
At eleven, they met. Jennifer had heard that cafeteria was serving brownies until midnight, and he trailed her across Atlantis with his hands in his pockets. So far, she hadn’t mentioned why she needed to talk to him and he hadn’t asked.
They were settled with little ceremony, Jennifer with a plate of melting brown squares, and Ronon with a cup of something masquerading as a palatable beverage. They began in relative silence, Jennifer consuming her brownies with single-minded determination that gave away how little she’d been eating lately, and Ronon thinking about how to best breach the subject on his mind.
He’d opened his mouth when she looked up, met his eyes, and said, utterly serious, “Ronon. Someone’s trying to kill me.”
“What?”
“Someone has been trying to kill me all week,” she said, and pushed away the messy remains of her brownies. “I need your help, obviously. To find out whom it is and hopefully stop them before I mess up and have a fatal encounter.” She wriggled her nose and folded her arms across her chest. “I thought you would be the man to help.”
Yes, he damn well hoped he’d be the man to help if someone was trying to kill her. He just didn’t know why she hadn’t told him sooner.
“What happened?”
She gave a few non-covert glances around them, seemed to realize that it was eleven-fifteen at night and the cafeteria was entirely empty, then leaned across the table to whisper in his ear - giving him a prime view down her definitely non-military-issued shirt - “They’ve left poisonous flowers everywhere this week, where I can slip up.”
She looked offended when he began to laugh.
“Me,” he finally said.
“You?” she asked. “You? You - you’re trying to kill me?” She sprung to her feet and inched around the table to his side, so as to be nearer to the exit.
“I,” he said, and then had to swallow to keep down the laughter, “gave you flowers. Non-poisonous, harmless, normal flowers.”
“You got me flowers?” she said dumbly, freezing. “You do - that is, in Pegasus, when a guy gets someone flowers, is it, y’know, a casual thing, or - hey, what you do you mean they aren’t poisonous? They were definitely in Rodney’s slideshow last month, the one he assembled with the biologists about Hazardous Things You Should Definitely Avoid if Your Puny Little Minds Can React in Time To Do So, Of Course. There was a greenery section.”
Contemplating this, he carefully inched towards the edge of the table. “They weren’t poisonous. I promise. I picked them myself, and I haven’t died yet.”
He was at the end of the table.
“What are they, then?” she asked.
His hands settled on her hips, right over the seam between her pants and her non-military-issued shirt. “Flowers. Isn’t that an Earth custom?”
“Er,” she said. “Yes, yes it is. But” - here she paused - “you do realize - I mean, it’s not a friendly thing to do.” She looked confused as to what exactly his hands were doing where they were. “Or, not just a friendly thing.”
“You mean that sending flowers is a sign of courtship?” He smiled. His hands moved towards the small of her back. “I know. That’s why I picked them.”
“Them? The flowers?”
“The Athosians put them in bridal wreaths,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
It took a little pressure, and she stumbled into his knees, and her mouth fell on his.
~
Saturday morning, the boy came to Dr. Jennifer’s office. She was sitting at her desk, out of her lab coat, talking to the scarily tall Satedian that the boy had seen once. The bridal wreath flowers, the ones that the boy had seen her throw out at least twice that week, were woven into her hair.
His face fell.
“Oh,” she said, seeing him. “Hello. How are you?”
“Fine,” he said sullenly. He hid the flower he’d picked behind his back. “Teyla sent me to, ah,” - he wracked his brain - “ask for more ascpirin.”
“She should still have the bottle I gave to Rodney,” said Dr. Jennifer.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
“Is that everything?” she asked, smiling at him. He half-nodded, and the Satedian looked at him, almost smirking. Something about his body language told the boy that he understood. Also, that he wasn’t going to tolerate more visits to Dr. Jennifer.
He left quickly after that, because midway into their staring match, the Satedian had gotten that weird look his father got sometimes. He turned, once, before leaving the infirmary, and he watched a large brown hand catch behind Dr. Jennifer’s head, sliding fingers over petals, before brushing her neck. They laughed. They kissed.
The boy stifled a pout.