Professional
{ gen }
WIP, based on a prompt by catmoran
*
There’s a very good reason why McKay doesn’t let Sheppard touch shiny consoles on alien worlds. Elizabeth is pretty sure this is it.
–
“What’s going on?” Elizabeth demanded when Lorne’s team arrived in Atlantis, Sheppard and company in tow.
“You’ll never guess,” Lorne replied.
Elizabeth looked to John for an explanation. “Well?”
“This is a grievous insult!” Rodney proclaimed, pushing to the front of the group. Cadman snickered into her hand and Elizabeth shot uneasy looks at the two teams.
“I have never been so disrespected in my life!” Rodney continued, pointing wildly at Lorne. “The way that, that…hooligan man-handled me, I’ll have bruises for weeks!”
“He should be locked up,” Teyla insisted venomously. “I must insist he be taken to your brig.”
Oh, so it was going to be one of those days, was it? “Okay, I’ll bite - what happened?”
Lorne crossed his arms over his P-90 and grinned. “Colonel Sheppard activated some sort of device, and now…” He gestured at Rodney. “Tell her who you are, McKay.”
Rodney huffed and stomped his foot. “Don’t be ridiculous - everyone knows who Princess Rodney of Torontonia is!”
Cadman burst into loud guffaws and fell against a frightened-looking Parrish.
“Is this a joke?” Elizabeth asked.
Sadly, no one else was laughing.
Ronon thrust a stick in Elizabeth’s face. “So,” he said, “what are your thoughts?”
“It’s a microphone,” Lorne explained in a stage whisper.
Elizabeth fumbled her headset on. “Carson? You need to get down to the gate room.” She glanced at John and watched in horror as he made imaginary notes in an imaginary notepad. “Yesterday.”
–
“You do not understand,” Teyla insisted, leaning towards Carson. “The Princess is deathly allergic to lemons. I cannot allow you to give her any sort of injection - it could prove to be lethal.”
Ronon held the point of his stick just under their chins and looked on avidly.
Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is going to wear off, right?”
Lorne shrugged and Cadman got in a tug-of-war with John over his invisible scratch pad.
“You’re driving me nuts, Colonel! Keep your hands in your lap or something, geez.”
“It’s important for me to record everyone’s reactions,” he argued, “so that I can get a clear picture of their Inner Selves.” Elizabeth could hear the capitals tacked onto those words and she mentally shuddered at the thought of him as some sort of pyschiatrist or spiritual advisor.
The argument between Teyla and Carson seemed to have died down, and even though Rodney’s head was still tilted regally upwards, it seemed he was allowing Carson to at least draw some fluids and take his blood pressure. Teyla stood warily by, watching the doctor’s movements intensely.
Ronon loomed suddenly into Elizabeth’s personal space, forcing her to crane her neck to see his face. The ‘microphone’ hovered somewhere just below her visual field.
“Yes, Ronon?”
“Lois,” he corrected.
Elizabeth blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Lois Lane, ma’am. And don’t worry - Superman will save the day.”
John nodded sagely. “He always does.”
Lorne looked just as horrified as Elizabeth suspected she did herself, but she felt no guilt when she threw up her hands and walked out of the infirmary. There was an extra-large bottle of Tylenol waiting for her in her office and that was an appointment she just couldn’t put off.
–
If Elizabeth was completely honest with herself, she had expected the commotion in the gate room at least an hour sooner.
“What’s going on out here?” she demanded when her door slid open, revealing Rodney, Teyla, a half-dozen marines, and Chuck the gate technician, all glaring at each other in various states of ire.
“The princess,” Chuck explained, barely twitching at the honorific, “has insisted upon a throne. Here. In the gate room.”
“Oh really?” Elizabeth replied, eyeing the table, blanket, cushion, and shiny wall panels that were arranged in the vague semblance of a dais. She raised her eyebrows at the marines and they shifted guiltily.
Rodney gestured at the men to continue working but they took their cue from Elizabeth’s tired shrug and resumed their slow construction.
–
Four hours later (six hours after they returned from the planet, seven hours after their missed check-in, eleven hours after they left; ten hours, give or take, after John had activated the device) the four of them paused, stared around confusedly for several moments, and the whole thing started again.
to be continued