Fic: The Pacific Rim, Chapter 10

[melyanna]

Elizabeth crashed shortly after their late lunch. John, not wanting to wake her by having the television on, decided to head down to one of the lounges on the first floor to see if he could find something resembling a sports game to watch. Granted, part of his motivation was just to get away from her for a little while. She was confusing him, and physical proximity seemed to make matters worse.

Truth be told, Elizabeth always confused him, from the moment she’d rushed into the chamber in the Antarctic research base. With everything that had been going on in the moments after he’d sat down in that chair, he’d tried to make sense of what was happening aside from the whole whacked-out gene thing, and Elizabeth Weir had not fit into the puzzle at all. He just hadn’t been able to figure out where a beautiful woman was supposed to go.

After that, he couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him or why. For a long time, he’d just assumed that he was there to be Gene Boy, but by and by Elizabeth began to rely on him so much it startled him. By the same token, he’d come to lean on her, though it was a lesson learned and unlearned more than once. That horrible day of the storm had put so much blood on his hands, blood that stained his dreams. He knew deep down that it would have been necessary anyway, but he’d murdered those people, and if the situation were to come up again, he knew the end result would be the same.

That had startled him badly. Certainly, he would have been livid had anyone in his team been killed in cold blood, but the thought of Elizabeth bleeding to death on the control room floor haunted him yet. He knew so little about her, and what he knew didn’t always make sense. Still, it had taken three words to send him on a rampage.

They weren’t the usual three words.

John forced himself away from that train of thought. He really didn’t know her well enough to start wondering where that phrase fit into things. Still, he found himself drawn to her, and he wandered to her open door and watched as she lay there on top of the covers, fast asleep. There were still newspapers on the bed with her, so he went quietly to clear them off for her. He set them on the night stand, and for a moment he felt an absurd urge to brush her hair from her forehead. He resisted, but only just. At least the urge to kiss her was more easily defeated. Her hold over him was as strong as it was unexpected.

During one of the last times he’d spoken to his mother, she’d talked about him settling down, giving her grandchildren. At his sputtered protests, she had merely laughed and said that sometimes lightning strikes. At the time, John had been utterly unaware of what she’d meant, but he was starting to get it now. The charge could build for minutes or months, but in an instant, a forest could be set ablaze.

At the same time, Elizabeth frustrated him so much that he wanted to smack her sometimes. The last two days had been an unfortunate example. He understood why she said that kissing had been a bad idea, and while he wasn’t entirely sure he agreed, he accepted that. Her ignoring him, on the other hand, was getting old in a hurry.

There was a knock on the suite door, and John pulled himself away from Elizabeth’s bedside to answer it. Danny Concannon was on the other side, and when the two men saw each other, Danny’s face registered surprise. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“It’s my room,” John answered, already annoyed. “What do you need?”

“I was looking for Elizabeth,” the reporter said. “Must have the wrong room. Can you tell me which one is hers?”

“She’s asleep,” John replied, trying to obfuscate the issue.

“Where?”

“In her room.”

“Which is where?”

John resisted the urge to slam the door in his face. “You know, Danny,” he said, stepping out into the hallway, “you’re not giving me many reasons not to punch you in the face.”

“Then my work is done,” said Danny, smirking. “What’s stopping you?”

John closed the door with more force than was strictly necessary. “Her.” Without another word, he walked away.

C. J. had enough on her hands trying to get President Bartlet to the site without Donna running after her at the hotel. “C. J.!” the woman was calling.

“Donna,” C. J. replied, “I need you to get with the press and stay with them at the speech. You’re probably going to get a lot of questions about foreign policy, so I need you to refer them to the State Department officials who’ll be answering questions at the hotel when we get back.”

Pad and pen in hand, Donna started jotting things down. “What, you don’t want me clarifying foreign policy for the President?” she joked.

“Not unless you had a briefing from State while I wasn’t looking.”

“Do you need me to assign someone to count the number of times the President’s interrupted for applause?”

“Already have Kevin on it.”

“Which Kevin?”

“Masseth.” C. J. glanced at her watch. “Hey, did you need me for something?”

“Yeah,” said Donna. “You know how you had me finding out what Danny’s got?”

“Yeah.” They started to walk. “You said he had little pieces that didn’t make sense, so I gave him an interview with Elizabeth to get him to stop looking for whatever he’s looking for.”

“Yeah, you gotta cancel it.”

C. J. stopped dead in her tracks, grabbing Donna by the arm to spin her around. “What do you mean, I gotta cancel it?”

“You have to cancel the interview, C. J.,” Donna said. “I did some more looking in the last two days. What he’s got isn’t enough on its own, but if he talks to Doctor Weir, he’ll have it. You have to cancel the interview.”

“Donna,” C. J. began, in disbelief, “how much do you know?”

“Enough.”

Slowly, C. J. nodded. “I’ll get on it,” she said. “Get to the press bus.”

The only sports game John could find on the television in a small lounge on the ground floor was rugby. That was a sport he didn’t understand at all, yet somehow it still managed to amuse him. It was nice to space out for a while and watch grown men beat the crap out of each other. It was a little like hockey, only without the ice, skates, and armor.

An hour into the game, Elizabeth announced herself from the doorway by saying: “What are you watching, and why?”

“Rugby,” he replied, getting up. She was dressed in pajamas, and her hair was a mess. “And because it’s on.”

She smiled for a moment before befuddlement settled on her expression. “You don’t have to get up when I come into the room, John. And why are you down here?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I see.” Elizabeth glanced at the television. “Rugby?”

“Yeah, I don’t get it either.”

“Do you even know who’s winning?”

“Not really, but I think that makes it more amusing.” He gestured to the chair he’d vacated. “You can sit here if you want. It’s the most comfortable chair in the room.”

She started to protest, but at his insistence took the chair anyway. For a few minutes, John tried sitting on a sofa to one side, but found that the picture wasn’t quite as clear from that angle. Of course, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that when he got up and sat on the floor in front of Elizabeth, it was for other reasons.

He was testing her, something he once thought that only women (or at least his ex-girlfriends) did. For two days now she’d jumped every time he touched her, and half the time, if he took a step forward, she took a step back. But despite that, John knew there was something else at play in that head of hers. He knew that no matter how much she’d ignored him over the last two days, she’d enjoyed kissing him as much as he’d enjoyed kissing her. There were some things that Elizabeth Weir could no longer hide from him.

At some point, she flipped through the channels and found the President’s speech being broadcast on some local channel. John didn’t object, because when she set the remote control aside, her arm landed on the armrest and her fingers ended up in his hair. A few sentences later, she dragged her fingers lazily through the mess. By the time President Bartlet had finished his train of thought, Elizabeth was actually playing with his hair, and for the love of everything beautiful, it felt good. Almost anything else would have led to sex within ten minutes, but this just felt so amazingly, hypnotically good that he couldn’t even think that far ahead.

As long as she kept this up, he could die happy.

Advance had procured cell phones for them that would work in Australia, but C. J. was starting to wonder if hers was actually working. She’d tried the office of Danny’s editor six times before resorting to every White House office number she could remember. Josh wasn’t in, Toby wasn’t in, not even Margaret was in. She resisted the urge to kick something, knowing that she was standing in the wings of the theatre and that a crate hitting a wall or the Chief of Staff breaking her toes would be quite audible over the President’s speech.

Letting out a long, frustrated breath, she punched in Toby’s cell phone number and waited while the phone rang. After four rings, a very groggy voice on the other end said, “C. J., can you hang on a minute, please?”

“Sure,” C. J. replied, though she suspected that he had set the phone down and didn’t hear her.

A few seconds later, she heard what she thought was crying, and Toby picked up the phone again. He sounded out of breath as he spoke. “What do you need, C. J.?”

“Well, first of all, how-” She stopped suddenly. “Why are you breathing so hard?”

“Because the cell phone ringing woke Molly up and she started crying,” Toby replied. “And at the moment she’s trying to take the phone away from me and eat it.”

“Well, don’t let her do that.” C. J. let out a long breath. “How’d you know it was me?”

“I figured only someone on the Australia trip would call me at six in the morning, because only you guys wouldn’t know that I still have the kids with me.”

C. J. rested her hand on her forehead. The time difference had completely slipped her mind. “Toby,” she said, “I’m so sorry. The President’s in the middle of his speech right now and-”

“How’s he doing?” he interrupted.

“The President? He’s doing very well.” Applause broke out in the hall again. “The audience is eating it up.”

“Well, that ought to make Sam happy.” There was a long pause, in which she wondered if this was the first time Toby hadn’t watched one of the President’s addresses. “What do you need, C. J.?”

“Nothing that can’t wait an hour,” she replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, I think you’re lying,” Toby said. “I think you wouldn’t be calling in the middle of the President’s address if it weren’t pretty important.”

“I needed to talk to an editor at the Washington Post,” C. J. replied. “I couldn’t get anyone to pick up a phone in his office, but I suppose that’s because business hours haven’t started yet.”

“Do you need me to get a phone number for you?” he asked.

“No, I’ll just try back in a couple hours. Thanks anyway.”

“Okay. C. J.?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever wake my kids up again.”

“You bet.”

C. J. closed the phone and let out a long breath. At least now she knew she was just an idiot, rather than completely crazy.

President Bartlet had finished speaking by the time John realized that he’d spent the better part of an hour staring at an old guy while a beautiful woman rubbed his head. For a few minutes longer Elizabeth’s fingers stayed in his hair, mesmerizing him, until he hazarded a glance at her. Their eyes locked, and something akin to panic flashed across her face. Then the fingers were gone. Back in place was the awkwardness of the last two days, as though she hadn’t consciously touched him in the last hour.

“Elizabeth,” he began.

Her eyes darted back to the television. “I thought the speech was very good.”

Abruptly he got to his feet. He wasn’t going to go through this right now. He couldn’t.

She called after him as he left the room, but he didn’t turn. Couldn’t. For now he had to keep moving. If he didn’t, he was likely to explode at the nearest target.

As the President came down off the stage, C. J. was applauding. “Well done, sir,” she said. “You going to walk the rope line?”

“Yeah, might as well,” he replied.

“Well, we could get into the cars, go back to the hotel, do our post-game analysis, and get a good night’s sleep.”

He looked up at her like she was crazy. “What’s gotten into you?”

C. J. tried to remain casual. “I’ve got to call Danny’s editor in about two hours.”

“Why not now?”

“Why not now, sir?” she repeated. “Because it’s seven o’clock in Washington and no one in a nine-to-five job is at work yet.”

“Are we going to have to hide Elizabeth tomorrow?” Bartlet asked. They emerged in the open air then, and he started waving at the crowd.

She lowered her voice. “Donna talked to me again,” she said. “She did some more hunting, and while she says that he doesn’t have enough for a story now, he might be able to get enough out of Doctor Weir to substantiate it.”

By then they had reached the motorcade, and after they got into the limousine, he said, “How does Donna know all this?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said C. J. “But believe me, that’s going to be one of the first questions I ask her once we get all this straightened out.”

John had wandered into a room before he realized that Sam Carter was in it, and she noticed him before he could slip out. “Major,” she said, “do you need something?”

“No,” he said. “No, ma’am.”

“Where’s Doctor Weir?” she asked.

“Down the hall. Why?”

Carter shrugged. “I’m surprised she’s not with you. You two have seemed joined at the hip ever since you got back from Pegasus,” she said. “There’s been a lot of speculation as to why.”

John raised an eyebrow. “What are you suggesting?”

“I hear things, Major,” she replied. “You and Doctor Weir are both rather visible in the expedition. You’re bound to be the targets of the rumor mill.”

“Well, with all due respect, ma’am,” he said, carefully emphasizing the appellation, “the rumor mill at the SGC isn’t exactly silent where you’re concerned.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Just saying that the rumors about me don’t involve violations of regulations.”

Colonel Carter flushed. “No, Major,” she said, “your violations of regulations are public knowledge.”

John rolled his eyes. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to know what I ever did to you,” she replied. She gave him a false smile. “I haven’t known you long enough to make you hate me.”

“I heard enough the first time I was in Colorado,” he said. “You practically blackmailed Elizabeth. Now you’re buttering her up like you’re her best friend in front of Hammond and Alexander.”

“You think I have something up my sleeve?”

“Yes!” Briefly he wondered why this had to come up now, why he was making it obvious that Elizabeth had told him about Colonel Carter, but he didn’t care. One run-in with Danny Concannon and Elizabeth’s continued diffidence had put him in a dangerously bad mood. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. People don’t just turn around like that unless they’re pushing their own agenda.”

“You’re out of your mind, Major,” said Carter. “And you’re way out of line.”

“And I don’t care,” John countered. “What is it you’re angling for, Colonel? A seat at the table? Command of Atlantis?”

She laughed sharply. “You’re going to stand there and accuse me of trying to sabotage Doctor Weir? Have you been listening at all?”

“It’s happened before,” John replied. “Publicly supportive of a person who’s done what’s right, only to be screwed when it comes down to the wire?”

“Major, what happened to you in Afghanistan?” she asked. “Tell me, Major, how paranoid did Antarctica make you? I don’t want Atlantis. In case you haven’t noticed, colonels have a tendency of dying in the Pegasus galaxy.”

There was a stunned, awkward silence, until a third voice said, “What the hell are you two doing?”

John knew the voice immediately, but he turned anyway to see Elizabeth in the doorway, still imposing despite her pajama pants and mussed hair. She was fully awake now, and livid. “Talking about classified information in a room that anyone can walk into,” she continued, “which I just demonstrated by walking in here! Colonel, you of all people-”

“Doctor,” Sam began.

“No, Colonel, I’m not your commander anymore,” Elizabeth interrupted. John wanted very much to sneak out through the room’s other door. It had been an idiotic place for this discussion. “I can’t give you orders, and at this point I think we’re just going to have to give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume that there aren’t any ulterior motives at play. But you know better than to do this in public.”

She turned to John. “And you,” she began, but she seemed at a loss for words for a moment, a rare occurrence for Elizabeth Weir, and a dangerous one. She stared him down as he half-hoped the floor would swallow him. “Come with me.”

The hotel was in sight when C. J. decided to start going over the general plan for the rest of the night. “Sir,” she said, “we’ve got some people from State who are going to keep the press busy most of the night. You’ll stop by for a few questions. You’re likely to get at least one on capital punishment because of what Doctor Weir said on the subject this afternoon.”

“I read the memo,” he said. “Though I was disheartened to see that we still can’t figure out when it’s spelled with an A or an O.”

“It was misspelled?”

“Yes, ma’am, it was,” the President replied. “But if capitol-with-an-O punishment means we’re putting Congressmen in the stocks at the foot of the Capitol building steps, I’m changing my position.”

C. J. laughed. “I’ll set up another seminar on spelling when we get back to the White House,” she said. “We’ve got some new people who still haven’t learned how to spell Tel Aviv or New Delhi.”

“So I blow off a few questions,” he continued, “and then we’re doing the staff thing?”

She nodded. “You’re going to say nice things to the staff, who came here despite the fact that it isn’t beach season. Then we’ll be going over tomorrow’s activities. It should be a light day, and then the dinner in the evening.”

“Well, that sounds good.” He looked out the window. “Oh, look, here we are.”

Elizabeth practically dragged John by the hair to the nearest empty room with a door. Once she’d settled on a vacant conference room, she slammed the door shut and got in his face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Major?”

The rank clearly startled him. Elizabeth didn’t let him answer. “Did I or did I not tell you not to get into it with Colonel Carter?”

He blinked. “No, you didn’t.”

“On Air Force One, I told you to back off Colonel Carter-”

“You told me not to call her a-”

“John!” She almost stamped her foot. “What were you thinking? I told you to back off, and I assumed you were smart enough to know that meant not to get into a shouting match with her!”

“Well, excuse me for thinking that I should stand up for you occasionally!” he yelled. “You have no idea what she’s telling Hammond and Alexander behind your back!”

“Neither do you!” Elizabeth let out a frustrated breath. “John, you can’t just run around making blind accusations like that. Colonel Carter wasn’t behaving professionally either, but at least she didn’t accuse you of attempting a coup! Besides,” she added, “I don’t need you to protect me.”

“I beg your pardon, Doctor,” he countered, “but what do you call the last few months? If you won’t pick up a gun yourself, someone’s got to do it for you.”

“We’re talking about totally different things, Major.”

“No, we’re not.” He looked her squarely in the eye. “As long as you won’t stand up for yourself, someone’s got to do it for you. I don’t see anyone else stepping up to the plate, so I guess I get to.”

“You don’t have all the information either,” Elizabeth replied. “For starters, you don’t know this President like I do.”

“That’s because you refuse to talk to me about anything other than Latvia and speeches,” he said. “I didn’t even know you taught at Georgetown until Zoey Bartlet told me you were one of her teachers.”

High-strung laughter escaped her mouth before she could stop it. “Is that what this is about?” she asked. “That’s just hilarious. You think I don’t talk to you? I don’t even know where you’re from.”

“I don’t know where you’re from either,” he said. “But it’s okay that everything I know about you, I heard from someone else. I’ll just kiss you and we can pretend like it never happened.”

The words startled them both, and Elizabeth was suddenly aware of how close to him she was standing. She started to take a step back, but John grabbed her by one arm. “Is that what this is about?” she asked. “The fact that I think it’s unprofessional?”

“No,” he said, suddenly gentle in comparison to the grip on her arm. “I don’t care about that. Well, I do, but not as much. What this is about is you pretending it didn’t happen. You know that never works.”

“John, I have an expedition to lead, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is probably going to recommend that I be relieved of command and-”

He put his free hand over her mouth. “And you’re trying to do everything alone. You don’t have to. I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but I’ve been here to help you from the beginning. I can do better, but so can you.” He lowered his hand from her mouth. “You know what scares me most?”

“What?” Her mouth was hurting a little from having his hand clamped over it.

“You getting removed from command,” he said. “You’re not the only one who’s worried about that.”

“John, I-”

“Elizabeth,” he interrupted. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, genuinely. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean to either,” he replied. As he spoke, she noticed that his grip on her arm had lightened considerably.

They stood there for a while, until the silence grew awkward and Elizabeth thought to leave. Then suddenly John said, “Oklahoma.”

“What?”

“Oklahoma,” he repeated. “That’s where I’m from. Bartlesville, if you want to know.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes, smiling. “Ames, Iowa.”

When she opened her eyes again, she recognized the look on his face, one of disbelieving, excited wonder. She’d seen it two nights earlier on the balcony, just before he’d kissed her. She smiled patiently. “You know why I think it’s unprofessional,” she said.

He shrugged, just before bringing his hand up to lightly touch her cheek. “So’s being mad at each other for days at a time,” he said. “We managed to get through that without sinking the city.”

She laughed softly. “I suppose we did.”

This time, she was smiling when he kissed her. It was gentle and sweet, almost polite, like he wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to run away from him or slap him. Then, when it was clear that she wasn’t going to resist, things started to get a little more interesting. With one hand on her back, he drew her nearer, and then her fingers found their way into his hair. When he drew back, she whimpered involuntarily, and John smiled.

Things started getting very warm in a hurry. He pushed her hair away from her neck and started a series of soft kisses down her skin. His stubble grazed against skin that hadn’t been touched like this in a long time, and she sighed, half-closing her eyes. When she threaded her fingers through his thick hair, he made a contented sound deep in his throat.

She wasn’t thinking about Atlantis or Wraith or politicians or reporters or secrecy. All she could think of was how he was touching her. And so it was only appropriate that at the moment she stopped thinking entirely, the door to the conference room flew open.

Her eyes flew open as the sound of people chattering filled the space and suddenly died. Elizabeth really, really didn’t want to look, but as John took a step back, she found she had no choice. There in the doorway were Josiah and Abigail Bartlet, looking as shocked as she felt.

There were more people standing behind them - in fact, it seemed like the entire staff was standing behind them - but it would have been quite enough had it just been the President and First Lady who’d walked in on this. Elizabeth opened her mouth several times, trying to come up with something to say, but her vocal cords just wouldn’t make a sound.

Finally, Abbey held her hand out in front of her husband. “Pay up, boyfriend.”

“What?” John said. Elizabeth was surprised that he could think, though his saying that did make it seem like he thought Abbey was calling him her boyfriend.

“Pay up,” she repeated, tearing her eyes away to look at the President. “You bet me twenty dollars that they wouldn’t end up together by the end of this trip. Now, pay up.”

Behind the President, C. J. suddenly burst out laughing, and several others followed suit. Wanting very much to hide, Elizabeth covered her mouth with both hands. The President shook his head in her direction while he dug through his pockets for the money. “Can’t believe I lost a bet because the world’s foremost expert in diplomacy and international relations can’t keep her hands off a flyboy,” he said.

He slapped the money down in Abbey’s palm. She looked quite pleased. “Doctor Weir, there’s a red mark on the side of your neck,” she said. “Want me to take a look at it? I’m a doctor, after all.”

Instinctively, Elizabeth covered the spot where John’s mouth had just been, suddenly fighting the urge to collapse into a fit of giggles. “No, ma’am, that won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure?”

“Abbey,” Jed interceded, “let’s not embarrass them more than they already are.”

“But it could be so much fun!”

“Sir,” John began, “let me apologize for being out of uniform-”

“Nonsense, Major,” the President replied. “The uniform would have clashed with Doctor Weir’s flannel pants.”

Feeling rather like she was sixteen and had just been caught in the back seat of her boyfriend’s car, Elizabeth hazarded a glance at John. He looked just as dumbstruck, but then she did succumb to laughter, leaning back against the conference room table and shaking her head.

“Normally I’d tell you to get a room,” Bartlet continued, “but you’ve already got one. I know this because my office is paying for it. Hell, I may be paying for it.”

Elizabeth nodded, still trying to control her embarrassed laughter. “We’ll let you have the room now, sir,” she said, taking John by the hand and pulling him toward the exit.

As they stepped out of the room and the staff entered it, C. J. followed them into the hall. “Doctor Weir?” she said.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to need to speak to you in the morning.”

Elizabeth didn’t need to know why. It could only be about Danny and the impending interview. She nodded. “Bright and early.”

Chapter Nine | Chapter Eleven