This fic is for melyanna, who wanted John and Elizabeth off-world with any team and Lorne involved for a bonus. I am sorry for the delay.

Thanks to ironyrocks and eldanna for all of their help.

Spoilers: None

Rating: PG

Summary: Home is where the heart is. Tents are sort of half a home.

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Time Spent In Tents Whilst Off-World From Atlantis

I. Shadow Puppets

“Shadow puppets?”

Teyla’s tone was quite skeptical. She had several weeks’ experience going off-world with John, Rodney and Aiden, but this was the first time she’d shared a tent and Elizabeth was finding significant gaps in her education.

“Shadow puppets,” Elizabeth used her most reassuring tone. “It’s a form of story-telling on Earth, but kids do it all the time when they go camping.”

“I see.” Though Teyla’s tone indicated exactly the opposite.

Elizabeth smiled and fished in her backpack for a flashlight. She pointed the camp light away from her and turned it down to its faintest setting. Lining her flashlight up to point in the opposite direction, Elizabeth switched it on and a white circle appeared on the tent wall. She took a pillow and reclined back so that when she reached up, her hands crossed into the beam of light.

“The Earth, people once believed, was carried on the back of a giant turtle.” Elizabeth laced her fingers together and a turtle appeared.

Teyla’s eyes widened and a hint of a smile appeared on her face.

Elizabeth continued on, explaining the various birds that had dove to the bottom of the sea for mud to put on the turtle’s back and the woman the turtle saved from drowning. Each animal and fish and bird, even the sea itself, appeared on the tent canvas as Elizabeth spoke of its role and Teyla listened as one entranced.

When Elizabeth finished, Teyla asked to be shown how to tell stories with her hands. The lesson lasted quite some time as the two women wove the tale again and again. Elizabeth’s hands were delicate where Teyla’s were hardened in battle and where Elizabeth’s fish hawk was a benevolent rescuer, Teyla’s seemed somehow to swoop in the sky like an eagle after its prey. The story she told, though she used the same words, seemed grim and quite unlike Elizabeth’s.

“I think this is a skill best left to those of your galaxy,” Teyla said ruefully.

Elizabeth considered the strong alien woman who was, in so many ways, their guide. An idea began to formulate in her mind.

“I disagree, Teyla,” Elizabeth said with a hefty conviction usually reserved for IOA meetings. “I think we just need to find some of your own stories to tell.”

Teyla smiled, quite pleased with the idea. After a pause, she began to tell a story of her own people – fingers stretching out to the pointed prow of a Wraith Dart here, or hands spreading into some exuberant foliage there. Elizabeth listened, a curl of hair falling across her cheek as she tilted her head to the side, keenly watching Teyla’s story unfold.

When Teyla was finished, she and Elizabeth began to teach one another anew, the shadows of two galaxies playing upon the tent canvas as they spoke.

Outside on watch, Major John Sheppard eavesdropped as his new boss told Earth legends to an alien woman and heard Pegasus legends in return, all of them billions of miles from the home they called Atlantis.

Elizabeth, he decided, had very nice hands.

II. Deluge

“If it rains much harder, we might have to swim home, Major,” John scowled.

He lifted a corner of the tent flap, glanced outside and then threw a weary glance back at his new second-in-command. Evan Lorne shifted uncomfortably. Though the small tent they’d put up now protected them from the temper of the alien storm, they’d already been drenched when they’d pitched it up. The confined space did little to improve their conditions.

This was Lorne’s second trip off-world since arriving in the Pegasus Galaxy and he was still, metaphorically and now quite literally, getting his feet wet.

John rather liked him. Lorne was smart enough to get to know the scientists and techs instead of limiting himself to the military personnel. He hadn’t been in Atlantis for very long, but John knew the Major was well liked and able, and that was really all that mattered to John. His one condition to Lorne’s appointment had been to request that the Major accompany him on two or three missions – to get his bearings straight, before sticking him out with his own team.

The first mission had gone quite well.

The second was turning into a moderate disaster.

John’s problems began in the Briefing Room when Elizabeth had calmly and firmly announced that she would be accompanying the mission. The planet was more or less secure, which was why he’d chosen it. He had been planning to introduce Lorne to some of the local friendlies, but John still had qualms about Elizabeth’s security. Babysitting Lorne meant his attention was split.

As it turned out, John’s fears were mostly unfounded. Elizabeth’s presence actually made the trip go more smoothly as the locals fell over themselves trying to impress her, and the Major didn’t need that much handholding. Certainly not when you factored in that John usually had McKay’s constant whining to deal with by comparison.

The good fortune lasted until Elizabeth accepted an invitation to tour one of the local temples just as John had been preparing to take everyone back to the Gate for their scheduled contact. Elizabeth assured him that alongside Ronon and Teyla, she would be adequately protected. Though she had kept a straight face, there had been a glimmer of a smile in her eyes. She sent him off with Lorne to send a message to Atlantis like a good little errand boy.

The jumpers were all being retrofitted with something Rodney and Radek had cooked up, so Lorne and John had a bit of a walk ahead of them, but it wasn’t too bad. Until the rain had started. Sheets of water fell from the sky, so thickly that he could barely see two feet ahead of him and the wind howled so loudly that he could hardly hear a sound above it.

The first pellet of hail to hit his shoulder was the size of his thumbnail. The next few were the size of a golf ball. John stopped walking and yelled as loudly as he could that they needed to stop and put up the tent before basketballs of ice started falling. Somehow, Lorne heard him because he pulled off his pack and pulled out the tent. Once it was pitched and they were inside, John radioed Teyla to tell her that they were safe but immobile until the storm passed, and then they settled in for the long haul.

John’s head was spinning. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted Elizabeth to come. When he was actually with her, protection was relatively easy. Separated, he thought she was more vulnerable. The longer they waited, the more concerned he became and his patience began to fray.

“How do you feel about Dr. Weir?” Lorne asked him suddenly.

Due to his preoccupation, John’s mind jumped to one thing. His relationship with Elizabeth had made some rather extensive developments in the past few weeks and he knew that the Atlantis rumour mill was good, but Lorne was still just settling in.

John thought he’d been very discreet with Elizabeth. He cast about for a diplomatic answer to the Major’s question, but that had always been Elizabeth’s spiel, not his.

“I imagine her style of leadership is a little different then we’re used to,” Lorne continued, oblivious to his CO’s anxiety. “I was off-world with Daniel Jackson once. He wasn’t in charge, technically, but it certainly made life more interesting.”

John breathed a sigh of relief when he realized what his 2IC was talking about.

“We’ve had our clashes,” he admitted, rather proud of his recovery, “But for the most part we’ve managed to work together by keeping lines of communication open as much as possible.”

“I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” Lorne said.

It was probably a trick of the alien storm’s light, but John was reasonably sure the Major was smirking at him.

III. Haven and Hell

The mission had gone horribly wrong.

Elizabeth had made the trip with only one guard, John, as a show of trust. She had been reassured by the Praetor that his negotiations were in good faith and, since this was her third visit to the planet, she had deemed that the risk was negligible.

As they fled through the forest, dodging enemy soldiers that seemed to be disgorged from every tree and bush, John had quite a few things to say about trust and where their pursuers could stick it, some of it in languages Elizabeth didn’t know he spoke. The Pegasus Galaxy wasted no opportunity to teach.

In the distance there was a flash of light that Elizabeth knew signaled the cut-off of their escape route. John swore and stopped running. The Gate was guarded and with the jumper compromised, there was nowhere to run. The woods around them were still full of would-be kidnappers, their search lights seen bobbing not very far away as they moved towards John and Elizabeth’s position.

John looked up through the darkness, scanning the trees. Elizabeth instinctively followed his gaze, though she had no idea what he was looking for. John, apparently finding what he sought, propelled her over to the base of a large tree with wide limbs.

“Unclip your pack,” he said. She complied, threading the rope he handed her through the handles. John did the same. “Can you climb this?”

Elizabeth regarded the tree, sizing it up. It had been a while, but the search lights were getting closer and this was something of an emergency. She knotted the rope around her waist and scrambled for the lowest branch. She managed to swing herself up one leg at a time, the sense of urgency quelling her passing thoughts of how ridiculous she must look, and then goaded by John’s instruction she climber higher still.

When they reached the highest limb John deemed safe, they pulled their packs up behind them. John removed a tent canvas from his pack. In the darkness, John didn’t need to tell her that they were concealed from searchers but once daylight came, they would be vulnerable once more.

After several false starts and a lengthy pause to allow a lantern bearing search party to pass them by, they managed to construct a blind. The canvas was wrapped around the branch they stood on and the branch above, concealing them from anyone who might look up. Just as the sun was beginning to rise, John put the finishing touches on the shelter and climbed in.

It was awkward. The branch was narrow enough to straddle, but the tent that concealed them from the ground prohibited legs from dangling. It was just as well, Elizabeth realized, as straddling the branch would be very uncomfortable after only a short while. Moving slowly, John managed to get himself positioned so that he was leaning back against the truck of the tree, allowing his back to bear most of his weight. He gestured her over and she began to shimmy sideways along the branch.

She’d almost reached him when a loud crack came from below. She started and John put a hand on her shoulder to keep her still.

“The tracks just end,” a voice echoed from the ground below, dangerously close.

“Aye, and it doesn’t help that patrols were out in the dark mucking about,” a second voice added.

John’s free hand slowly unclipped his P-90 and as his eyes locked with Elizabeth’s, they both realized the strategic failing of their current position. John would have to fire blindly downwards, blocked on all sides by tent and tree, until he had made a hole big enough to see through. Elizabeth had a clearer shot at the ground.

She bit her lip and held out her hand for the gun. John’s eyes widened.

“They can’t have disappeared!” a third voice sounded.

“They’re Lanteans,” said the first voice. “They can do anything.”

Except stop my hands from shaking, Elizabeth thought.

She disliked guns and all they stood for. She knew how to use one, had known, in fact, before she even started working at the SGC, but she hated it all the same. Just as John was about to hand the gun over, the men below called out to another search party some distance away. There was a shouted conversation between the two, and then the group below the tree marched off to meet them.

Elizabeth exhaled in relief.

John clipped the P-90 back to the front of his vest and, with little change of expression, continued pulling her towards him. They sat in silence for hours, limbs awkwardly arranged with her weight resting on him, waiting for the rescue jumper to arrive.

The whole time, she could feel his gun pressing between her shoulder blades and he could feel the rapid beating of her heart.

IV. Holiday

“You’re sure about this?”

“What could possibly go wrong?”

Elizabeth chose not to dignify that with a response.

John was rummaging around in the attic. Somewhere, he knew, there was a four man tent, a few sleeping bags and a ridiculously large flash light.

“Come on, Elizabeth, it will be fun.” He was giving her that look. “You, me, the kids...”

“Our Secret Service detail?”

John’s face fell momentarily, but then he smirked at her. “They’d have to bring their own accommodations, of course.”

Elizabeth gave up. She crossed the attic to a corner John had already searched and in only a few moments, produced the items he had been unable to find.

“All right. But you get to explain it to Agent Crosswaithe. See if that charm of yours works on him.”

John’s smirk broke into a full fledged grin.

Several hours later, when the excitement and shouting had died down, and the agents, the campaign staff and the children were making their preparations, Elizabeth found her husband on the back porch, surrounded by camping accoutrements and staring up through the warm summer night at the stars. She paused in the doorway, unwilling to break him out of his memories.

Quite often, over the years, one or the other of them would be caught staring off into space, mind literally billions of miles away. They had left Atlantis on the best of terms, no reassignments or reviews from the IOA, just a sense of a job well done and a knowledge that their successors were capable men and women who would continue the work. But sometimes Elizabeth would tap her ear instead of reaching for her PDA and sometimes John forgot how to use a door knob, and they would take a moment to remember the City they both loved so much.

“C’mere,” he said without turning around and she went to his arms.

They sat for a while, staring up, and then John pulled the tent in front of them so that it covered her like a blanket. She lay back against him, giving his arms more leverage, and he began to fold the newly clean and federally inspected canvas back into its bag.

“I was thinking we might use this trip to talk to the kids.” John said hesitantly.

“About what?” Elizabeth asked, surprised.

“Atlantis.”

“They know about Atlantis, John. Everybody does.”

“They know about it, but they don’t…” John faltered and Elizabeth crooked her neck to look at him.

“I know,” she said softly. “They don’t understand it. It’s just a name, just a picture for them. They remember it, I think, but they never turned machines on by walking into a room or stayed up all night staring at the long range sensors.”

Elizabeth held the tent tightly so that it would not spring open as John reached for the bag and held it open in front of her. She wedged it in and he pulled the strings shut.

“I didn’t think I’d ever have a house again,” he said, seemingly out of nowhere. “Quarters, yes and maybe an apartment, but this place...”

“We spent a lot of time in other places,” Elizabeth agreed. “Alien cities.”

“Alien towns.”

“Alien taverns.”

“Alien prisons.”

They were both laughing now, shaking with repressed mirth as they tried not to make too much noise.

“Tents.”

“Tents.”

They sat in silence again, the constellations blazing above them.

“I miss the sound of the ocean,” he said finally.

“Me too,” she agreed. “But this is home and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“Maybe that’s what we should tell them,” John said. “That they are home.”

“They’re our home.”

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Somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy, a light shone in an Ancient City.

Just in case.

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finis

GravityNotIncluded, January 23, 2008

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