[SGA] [Gen] [K] The Picnic
Written for the Shep/Weir Ficathon.
Title: The Picnic
Author: Kate - squeelated
Written for: Sammi - pixilove66
Genre: Humor
Length: 1,800 words
Rating: Safe for all
Credits: Abundant thanks to pixie_on_acid for betaing above and beyond. Feel better!
Prompt: A "Sunday" style fic, in which we get more insight into the personal lives of our favorite team. Carson should be included and other pairings are allowed but John/Elizabeth MUST be the main focus.
The Picnic
"Are you ready?" John leaned in Elizabeth's doorway, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"If I have to be," Elizabeth huffed, snapping closed the file she was working on. "I can't believe you're actually holding me to this."
"Next time you'll know not to bet against me," he grinned. "Now where is it?"
Elizabeth sighed heavily at him, then pulled a large basket from underneath her desk. "Right here."
John strolled into the room and peeked inside the container. "All made with your own two hands?"
"Yes, John," she said with a roll of her eyes, "my own two hands."
"Good," he replied smugly, plucking the basket from her grasp. "Then shall we go?"
Elizabeth tucked away the files she'd been working on and they left her office. John could tell she wasn't pleased with the situation, but that was fine with him. Getting her out of the office for an afternoon was for her own good, and he'd enjoy the challenge of bringing her out of her bad mood. “So, where to?” he asked as they walked past the control room.
“Right out…” Before Elizabeth could say ‘here,’ she saw that something wasn’t right. The nearest balcony - her favorite balcony, and the spot John was sure she would’ve picked for this picnic, due to its proximity to her office and the work she wanted to get back to - had vanished under a dense canopy of foliage.
“Doctor Brown’s reforestation experiment is going well, don’t you think?” John asked, restraining a grin. Three white-coated scientists carrying clipboards slipped through the door and disappeared into the trees.
“Those are the saplings she brought back from P5X-437 on Wednesday?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.
“That’s proof that you’re not getting out of your office enough, Elizabeth,” John commented, grabbing her elbow and steering her down the hall - a task that wasn’t easy, since she was staring back at the trees. “It’s not like you not to know everything that’s going on in Atlantis.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said, sounding a little guilty. “This quarterly report for the IOA is just taking too much of my time. The number of statistics they asked for is just ridiculous. I’m dreaming about numbers every night.”
“It’ll be good to take your mind off of it for a while.”
They turned a corner and Elizabeth came to a dead stop. “Colonel Sheppard,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously, “where are you leading me?”
“Uh, jumper bay?”
“I am not leaving the city, John! That was not part of the deal.”
“C’mon, Elizabeth. I could have you back here in fifteen minutes if anything went wrong. Think about it - a quiet, sunny beach, the fresh sea air…”
Elizabeth snatched the picnic basket from his hand and set off in the other direction.
The doors to the mess hall slid open. “This doesn’t count,” John insisted. “It’s not a picnic if it’s where you normally eat.”
“It is a picnic if it’s outdoors,” Elizabeth replied, weaving between the tables and heading for the balcony off to the left. “Just because this particular outdoor spot is attached to the mess hall makes no difference.”
“The beach is outdoors,” John muttered, following behind her. He almost walked right into her when she stopped abruptly in the doorway to the balcony.
A dozen small tables filled the balcony, crowded with a mix of civilians and soldiers calling out seemingly random words. “Good!” “Suit.” “Seven.” “Shoes!” “Kaiser.”
“No, no, no!” Zelenka was yelling at Rodney. “If you have no card of the suit, you must play a trump if you can. Here!” He grabbed a card from Rodney’s hand and threw it down on the table.
“I know that!” Rodney huffed, grabbing back the card he had first tried to play from the table. “Isn’t there a way to play this game with normal cards?”
Sensing a string of Czech curses was about to break loose, John interjected. “Hey, guys. Whatcha doing?”
“Ah, Colonel! Doctor Weir!” Zelenka greeted them with only a trace of irritation still detectable in his voice. “Have you come to join the game?”
“What is the game?” John asked, eyeing the unfamiliar-looking playing cards on the nearest table.
“I am teaching mariáš. It is a trick-taking game, like your bridge.” He crossed his arms and glared over his shoulder at Rodney. “Doctor McKay suggested there was no competition in which he could not beat me. We will see about that!”
“Oh, now that’s not even fair!” Rodney cried. “First of all, I never said that - that would be rude. Secondly, when I said it, I was talking about science - not games based on chance.”
“There is chance, and there is skill,” Zelenka bickered, storming over to Rodney. “There is strategy!”
John took the picnic basket back from Elizabeth. “Balcony above the north pier?” he asked under his breath.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, and they slipped back out the door.
"Rodney's just causing all kinds of trouble today," Elizabeth exclaimed as they walked away from the mess hall.
"You're not blaming Rodney for you losing the bet, are you?" John asked.
"No, it's my own fault for underestimating the man," Elizabeth acknowledged. "He really will argue about anything."
"You underestimated me," he corrected her with a smug smile, "and my skill at pushing his buttons."
Elizabeth laughed. "I suppose that's true. As Radek said, there is strategy involved."
"Strategy is my forte."
"It's your strong suit?"
"Puns are beneath you, Elizabeth."
"Sorry," she said brightly, with a decidedly unapologetic smile.
John was happy to see Elizabeth’s mood improving and he didn’t want to let it slip away. He worked hard at being charming, carrying on a playful banter as they walked across the city to the north end. Elizabeth was laughing as they walked through the door to the balcony and John’s eyes were drawn to her, so he didn’t notice the couple already on the balcony until they jumped guiltily apart.
“Colonel!” Lieutenant Cadman automatically stood at attention, Doctor Beckett fidgeting uncomfortably next to her. “We were just having lunch,” Cadman said, attempting to sound casual but failing to cover up the defensiveness in her tone.
“So were we!” Elizabeth replied in the same manner. John glanced at her, surprised and a little smug that she thought she had something to be defensive about.
“Were you now?” Carson asked, with a look reminiscent of a cat spotting a canary. “Just the two of you?”
John guessed Carson had picked up on Elizabeth’s behavior and was trying to put them on the defensive, but that only made him wonder what Carson was covering up. Studying the pair of them, John noticed how close together they were standing - odd, if they were really just uncomfortable about being caught alone together.
“Lieutenant Cadman, stand aside,” he ordered, playing a hunch.
“Sir?”
“Stand. Aside.”
Cadman’s shoulders stiffened as she took a large step to her right. John strode closer to the box she’d been hiding, Elizabeth taking the cue and walking right beside him.
“What in heaven’s name…?” Elizabeth stared into the box filled with fuses, powder, and paper tubes in disbelief. “Carson, Laura, were you making explosives?”
“No, Ma’am!” Laura exclaimed.
“Not exactly,” Carson corrected.
“They’re making fireworks.” John reached into the box, picking up a bottle and turning the label for Elizabeth could see. “Sulfur.” Pointing to other items in the box, he continued, “Carbon, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium. How many labs do you think they raided for this little project?”
“We didn’t take anything without asking, Sir.”
“That’s beside the point, Lieutenant,” Elizabeth scolded. “While supplies are more readily available to us now, they still aren’t easy to come by. We have to be careful with our resources. And this can’t possibly be safe. Why would you do something like this?”
“Well,” Laura looked down in chagrin, “they’re for Rodney, Ma’am.”
“Rodney likes fireworks?” Elizabeth asked with surprise.
Laura and Carson smiled at one another. “He hates them.”
Elizabeth stared up at John for a moment, a blank expression on her face.
“Carry on,” Elizabeth ordered matter-of-factly. She grabbed John’s arm and pulled him out the door.
John stretched out on the blanket and grabbed a sandwich. “The crazy things people get up to when you give ‘em a day off, huh?”
Elizabeth poured iced tea into two paper cups. “Yes,” she agreed. “In a situation like ours, where you live and work together, it’s easy to think you know the people you work with well. But you never really know them until you know what they’re like in their off-time, do you?”
“I have to admit,” John said between bites, “Lorne giving shuffleboard lessons really took me by surprise.”
“Something tells me Major Lorne is full of surprises,” Elizabeth laughed.
“So…“ John took the cup she offered him and took a sip. “Still angry about being forced to have lunch with me today?”
“What? John!” Elizabeth chided, “I was never angry about having lunch with you.”
“Yet you let Cadman and Beckett torture McKay?”
Elizabeth folded her arms. “Him, I’m mad at.”
“C’mon, don’t be too hard on him,” John smirked. “He couldn’t help himself.”
“I wouldn’t have doubted he’d argue about anything else,” Elizabeth said with a disgusted shake of her head, “but there was no way I could imagine him arguing for ‘Meredith’ as a name.”
“I told you,” John laughed, “you underestimate my finely-tuned button-pushing abilities.”
Elizabeth bit into her sandwich thoughtfully. “Double or nothing on whether you can get him to come down in favor of fireworks?”
“You’re on!” He took her hand and they shook on it. A noise behind him caught his attention and he used his grip on her hand to pull her down. “Duck!”
A wormhole whooshed open just over their heads, then receded to the gate. From the railing far above them, the technician on duty called down, “Doctor Weir, it’s Lieutenant Miller’s jumper returning from P3J-545.”
“Let down the shield,” she called back, staying low to the ground.
“Hey!” John complained, “you won’t let me take you to the picnic in a jumper, but you’ll let Miller bring a jumper to the picnic!”
“Maybe the gate room wasn’t the best place for this,” Elizabeth chuckled as the jumper floated through the gate and up toward the top of the tower.
John sat up, pulling her with him. “Well, it may not be outdoors, but it’s definitely wide open spaces.”
“Next time we’ll have to make sure to reserve a balcony ahead of time.”
“Next time?” John raised an eyebrow. “You’re expecting to lose the fireworks bet?”
Elizabeth reached into the picnic basket and pulled out an orange. She tossed it to John, who caught it deftly and began to peel it. She smiled as he handed her a section. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t be so bad if I did.”
Title: The Picnic
Author: Kate - squeelated
Written for: Sammi - pixilove66
Genre: Humor
Length: 1,800 words
Rating: Safe for all
Credits: Abundant thanks to pixie_on_acid for betaing above and beyond. Feel better!
Prompt: A "Sunday" style fic, in which we get more insight into the personal lives of our favorite team. Carson should be included and other pairings are allowed but John/Elizabeth MUST be the main focus.
The Picnic
"Are you ready?" John leaned in Elizabeth's doorway, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"If I have to be," Elizabeth huffed, snapping closed the file she was working on. "I can't believe you're actually holding me to this."
"Next time you'll know not to bet against me," he grinned. "Now where is it?"
Elizabeth sighed heavily at him, then pulled a large basket from underneath her desk. "Right here."
John strolled into the room and peeked inside the container. "All made with your own two hands?"
"Yes, John," she said with a roll of her eyes, "my own two hands."
"Good," he replied smugly, plucking the basket from her grasp. "Then shall we go?"
Elizabeth tucked away the files she'd been working on and they left her office. John could tell she wasn't pleased with the situation, but that was fine with him. Getting her out of the office for an afternoon was for her own good, and he'd enjoy the challenge of bringing her out of her bad mood. “So, where to?” he asked as they walked past the control room.
“Right out…” Before Elizabeth could say ‘here,’ she saw that something wasn’t right. The nearest balcony - her favorite balcony, and the spot John was sure she would’ve picked for this picnic, due to its proximity to her office and the work she wanted to get back to - had vanished under a dense canopy of foliage.
“Doctor Brown’s reforestation experiment is going well, don’t you think?” John asked, restraining a grin. Three white-coated scientists carrying clipboards slipped through the door and disappeared into the trees.
“Those are the saplings she brought back from P5X-437 on Wednesday?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.
“That’s proof that you’re not getting out of your office enough, Elizabeth,” John commented, grabbing her elbow and steering her down the hall - a task that wasn’t easy, since she was staring back at the trees. “It’s not like you not to know everything that’s going on in Atlantis.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said, sounding a little guilty. “This quarterly report for the IOA is just taking too much of my time. The number of statistics they asked for is just ridiculous. I’m dreaming about numbers every night.”
“It’ll be good to take your mind off of it for a while.”
They turned a corner and Elizabeth came to a dead stop. “Colonel Sheppard,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously, “where are you leading me?”
“Uh, jumper bay?”
“I am not leaving the city, John! That was not part of the deal.”
“C’mon, Elizabeth. I could have you back here in fifteen minutes if anything went wrong. Think about it - a quiet, sunny beach, the fresh sea air…”
Elizabeth snatched the picnic basket from his hand and set off in the other direction.
The doors to the mess hall slid open. “This doesn’t count,” John insisted. “It’s not a picnic if it’s where you normally eat.”
“It is a picnic if it’s outdoors,” Elizabeth replied, weaving between the tables and heading for the balcony off to the left. “Just because this particular outdoor spot is attached to the mess hall makes no difference.”
“The beach is outdoors,” John muttered, following behind her. He almost walked right into her when she stopped abruptly in the doorway to the balcony.
A dozen small tables filled the balcony, crowded with a mix of civilians and soldiers calling out seemingly random words. “Good!” “Suit.” “Seven.” “Shoes!” “Kaiser.”
“No, no, no!” Zelenka was yelling at Rodney. “If you have no card of the suit, you must play a trump if you can. Here!” He grabbed a card from Rodney’s hand and threw it down on the table.
“I know that!” Rodney huffed, grabbing back the card he had first tried to play from the table. “Isn’t there a way to play this game with normal cards?”
Sensing a string of Czech curses was about to break loose, John interjected. “Hey, guys. Whatcha doing?”
“Ah, Colonel! Doctor Weir!” Zelenka greeted them with only a trace of irritation still detectable in his voice. “Have you come to join the game?”
“What is the game?” John asked, eyeing the unfamiliar-looking playing cards on the nearest table.
“I am teaching mariáš. It is a trick-taking game, like your bridge.” He crossed his arms and glared over his shoulder at Rodney. “Doctor McKay suggested there was no competition in which he could not beat me. We will see about that!”
“Oh, now that’s not even fair!” Rodney cried. “First of all, I never said that - that would be rude. Secondly, when I said it, I was talking about science - not games based on chance.”
“There is chance, and there is skill,” Zelenka bickered, storming over to Rodney. “There is strategy!”
John took the picnic basket back from Elizabeth. “Balcony above the north pier?” he asked under his breath.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, and they slipped back out the door.
"Rodney's just causing all kinds of trouble today," Elizabeth exclaimed as they walked away from the mess hall.
"You're not blaming Rodney for you losing the bet, are you?" John asked.
"No, it's my own fault for underestimating the man," Elizabeth acknowledged. "He really will argue about anything."
"You underestimated me," he corrected her with a smug smile, "and my skill at pushing his buttons."
Elizabeth laughed. "I suppose that's true. As Radek said, there is strategy involved."
"Strategy is my forte."
"It's your strong suit?"
"Puns are beneath you, Elizabeth."
"Sorry," she said brightly, with a decidedly unapologetic smile.
John was happy to see Elizabeth’s mood improving and he didn’t want to let it slip away. He worked hard at being charming, carrying on a playful banter as they walked across the city to the north end. Elizabeth was laughing as they walked through the door to the balcony and John’s eyes were drawn to her, so he didn’t notice the couple already on the balcony until they jumped guiltily apart.
“Colonel!” Lieutenant Cadman automatically stood at attention, Doctor Beckett fidgeting uncomfortably next to her. “We were just having lunch,” Cadman said, attempting to sound casual but failing to cover up the defensiveness in her tone.
“So were we!” Elizabeth replied in the same manner. John glanced at her, surprised and a little smug that she thought she had something to be defensive about.
“Were you now?” Carson asked, with a look reminiscent of a cat spotting a canary. “Just the two of you?”
John guessed Carson had picked up on Elizabeth’s behavior and was trying to put them on the defensive, but that only made him wonder what Carson was covering up. Studying the pair of them, John noticed how close together they were standing - odd, if they were really just uncomfortable about being caught alone together.
“Lieutenant Cadman, stand aside,” he ordered, playing a hunch.
“Sir?”
“Stand. Aside.”
Cadman’s shoulders stiffened as she took a large step to her right. John strode closer to the box she’d been hiding, Elizabeth taking the cue and walking right beside him.
“What in heaven’s name…?” Elizabeth stared into the box filled with fuses, powder, and paper tubes in disbelief. “Carson, Laura, were you making explosives?”
“No, Ma’am!” Laura exclaimed.
“Not exactly,” Carson corrected.
“They’re making fireworks.” John reached into the box, picking up a bottle and turning the label for Elizabeth could see. “Sulfur.” Pointing to other items in the box, he continued, “Carbon, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium. How many labs do you think they raided for this little project?”
“We didn’t take anything without asking, Sir.”
“That’s beside the point, Lieutenant,” Elizabeth scolded. “While supplies are more readily available to us now, they still aren’t easy to come by. We have to be careful with our resources. And this can’t possibly be safe. Why would you do something like this?”
“Well,” Laura looked down in chagrin, “they’re for Rodney, Ma’am.”
“Rodney likes fireworks?” Elizabeth asked with surprise.
Laura and Carson smiled at one another. “He hates them.”
Elizabeth stared up at John for a moment, a blank expression on her face.
“Carry on,” Elizabeth ordered matter-of-factly. She grabbed John’s arm and pulled him out the door.
John stretched out on the blanket and grabbed a sandwich. “The crazy things people get up to when you give ‘em a day off, huh?”
Elizabeth poured iced tea into two paper cups. “Yes,” she agreed. “In a situation like ours, where you live and work together, it’s easy to think you know the people you work with well. But you never really know them until you know what they’re like in their off-time, do you?”
“I have to admit,” John said between bites, “Lorne giving shuffleboard lessons really took me by surprise.”
“Something tells me Major Lorne is full of surprises,” Elizabeth laughed.
“So…“ John took the cup she offered him and took a sip. “Still angry about being forced to have lunch with me today?”
“What? John!” Elizabeth chided, “I was never angry about having lunch with you.”
“Yet you let Cadman and Beckett torture McKay?”
Elizabeth folded her arms. “Him, I’m mad at.”
“C’mon, don’t be too hard on him,” John smirked. “He couldn’t help himself.”
“I wouldn’t have doubted he’d argue about anything else,” Elizabeth said with a disgusted shake of her head, “but there was no way I could imagine him arguing for ‘Meredith’ as a name.”
“I told you,” John laughed, “you underestimate my finely-tuned button-pushing abilities.”
Elizabeth bit into her sandwich thoughtfully. “Double or nothing on whether you can get him to come down in favor of fireworks?”
“You’re on!” He took her hand and they shook on it. A noise behind him caught his attention and he used his grip on her hand to pull her down. “Duck!”
A wormhole whooshed open just over their heads, then receded to the gate. From the railing far above them, the technician on duty called down, “Doctor Weir, it’s Lieutenant Miller’s jumper returning from P3J-545.”
“Let down the shield,” she called back, staying low to the ground.
“Hey!” John complained, “you won’t let me take you to the picnic in a jumper, but you’ll let Miller bring a jumper to the picnic!”
“Maybe the gate room wasn’t the best place for this,” Elizabeth chuckled as the jumper floated through the gate and up toward the top of the tower.
John sat up, pulling her with him. “Well, it may not be outdoors, but it’s definitely wide open spaces.”
“Next time we’ll have to make sure to reserve a balcony ahead of time.”
“Next time?” John raised an eyebrow. “You’re expecting to lose the fireworks bet?”
Elizabeth reached into the picnic basket and pulled out an orange. She tossed it to John, who caught it deftly and began to peel it. She smiled as he handed her a section. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t be so bad if I did.”