World Cup Fic
I may hate football, but it inspired me.
Title: Football Crazy
Author: rhin_ariel
Rating: PG13
Pairings: Sheppard/Weir, slight allusions to Beckett/Cadman...if you squint a lot.
Warnings: None, except that there is football.
Summary: The World Cup has come to Atlantis, which might be of benefit to some people.
It was one of those nice calm afternoons on Atlantis. The sun was out, filling the control centre with light. Everyone was in good spirits as the temperatures began to rise. Summer in Atlantis was a good time for everyone, as it meant more chances to get out and relax. Elizabeth had already had numerous requests for Jumpers to take to the mainland. Apparently, some of the Daedalus crew had managed to smuggle some surfboards onto Atlantis. How anyone could smuggle something that big was beyond Elizabeth.
It was also very quiet on Atlantis, which concerned Elizabeth. In the summer there were usually people running in and out of the control rooms. Usually they were in various states of what seemed to be undress. Most came looking for the locations of teammates and friends to drag them off somewhere. A few came looking to find out if certain doors could be opened to allow access to piers and lower levels. One group had found an area on the lower levels were the Ancients had created a swimming pool walling in an area around a pier. It was where most people ended up on the hotter days. But there should still be a few people running around Atlantis.
Stepping out of her office, Elizabeth walked across to the consoles. She stopped by one of the technicians, and leant forward to talk to him in a low voice.
“Could I see a scan of Atlantis, making sure to take in the swimming pool?”
“Yes ma’am.”
After a few clicks, the laptop revealed the image of the city. The pool area was practically abandoned. She blinked a few times, and glanced at the technician. She then looked back to the screen. It was then that she noticed something. There was a large group of people heading straight towards the control centre.
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” replied the technician, feeling a little confused as to what was going on.
Feeling a little apprehensive at the prospect of a large group of people charging into the control room, Elizabeth headed towards the stairs leading to the Gate. She’d just reached the top if the stairs, when she began to hear loud shouts and echoing footsteps. There were clearly a lot of people, and they were most likely running. That feeling of apprehension was growing.
She was practically at the bottom of the stairs, when she realised the shouts were making more sense.
“Pass it!”
“On my head!”
“Come on slow pokes.”
There was something else though, another noise. It sounded like something bouncing off the walls. She could hazard a guess at what it was.
Suddenly, a large group of people burst through the doorway to the control centre. All of them seemed to be wearing different coloured shirts, some red, some yellow, some blue. It was a sea of colours. And in the middle of it, she saw a black and white ball flying around. The group began to spread out in the wide space, and the ball was soon bouncing off the walls. She was a little concerned when it was being aimed at the Gate.
“Hey!” she shouted over the noise, but no one heard her. Instead, she tried to move further up the steps to make herself more visible. She’s only gone up one, when something hit her hard in the back. She spun around to find the whole place had gone silent and everyone was staring at her. The ball lay abandoned at the bottom of the stairs.
“Well, now that you are all quiet, I have to ask…what the hell is going on here?”
Everyone in the room began talking and yelling at once. After a few seconds of it, Elizabeth held up her hand for silence.
“Not all at once please,” she said, glancing around the assembled group. Towards the front she found one person she would expect to be in the middle of it all.
“John, maybe you’d like to explain what is going on?”
“Sure,” replied John with a grin. “You see, the World Cup just started back on Earth. The Daedalus is bringing tapes back of the matches so far, so we just thought we’d get in the spirit of things.”
Now the coloured tops made sense, they were the different strips. Yellow and green for Brazil, white and red for England, blue for France, although she had a feeling some of those were for Scotland judging by who was wearing them. Everyone was supporting their country, and wearing their colours proudly.
“Right,” she began. “So you all decided to play football in the corridors, which is most likely against every health and safety rule we have here.”
Walking slowly down the steps, Elizabeth was smiling at them all. A few of the newer members of the expedition could only see this as a positive sign. Other members knew that smile, and weren’t so pleased. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she picked up the ball and held it.
“Well then, I guess I’ll be keeping this for now.”
“And when can we get it back?” asked John, still grinning at her.
“I’m not sure, maybe some other time.”
With that, Elizabeth turned back up the stairs and headed to her office. When the door shut, the crowd let out a loud groan and began to curse in a variety of languages. John, however, was still grinning.
“Don’t know what you’re so pleased about,” said Lorne as he walked across.
“Well, we can get that ball back.”
“And how do you expect to do that? She isn’t likely to just give it back, especially not to you…sir.”
“I have some plans. I’ll try asking her now. I’ll tell her that we’ll go find somewhere else to play.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” asked Lorne, becoming increasingly intrigued by these plans.
“Well then, we’ll just have to steal it back, won’t we?”
John winked at Lorne before running up the stairs to the office.
Word quickly spread around the group as they watched John in her office. There was a lot of smiling and smirking from John, and a lot of head shaking and nodding from Elizabeth. None of them could lip-read though, so had no idea what they were saying. After a few minutes though, John walked out of the office, without the football.
As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he raised a finger to his lips to silence any questions. He ushered the now smaller group, some had left after the ball had been confiscated, into the corridor nearby.
“She said no,” began John, and was treated to another loud groan. “But, we can get it back. When she leaves her office, one of us will go in, find the ball and get out again.
“Right, so which of us poor fools is going to do that?” asked Carson as he pushed his way to the front of the group.
“I’ll do it,” said John. “She’d expect me to do something stupid like that, so if I get caught, you lot don’t get in trouble.”
“Fine,” they responded in unison before disappearing down the corridor. John would meet up with them later, hopefully with the ball.
He didn’t have to too long to wait, as it seemed. It was only a couple of hours before Elizabeth decided to leave her office. They’d begun their game in the late afternoon to avoid the heat of the day, and now it was almost sunset. Night began late on Atlantis within the summer, but people still went to bed at regular hours. Though it didn’t look it, it was nearly eleven at night on Atlantis.
John waited until Elizabeth had disappeared down the corridor before heading up to her office. He smiled at the technicians before heading to the office door. Pressing a hand to the door, he was glad to find that it opened without a problem. He stepped in and quickly began to scan the office. There weren’t that many places to hide a football in the room. He checked behind the sofa, under her desk and even in her desk draws, but there was nothing. He knew she often kept a gym bag in her office containing odds and ends, like her jacket if she got cold or some bottles of water. And sure enough, it was missing.
With a sigh, he left the office. He could see one of the technicians staring at him.
“I was just checking for something,” he said, before running off at high speed.
When he arrived in the meeting place, he found some of the group had returned. However, when it became clear he didn’t have the ball, some of them looked like they were about to leave.
“Hold on a second, we can still get the ball back. It just means we have to go deep into enemy territory.”
“How do you mean?” came a voice fro near the back of the group.
“I’ll sneak into Elizabeth’s quarters and find the ball.”
“With her in them?”
“She sleeps deeply.”
A few people looked at him with their eyebrows raised.
“I’ve been off world with her,” he protested loudly. “Seriously!”
Most people just shook their heads, but all agreed it was the only plan.
So, just twenty minutes later, John found himself outside Elizabeth’s door. He quickly checked to see that no one was about. Thankfully, nearly all of Atlantis knew about it so no one was going to disturb these quarters. Without hesitation, he pressed his hand to the panel and opened the door. He stepped in and shut the door again. He remained still for a few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Though there was still light outside, but the curtains were drawn plunging the room into darkness.
When he could see again, he noticed the bed covers were raised up slightly. He snuck across quietly, making sure he made no noise. He needed to check if she was asleep before he could do anything else. Gently, he pulled the cover back, and was surprised by what he found. Instead of a sleeping Elizabeth breathing softly, he found a pile of pillows under the cover.
“I think you’re looking for this,” said a voice behind him.
Turning, John watched as the light in the bathroom behind him came on. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust again. When he looked back at the door, he found Elizabeth stood in the door to the bathroom holding the football.
“Not quite,” said John as he walked across to her.
When he reached her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her softly. As he broke the kiss, he stepped back and grinned at her.
“Oh,” she said softly. “This is why you wanted me to take the football with me to my quarters, so you could legitimately sneak in here.”
“Yep. Now we can be together right under their noses.”
He leaned in again and began to kiss her more passionately. Elizabeth placed one hand around his neck and pushed it up into his hair. She let it get tangled up into his mass of hair, while he pulled her closer.
All of a sudden, she pulled back and looked at him.
“What?” he asked, looking confused.
“Well, they’ll be expecting you back soon won’t they? Maybe you should head back, because if they turn up here, we’ve got a problem.”
“It’s fairly simple really. I mean, if they ask, all I have to do is claim that you woke up and I had to hide in your wardrobe.”
He tried to lean in and kiss Elizabeth again, but she stayed back.
“So,” she sighed. “This is only going to be a quick one is it?”
John glanced across to her desk and noticed the closed laptop. He looked back to her with a smirk.
“I’ll tell them you started writing a report. A very long report.”
“Better,” she said, with her own smirk, and this time when he leaned in to kiss her, she let him.
“Admit it,” he muttered in her ear. “I have the best plans”
“I’m admitting nothing,” she said, dropping the football to the floor behind her.
--
“We should leave,” sighed Lorne at last. The rest of the group was sat around him staring blankly. Some were tapping their fingers, while some had resorted to humming. Two had managed to find some paper and rolled it into a little paper football.
“I think you’re right,” muttered Cadman. She was sat next to Carson, wearing her own football shirt. There were a few other woman as part of the group, although they had a feeling, Laura would be the only one who would play.
“Hey!” came a familiar voice from down the corridor. The whole group jumped up, and watched as John came running down the corridor. And all of them were pleased to see that he had the football with him.
“We thought you weren’t coming back,” said Lorne just as John reached them.
“Sorry, got held up. A certain leader of ours decided to write a report. Had to hide while she was working on it.”
“Who cares? Let’s get on with it,” cried one of the men with a grin as he grabbed the football from Sheppard. Soon, the rest of the group had gone running down after him leaving John, Laura and Carson.
“So,” said Laura. “You spent all that time in her closet, right?”
“Yeah,” replied John.
“And she didn’t know you were there at all?”
“Nope.”
“Okay…so can you explain to me why you are now wearing aren’t wearing your football shirt anymore?”
John looked down, and sure enough, he wasn’t wearing his USA strip anymore. In fact the shirt he was wearing looked a little more like the one Elizabeth slept in. The oversized white shirt with the butterfly on it.
“Crap,” John muttered before running off.
Carson watched John run off feeling slightly shocked. Laura was just smiling softly.
“So…those two…are…” said Carson at last.
“Guess so. But let’s not say anything.”
“No way. There is no way I am getting on the bad side of Elizabeth.”
“You two joining in?” shouted Lorne from the other end of the corridor.
“Sure,” replied Laura.
“Where’s Sheppard gone?”
“He had to deal with something,” she shouted, running towards the group. “I think there may have been some sort of mix up with something. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Okay then. So, you playing or being a cheerleader?”
“I’ll play,” said Laura with a smirk. “Cheerleaders don’t wear football strips. Maybe you could ask Sheppard when he gets back. I think he even has a shirt that would be perfect.”
End
And now, back to my 'Scum of the Galaxy' update and a one shot with references to far too many ships to be healthy.
Title: Football Crazy
Author: rhin_ariel
Rating: PG13
Pairings: Sheppard/Weir, slight allusions to Beckett/Cadman...if you squint a lot.
Warnings: None, except that there is football.
Summary: The World Cup has come to Atlantis, which might be of benefit to some people.
It was one of those nice calm afternoons on Atlantis. The sun was out, filling the control centre with light. Everyone was in good spirits as the temperatures began to rise. Summer in Atlantis was a good time for everyone, as it meant more chances to get out and relax. Elizabeth had already had numerous requests for Jumpers to take to the mainland. Apparently, some of the Daedalus crew had managed to smuggle some surfboards onto Atlantis. How anyone could smuggle something that big was beyond Elizabeth.
It was also very quiet on Atlantis, which concerned Elizabeth. In the summer there were usually people running in and out of the control rooms. Usually they were in various states of what seemed to be undress. Most came looking for the locations of teammates and friends to drag them off somewhere. A few came looking to find out if certain doors could be opened to allow access to piers and lower levels. One group had found an area on the lower levels were the Ancients had created a swimming pool walling in an area around a pier. It was where most people ended up on the hotter days. But there should still be a few people running around Atlantis.
Stepping out of her office, Elizabeth walked across to the consoles. She stopped by one of the technicians, and leant forward to talk to him in a low voice.
“Could I see a scan of Atlantis, making sure to take in the swimming pool?”
“Yes ma’am.”
After a few clicks, the laptop revealed the image of the city. The pool area was practically abandoned. She blinked a few times, and glanced at the technician. She then looked back to the screen. It was then that she noticed something. There was a large group of people heading straight towards the control centre.
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” replied the technician, feeling a little confused as to what was going on.
Feeling a little apprehensive at the prospect of a large group of people charging into the control room, Elizabeth headed towards the stairs leading to the Gate. She’d just reached the top if the stairs, when she began to hear loud shouts and echoing footsteps. There were clearly a lot of people, and they were most likely running. That feeling of apprehension was growing.
She was practically at the bottom of the stairs, when she realised the shouts were making more sense.
“Pass it!”
“On my head!”
“Come on slow pokes.”
There was something else though, another noise. It sounded like something bouncing off the walls. She could hazard a guess at what it was.
Suddenly, a large group of people burst through the doorway to the control centre. All of them seemed to be wearing different coloured shirts, some red, some yellow, some blue. It was a sea of colours. And in the middle of it, she saw a black and white ball flying around. The group began to spread out in the wide space, and the ball was soon bouncing off the walls. She was a little concerned when it was being aimed at the Gate.
“Hey!” she shouted over the noise, but no one heard her. Instead, she tried to move further up the steps to make herself more visible. She’s only gone up one, when something hit her hard in the back. She spun around to find the whole place had gone silent and everyone was staring at her. The ball lay abandoned at the bottom of the stairs.
“Well, now that you are all quiet, I have to ask…what the hell is going on here?”
Everyone in the room began talking and yelling at once. After a few seconds of it, Elizabeth held up her hand for silence.
“Not all at once please,” she said, glancing around the assembled group. Towards the front she found one person she would expect to be in the middle of it all.
“John, maybe you’d like to explain what is going on?”
“Sure,” replied John with a grin. “You see, the World Cup just started back on Earth. The Daedalus is bringing tapes back of the matches so far, so we just thought we’d get in the spirit of things.”
Now the coloured tops made sense, they were the different strips. Yellow and green for Brazil, white and red for England, blue for France, although she had a feeling some of those were for Scotland judging by who was wearing them. Everyone was supporting their country, and wearing their colours proudly.
“Right,” she began. “So you all decided to play football in the corridors, which is most likely against every health and safety rule we have here.”
Walking slowly down the steps, Elizabeth was smiling at them all. A few of the newer members of the expedition could only see this as a positive sign. Other members knew that smile, and weren’t so pleased. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she picked up the ball and held it.
“Well then, I guess I’ll be keeping this for now.”
“And when can we get it back?” asked John, still grinning at her.
“I’m not sure, maybe some other time.”
With that, Elizabeth turned back up the stairs and headed to her office. When the door shut, the crowd let out a loud groan and began to curse in a variety of languages. John, however, was still grinning.
“Don’t know what you’re so pleased about,” said Lorne as he walked across.
“Well, we can get that ball back.”
“And how do you expect to do that? She isn’t likely to just give it back, especially not to you…sir.”
“I have some plans. I’ll try asking her now. I’ll tell her that we’ll go find somewhere else to play.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” asked Lorne, becoming increasingly intrigued by these plans.
“Well then, we’ll just have to steal it back, won’t we?”
John winked at Lorne before running up the stairs to the office.
Word quickly spread around the group as they watched John in her office. There was a lot of smiling and smirking from John, and a lot of head shaking and nodding from Elizabeth. None of them could lip-read though, so had no idea what they were saying. After a few minutes though, John walked out of the office, without the football.
As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he raised a finger to his lips to silence any questions. He ushered the now smaller group, some had left after the ball had been confiscated, into the corridor nearby.
“She said no,” began John, and was treated to another loud groan. “But, we can get it back. When she leaves her office, one of us will go in, find the ball and get out again.
“Right, so which of us poor fools is going to do that?” asked Carson as he pushed his way to the front of the group.
“I’ll do it,” said John. “She’d expect me to do something stupid like that, so if I get caught, you lot don’t get in trouble.”
“Fine,” they responded in unison before disappearing down the corridor. John would meet up with them later, hopefully with the ball.
He didn’t have to too long to wait, as it seemed. It was only a couple of hours before Elizabeth decided to leave her office. They’d begun their game in the late afternoon to avoid the heat of the day, and now it was almost sunset. Night began late on Atlantis within the summer, but people still went to bed at regular hours. Though it didn’t look it, it was nearly eleven at night on Atlantis.
John waited until Elizabeth had disappeared down the corridor before heading up to her office. He smiled at the technicians before heading to the office door. Pressing a hand to the door, he was glad to find that it opened without a problem. He stepped in and quickly began to scan the office. There weren’t that many places to hide a football in the room. He checked behind the sofa, under her desk and even in her desk draws, but there was nothing. He knew she often kept a gym bag in her office containing odds and ends, like her jacket if she got cold or some bottles of water. And sure enough, it was missing.
With a sigh, he left the office. He could see one of the technicians staring at him.
“I was just checking for something,” he said, before running off at high speed.
When he arrived in the meeting place, he found some of the group had returned. However, when it became clear he didn’t have the ball, some of them looked like they were about to leave.
“Hold on a second, we can still get the ball back. It just means we have to go deep into enemy territory.”
“How do you mean?” came a voice fro near the back of the group.
“I’ll sneak into Elizabeth’s quarters and find the ball.”
“With her in them?”
“She sleeps deeply.”
A few people looked at him with their eyebrows raised.
“I’ve been off world with her,” he protested loudly. “Seriously!”
Most people just shook their heads, but all agreed it was the only plan.
So, just twenty minutes later, John found himself outside Elizabeth’s door. He quickly checked to see that no one was about. Thankfully, nearly all of Atlantis knew about it so no one was going to disturb these quarters. Without hesitation, he pressed his hand to the panel and opened the door. He stepped in and shut the door again. He remained still for a few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Though there was still light outside, but the curtains were drawn plunging the room into darkness.
When he could see again, he noticed the bed covers were raised up slightly. He snuck across quietly, making sure he made no noise. He needed to check if she was asleep before he could do anything else. Gently, he pulled the cover back, and was surprised by what he found. Instead of a sleeping Elizabeth breathing softly, he found a pile of pillows under the cover.
“I think you’re looking for this,” said a voice behind him.
Turning, John watched as the light in the bathroom behind him came on. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust again. When he looked back at the door, he found Elizabeth stood in the door to the bathroom holding the football.
“Not quite,” said John as he walked across to her.
When he reached her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her softly. As he broke the kiss, he stepped back and grinned at her.
“Oh,” she said softly. “This is why you wanted me to take the football with me to my quarters, so you could legitimately sneak in here.”
“Yep. Now we can be together right under their noses.”
He leaned in again and began to kiss her more passionately. Elizabeth placed one hand around his neck and pushed it up into his hair. She let it get tangled up into his mass of hair, while he pulled her closer.
All of a sudden, she pulled back and looked at him.
“What?” he asked, looking confused.
“Well, they’ll be expecting you back soon won’t they? Maybe you should head back, because if they turn up here, we’ve got a problem.”
“It’s fairly simple really. I mean, if they ask, all I have to do is claim that you woke up and I had to hide in your wardrobe.”
He tried to lean in and kiss Elizabeth again, but she stayed back.
“So,” she sighed. “This is only going to be a quick one is it?”
John glanced across to her desk and noticed the closed laptop. He looked back to her with a smirk.
“I’ll tell them you started writing a report. A very long report.”
“Better,” she said, with her own smirk, and this time when he leaned in to kiss her, she let him.
“Admit it,” he muttered in her ear. “I have the best plans”
“I’m admitting nothing,” she said, dropping the football to the floor behind her.
--
“We should leave,” sighed Lorne at last. The rest of the group was sat around him staring blankly. Some were tapping their fingers, while some had resorted to humming. Two had managed to find some paper and rolled it into a little paper football.
“I think you’re right,” muttered Cadman. She was sat next to Carson, wearing her own football shirt. There were a few other woman as part of the group, although they had a feeling, Laura would be the only one who would play.
“Hey!” came a familiar voice from down the corridor. The whole group jumped up, and watched as John came running down the corridor. And all of them were pleased to see that he had the football with him.
“We thought you weren’t coming back,” said Lorne just as John reached them.
“Sorry, got held up. A certain leader of ours decided to write a report. Had to hide while she was working on it.”
“Who cares? Let’s get on with it,” cried one of the men with a grin as he grabbed the football from Sheppard. Soon, the rest of the group had gone running down after him leaving John, Laura and Carson.
“So,” said Laura. “You spent all that time in her closet, right?”
“Yeah,” replied John.
“And she didn’t know you were there at all?”
“Nope.”
“Okay…so can you explain to me why you are now wearing aren’t wearing your football shirt anymore?”
John looked down, and sure enough, he wasn’t wearing his USA strip anymore. In fact the shirt he was wearing looked a little more like the one Elizabeth slept in. The oversized white shirt with the butterfly on it.
“Crap,” John muttered before running off.
Carson watched John run off feeling slightly shocked. Laura was just smiling softly.
“So…those two…are…” said Carson at last.
“Guess so. But let’s not say anything.”
“No way. There is no way I am getting on the bad side of Elizabeth.”
“You two joining in?” shouted Lorne from the other end of the corridor.
“Sure,” replied Laura.
“Where’s Sheppard gone?”
“He had to deal with something,” she shouted, running towards the group. “I think there may have been some sort of mix up with something. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Okay then. So, you playing or being a cheerleader?”
“I’ll play,” said Laura with a smirk. “Cheerleaders don’t wear football strips. Maybe you could ask Sheppard when he gets back. I think he even has a shirt that would be perfect.”
End
And now, back to my 'Scum of the Galaxy' update and a one shot with references to far too many ships to be healthy.