Fic: Revelation, Chapter 5

[melyanna]

John had once before been in Arlington National Cemetery, visiting the graves of friends before shipping out to Antarctica. He had almost been overwhelmed by the sight of row after row of white headstones, the graves of those who had served their country. Now he felt much the same.

It was desperately cold. Next to him, Elizabeth made no effort not to cry as she stepped forward and laid down a bouquet of flowers, or as the American flag that had been draped over her father’s casket was folded and presented to her. When the honor guard fired their salute, she didn’t flinch.

They stayed near the grave for a while as guests came to Elizabeth to offer condolences. It was all a bit of a blur, as the cold was getting distracting. John was surprised by how many people showed up for the service, though from the stories he heard in that short time, he realized it wasn’t strange at all. Even C. J. Cregg had come, bringing the condolences of the White House. William Weir had been well respected in Washington, and there were many who were sorry to see his passing.

But the most surprising of all approached after nearly everyone else was gone. “Hi, Liz,” said Danny Concannon.

“Danny,” Elizabeth replied, before she turned around.

“I don’t know what to say,” the reporter continued. “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind that I came.”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I’m. . . glad you did. Dad always thought you were one of the best journalists he’d ever encountered.”

“Well, hey, if there’s anything you need. . .”

Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

Then, to John’s surprise and Danny’s as well, Elizabeth suddenly closed the distance between them and hugged him briefly. “Thank you,” she repeated, pulling away.

Danny glanced uncertainly at John, as John laid a gloved hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “I’ll see you Monday, Elizabeth,” Danny said.

She nodded, and Danny walked away, heading down a hill. Elizabeth turned around and grasped John’s hand. “Let’s go for a walk,” she said, as the first flakes of snow began to fall.

They wandered a little way between the rows of tombstones until they reached a memorial not far from the amphitheatre. On a stone slab was a plaque, on which were engraved the images of the seven who had died in the Challenger accident. Elizabeth pulled her hand out of John’s grasp and reached out to touch one of the faces. “They were so unknown,” she said. “And then they got the adventure of a lifetime, and they died for it.”

“Sounds familiar,” John replied, slipping his arm around her waist. Snow was beginning to stick to the cold metal on the memorial as Elizabeth drew her hand back.

“The same thing’s going to happen to us, John,” she continued. “In ten days, everyone in the world is going to recognize us. We’re not going to be anonymous anymore.”

“Would you rather be?” he asked.

“I wish this weren’t happening now,” Elizabeth replied. “I wish it weren’t happening right now, right after Dad dying.”

Wordlessly, John wrapped his arms around her, feeling her strain just a little to rest her chin on his shoulder as she slipped one arm around him. She still held the flag in her other hand, now pressed between them. For a long time they remained like that, still as the monuments around them as the snow grew heavier. She didn’t start to cry, but she was holding him so tightly that he wondered if she was just trying to keep control over herself. It was getting colder; above the heavy cloud cover, the sun was beginning to set. In the distance, John thought he heard a siren.

Then Elizabeth shifted in his arms, taking a deep, shuddering breath and brushing her fingers across the back of his hair. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

For half a moment, his whole body tensed. That phrase had terrified him once upon a time. But there was something so open, honest, and raw in Elizabeth’s confession that he couldn’t help but relax, hold her a little tighter, and kiss the base of her neck. He knew her well enough now to know that she didn’t need to hear the words in reply, that she already knew he worshipped her. But he told her all the same.

In the early evening, Abbey found herself watching television in the Residence, something that was a little unusual for her. It was on CNN when she turned it on, and she didn’t bother changing the channel.

A while later, Jed appeared in the room, already in his tuxedo. “Hey,” he said, “you going to get ready for the thing?”

Abbey reached up and grabbed his hand. “Do we have to go?”

“Have to congratulate Santos,” he replied. “It’ll just be for an hour or so.”

Abbey pushed herself up from the sofa and walked over to the television. “What are they talking about on the news?” Jed asked.

“Those eleventh-hour court appointments you could make,” she replied, heading to the next room to change into an evening gown. “They’ve spotted Elizabeth coming into the West Wing and think you’re appointing her to the second circuit.”

“Not a bad idea,” he called. “She’d make a good judge.”

“She’s a little young.”

“She’s old enough to be President,” he replied. “That’s a depressing thought.”

“Didn’t you want to make her Secretary of State or something?” Abbey asked.

“Undersecretary,” Jed answered. He walked up to the doorway between the two rooms. “Undersecretary for non-proliferation. She would have been good, too.”

“She made a good professor,” Abbey replied. “That was why she turned you down, right? She’d just taken the job at Georgetown.”

“Yeah, but that boyfriend you set her up with probably had something to do with it.”

He wandered away, avoiding Abbey’s annoyed glare. “There is nothing wrong with Simon Wallis, Jed.”

“He was a nice guy, sure, but that was a terrible relationship, and I told you not to set her up with him,” he said. “They fought more than we do.”

“What’s your point?”

She appeared in the main room, dressed in a low-cut gown of aged gold, and it took Jed a minute to formulate a response. “He wanted her to stop what she was doing and stay home. I didn’t think that was very fair. It’s not like they were married with six kids.”

Abbey held up a hand as she walked across the room to get her shoes. “I’m not getting into this with you.”

“Why’d you set her up with him anyway?” Jed asked. “You didn’t seem to like her much then.”

She stopped, staring down at her shoes. “I don’t really know.”

The White House
Eight years earlier

When Liz had had her first baby, she’d been living just a few minutes away from Jed and Abbey, and Abbey had been able to be around for almost everything about Annie. This second pregnancy was harder, with Liz in New Hampshire and Abbey in Washington. But she managed to be up there for the baby’s birth, and two weeks later she returned. Jed had gone up there for only two days. This President business was taking some getting used to.

Abbey headed toward the Oval Office as soon as she got into the building, hoping to find Jed in there. Instead, she found Mrs. Landingham at her desk in the outer office, and the door to the Oval was closed. Upon her entrance, Mrs. Landingham looked up and stood. “Hello, Mrs. Bartlet,” she said. “How was your trip?”

“Oh, it’s never long enough,” Abbey replied.

“Do you have pictures of the baby?” Mrs. Landingham asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Abbey, smiling as she pulled an envelope out of her purse.

Mrs. Landingham took the pictures eagerly and began to talk about how beautiful the boy was, but Abbey’s attention was soon drawn to the television on one side of the room. They were showing images of what looked to be a hostage situation, and as the camera panned across faces, dirty and bruised, Abbey suddenly recognized one. It was Elizabeth Weir.

“Mrs. Landingham,” she said, “what’s going on?”

The secretary looked up from the baby pictures. “Oh, they finally resolved the hostage crisis in the Philippines,” she replied. “I’m sure the President told you about it.”

“He didn’t,” said Abbey. “He didn’t say anything about it. What happened?”

“Doctor Weir was leading a group of NGOs into the Philippines,” Mrs. Landingham said. “Doctors Without Borders, I believe. They were captured two weeks ago by a small force of rebels in the mountains.”

Abbey stood there, staring at the screen as the camera zoomed in on Elizabeth. She kept expecting to feel a surge of dislike, but it wasn’t coming. Instead, she was listening to the young woman talking about getting back into the country to finish the job she had been asked to do, even though her arm was broken, her knee was injured, and a doctor was bandaging a gash on her neck. This was not the headstrong, brash girl Jed had befriended, nor someone who would be using him to advance her own career.

The amazing part, though, was that Abbey wasn’t surprised by that.

She stood there, uncomfortably looking for anything else to focus on. Over the last two years, despite how busy they’d been with the campaign and everything else, she’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out where exactly Elizabeth stood with her and her family. It was so hard for Abbey to admit being wrong, but two years earlier, it had been obvious. Her only concession had been to walk away when she did, realizing that Jed was watching Elizabeth go through what his daughters would someday see. Someday, multiple sclerosis would cause him many of the same memory problems that the early phases of Alzheimer’s disease had brought to Elizabeth’s father.

And despite Abbey’s dislike, Elizabeth had not backed down.

It was uncomfortable pity that had staved off her comments, but Abbey had no explanation for what else had happened in the meantime. Somehow, in the rush of the last two years, Elizabeth Weir had impressed her. And now, watching Elizabeth risking her own safety to help a group of doctors, Abbey couldn’t help but feel a little proud of her. It was as if she actually liked Elizabeth.

“Mrs. Landingham,” she asked, “where’s the President?”

“He’s in the situation room,” said the secretary, handing back the photographs. “I believe he was intending to go straight to the Residence after he’s done with Admiral Fitzwallace.”

Abbey smiled. “Thank you.”

She left then, stepping out to the portico to take the shortcut to the Residence. There she turned on the television and began watching as much as she could about the situation in the Philippines. As she watched, she started feeling more and more annoyed that she hadn’t known about this earlier.

An hour later, the door creaked. “Abbey, you still up?”

“Yeah.” She stood up from the sofa to face her husband. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Not sure I have,” Jed replied. “How are Liz and the baby?”

“They’re fine. Liz isn’t very happy that you had to leave so quickly.”

Jed loosened his tie and took his jacket off. “She’s lucky I got to come at all,” he said. “This thing in the Philippines. . .”

“Speaking of this thing in the Philippines,” said Abbey, “why the hell didn’t you tell me Elizabeth Weir had been kidnapped?”

He sat down on the bed and looked at her oddly. “You didn’t know?” he asked.

“Not surprisingly, Jed, I was paying attention to my grandchildren,” she replied. “We talked at least once a day. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“Well, first I assumed, and was evidently wrong, that you would pick up a newspaper at some point,” he said, taking his shoes off. “When you never brought it up, I assumed you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Two years ago that woman went to Christmas mass with us, and now you think I wouldn’t care that she spent two weeks held hostage?” Abbey demanded.

“Two years ago you almost accused me of having an affair with ‘that woman,’ Abigail.” Surprisingly, Jed looked more confused than anything else, like a puppy just kicked by his master. “You telling me you care what happens to her now?”

“She’s doing good work, Jed,” Abbey replied, feeling very cross. “I can respect that.”

He didn’t answer, but as they got ready for bed, she saw a smile on his face. “You haven’t won,” she said, climbing into bed with him and turning out a lamp.

“I know,” he replied, following suit. “Just don’t set her up with a cardiologist, okay?”

When evening fell, Elizabeth was still dressed in black, though she had washed her face and reapplied her makeup. Down in the situation room, she almost blended in with the dark walls, and for once she didn’t mind the effect. She didn’t want to be working, really. She wanted John to take her somewhere and do something to get her mind off of everything that had happened since they’d returned to Earth, but this time on Earth was, unfortunately, anything but a vacation.

The door opened, and she turned to see another woman enter the room. It was hardly surprising to see Jordan Kendall in a black pants suit, probably Armani, even though it was a Saturday evening. Three steps into the room, Jordan stopped. The door closed behind her, and she said, “Elizabeth? I’m sorry; am I in the wrong place?”

Elizabeth shook her head and stood at the foot of the table. Jordan walked to the other end. “It’s good to see you again, Jordan,” she said.

“You too,” Jordan replied. “Though I must say, I’m a little surprised. C. J. didn’t tell me who I was meeting with, and the general buzz around town is that the President’s appointing you to the second circuit court of appeals.”

Elizabeth smiled and glanced down at the table. “You know, I think that might be worse than my current assignment.”

Jordan smiled too. “So who’s been killed this time?” she asked.

The younger woman blinked, considerably confused. “I’m sorry?”

“The last time I was in here, Leo was telling me that the President had had someone assassinated,” Jordan explained.

“Well, I think this may top that, actually,” Elizabeth replied. She started to come around the table. “You may want to sit down.”

Jordan did so, and Elizabeth ran her fingers over the backs of chairs as she walked by. She’d been thinking about how to say this, but none of her pretty phrases and facts were coming to mind anymore. “We have evidence of alien life,” she blurted out instead. Jordan’s jaw dropped. “Not only that, we’ve made contact with human life on other planets. And I’ve been living in another galaxy for over two years now.”

Jordan’s eyebrows shot up, and she touched her forehead. “Well, yes, I’d say that tops an assassination.”

Elizabeth almost smiled. “Thought so.”

“All right,” said Jordan, “break this down for me.”

“There’s a lot of technology that I’m not fully qualified to explain,” Elizabeth replied, taking a seat next to the older woman, “but you’ll be getting a full briefing on Monday.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” Elizabeth asked, shaking her head.

“Why am I learning any of this?” Jordan clarified.

“Oh,” said Elizabeth. “Because a reporter found out.”

Elizabeth had ditched John - well, not exactly ditched, as someone had come to escort her and not him to the situation room - in the communications bullpen, an area that seemed to have far more activity than was reasonable for a Saturday night. There were four or five women working in the room, along with a couple guys. Normally he would have tried to make small talk with the girls, but they seemed rather busy. It took too much of his concentration to stay out of the way and avoid getting run over by the constant stream of people in and out to do any kind of talking.

Finally, a pretty redhead stopped long enough to look at him. “Colonel?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am?” he replied.

“Please, it’s Ginger,” she said. “Do you know how long you’re going to be around?”

“Haven’t got a clue,” said John. “Elizabeth - sorry; Doctor Weir didn’t know how long her meeting was going to be.”

“Well, you could wait in Toby’s office,” Ginger suggested. “You could at least sit down in there.”

“Would Toby mind?” John asked.

The redhead shrugged. “He’s not here.”

“Okay.” John turned around, but then came around again. “Which one is Toby’s office?”

Ginger walked away from her desk and opened the left-hand door behind John. “This one.”

“Thanks.”

In the dark office, John soon found himself confronted with three temptations - a comfortable couch, a television with cable access, and a bouncy ball - and succumbed to each in turn. Sprawled out in a manner most undignified, especially given his attire, he found live coverage of a sporting event and was soon bouncing the ball off the wall between a window into the next room and the door.

The game was in overtime when the door suddenly opened. The ball had just slipped out of John’s hand, and as Toby Ziegler walked into his office, he was whacked in the side of the head with it. It went flying off into the communications bullpen, and John sat up slowly. Toby turned and looked at John. “What the hell are you doing in my office?”

Hastily, John stood, picking up his hat and turning the television off. “Someone out there told me I could wait in here,” he explained, waving in the general direction of the door.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you waiting?”

“Oh.” John glanced around. “Waiting for my girlfriend. She’s in the sit room.”

“Your girlfriend,” Toby prompted.

“Elizabeth Weir.”

“Oh, right,” said the older man. “You’re that guy from the thing.”

John blinked. This guy was a speech writer?

“Well, whatever Ginger told you,” Toby continued, “you can’t wait in here. I’ve got a meeting in about two minutes.”

John nodded, offered an apology, and headed out of the room, looking a little more rumpled than he had upon entering. Ginger offered him a sympathetic smile as he resumed his attempt to remain unobtrusive, but soon a woman with very long red hair burst into the room, looking like she was ready to kill the first person in sight. “Is he in there?” she demanded of the secretary, who offered a terrified affirmative. As abruptly as she had entered, the furious woman opened the door to Toby’s office and slammed it behind herself.

Glancing at Ginger, John saw her eyebrows raised. But before either could say anything, they heard a high-pitched scream that could have well broken some windows. John chose not to comment.

The arguing got worse, if that were at all possible, before C. J. Cregg entered the room a few minutes later. She looked through the window, partially obscured by Venetian blinds. “I see Congresswoman Wyatt found Toby,” she commented.

“That’s the woman you were all worried about the other night?” John asked.

“Yep, that’s Andrea Wyatt. She does this occasionally,” C. J. replied, flipping through a folder.

John glanced back and forth between C. J. and the door uneasily. “A Congresswoman comes in here to yell at a speech writer?”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re divorced, I hear.” She looked up from her papers. “Colonel, why don’t you come to my office?”

John followed her out of the area, through an oblong room with a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, and into a small, dark office with four doors. To his surprise, Elizabeth was standing in the room with a woman who could well have been Elizabeth’s older sister. John and C. J. entered in the wake of some unheard joke, and John stopped in the doorway for half a heartbeat. Elizabeth was smiling, genuinely smiling, for the first time since he’d woken her up back in Atlantis a week ago.

She looked at him with that wide smile on her face and beckoned him into the room. “John, come meet someone,” she said. As he stepped into the room, C. J. shut the door behind him. “This is Jordan Kendall,” Elizabeth explained, gesturing to the third woman in the room. “She was leaving the UN just as I was getting there.”

John shook hands with her. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you too, Colonel,” Jordan replied.

“And this is John Sheppard,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, I’d surmised as much,” Jordan said, smirking a little.

“Doctors,” C. J. said. Both Elizabeth and Jordan looked over at her. “What have we come up with?”

“Jordan’s agreed to help us out,” said Elizabeth. “Special counsel. She’ll be helping us find others to. . . join the insanity.”

Jordan folded her arms across herself and leaned against the desk. “I’m going to join the insanity myself, actually,” she said. “I’m going to represent Elizabeth for all this.”

The three others looked at her sharply. “What?” Elizabeth asked.

“You’re going to need a lawyer as much as anyone else,” Jordan replied. “Consider this a thank-you for taking this job in the first place. I have a horrible feeling that I was on the back-up list.”

Elizabeth laughed softly, and behind her the door creaked open. “C. J.?” said a woman whose voice was vaguely familiar. “I finally found out who-”

John turned around as the woman stopped, and realized that the woman’s face was as familiar as her voice. “Come on in, Donna,” C. J. said. “Doctor Weir, Colonel Sheppard, you remember Donna Moss from the Sydney trip. She’s been working for me now for a few months.”

Donna stepped in cautiously, closing the door behind herself. “This is a fun group,” she commented.

“Can be,” C. J. said. “Did you find out who. . .”

“Senator Canter,” Donna replied immediately. “His office said he’ll call in the morning. And I think Congresswoman Wyatt’s going to be around in a few minutes.”

“Good to know.” C. J. turned back to John. “How long had Andi been in Toby’s office when I came through?”

John opened his mouth to answer, but was stopped by a door behind him flying open. The redhead - the angry one, not the cute one - came storming in and announced, “C. J., I’d like to speak with you.”

“There’s a line, I think,” C. J. replied.

“This isn’t a time to be flippant, C. J.,” the woman protested.

“And I’m not being flippant, Andi,” said the chief of staff. “Colonel, could you close the door?”

John did as he was asked, glancing at Elizabeth and coming around to stand next to her. “What’s going on?” he asked, under his breath.

“I have no idea,” she replied.

But whatever showdown the two women had in mind was stopped by yet another door opening. Through it came another woman, this one more familiar. John was starting to feel a little outnumbered as Abbey Bartlet entered. She didn’t look too pleased, and he could only guess that she’d just found out about the Stargate, as Congresswoman Wyatt clearly had. However, she also seemed rather calm.

Abbey looked around the room. “C. J., Andi, Elizabeth, Donna, let’s get drunk,” she announced.

As Abbey turned around and exited the way she’d come, C. J. answered, “Uh, okay, I guess.” She was the first to follow her out of the room.

Elizabeth lingered while the others followed. “Are you going?” John asked, feeling a bit of panic at the thought of being left by himself in this building again.

“I generally do what Mrs. Bartlet tells me to do,” she replied. Then quite suddenly she kissed him. “I’ll try to sneak out as soon as I can.”

Then she disappeared through the door after them, leaving John alone with the lawyer. A few moments later, they heard the President calling into the office. “Colonel Sheppard? Jordan? You in there?”

John stepped up to the mystery door and saw both the President and that crazy British man inside the Oval Office. “Come on in, you two,” Bartlet said, waving them in. He and Jordan stepped inside cautiously. “You didn’t go with Abbey?”

“No, sir, we weren’t invited,” Jordan replied.

“Invited for what?”

“They’re getting drunk, apparently,” said John.

“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

John cleared his throat. “Sir, the First Lady seems to have taken it well.”

The President looked at him suspiciously. “Ever heard of a slow boil, Colonel?”

The first bottle was enjoyed. The second was imbibed.

The Residence was not a place to which Donna Moss had been very often - in fact, one of the only other times she’d been up there was while getting drunk with the First Lady a few years earlier. Abbey Bartlet had been mad then, and she was certainly mad now.

Donna could understand the anger. It hadn’t been wholly unreasonable for Abbey to expect her husband to tell her that there was life beyond the planet. Now the First Lady’s indignation was bouncing around a slew of potential targets - it was unfair to the country, unfair to the world, unfair to the staff, unfair to her. Andi Wyatt was a ready ally through the second bottle and the third, and while the two didn’t direct too much of their anger at C. J., the awkwardness there was palpable. And in the middle of all this were Elizabeth and Donna, and Donna had a terrible suspicion that Abbey and Andi had no idea that they had known about the Stargate for months.

Finally, when the diatribe had lulled, the moment of truth arrived, and Abbey got Elizabeth in her sights. “Elizabeth,” she began, a slight slur forming in her speech, “how would you feel if the President brought you into the Oval Office and told you there was human life on other planets?”

Donna sipped her wine as Elizabeth stared at her glass. “Well,” said the diplomat in a soft voice, “I was fairly shocked when he told me.”

Never had an anvil been so delicately dropped.

“Wait a minute,” said Andi, “you knew?”

Elizabeth glanced over at C. J., who shrugged. “They’re going to find out most of this in a week anyway,” she said. “I mean, sure, there are a few things we’re not going to tell them, but for the most part they’re going to be reading about it before too long.”

“C. J.,” Abbey interrupted.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Why don’t you tell us instead of telling us about telling us?”

“Mrs. Bartlet,” Elizabeth said, setting her glass on the coffee table, “I’ve been involved with the Stargate program since Admiral Fitzwallace’s death.”

Abbey’s eyes widened, and suddenly she couldn’t focus on anything in the room for very long. “Why?” she finally said.

“I ran the SGC for a few weeks,” Elizabeth said, “before I took over the administration of an Antarctic research site and then an expedition to another galaxy. For the last two years I’ve lived in the lost city of Atlantis.”

Sitting next to each other, Andi and Abbey stared at each other for a moment. “There are expeditions to other galaxies?” Andi said.

“Just one,” Elizabeth replied. “Well, there have been a couple trips to the Asgard home galaxy, but I wouldn’t call them expeditions.”

“Whose home galaxy?” Abbey asked.

“The Asgard,” Elizabeth repeated. “They’re allies.”

“Good,” Abbey said, a caustic edge to her tone, “I’d hate to think Jed’s gone out and made enemies.”

“Mrs. Bartlet,” the diplomat began.

“What the hell does he think he’s doing?” Abbey continued, all but ignoring Elizabeth. “There’s life on other planets. In other galaxies. We’ve had a mode of interstellar travel for ten years. I’m his wife! What gives him in the right to keep this kind of secret from me? And what gives him the right to trust Elizabeth with this before me?”

“Abbey, he had a job for me to do,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry that there wasn’t compelling reason to tell you before me, but he had a job for me to do.”

There was something else at play there; Donna could sense it. Abbey Bartlet wasn’t in a habit of opening up to people she didn’t like and respect, but there was unspoken history between her and Elizabeth in the air. With a few more glasses of wine, Donna might forget herself long enough to ask.

“You’re a daughter to him, Elizabeth,” said Abbey. “I don’t pretend to understand why he decided to treat you like that when he had three daughters of his own already, but I’ll let that go. But I’m his wife. He’s supposed to be able to tell me things.”

“Abbey,” Elizabeth began.

Donna shook her head. “This is why he doesn’t tell you things, Mrs. Bartlet,” she interrupted. “You get mad about it and blab classified information to people when you don’t even know that they already know about it.”

Andi had been in the process of pouring herself another glass, but she stopped paying attention to that as Donna spoke. “Donna, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Andi, the wine,” C. J. said.

The congresswoman jumped, splashing more wine into a glass that was already mostly full. Narrowing her eyes, she set the bottle down. “Donna, when did you find out about this Stargate?”

Donna looked to C. J., whose head was in her hands. “Go ahead, tell them, I don’t care anymore. . .”

“Tell us what?” said Abbey.

“The President told me when we were on our way back from the Pacific Rim conference,” she explained. “C. J. had me doing a lot of legwork for her, and I was putting the pieces together anyway, so the President just decided to let me know all of it since I’d already figured out that Doctor Weir had been on another planet.”

Elizabeth leaned forward to look around C. J. and asked, “Donna, how did you figure that out?”

“Your credit card, mostly.”

Elizabeth looked confused for a moment before realization dawned. “Oh. Okay.”

After that, they started to really get drunk.

Jordan Kendall had left rather quickly, leaving John in the clutches of Lord Marbury and President Bartlet. With her out of the room, the conversation swiftly turned to a topic John felt quite comfortable with: the evilness of women.

Granted, it wasn’t like he had much opportunity to speak. Marbury and Bartlet were not men of rhetorical brevity, and John had difficulty getting a word in edgewise. After at least two hours of that, the British ambassador took his leave, and John finally decided that it was time to get back to Elizabeth’s house.

“Sir,” John said, as Marbury departed into the outer office, “I think I need to get Elizabeth home. She’s had a tough day.”

Bartlet stood, taking off his glasses. John rose as well. “You’re taking care of her, John?” he asked.

John nodded. “As far as she’ll let me. It’s been further than usual this week, so. . . I think she needs it more than usual.”

“Okay.”

He headed toward the door to the outside, since he’d seen Elizabeth go that way earlier. As he approached the door and it was opened from the outside, though, the President said, “Oh, John?”

He turned. “Yes, sir?”

“You ought to marry that girl, you know.”

John blinked several times while Bartlet looked at him quite seriously. In any other situation, Elizabeth would have been there to interpret for him, but for once she was elsewhere and he was floundering. And just as his brain was starting to suggest that this was, perhaps, part of the reason he ought to listen to that advice, the President chuckled and waved at the door. “Go on. I’ll see you later.”

Considerably confused and unsettled, John did as he was told.

Several minutes later he was wandering through the building, and while he was still wondering how serious the President had been, he heard the sound of women giggling not too far away. He heard the timbre of Elizabeth’s laugh mingling with others, and John followed the sound.

He found her in what looked like a wide hallway, having shed her jacket and sitting on the arm of a sofa. Donna was curled up, catlike, next to C. J., and that redhead - looking less angry now - was sitting with Abbey on the other sofa. It was the First Lady who noticed his entry, and as the laughter died down, she said, “John, how’d you find us?”

“Followed the noise,” he replied.

At the sound of his voice, Elizabeth looked over at him. Her face was flushed, and she handed her glass to Donna. “I’m sorry. I said I was coming back to you in a few minutes, but then Abbey started talking about how it was unfair that she didn’t know about the Stargate before tonight and-”

John laid a finger over her mouth. “You’re babbling, Elizabeth.”

Andi sat up a little straighter and looked at John with an appraising eye. “Does he know about the thing too?” she asked.

“This is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, Andi,” Abbey replied. “He’s been in another galaxy with Elizabeth for the last two years.”

Elizabeth hadn’t taken her eyes off John. “He’s my military advisor and second-in-command,” she said.

“He’s cute,” said Andi. John just blinked.

Meanwhile, Abbey seemed to be collecting herself down at the other end of the couch. “Well, I don’t see how you two sleep at night, knowing what you know,” she said.

Elizabeth smirked, and not at all in the subtle way she usually would, as she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him closer. “Well, dealing with John all day usually wears me out,” she said, before grabbing him by the back of the neck and kissing him.

He’d had a half-second window in which to get away, but he didn’t move quickly enough. John soon found himself in a less-than-objectionable position, with his mouth wholly occupied with Elizabeth’s. But it was unheard of for her to be that affectionate in front of others unless life-or-death were involved, and John quickly extricated himself. “You drunk?” he asked.

Eyes wide, she nodded. “I’ve lost count of how many bottles we’ve been through.”

She turned to retrieve her wine glass, but John lifted it away from her. “Well, you’ve been up here for a long time,” he said.

“Hey, give that back to her,” C. J. protested.

“The woman’s had a hard enough day without you taking away the alcohol,” Abbey said.

Glaring at the women, John downed what was left in the glass and set it on the coffee table. “Elizabeth, it’s two in the morning,” he said. “You need sleep.”

To his shock, she actually pouted. “You’re no fun.”

John picked up her jacket and put it on her, with only a little help from her. Then he kissed her forehead and dragged her off the sofa. “Just returning the favor.”

Chapter Four | Chapter Six