fic: Pegasus Quest (SGA, John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir) (part 2/2)
Title: Pegasus Quest (2/2, complete)
Author: oparu
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir
Rating: PG-13
Warning: none
Word Count: 16,622
Summary: Elizabeth Weir is an actress on the successful sci-fi drama, Pegasus X-Treme (a spin off of the wildly popular Wormhole X-Treme. Everything's going great until the end of the third season when the producers decide to 'take the show in another direction' and kill her character, the diplomat, Dr. Victoria Higginson. She could just get another job...but she's fallen in love with her costar, the scruffy-sex symbol, John Sheppard and she can't just leave without telling him.
On her last day of work, they set up an easy scene before lunch. Just a walk through their brand new Stargate set piece one that actually lights up and produces a water-like effect...
the amazing poster by azarsuerte.
part one
The rock hit the surface of the water and sank. The second one did the same. Either Elizabeth was the world's (maybe the universe's) worst rock skipper or she wasn't trying. He didn't have a good segue if she wasn't trying, so John decided to pretend she was. Might as well go for it.
"You kinda have to flick your wrist," he said, flopping down next to her on the dry bank of the swampy little lake near Teyla's village.
"Oh?" Elizabeth asked, looking a little confused. Even confusion was cute on her.
"To skip the rock," John said with a smile. "You have to flick your wrist to skip the rock."
"I'm not skipping rocks," she said with a smile. "At least, I hadn't intended to."
"So you're just tossing them in the water, trying not to hit fish in the head?" John asked lazily. He wanted her smile to brighten up a little. He had a feeling he could do it if he kept at it. "Or trying to hit fish in the head? Elizabeth, really, there are better ways to catch fish. I think one of Teyla's friends here could help you if that's what you're into..." As he elaborated on the ways to catch fish, and how rocks really were not accepted as one of the best, she giggled and he barely managed to keep a straight face. Mission accomplished.
"You okay?" he asked. The ripples on the pond had faded and the alien bugs hummed around them. Either the birds on this planet were into a really weird kind of warbling, or Teyla's planet had some pretty big bugs. He didn't need to know.
"Sure," Elizabeth answered. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Sarcasm was a good sign. When Elizabeth was really down, she didn't bother. She'd been pretty quiet since the production staff announced they were terminating her contract. He would have probably been quiet to if they were busting a window in his face. John liked this light in her eyes and he was glad it had come back, even if they had to be on the far side of the universe to get it.
"You're trapped on an alien planet about to go on a possibly suicidal mission?" he asked, searching the ground around him for one of the little rocks she'd been tossing. Finding one, John smoothed it in his hands. "Have some big blockbuster waiting for you when you get home?"
She sighed heavily and pulled her knees up to her chest. Elizabeth dropped her head onto them and her dark curls tumbled down on top of themselves. The humidity was slowly getting to them, and messing up her hair in a way he found unreasonably attractive. "No," she answered finally. "Oh no, bunch of auditions, but hey, that's the gig right? We audition and sometimes we're rewarded." She wrapped her arms tighter. "My mother has my dog."
"She usually does, right?" John remembered. Cleaning his rock slowly, he watched her smile a little in response.
"They get along great," Elizabeth said. Her smile grew as she lifted her head. "My mother says it keeps her young, and Sedge doesn't seem to mind being spoiled. She'll be all right there."
John didn't ask her how long she thinks Sedge will be there, or how much Elizabeth must be worried about her mother. He had known they were close, and he liked that about Elizabeth the first time she told him. John's family was a mess, wealthy, proper people out on the east coast who don't care much for their son being an actor on that science fiction show. If he worked in 'the theatre' or confined his roles to documentaries trying to save the world, he might be all right. He'd still be living off his trust fund and his father would like that. Nancy might look for him after awhile. Especially when the show goes off the air. She might notice if it made the news.
"Do you think they'll call it an accident?" he asked, hoping the line of thought wasn't too dark. "Like Carson?" He tossed the rock and it skipped four times. Not too bad. He could do better with a flatter rock.
"Do you think there was an accident?" Elizabeth asked, eyes wide with concern. "You don't think anyone on the crew was hurt..."
"Nah," he waved off that thought and found a rock. Showing it to her as he rubbed the dirt off of it, John grinned to ease the mood, "Teyla's careful."
"There are so many things I thought I knew about her," she said, watching him and the rock.
He rubbed it a few more times, then aimed out into the lake. John got five skips that time and a resounding plop at the end. "You know what they say about people you work with," he said with a shrug. "You never really know them." He liked to think he knew her, and Elizabeth was more than just someone he worked with; he was starting to think it had been that way for awhile now.
"What don't I know about you, John Sheppard?" she asked, smiling again.
If she knew what that look did to the pit of his stomach, he might be a dead man. John found another rock instead of answering right away. He had to say something more than that lame thoughts in his head. He could do it, find something useful, anything.
"I like skateboarding."
She shook her head. "I saw you on the back lot with Evan."
"I hate pistachios."
"You pick them out of the nuts at craft service," Elizabeth said.
John's search for a rock had left him right next to her. Less than a foot was between them and he was starting to feel the way he had in episode two-sixteen. The warm, tingling sensation crept up from his toes and settled in the roots of his hair. He shivered reflexively.
"Do you want my coat?" Elizabeth asked, even though it wouldn't fit.
The earnest desire to be helpful behind her smile made John laugh. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, even though that brought him painfully close and he tried to avoid being painfully close to her. He liked close. He liked close a hell of a lot and painfully close would be his undoing.
"I think it was just one of those someone walked over my grave moments," he covered weakly. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce...plop. Six, he thought, really not bad.
"I hope your grave isn't in this galaxy," she said. The darkness of that shared thought hushed them both for awhile and then Elizabeth sighed. "I can't decide if I should treat this as a gig in my head and just let it go, or if I should make something better of it. Am I playing Victoria for the whole galaxy so they can have someone to believe in, or am I--"
"I like you better as you," he said, shrugging. "If that means anything."
"Victoria has a PhD," she argued. Elizabeth's hand drifted over and rested on his arm.
John just barely managed not to shiver again and gulped in relief. "So does Doctor David Hewlett," he reminded her. "I like Rodney a hell of a lot better."
"You like Rodney?"
"Of course I like Rodney," He put on a wounded look. "We have a-" he paused and grinned, "-unique relationship. Kinda like brothers."
"Older and younger brothers," Elizabeth surmised with a quick shake of her head.
God, he loved her curls when she did that. He wanted to tangle his hands into them, pull her close and-- John swallowed again, this time harder. "Family. It's important, don't you think?"
Elizabeth's grin back was small and her lips had an impish curl to them. "Am I the older or younger sister?"
"Definitely Rodney's older sister," he replied, quickly looking away. He might have put too much emphasis on Rodney, or otherwise looked like an idiot.
"John-" her voice was soft and he nearly jumped.
Yeah, he was definitely an idiot. "'Lizabeth?" Her fingers moved gently along his arm.
"Do you remember episode two-sixteen?" she asked.
Did he remember it? Did it cross his mind once a day off set and eight or nine times a day on set? Had his heart skipped in his chest when he got the script? Had he needed Carson to stamp on his foot during the table read to make him pay attention?
John's vice was just a bit on the strangled side. "Yeah."
"On the fourth take, when we didn't hear them cut--"
God, she remembered that. He was a dead man. Might as well start looking for a Wraith-soul-sucker now and be done with it. He couldn't save himself. Anything he said would be stupid. "Yeah?"
"Why did you let me keep kissing you?"
"Let you?" he asked, whipping his head around to meet her gaze in confusion. "I was the one kissing you. I apologised."
"It was my tongue."
It had been hers. She was right and the memory raced through him like a blast furnace switching on. He had to say something that wasn't moronic. Maybe he could still save himself.
"I guess I was caught up in the moment. You're always talking about the method, anyway," he finished with a smile that he hoped looked more realistic than it felt.
"Oh," the soft sound was almost disappointed. Elizabeth touched his cheek sheepishly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," he begged, switching positions so fast that he almost ended up in the lake. If she ended this conversation before they got to the good part, it wouldn't matter what the Wraith did to them. "What were you doing to say?"
Her cheeks were pink. Elizabeth was blushing. "I think that's my favourite scene."
"Of the show?"
She shifted her weight, putting her legs down and moving ever closer to him. Elizabeth's voice dropped to a whisper. "You could say that."
The light was poor and he could barely see her lips. She rested her hand on his shoulder, then it crept up the back of his neck. Her fingers were cold and he shivers from their touch. The light didn't matter; she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him slowly closer.
Elizabeth's lips were soft and warm against his. The kiss was chaste, even gentle, and they part with a sigh. Elizabeth's forehead rested against his cheek and John let his hand find her arm.
"I should be thinking of home, and my mom and my dog-" Elizabeth paused, running her fingers over his cheek. "Instead, I'm sitting out here, thinking about you."
He could have just landed James Bond and not have been happier. John held her delicate face in his hands then kissed her forehead, just over her right eyebrow. "Thank God I'm not the only one," he whispered back.
Elizabeth's smile was several shades brighter and she insinuates herself further into his arms. The next kiss was rich, consuming; the main course after the appetiser. John's tongue felt its way into her mouth and she reminded him just how much he loved episode two-sixteen. Elizabeth pushed back, rocking him further onto his heels. John let her, welcomed her, even begged her to be closer with every fibre of his being.
The ground behind him sloped slowly towards the lake they'd both forgotten. Elizabeth pressed against his chest, kissing him the way he had been dreaming about for over a year. The heat and breath of her made him forget the lake and his balance. They teetered together, wrapped around each other, before they rolled clumsily back.
John grunted, Elizabeth gasped in surprise and John's left foot stopped them both with a splash. Holding Elizabeth to his chest, her head haloed with stars, he winced as water seeped into his boot.
"John?"
"Just wet," he answered, smiling up at her. "Maybe muddy." The edge of the bank beneath him was damp and slowly soaked into his clothes. He could smell water and reeds around them but all that mattered was her.
Elizabeth started to get up and he stopped her, holding her close. She was thin and slight in his arms but solid against him. Her curls tumbled down, soft against his neck and the back of his hand. His right hand ran down her neck, caressing her collarbone past the edge of her red t-shirt. There were a hundred reasons he could think of to keep going, to pull her shirt off and be with her now, on the bank of the fucking lake.
She kissed him again, leaving fire behind on his lips. "I should go."
"I hate 'should'," John replied, trailing his finger lower down on her chest. "It's never any fun."
"We have a big day tomorrow," she said, but she didn't stop his hand. Beneath her shirt, he could feel the muscles of her stomach. "Something about saving the galaxy."
"Right." He closed his eyes, wondering if he'd been dreaming and when he opened them again and she'd be gone. "We're doing that, aren't we?"
"I don't think this-" she kissed his lips sweetly- "counts as saving the world."
"Even if it feels like it," he sighed and let her go. "You have to get up first."
Elizabeth kissed his chin, then slowly pulled herself away. She stood above him, an angel in the alien moonlight, surrounded by the buzzing of aliens insects. Hell, maybe it was frogs. He couldn't know. She lowered her hand, helping him up. He danced out of the lake, shaking his wet boot and frowning at it.
"You're going to want to dry that before tomorrow," she said in her best parental-Victoria-leader of Atlantis-tone.
"Nah, I'll go soggy," he joked. "I can look good with one wet sock."
"You can," Elizabeth agreed, chuckling a little with him. "I don't know if it will be helpful. In fact, it might even distract you from what you're supposed to be doing."
"Teyla's great and marvellous plan," he said, shaking his head. Elizabeth's hand remained in his and he held it. He wasn't letting go until she did. "You know, I used to think she was just a quick study. Always knew her lines first, always got the blocking; now I know better. She's not some incredible actress. She's just a genius. I couldn't draw up a battle plan if my life depended on it."
"Definitely not with a wet sock," Elizabeth said, winking at him before she pulled away. "I'm sleeping in this tent," she said, pointing over to the right. "I believe you're in with Rodney, Carson and Ronon."
"Rodney snores," John complained, keeping her hand.
Elizabeth's eyes danced from their joined hands to his face and she tugged his hand to move him closer. "You snore."
"I do not," he protested. "It was just the once and I was drunk. A lot of things happened that night." The second season cast party had gone a little wild but no one had ended up hating each other. He'd woken up with Elizabeth's head in his lap and spent the next few nights trying to figure out why he'd gotten so lucky, even if he did snore.
"Maybe just that once," he conceded. Catching her face in his hand again, he could see the red of her lips in the weak light of the fire in the middle of camp. "You're beautiful."
"John," she said, turning her lips inward to kiss his hand. "I'm starting to wonder if there was something in that tea."
"We should get more," he insisted, wrapping his free hand around her lower back. John pulled her closer, pressing their bodies lightly together.
Elizabeth pressed a finger against his lips. "We have to live through tomorrow," she said. She never added a hypothetical after to that. Instead, she squeezed his hand and let his fingers fall away.
John watched her go until she was in the tent. He could have counted the seconds he stood there, waiting to see if she'd look back. He only had to get to three before he caught her smiling at him. After she disappeared into the tent, he smiled out at the lake. If it was a dream, it was an amazing one, even if his leg was soaked all the way up to the knee. Sure, tomorrow he was going to fight aliens he had absolutely no idea how to fight and possibly die, but he couldn't make himself care.
The taste of Elizabeth was still on his lips and he stripped off his boots, hung up his sock and BDU trousers, and crawled into a space on the floor between Rodney and Carson. The furs were warm around him and even though it wasn't his apartment, it was nice. It was being at summer camp again, far away from his father and his brother, out with his friends in the woods.
"Took you long enough," Rodney mumbled, rolling over away from John.
"Thought you were going to stay out all night." Carson teased, elbowing John lightly. It was took dark to see, but John imagined him smiling.
"We have to get up early," he retorted, hunkering down and trying to divert his mind from thoughts of Elizabeth.
"Right," Carson said, swallowing a chuckle. "That's it."
"Who'dve know that there was so little difference between firearms training on set and firearms?" John quipped, loading his rifle. Since the prop was now fully functional, he was carrying it into battle.
Elizabeth was a little more nervous. She'd only really had a gun in episode two-sixteen, and her firearms training wasn't nearly as extensive as John or Rodney's. Carson was in the same boat, and he picked up the stolen Wraith stunner with a look of apprehension.
"You're sure this can't really hurt anyone?" he asked Ronon as he lifted the weapon.
"I can shoot you with it, so you know," Ronon offered. He didn't smile until after Carson had pulled his hands back instinctually. "First you feel like your body's dead. Then you get a headache. Nothing too bad. just like we talked about."
"You're in the back," Elizabeth reminded him. "You're our backup, our medic, you don't need to worry."
"If they're shooting at you and you need to shoot back, we're dead," Rodney said darkly.
Elizabeth watched poor Carson pale a little. She had missed him terribly. She patted his shoulder comfortingly. "We won't dead. Teyla and Ronon have a good plan, Atlantis is our city, it's on our side, just waiting for us."
"You make it sound like a puppy," Rodney noticed, tucking his grenade into his tactical vest.
Elizabeth hadn't realised that it was live explosive and she found herself looking at John for comfort.
He held out his own grenade and showed her the pin. "I don't think we'll need 'em. Atlantis is supposed to be deserted. No one knows it exists, right?"
"Yeah," Ronon said, waiting by the 'gate with his huge arms crossed over his chest.
"We believe so," Teyla said more helpfully. She finished checking over her own gear and walked past John and Rodney with a pleased nod. "I do think all the weapons are a precautionary measure and I like to be careful."
"Careful is good," Rodney agreed, taking his position next to Ronon. He was adapting better now that he had a purpose. Rodney always felt better when he was doing something constructive.
"We can agree with that, right, Carson?" Elizabeth said warmly.
Teyla checked over Elizabeth's vest, tucked in a strap and then nodded and moved on to Carson. Carson's vest was perfect, but she checked his stunner thoroughly before she moved on. "You will be fine Carson, just stay close to us."
John stood in front of the 'gate, almost framing himself with the circle of metal. Teyla took her place next to him and nodded to the hunter at the dialing device. John double checked the communication device on his arm and lit it up.
"Dial Atlantis," Teyla ordered.
Elizabeth watched in wonder as light chased itself around the 'gate. She'd seen it happen on the set and a few times on the show, but it put butterflies in her stomach to watch it for real. The 'gate hummed, then burst with bright blue light. It poured outward as if something had exploded behind it, then settled down to ripple gently. It really was incredible, like something out of a story. She'd never been that involved in the mythology behind the show. She learned her lines, she showed up on time but she'd never been into the show. It was a job and she hadn't gotten any further into it than that.
Now, she was about to walk through a mystical portal to a floating city and change the fate of a galaxy; all without a script. It was like her first movie set all over again, or that terrible TV spot where she'd been far too young and innocent. Her stomach was tied into knots that danced all over the place, like a spider's web being pulled between two blades of grass. John tapped his device, and something within it lit up blue. John and Teyla disappeared, then Rodney and Ronon and finally it was just her and Carson staring at the 'gate.
"It gets better," Carson reminded her. "It's never as bad as the first time. I haven't thrown up since the first time."
Elizabeth couldn't tell if he was being calming for her or for himself, but she smiled at him. "We'll be fine," she agreed. "We just walk through together, and look for cover. Easy."
The light from the 'gate left blue ripples of colour on Carson's face as he stilled himself. "Easy."
This time she knew what was going to happen and she walked right into it. The space between realities, the wormhole, or whatever magical science it was, consumed her and turned her into one of the many points of light all around her. Instead of fighting it, this time Elizabeth both surrounded and was the light. In barely any time, or after a hundred years, she wasn't sure which, she emerged into Atlantis.
The real Atlantis was a paradise of stained glass and gently curved architecture. Green and blue metal surrounded them, and the steps Teyla stood on lit up behind her feet. Rodney looked gleeful as he looked over control panels covered in sheets. Ronon was making a perimeter sweep and John stood in the middle, grinning at her as if he'd just been giving an Oscar.
"Look at this," he said, tucking his gun away. "Just look at this. Elizabeth- all of it's true. All of it's real. The 'gate, the controls, the lights in the stairs..."
Teyla looked up at the windows and the blue light beyond. "We are also underwater."
Rodney's glee faded away immediately. "We're going to die."
'We're not," John said, running up the stairs towards him. "It's all right. We're just underwater, in a city that was designed to go underwater, right?"
Teyla's expression remained neutral as she moved closer to the windows looking out into the ocean. "I can see the surface. The Ancients must have submerged the city to keep it safe from their enemies."
"In the pilot, we almost died because the city ran out of power," Rodney reminded all of them.
Ronon seemed amused by his memory, but said nothing. The large man seemed almost disappointed that there was nothing to fight and he'd relaxed his guard somewhat.
"We are not on a television show that must have peril to be interesting," Teyla reminded Rodney. "We are also not as large of a group as we had in the beginning of the show. The amount of power drained by us being here is small compared to what a group of sixty would generate."
Rodney still didn't look convinced but he was distracted when John starting pulling sheets. Control panels lit up beneath his touch and stayed on.
Elizabeth headed slowly up the stairs, a dumbstruck Carson at her side.
"Maybe I am dead," he muttered, almost to himself. "This could be heaven. It's beautiful, people I know are here. My mother's going to show up in a few minutes."
Elizabeth squeezed his shoulder, leading him up the stairs into the control room. It looked almost identical, except where the Atlantis she knew was a soundstage, this had walls, real doors, and corridors that went on forever after them. She looked down at the brightly lit control panel, wondering if the Ancient symbols she knew from looking at the same props for three years had any value here.
John snuck up behind her, nudging her shoulder. "Check out your office," he said, almost bouncing with amusement.
Across the little walkway was the room her, Victoria's, office had been based on. It was empty of the masks and art that had been Victoria's, but it was unmistakably her space. Elizabeth headed across, running her fingers along the railing in disbelief. The metal was warmer than she expected and that was almost welcoming, as if the city really had wanted them to come. She stood in the centre, where her desk would be, and shivered. It was the opposite of deja vu. Instead of her memory being more powerful, Atlantis was so beautiful that it pushed all of that away.
This was real and Elizabeth suddenly felt very small where she stood. Like a child finding out the castle of her imagination was real and the last bastion against a very real threat, she felt unarmed and vulnerable. A handful of actors couldn't hold the magical city against the vampires that fed in the night. It was ridiculous.
She lowered her gaze to the floor and was almost tempted to curl into a ball against the wall and wait for Teyla to tell her wait to do. She wasn't Victoria, she wasn't tough or the kind of person who stared down the bad guys. She learned her lines and fell stupidly in love with her co-star, neither of those things were particularly heroic.
"Someone's dialing in," Rodney said in a sudden flurry of movement by the panel.
Elizabeth startled, moving closer to the class to see what was happening. Beyond the walls of her office, she could see the 'gate light up and begin to dial.
"Yours?" John asked just in case. It wasn't part of the plan to have Teyla's people follow them yet, but John was careful. Elizabeth admired his instincts and wondered if she had any of her own that would be useful.
"No," Teyla said, her voice deepening with concern. "Can you raise the shield?"
Rodney slammed a control and the sheilf flew up before he'd even realised what he was doing. "Oh," he said in surprise. "It's the same control."
"Good to know," Carson said, hovering behind him.
John has his rifle out again and he and Ronon were eyeing the 'gate with suspicion. It continued to spin, gaining more lights before there was flash and a whoosh of light against the shield. The golden light held it the opening thrust of the 'gate and remained up. It was silent in the huge 'gate room for a long time as the six of them held their breath, waiting.
The hum of the shield was almost oppressively loud before something hit it. Elizabeth jumped then, not wanting to believe what it was. It was like having a bird hit the windshield of a car. She could imagine the impact in her mind, and she knew it had happened, but there was no evidence. She still felt the loss, no matter how irrational it was. The 'gate clicked off and the shield vanished a moment later.
Rodney's hand was shaking as he held it over the control, just in case the needed it again. Ronon and Teyla shared a long look.
"Keep an eye on the shield," John said, touching Rodney's shoulder. "We're going to search the city." He looked to Elizabeth when Carson didn't move.
"Did someone just...?" Carson asked.
"I think so, but surely they--" Rodney stopped, staring at the shield. They weren't capable of discussing it. They'd killed someone. It could have been a rock, or a tree branch; they could tell themselves that, but they knew better.
"Come with me," John said, offering his hand to her. "Rodney and Carson can keep an eye on the 'gate. Elizabeth tore her eyes from it reluctantly and took John's hand like a lifeline.
Teyla and Ronon were dividing the doors based on a map Teyla held that looked so old it could have been pulled from a tomb. Elizabeth realised it very well might have been but said nothing.
"Who was that?" John asked them.
"The Genii, Ronon answered without much elaboration. "They want the city."
Elizabeth felt the cold fingers on the back of her neck return. Kolya, the leader of the Genii, had been one of the most intense villains on the show. If he too were based in real life...she had no desire to meet him.
"Waving your hand in front of the crystals like this opens the door," Teyla demonstrated. "The device on your arm can be configured to find mine by touching this glyph and this one here," she tapped them in and Elizabeth tried to sear them into her memory. They would be important if they got lost. "Try to head for the middle of the city. We need to find a large chair device."
"No way," John interrupted, suddenly full of wonder again. "Atlantis really has that?"
"Of course it does," Teyla said, looking at him with curiosity. "I tried to be thorough in my representation of the city. I did wish you to be accurately prepared."
"Thanks," John replied, beaming at Elizabeth. It was the same smile he'd had when he brought his skateboard to set, only magnified a few hundred times. "Come on," he said, tugging her hand gently. "We have to find this."
"Good luck," Ronon said, patting John's back. "Touch only the doors."
Elizabeth agreed with him; they didn't need any distractions. Atlantis could be a death trap just as easily as it could be their salvation.
John rolled his eyes a little but nodded. "See you in the chair room."
"Not if we beat you," Ronon finished, heading for the other large door out of the room.
After five minutes of walking through blue lit corridors, Elizabeth still had John's hand in hers. It made her feel a little like a child again. John's sense of wonder was certainly childlike, but he was careful as they followed the route sketched out their copy of the map.
"Left," they agreed and John waved the door open. They'd seen a huge whale-like creature swim past one of the windows and Elizabeth was hoping for another. Atlantis was unbelievably huge. It would have taken up the entire studio lot and the one next to it, possibly even the other one across the road. She'd never been anywhere like it before and she doubted anything else would measure up again when she got back. If she ever got back.
John led her around another corner, and this time she opened the door. Having the city welcome them with lights and open doors was unnerving. It really was a little like having a new puppy. Everything that happened was anxious to please them. If they hesitated in a doorway, the lights stayed on in both rooms. Atlantis wanted them to be welcome, and it was difficult not to feel at home. She had been living here, even though she'd never been here before. Elizabeth had put her life into Atlantis for the last three years and now she finally felt as if she belonged.
John paused in front of one of the huge windows, then pointed. "Check it out," he said, drawing her eyes. "More fish."
"Maybe they like the light," Elizabeth guessed. She wound her arm around his and watched the school of silver fish disappear away into the dark sea around them. "I've never been underwater."
"I've been diving," John admitted, "but nothing like this."
"Nothing has ever been like this," she agreed, holding him closer. John took the initiative, stealing a kiss before they continued on. The motion was slight and quick; Elizabeth was almost unsure it had even happened, except for the way she was blushing. They were going to have to talk, if they got out of this. If it were even possible to get out of this.
Teyla and Ronon arrived in the chair room a moment after they did. The four of them stood around a chair in the centre of a circular room. The walls closed in around them and the light waited patiently for someone to take the chair. Teyla glanced at it, then looked at John, resigned to her inability to work the technology. "You must raise the city above the water if we are to defend ourselves."
"Just think up?" John asked.
Elizabeth recognised his nervous smile and wished she could do more to help him. She knew he'd taken a piloting lesson or two, once, a long time ago. This wasn't a plane so maybe they wouldn't even apply. As he was about to sit down, she bounded up and caught him. Taking his shoulders, she kissed him.
"For luck," she explained, returning to Teyla and Ronon. She was blushing bright pink and she thought she saw a touch of red on John's face as well. Ronon grinned and Teyla seemed entirely unsurprised. She pulled a radio, John's, from her pocket and spoke into it.
"Rodney, we have arrived in the chair room--"
"Teyla!" Rodney's grateful chip interrupted her over the radio. "They keep dialing in. I don't know how they are, but they keep trying. I almost missed it last time. I don't know if this shield is going to hold--"
"Tell him I'm coming," Ronon said, rolling his eyes.
"Ronon and I will assist you," Teyla said into the radio. "We will arrive shortly."
John had sat while they were talking and the initial blue light had only brightened since he'd been there. While Teyla had talked to Rodney, he'd been in with the city. Elizabeth had no idea what he was doing, or how any of it could possibly help, but Teyla seemed to think it would. That had to mean something.
"Will you stay?" Teyla asked, waiting by the door.
Elizabeth had no idea if John could hear her, or what was happening. She started to speak and the floor shook beneath them. More controlled than an earthquake, the floor shook one more time then began to rise. They were moving, heaving upwards, just as they had wanted to do.
"Come," Teyla decided for her, waving her towards the door. "John will be able to speak to us in control, if he needs to."
She hated leaving him, even if he was unaware they were even with him anymore.
"Come," Teyla said again. "He will be fine."
Back in the control room, breathing quickly from the pace Ronon and Teyla had set, Elizabeth watched as they took up defensive positions facing the 'gate.
"Wait," Rodney said, looking at them both in confusion. "On the show we just leave the 'gate shield up. Nothing comes through."
Behind the great window at the top of the staircase, Elizabeth could see sunlight streaming in. The concern and worry on Teyla's and Ronon's faces seemed entirely out of place.
"Do you remember Kolya, Rodney?" Teyla asked him over the barrel of her rifle.
"Course I do," Rodney said, blowing off the question.
Something else hit the shield and for a moment it flickered. Elizabeth instinctually pulled back, putting a console between her and the 'gate, just like Carson had.
"He was one of the more interesting villains," Rodney continued, still staring at Teyla. "John killed him."
"John has not been in this reality long enough to kill him," Teyla answered.
"Too bad," Ronon added, never shifting his position.
Teyla frowned and that made Elizabeth's heart sink down into her stomach. Wraith were bad enough. Kolya had been the man behind some of the more terrifying scenes of the show. He'd tortured John's character, terrified Rodney's, nearly kidnapped hers, and done everything he could to cause misery. That was the fictional version. The real version was undoubtedly as much like the fake as the city was to the set.
"How do you think he got our plans?" Teyla asked Ronon across her gun. "Do you think there was a traitor involved?"
"I've always thought you had a spy," he grumbled.
Elizabeth stared at the Wraith stunner leaning next to the control panel where Rodney still sat. She wasn't a good shot, but she could certainly help. Lifting it up and sighting down the barrel at Ronon's side, she realised Victoria would never be there. Victoria was never going to kiss her flyboy in the hallway, or find her way home.
"Rodney," Teyla said, her voice deathly calm. "Drop the shield."
Teyla and Ronon were brutally efficient with their guns. Without slow motion or cameras to follow the action, Elizabeth quickly realised that unless one was trained in the art of weapons, it was all luck to fire a gun. Luck fell three of the Genii warriors but Teyla and Ronon's skill felled a great many more. The air stank of ozone from the stunner and gunpowder. Ronon was smiling and Teyla seemed content.
"Raise the shield," Teyla ordered Rodney.
He obeyed, and a quick glance back told Elizabeth he was no longer trembling. He was surrounded by death, and Rodney understood. Carson was having a harder time with it. He'd always been more sensitive, and it brought a great depth to his character. He finally found a place behind Rodney, and put a hand on his shoulder as they peered down on the pile of bodies. It was more death than any of them had ever seen and the smell of blood and sorched flesh turned Elizabeth's stomach.
Teyla and Ronon started their way down. Teyla held a pistol and Ronon his weapon. Elizabeth watched them for a moment before she saw the first shot. They were executing the wounded. One of the Genii pawed at Ronon before he shot it and Elizabeth had to close her eyes. Each gunshot cut into her and she had no way of tuning them out.
"He is not here," Teyla said with curt disappointment. "I thought he would come if we had the city of the Ancients."
"Perhaps he is a greater coward than any of us realised," Ronon shrugged, kicking aside a dead body. "I thought you were giving him too much credit."
Stopping at the top the the staircase, Elizabeth looked over the bodies and wondered why she hadn't been sick. Her stomach was one solid knot, but her knees were solid. Would it hit her later that all of the bodies had once been men?
Someone grabbed her shoulder and Elizabeth tried to turn, thinking it was John or Rodney. Instead of a familiar, a deep, strange voice rasped in her ear.
"Hold very still," he ordered, "assuming you want to live."
Teyla and Ronon's guns were immediately up and pointed at her. Elizabeth had to remember that they weren't pointed at her. The knife in her throat definitely was directed towards her and cold fear grabbed her with iron fingers.
"Let her go Kolya," Teyla said. There was a malice Elizabeth had never heard before in her voice.
"Oh no," Koyla disagreed, tightening his grip. Elizabeth coudn't move; could barely breathe with his arms around her. "I'm taking her and I'm leaving. Dial the address I came from or she dies."
Elizabeth could just see Rodney's terrified face past the railing. When he didn't move, Koyla dug the knife in. Elizabeth bit her lip but she couldn't help her startled cry of pain. Across the room from her, the 'gate started to light up and dial out. Teyla and Ronon looked at each other, but they were on the same side of the room. Koyla held her close enough that all she could smell was his sweat and old gunpowder. His arms were still iron around her and Elizabeth began to wonder if this was how she was going to die. Killed by a madman before she knew if they had saved the galaxy or not.
Motion in a corner of the 'gateroom drew everyone's attention at the bottom of the great stairs.
"Kolya," John recognised, even with knowing. Maybe it was the familiarity of the position; Elizabeth was being held just as Victoria had been in episode one-eleven. "Let her go."
"Or you'll what?" Kolya asked, laughing.
Elizabeth could feel the vibrations behind her and that made her stomach turn and twist more than the bodies.
"Make an impossible shot and save her?" he asked, incredulous. "I know what you are. All of you 'heroes' and nothing but frauds from another realm. The soldiers know better than to try and hit me. What are you going to do? Talk me to death?"
"Elizabeth," John called, drawing her attention. "Elizabeth, episode three-twenty."
"You are going to try and talk me out of it, aren't you?" Kolya's laughter became even more maniacal. "You, a pitiful little pretty boy--"
John didn't move.
Teyla and Ronon couldn't reach her. Rodney couldn't help her and John wasn't a colonel. He couldn't shoot Koyla and save her.
She was going to die.
She'd never told John how much, how foolishly, she loved him. Could he see it in her eyes? Was time running as slowly for him as it was for her?
Elizabeth felt the shockwave first. Outside the huge stained glass window, the one that was intended to doom poor Victoria, something had exploded. The crackling of glass and the stinging heat came second. Kolya, with his back to the window, took the full brunt of the blast. His arms flew wide in surprise and shock in that instant, she was free.
Elizabeth took advantage of that and dropped. Curling into a ball with her hands over her head, she waited out the hell around her. Glass flew past her and rained down on her with pieces of flame. It wasn't until hands were guiding her up that she even dared to breathe.
"He's gone," John murmured, holding her close to his chest. He stroked her hair, pulling out shards of glass. "He's gone."
She lifted her head from his chest, wiping tears from her eyes.
John quickly turned her away. "Don't look just yet," he warned. "Give yourself a while. We're not heroes, you know."
"What did you do?" she asked, surprised by how much she was trembling.
"Gave Carson my grenade," John shrugged, grinning at her. "Didn't think it would work that well."
Elizabeth stared up at him in shock. It was an incredibly stupid, reckless thing to do, and it had saved her life.
"I got lucky," he whispered, leaning down to kiss her and take all her protests away. At least, for the moment.
Epilogue:
"The Wraith are retreating." Lekure, one of the Athosian engineers, reported from the central console. "They have been defeated."
Elizabeth let her arms hold her up and shook the weakness out of her knees. She'd been fighting the Wraith for just over a year now, and every time they locked weapons in the cold darkness of space, she went through the same gutwrenching stages of fear and relief. It was a little like beginning a new show. Maybe that was why she'd stayed. Maybe it was because she had been ready to be done acting.
John's voice, as carefree as ever, crackled over the radio. "How're you guys doing down there?" He'd been flying puddlejumpers against darts out around Atlantis, a skill he'd picked up with incredible speed.
"We're in one piece," Elizabeth told him, smiling widely. "What's our score now?"
"Atlantis eighteen, Wraith zero," John said, chuckling. "Who knew we were that good?"
"Certainly not the Emmy's." She could hear him laugh harder at the quip.
"You save dinner for me?"
Elizabeth leaned against the panel behind her, rocking back on forth on her aching feet. "Don't I always?"
"You get a good recording for Rodney?" John asked, talking to her while he flew the jumper home. "He's been wanting more of the fighter jockey stuff."
"I did." She retreated to her office. She had never intended to be a leader. Playing one on TV was one thing, running a city was something else entirely. First, she'd been terrified. Then, slowly, after many long nights with John's arms around her, Elizabeth realised that the control she summoned up to play Victoria could be summoned up as Elizabeth.
Even if Elizabeth didn't have a doctor and speak five languages. Elizabeth could rally the friendly aliens to fight the evil ones. She could organise a team, not unlike Victoria.
Sinking into her chair, Elizabeth flicked on her computer. It was one of the aliens ones, more like a tablet or one of those new I-things Rodney was so excited about back on Earth. After a little work, her new computer had solitaire and as long as she was in Atlantis, through the magic of subspace and the glowing ZPMs that ran the city, she could email Rodney and her mother once a week.
Pegasus X-Treme had been renewed yet again. They'd had to replace her and John, but Joe and Victoria's heroic deaths had taken the show in a new direction. Rodney even had a love interest and her dog was happy with her mother.
She hadn't even realised how far she'd drifted off into her thoughts until John was perched on her desk, leaning forward to kiss her.
"Hail to the conquering hero." He teased, kissing her cheek rakishly. "Miss me?"
Smiling at him and returning the kiss with a deep, needy exploration of his mouth, Elizabeth thoroughly answered his question. She dug her fingers into his shoulder, smelling the finally mechanical odour of the jumper bay on him. "Let's have dinner." She tugged his hand, dragging him towards the mess hall.
John stumbled behind her. "I might not be that hungry." His face was a little flushed and she'd gotten his attention.
Elizabeth pulled him into the transporter and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Neither am I."
He kissed her, shoving her back against the wall with gleeful enthusiasm. The motion of his lips against hers made her weak in the knees again but this time Elizabeth loved the sensation.
"John," she murmured as they left on the level of their quarters, not the mess hall.
He nuzzled her cheek then trailed his hand through her dark curls. "Mmm?"
"Remember the talk we had this morning?"
"I remember you being naked."
Elizabeth giggled and waved her hand in front of the glowing blue crystals to open the door. "I'd have gotten dressed if I'd known that was all you'd remember."
Sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her to the strangely out of place wooden bed they'd procured on a trade mission, John dropped her gently and leaned over her. He traced her neck, then smiled sweetly. "I think it's a great idea. A scary idea, but...I can't think of anyone else I'd want to do something big and scary like living in another galaxy or--"
Sucking on her neck just below her ear, John made her moan and left off the rest of his thought.
"Having a baby with you," she finished.
He nodded, pulling off his t-shirt. "Besides, I hear we need to lower the odds by having a lot of sex."
Undoing the catch of his trousers, Elizabeth smiled sagely. "And you're all for having a lot of sex."
"With you?" He beamed. "Always."
== The End ==
Author: oparu
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir
Rating: PG-13
Warning: none
Word Count: 16,622
Summary: Elizabeth Weir is an actress on the successful sci-fi drama, Pegasus X-Treme (a spin off of the wildly popular Wormhole X-Treme. Everything's going great until the end of the third season when the producers decide to 'take the show in another direction' and kill her character, the diplomat, Dr. Victoria Higginson. She could just get another job...but she's fallen in love with her costar, the scruffy-sex symbol, John Sheppard and she can't just leave without telling him.
On her last day of work, they set up an easy scene before lunch. Just a walk through their brand new Stargate set piece one that actually lights up and produces a water-like effect...
the amazing poster by azarsuerte.
part one
The rock hit the surface of the water and sank. The second one did the same. Either Elizabeth was the world's (maybe the universe's) worst rock skipper or she wasn't trying. He didn't have a good segue if she wasn't trying, so John decided to pretend she was. Might as well go for it.
"You kinda have to flick your wrist," he said, flopping down next to her on the dry bank of the swampy little lake near Teyla's village.
"Oh?" Elizabeth asked, looking a little confused. Even confusion was cute on her.
"To skip the rock," John said with a smile. "You have to flick your wrist to skip the rock."
"I'm not skipping rocks," she said with a smile. "At least, I hadn't intended to."
"So you're just tossing them in the water, trying not to hit fish in the head?" John asked lazily. He wanted her smile to brighten up a little. He had a feeling he could do it if he kept at it. "Or trying to hit fish in the head? Elizabeth, really, there are better ways to catch fish. I think one of Teyla's friends here could help you if that's what you're into..." As he elaborated on the ways to catch fish, and how rocks really were not accepted as one of the best, she giggled and he barely managed to keep a straight face. Mission accomplished.
"You okay?" he asked. The ripples on the pond had faded and the alien bugs hummed around them. Either the birds on this planet were into a really weird kind of warbling, or Teyla's planet had some pretty big bugs. He didn't need to know.
"Sure," Elizabeth answered. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Sarcasm was a good sign. When Elizabeth was really down, she didn't bother. She'd been pretty quiet since the production staff announced they were terminating her contract. He would have probably been quiet to if they were busting a window in his face. John liked this light in her eyes and he was glad it had come back, even if they had to be on the far side of the universe to get it.
"You're trapped on an alien planet about to go on a possibly suicidal mission?" he asked, searching the ground around him for one of the little rocks she'd been tossing. Finding one, John smoothed it in his hands. "Have some big blockbuster waiting for you when you get home?"
She sighed heavily and pulled her knees up to her chest. Elizabeth dropped her head onto them and her dark curls tumbled down on top of themselves. The humidity was slowly getting to them, and messing up her hair in a way he found unreasonably attractive. "No," she answered finally. "Oh no, bunch of auditions, but hey, that's the gig right? We audition and sometimes we're rewarded." She wrapped her arms tighter. "My mother has my dog."
"She usually does, right?" John remembered. Cleaning his rock slowly, he watched her smile a little in response.
"They get along great," Elizabeth said. Her smile grew as she lifted her head. "My mother says it keeps her young, and Sedge doesn't seem to mind being spoiled. She'll be all right there."
John didn't ask her how long she thinks Sedge will be there, or how much Elizabeth must be worried about her mother. He had known they were close, and he liked that about Elizabeth the first time she told him. John's family was a mess, wealthy, proper people out on the east coast who don't care much for their son being an actor on that science fiction show. If he worked in 'the theatre' or confined his roles to documentaries trying to save the world, he might be all right. He'd still be living off his trust fund and his father would like that. Nancy might look for him after awhile. Especially when the show goes off the air. She might notice if it made the news.
"Do you think they'll call it an accident?" he asked, hoping the line of thought wasn't too dark. "Like Carson?" He tossed the rock and it skipped four times. Not too bad. He could do better with a flatter rock.
"Do you think there was an accident?" Elizabeth asked, eyes wide with concern. "You don't think anyone on the crew was hurt..."
"Nah," he waved off that thought and found a rock. Showing it to her as he rubbed the dirt off of it, John grinned to ease the mood, "Teyla's careful."
"There are so many things I thought I knew about her," she said, watching him and the rock.
He rubbed it a few more times, then aimed out into the lake. John got five skips that time and a resounding plop at the end. "You know what they say about people you work with," he said with a shrug. "You never really know them." He liked to think he knew her, and Elizabeth was more than just someone he worked with; he was starting to think it had been that way for awhile now.
"What don't I know about you, John Sheppard?" she asked, smiling again.
If she knew what that look did to the pit of his stomach, he might be a dead man. John found another rock instead of answering right away. He had to say something more than that lame thoughts in his head. He could do it, find something useful, anything.
"I like skateboarding."
She shook her head. "I saw you on the back lot with Evan."
"I hate pistachios."
"You pick them out of the nuts at craft service," Elizabeth said.
John's search for a rock had left him right next to her. Less than a foot was between them and he was starting to feel the way he had in episode two-sixteen. The warm, tingling sensation crept up from his toes and settled in the roots of his hair. He shivered reflexively.
"Do you want my coat?" Elizabeth asked, even though it wouldn't fit.
The earnest desire to be helpful behind her smile made John laugh. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, even though that brought him painfully close and he tried to avoid being painfully close to her. He liked close. He liked close a hell of a lot and painfully close would be his undoing.
"I think it was just one of those someone walked over my grave moments," he covered weakly. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce...plop. Six, he thought, really not bad.
"I hope your grave isn't in this galaxy," she said. The darkness of that shared thought hushed them both for awhile and then Elizabeth sighed. "I can't decide if I should treat this as a gig in my head and just let it go, or if I should make something better of it. Am I playing Victoria for the whole galaxy so they can have someone to believe in, or am I--"
"I like you better as you," he said, shrugging. "If that means anything."
"Victoria has a PhD," she argued. Elizabeth's hand drifted over and rested on his arm.
John just barely managed not to shiver again and gulped in relief. "So does Doctor David Hewlett," he reminded her. "I like Rodney a hell of a lot better."
"You like Rodney?"
"Of course I like Rodney," He put on a wounded look. "We have a-" he paused and grinned, "-unique relationship. Kinda like brothers."
"Older and younger brothers," Elizabeth surmised with a quick shake of her head.
God, he loved her curls when she did that. He wanted to tangle his hands into them, pull her close and-- John swallowed again, this time harder. "Family. It's important, don't you think?"
Elizabeth's grin back was small and her lips had an impish curl to them. "Am I the older or younger sister?"
"Definitely Rodney's older sister," he replied, quickly looking away. He might have put too much emphasis on Rodney, or otherwise looked like an idiot.
"John-" her voice was soft and he nearly jumped.
Yeah, he was definitely an idiot. "'Lizabeth?" Her fingers moved gently along his arm.
"Do you remember episode two-sixteen?" she asked.
Did he remember it? Did it cross his mind once a day off set and eight or nine times a day on set? Had his heart skipped in his chest when he got the script? Had he needed Carson to stamp on his foot during the table read to make him pay attention?
John's vice was just a bit on the strangled side. "Yeah."
"On the fourth take, when we didn't hear them cut--"
God, she remembered that. He was a dead man. Might as well start looking for a Wraith-soul-sucker now and be done with it. He couldn't save himself. Anything he said would be stupid. "Yeah?"
"Why did you let me keep kissing you?"
"Let you?" he asked, whipping his head around to meet her gaze in confusion. "I was the one kissing you. I apologised."
"It was my tongue."
It had been hers. She was right and the memory raced through him like a blast furnace switching on. He had to say something that wasn't moronic. Maybe he could still save himself.
"I guess I was caught up in the moment. You're always talking about the method, anyway," he finished with a smile that he hoped looked more realistic than it felt.
"Oh," the soft sound was almost disappointed. Elizabeth touched his cheek sheepishly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," he begged, switching positions so fast that he almost ended up in the lake. If she ended this conversation before they got to the good part, it wouldn't matter what the Wraith did to them. "What were you doing to say?"
Her cheeks were pink. Elizabeth was blushing. "I think that's my favourite scene."
"Of the show?"
She shifted her weight, putting her legs down and moving ever closer to him. Elizabeth's voice dropped to a whisper. "You could say that."
The light was poor and he could barely see her lips. She rested her hand on his shoulder, then it crept up the back of his neck. Her fingers were cold and he shivers from their touch. The light didn't matter; she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him slowly closer.
Elizabeth's lips were soft and warm against his. The kiss was chaste, even gentle, and they part with a sigh. Elizabeth's forehead rested against his cheek and John let his hand find her arm.
"I should be thinking of home, and my mom and my dog-" Elizabeth paused, running her fingers over his cheek. "Instead, I'm sitting out here, thinking about you."
He could have just landed James Bond and not have been happier. John held her delicate face in his hands then kissed her forehead, just over her right eyebrow. "Thank God I'm not the only one," he whispered back.
Elizabeth's smile was several shades brighter and she insinuates herself further into his arms. The next kiss was rich, consuming; the main course after the appetiser. John's tongue felt its way into her mouth and she reminded him just how much he loved episode two-sixteen. Elizabeth pushed back, rocking him further onto his heels. John let her, welcomed her, even begged her to be closer with every fibre of his being.
The ground behind him sloped slowly towards the lake they'd both forgotten. Elizabeth pressed against his chest, kissing him the way he had been dreaming about for over a year. The heat and breath of her made him forget the lake and his balance. They teetered together, wrapped around each other, before they rolled clumsily back.
John grunted, Elizabeth gasped in surprise and John's left foot stopped them both with a splash. Holding Elizabeth to his chest, her head haloed with stars, he winced as water seeped into his boot.
"John?"
"Just wet," he answered, smiling up at her. "Maybe muddy." The edge of the bank beneath him was damp and slowly soaked into his clothes. He could smell water and reeds around them but all that mattered was her.
Elizabeth started to get up and he stopped her, holding her close. She was thin and slight in his arms but solid against him. Her curls tumbled down, soft against his neck and the back of his hand. His right hand ran down her neck, caressing her collarbone past the edge of her red t-shirt. There were a hundred reasons he could think of to keep going, to pull her shirt off and be with her now, on the bank of the fucking lake.
She kissed him again, leaving fire behind on his lips. "I should go."
"I hate 'should'," John replied, trailing his finger lower down on her chest. "It's never any fun."
"We have a big day tomorrow," she said, but she didn't stop his hand. Beneath her shirt, he could feel the muscles of her stomach. "Something about saving the galaxy."
"Right." He closed his eyes, wondering if he'd been dreaming and when he opened them again and she'd be gone. "We're doing that, aren't we?"
"I don't think this-" she kissed his lips sweetly- "counts as saving the world."
"Even if it feels like it," he sighed and let her go. "You have to get up first."
Elizabeth kissed his chin, then slowly pulled herself away. She stood above him, an angel in the alien moonlight, surrounded by the buzzing of aliens insects. Hell, maybe it was frogs. He couldn't know. She lowered her hand, helping him up. He danced out of the lake, shaking his wet boot and frowning at it.
"You're going to want to dry that before tomorrow," she said in her best parental-Victoria-leader of Atlantis-tone.
"Nah, I'll go soggy," he joked. "I can look good with one wet sock."
"You can," Elizabeth agreed, chuckling a little with him. "I don't know if it will be helpful. In fact, it might even distract you from what you're supposed to be doing."
"Teyla's great and marvellous plan," he said, shaking his head. Elizabeth's hand remained in his and he held it. He wasn't letting go until she did. "You know, I used to think she was just a quick study. Always knew her lines first, always got the blocking; now I know better. She's not some incredible actress. She's just a genius. I couldn't draw up a battle plan if my life depended on it."
"Definitely not with a wet sock," Elizabeth said, winking at him before she pulled away. "I'm sleeping in this tent," she said, pointing over to the right. "I believe you're in with Rodney, Carson and Ronon."
"Rodney snores," John complained, keeping her hand.
Elizabeth's eyes danced from their joined hands to his face and she tugged his hand to move him closer. "You snore."
"I do not," he protested. "It was just the once and I was drunk. A lot of things happened that night." The second season cast party had gone a little wild but no one had ended up hating each other. He'd woken up with Elizabeth's head in his lap and spent the next few nights trying to figure out why he'd gotten so lucky, even if he did snore.
"Maybe just that once," he conceded. Catching her face in his hand again, he could see the red of her lips in the weak light of the fire in the middle of camp. "You're beautiful."
"John," she said, turning her lips inward to kiss his hand. "I'm starting to wonder if there was something in that tea."
"We should get more," he insisted, wrapping his free hand around her lower back. John pulled her closer, pressing their bodies lightly together.
Elizabeth pressed a finger against his lips. "We have to live through tomorrow," she said. She never added a hypothetical after to that. Instead, she squeezed his hand and let his fingers fall away.
John watched her go until she was in the tent. He could have counted the seconds he stood there, waiting to see if she'd look back. He only had to get to three before he caught her smiling at him. After she disappeared into the tent, he smiled out at the lake. If it was a dream, it was an amazing one, even if his leg was soaked all the way up to the knee. Sure, tomorrow he was going to fight aliens he had absolutely no idea how to fight and possibly die, but he couldn't make himself care.
The taste of Elizabeth was still on his lips and he stripped off his boots, hung up his sock and BDU trousers, and crawled into a space on the floor between Rodney and Carson. The furs were warm around him and even though it wasn't his apartment, it was nice. It was being at summer camp again, far away from his father and his brother, out with his friends in the woods.
"Took you long enough," Rodney mumbled, rolling over away from John.
"Thought you were going to stay out all night." Carson teased, elbowing John lightly. It was took dark to see, but John imagined him smiling.
"We have to get up early," he retorted, hunkering down and trying to divert his mind from thoughts of Elizabeth.
"Right," Carson said, swallowing a chuckle. "That's it."
"Who'dve know that there was so little difference between firearms training on set and firearms?" John quipped, loading his rifle. Since the prop was now fully functional, he was carrying it into battle.
Elizabeth was a little more nervous. She'd only really had a gun in episode two-sixteen, and her firearms training wasn't nearly as extensive as John or Rodney's. Carson was in the same boat, and he picked up the stolen Wraith stunner with a look of apprehension.
"You're sure this can't really hurt anyone?" he asked Ronon as he lifted the weapon.
"I can shoot you with it, so you know," Ronon offered. He didn't smile until after Carson had pulled his hands back instinctually. "First you feel like your body's dead. Then you get a headache. Nothing too bad. just like we talked about."
"You're in the back," Elizabeth reminded him. "You're our backup, our medic, you don't need to worry."
"If they're shooting at you and you need to shoot back, we're dead," Rodney said darkly.
Elizabeth watched poor Carson pale a little. She had missed him terribly. She patted his shoulder comfortingly. "We won't dead. Teyla and Ronon have a good plan, Atlantis is our city, it's on our side, just waiting for us."
"You make it sound like a puppy," Rodney noticed, tucking his grenade into his tactical vest.
Elizabeth hadn't realised that it was live explosive and she found herself looking at John for comfort.
He held out his own grenade and showed her the pin. "I don't think we'll need 'em. Atlantis is supposed to be deserted. No one knows it exists, right?"
"Yeah," Ronon said, waiting by the 'gate with his huge arms crossed over his chest.
"We believe so," Teyla said more helpfully. She finished checking over her own gear and walked past John and Rodney with a pleased nod. "I do think all the weapons are a precautionary measure and I like to be careful."
"Careful is good," Rodney agreed, taking his position next to Ronon. He was adapting better now that he had a purpose. Rodney always felt better when he was doing something constructive.
"We can agree with that, right, Carson?" Elizabeth said warmly.
Teyla checked over Elizabeth's vest, tucked in a strap and then nodded and moved on to Carson. Carson's vest was perfect, but she checked his stunner thoroughly before she moved on. "You will be fine Carson, just stay close to us."
John stood in front of the 'gate, almost framing himself with the circle of metal. Teyla took her place next to him and nodded to the hunter at the dialing device. John double checked the communication device on his arm and lit it up.
"Dial Atlantis," Teyla ordered.
Elizabeth watched in wonder as light chased itself around the 'gate. She'd seen it happen on the set and a few times on the show, but it put butterflies in her stomach to watch it for real. The 'gate hummed, then burst with bright blue light. It poured outward as if something had exploded behind it, then settled down to ripple gently. It really was incredible, like something out of a story. She'd never been that involved in the mythology behind the show. She learned her lines, she showed up on time but she'd never been into the show. It was a job and she hadn't gotten any further into it than that.
Now, she was about to walk through a mystical portal to a floating city and change the fate of a galaxy; all without a script. It was like her first movie set all over again, or that terrible TV spot where she'd been far too young and innocent. Her stomach was tied into knots that danced all over the place, like a spider's web being pulled between two blades of grass. John tapped his device, and something within it lit up blue. John and Teyla disappeared, then Rodney and Ronon and finally it was just her and Carson staring at the 'gate.
"It gets better," Carson reminded her. "It's never as bad as the first time. I haven't thrown up since the first time."
Elizabeth couldn't tell if he was being calming for her or for himself, but she smiled at him. "We'll be fine," she agreed. "We just walk through together, and look for cover. Easy."
The light from the 'gate left blue ripples of colour on Carson's face as he stilled himself. "Easy."
This time she knew what was going to happen and she walked right into it. The space between realities, the wormhole, or whatever magical science it was, consumed her and turned her into one of the many points of light all around her. Instead of fighting it, this time Elizabeth both surrounded and was the light. In barely any time, or after a hundred years, she wasn't sure which, she emerged into Atlantis.
The real Atlantis was a paradise of stained glass and gently curved architecture. Green and blue metal surrounded them, and the steps Teyla stood on lit up behind her feet. Rodney looked gleeful as he looked over control panels covered in sheets. Ronon was making a perimeter sweep and John stood in the middle, grinning at her as if he'd just been giving an Oscar.
"Look at this," he said, tucking his gun away. "Just look at this. Elizabeth- all of it's true. All of it's real. The 'gate, the controls, the lights in the stairs..."
Teyla looked up at the windows and the blue light beyond. "We are also underwater."
Rodney's glee faded away immediately. "We're going to die."
'We're not," John said, running up the stairs towards him. "It's all right. We're just underwater, in a city that was designed to go underwater, right?"
Teyla's expression remained neutral as she moved closer to the windows looking out into the ocean. "I can see the surface. The Ancients must have submerged the city to keep it safe from their enemies."
"In the pilot, we almost died because the city ran out of power," Rodney reminded all of them.
Ronon seemed amused by his memory, but said nothing. The large man seemed almost disappointed that there was nothing to fight and he'd relaxed his guard somewhat.
"We are not on a television show that must have peril to be interesting," Teyla reminded Rodney. "We are also not as large of a group as we had in the beginning of the show. The amount of power drained by us being here is small compared to what a group of sixty would generate."
Rodney still didn't look convinced but he was distracted when John starting pulling sheets. Control panels lit up beneath his touch and stayed on.
Elizabeth headed slowly up the stairs, a dumbstruck Carson at her side.
"Maybe I am dead," he muttered, almost to himself. "This could be heaven. It's beautiful, people I know are here. My mother's going to show up in a few minutes."
Elizabeth squeezed his shoulder, leading him up the stairs into the control room. It looked almost identical, except where the Atlantis she knew was a soundstage, this had walls, real doors, and corridors that went on forever after them. She looked down at the brightly lit control panel, wondering if the Ancient symbols she knew from looking at the same props for three years had any value here.
John snuck up behind her, nudging her shoulder. "Check out your office," he said, almost bouncing with amusement.
Across the little walkway was the room her, Victoria's, office had been based on. It was empty of the masks and art that had been Victoria's, but it was unmistakably her space. Elizabeth headed across, running her fingers along the railing in disbelief. The metal was warmer than she expected and that was almost welcoming, as if the city really had wanted them to come. She stood in the centre, where her desk would be, and shivered. It was the opposite of deja vu. Instead of her memory being more powerful, Atlantis was so beautiful that it pushed all of that away.
This was real and Elizabeth suddenly felt very small where she stood. Like a child finding out the castle of her imagination was real and the last bastion against a very real threat, she felt unarmed and vulnerable. A handful of actors couldn't hold the magical city against the vampires that fed in the night. It was ridiculous.
She lowered her gaze to the floor and was almost tempted to curl into a ball against the wall and wait for Teyla to tell her wait to do. She wasn't Victoria, she wasn't tough or the kind of person who stared down the bad guys. She learned her lines and fell stupidly in love with her co-star, neither of those things were particularly heroic.
"Someone's dialing in," Rodney said in a sudden flurry of movement by the panel.
Elizabeth startled, moving closer to the class to see what was happening. Beyond the walls of her office, she could see the 'gate light up and begin to dial.
"Yours?" John asked just in case. It wasn't part of the plan to have Teyla's people follow them yet, but John was careful. Elizabeth admired his instincts and wondered if she had any of her own that would be useful.
"No," Teyla said, her voice deepening with concern. "Can you raise the shield?"
Rodney slammed a control and the sheilf flew up before he'd even realised what he was doing. "Oh," he said in surprise. "It's the same control."
"Good to know," Carson said, hovering behind him.
John has his rifle out again and he and Ronon were eyeing the 'gate with suspicion. It continued to spin, gaining more lights before there was flash and a whoosh of light against the shield. The golden light held it the opening thrust of the 'gate and remained up. It was silent in the huge 'gate room for a long time as the six of them held their breath, waiting.
The hum of the shield was almost oppressively loud before something hit it. Elizabeth jumped then, not wanting to believe what it was. It was like having a bird hit the windshield of a car. She could imagine the impact in her mind, and she knew it had happened, but there was no evidence. She still felt the loss, no matter how irrational it was. The 'gate clicked off and the shield vanished a moment later.
Rodney's hand was shaking as he held it over the control, just in case the needed it again. Ronon and Teyla shared a long look.
"Keep an eye on the shield," John said, touching Rodney's shoulder. "We're going to search the city." He looked to Elizabeth when Carson didn't move.
"Did someone just...?" Carson asked.
"I think so, but surely they--" Rodney stopped, staring at the shield. They weren't capable of discussing it. They'd killed someone. It could have been a rock, or a tree branch; they could tell themselves that, but they knew better.
"Come with me," John said, offering his hand to her. "Rodney and Carson can keep an eye on the 'gate. Elizabeth tore her eyes from it reluctantly and took John's hand like a lifeline.
Teyla and Ronon were dividing the doors based on a map Teyla held that looked so old it could have been pulled from a tomb. Elizabeth realised it very well might have been but said nothing.
"Who was that?" John asked them.
"The Genii, Ronon answered without much elaboration. "They want the city."
Elizabeth felt the cold fingers on the back of her neck return. Kolya, the leader of the Genii, had been one of the most intense villains on the show. If he too were based in real life...she had no desire to meet him.
"Waving your hand in front of the crystals like this opens the door," Teyla demonstrated. "The device on your arm can be configured to find mine by touching this glyph and this one here," she tapped them in and Elizabeth tried to sear them into her memory. They would be important if they got lost. "Try to head for the middle of the city. We need to find a large chair device."
"No way," John interrupted, suddenly full of wonder again. "Atlantis really has that?"
"Of course it does," Teyla said, looking at him with curiosity. "I tried to be thorough in my representation of the city. I did wish you to be accurately prepared."
"Thanks," John replied, beaming at Elizabeth. It was the same smile he'd had when he brought his skateboard to set, only magnified a few hundred times. "Come on," he said, tugging her hand gently. "We have to find this."
"Good luck," Ronon said, patting John's back. "Touch only the doors."
Elizabeth agreed with him; they didn't need any distractions. Atlantis could be a death trap just as easily as it could be their salvation.
John rolled his eyes a little but nodded. "See you in the chair room."
"Not if we beat you," Ronon finished, heading for the other large door out of the room.
After five minutes of walking through blue lit corridors, Elizabeth still had John's hand in hers. It made her feel a little like a child again. John's sense of wonder was certainly childlike, but he was careful as they followed the route sketched out their copy of the map.
"Left," they agreed and John waved the door open. They'd seen a huge whale-like creature swim past one of the windows and Elizabeth was hoping for another. Atlantis was unbelievably huge. It would have taken up the entire studio lot and the one next to it, possibly even the other one across the road. She'd never been anywhere like it before and she doubted anything else would measure up again when she got back. If she ever got back.
John led her around another corner, and this time she opened the door. Having the city welcome them with lights and open doors was unnerving. It really was a little like having a new puppy. Everything that happened was anxious to please them. If they hesitated in a doorway, the lights stayed on in both rooms. Atlantis wanted them to be welcome, and it was difficult not to feel at home. She had been living here, even though she'd never been here before. Elizabeth had put her life into Atlantis for the last three years and now she finally felt as if she belonged.
John paused in front of one of the huge windows, then pointed. "Check it out," he said, drawing her eyes. "More fish."
"Maybe they like the light," Elizabeth guessed. She wound her arm around his and watched the school of silver fish disappear away into the dark sea around them. "I've never been underwater."
"I've been diving," John admitted, "but nothing like this."
"Nothing has ever been like this," she agreed, holding him closer. John took the initiative, stealing a kiss before they continued on. The motion was slight and quick; Elizabeth was almost unsure it had even happened, except for the way she was blushing. They were going to have to talk, if they got out of this. If it were even possible to get out of this.
Teyla and Ronon arrived in the chair room a moment after they did. The four of them stood around a chair in the centre of a circular room. The walls closed in around them and the light waited patiently for someone to take the chair. Teyla glanced at it, then looked at John, resigned to her inability to work the technology. "You must raise the city above the water if we are to defend ourselves."
"Just think up?" John asked.
Elizabeth recognised his nervous smile and wished she could do more to help him. She knew he'd taken a piloting lesson or two, once, a long time ago. This wasn't a plane so maybe they wouldn't even apply. As he was about to sit down, she bounded up and caught him. Taking his shoulders, she kissed him.
"For luck," she explained, returning to Teyla and Ronon. She was blushing bright pink and she thought she saw a touch of red on John's face as well. Ronon grinned and Teyla seemed entirely unsurprised. She pulled a radio, John's, from her pocket and spoke into it.
"Rodney, we have arrived in the chair room--"
"Teyla!" Rodney's grateful chip interrupted her over the radio. "They keep dialing in. I don't know how they are, but they keep trying. I almost missed it last time. I don't know if this shield is going to hold--"
"Tell him I'm coming," Ronon said, rolling his eyes.
"Ronon and I will assist you," Teyla said into the radio. "We will arrive shortly."
John had sat while they were talking and the initial blue light had only brightened since he'd been there. While Teyla had talked to Rodney, he'd been in with the city. Elizabeth had no idea what he was doing, or how any of it could possibly help, but Teyla seemed to think it would. That had to mean something.
"Will you stay?" Teyla asked, waiting by the door.
Elizabeth had no idea if John could hear her, or what was happening. She started to speak and the floor shook beneath them. More controlled than an earthquake, the floor shook one more time then began to rise. They were moving, heaving upwards, just as they had wanted to do.
"Come," Teyla decided for her, waving her towards the door. "John will be able to speak to us in control, if he needs to."
She hated leaving him, even if he was unaware they were even with him anymore.
"Come," Teyla said again. "He will be fine."
Back in the control room, breathing quickly from the pace Ronon and Teyla had set, Elizabeth watched as they took up defensive positions facing the 'gate.
"Wait," Rodney said, looking at them both in confusion. "On the show we just leave the 'gate shield up. Nothing comes through."
Behind the great window at the top of the staircase, Elizabeth could see sunlight streaming in. The concern and worry on Teyla's and Ronon's faces seemed entirely out of place.
"Do you remember Kolya, Rodney?" Teyla asked him over the barrel of her rifle.
"Course I do," Rodney said, blowing off the question.
Something else hit the shield and for a moment it flickered. Elizabeth instinctually pulled back, putting a console between her and the 'gate, just like Carson had.
"He was one of the more interesting villains," Rodney continued, still staring at Teyla. "John killed him."
"John has not been in this reality long enough to kill him," Teyla answered.
"Too bad," Ronon added, never shifting his position.
Teyla frowned and that made Elizabeth's heart sink down into her stomach. Wraith were bad enough. Kolya had been the man behind some of the more terrifying scenes of the show. He'd tortured John's character, terrified Rodney's, nearly kidnapped hers, and done everything he could to cause misery. That was the fictional version. The real version was undoubtedly as much like the fake as the city was to the set.
"How do you think he got our plans?" Teyla asked Ronon across her gun. "Do you think there was a traitor involved?"
"I've always thought you had a spy," he grumbled.
Elizabeth stared at the Wraith stunner leaning next to the control panel where Rodney still sat. She wasn't a good shot, but she could certainly help. Lifting it up and sighting down the barrel at Ronon's side, she realised Victoria would never be there. Victoria was never going to kiss her flyboy in the hallway, or find her way home.
"Rodney," Teyla said, her voice deathly calm. "Drop the shield."
Teyla and Ronon were brutally efficient with their guns. Without slow motion or cameras to follow the action, Elizabeth quickly realised that unless one was trained in the art of weapons, it was all luck to fire a gun. Luck fell three of the Genii warriors but Teyla and Ronon's skill felled a great many more. The air stank of ozone from the stunner and gunpowder. Ronon was smiling and Teyla seemed content.
"Raise the shield," Teyla ordered Rodney.
He obeyed, and a quick glance back told Elizabeth he was no longer trembling. He was surrounded by death, and Rodney understood. Carson was having a harder time with it. He'd always been more sensitive, and it brought a great depth to his character. He finally found a place behind Rodney, and put a hand on his shoulder as they peered down on the pile of bodies. It was more death than any of them had ever seen and the smell of blood and sorched flesh turned Elizabeth's stomach.
Teyla and Ronon started their way down. Teyla held a pistol and Ronon his weapon. Elizabeth watched them for a moment before she saw the first shot. They were executing the wounded. One of the Genii pawed at Ronon before he shot it and Elizabeth had to close her eyes. Each gunshot cut into her and she had no way of tuning them out.
"He is not here," Teyla said with curt disappointment. "I thought he would come if we had the city of the Ancients."
"Perhaps he is a greater coward than any of us realised," Ronon shrugged, kicking aside a dead body. "I thought you were giving him too much credit."
Stopping at the top the the staircase, Elizabeth looked over the bodies and wondered why she hadn't been sick. Her stomach was one solid knot, but her knees were solid. Would it hit her later that all of the bodies had once been men?
Someone grabbed her shoulder and Elizabeth tried to turn, thinking it was John or Rodney. Instead of a familiar, a deep, strange voice rasped in her ear.
"Hold very still," he ordered, "assuming you want to live."
Teyla and Ronon's guns were immediately up and pointed at her. Elizabeth had to remember that they weren't pointed at her. The knife in her throat definitely was directed towards her and cold fear grabbed her with iron fingers.
"Let her go Kolya," Teyla said. There was a malice Elizabeth had never heard before in her voice.
"Oh no," Koyla disagreed, tightening his grip. Elizabeth coudn't move; could barely breathe with his arms around her. "I'm taking her and I'm leaving. Dial the address I came from or she dies."
Elizabeth could just see Rodney's terrified face past the railing. When he didn't move, Koyla dug the knife in. Elizabeth bit her lip but she couldn't help her startled cry of pain. Across the room from her, the 'gate started to light up and dial out. Teyla and Ronon looked at each other, but they were on the same side of the room. Koyla held her close enough that all she could smell was his sweat and old gunpowder. His arms were still iron around her and Elizabeth began to wonder if this was how she was going to die. Killed by a madman before she knew if they had saved the galaxy or not.
Motion in a corner of the 'gateroom drew everyone's attention at the bottom of the great stairs.
"Kolya," John recognised, even with knowing. Maybe it was the familiarity of the position; Elizabeth was being held just as Victoria had been in episode one-eleven. "Let her go."
"Or you'll what?" Kolya asked, laughing.
Elizabeth could feel the vibrations behind her and that made her stomach turn and twist more than the bodies.
"Make an impossible shot and save her?" he asked, incredulous. "I know what you are. All of you 'heroes' and nothing but frauds from another realm. The soldiers know better than to try and hit me. What are you going to do? Talk me to death?"
"Elizabeth," John called, drawing her attention. "Elizabeth, episode three-twenty."
"You are going to try and talk me out of it, aren't you?" Kolya's laughter became even more maniacal. "You, a pitiful little pretty boy--"
John didn't move.
Teyla and Ronon couldn't reach her. Rodney couldn't help her and John wasn't a colonel. He couldn't shoot Koyla and save her.
She was going to die.
She'd never told John how much, how foolishly, she loved him. Could he see it in her eyes? Was time running as slowly for him as it was for her?
Elizabeth felt the shockwave first. Outside the huge stained glass window, the one that was intended to doom poor Victoria, something had exploded. The crackling of glass and the stinging heat came second. Kolya, with his back to the window, took the full brunt of the blast. His arms flew wide in surprise and shock in that instant, she was free.
Elizabeth took advantage of that and dropped. Curling into a ball with her hands over her head, she waited out the hell around her. Glass flew past her and rained down on her with pieces of flame. It wasn't until hands were guiding her up that she even dared to breathe.
"He's gone," John murmured, holding her close to his chest. He stroked her hair, pulling out shards of glass. "He's gone."
She lifted her head from his chest, wiping tears from her eyes.
John quickly turned her away. "Don't look just yet," he warned. "Give yourself a while. We're not heroes, you know."
"What did you do?" she asked, surprised by how much she was trembling.
"Gave Carson my grenade," John shrugged, grinning at her. "Didn't think it would work that well."
Elizabeth stared up at him in shock. It was an incredibly stupid, reckless thing to do, and it had saved her life.
"I got lucky," he whispered, leaning down to kiss her and take all her protests away. At least, for the moment.
Epilogue:
"The Wraith are retreating." Lekure, one of the Athosian engineers, reported from the central console. "They have been defeated."
Elizabeth let her arms hold her up and shook the weakness out of her knees. She'd been fighting the Wraith for just over a year now, and every time they locked weapons in the cold darkness of space, she went through the same gutwrenching stages of fear and relief. It was a little like beginning a new show. Maybe that was why she'd stayed. Maybe it was because she had been ready to be done acting.
John's voice, as carefree as ever, crackled over the radio. "How're you guys doing down there?" He'd been flying puddlejumpers against darts out around Atlantis, a skill he'd picked up with incredible speed.
"We're in one piece," Elizabeth told him, smiling widely. "What's our score now?"
"Atlantis eighteen, Wraith zero," John said, chuckling. "Who knew we were that good?"
"Certainly not the Emmy's." She could hear him laugh harder at the quip.
"You save dinner for me?"
Elizabeth leaned against the panel behind her, rocking back on forth on her aching feet. "Don't I always?"
"You get a good recording for Rodney?" John asked, talking to her while he flew the jumper home. "He's been wanting more of the fighter jockey stuff."
"I did." She retreated to her office. She had never intended to be a leader. Playing one on TV was one thing, running a city was something else entirely. First, she'd been terrified. Then, slowly, after many long nights with John's arms around her, Elizabeth realised that the control she summoned up to play Victoria could be summoned up as Elizabeth.
Even if Elizabeth didn't have a doctor and speak five languages. Elizabeth could rally the friendly aliens to fight the evil ones. She could organise a team, not unlike Victoria.
Sinking into her chair, Elizabeth flicked on her computer. It was one of the aliens ones, more like a tablet or one of those new I-things Rodney was so excited about back on Earth. After a little work, her new computer had solitaire and as long as she was in Atlantis, through the magic of subspace and the glowing ZPMs that ran the city, she could email Rodney and her mother once a week.
Pegasus X-Treme had been renewed yet again. They'd had to replace her and John, but Joe and Victoria's heroic deaths had taken the show in a new direction. Rodney even had a love interest and her dog was happy with her mother.
She hadn't even realised how far she'd drifted off into her thoughts until John was perched on her desk, leaning forward to kiss her.
"Hail to the conquering hero." He teased, kissing her cheek rakishly. "Miss me?"
Smiling at him and returning the kiss with a deep, needy exploration of his mouth, Elizabeth thoroughly answered his question. She dug her fingers into his shoulder, smelling the finally mechanical odour of the jumper bay on him. "Let's have dinner." She tugged his hand, dragging him towards the mess hall.
John stumbled behind her. "I might not be that hungry." His face was a little flushed and she'd gotten his attention.
Elizabeth pulled him into the transporter and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Neither am I."
He kissed her, shoving her back against the wall with gleeful enthusiasm. The motion of his lips against hers made her weak in the knees again but this time Elizabeth loved the sensation.
"John," she murmured as they left on the level of their quarters, not the mess hall.
He nuzzled her cheek then trailed his hand through her dark curls. "Mmm?"
"Remember the talk we had this morning?"
"I remember you being naked."
Elizabeth giggled and waved her hand in front of the glowing blue crystals to open the door. "I'd have gotten dressed if I'd known that was all you'd remember."
Sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her to the strangely out of place wooden bed they'd procured on a trade mission, John dropped her gently and leaned over her. He traced her neck, then smiled sweetly. "I think it's a great idea. A scary idea, but...I can't think of anyone else I'd want to do something big and scary like living in another galaxy or--"
Sucking on her neck just below her ear, John made her moan and left off the rest of his thought.
"Having a baby with you," she finished.
He nodded, pulling off his t-shirt. "Besides, I hear we need to lower the odds by having a lot of sex."
Undoing the catch of his trousers, Elizabeth smiled sagely. "And you're all for having a lot of sex."
"With you?" He beamed. "Always."
== The End ==