Title: Take me Away to the Moonlight
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: K+
Genres: gen, het
Recipient:
sgteam14283Prompt: Stargate, Evan Lorne/Laura Cadman and Kassandra Wilson/Joe Simmons, Are you serious? I'm your knight in shining armor!
Summary: Evan Lorne, Kassandra Wilson and Joe Simmons were saved by the bell. So to speak.
A/N:
Holiday Fic Request Meme. Oh God, I'm so going to kill whoever fucked up the LJ editor. I don't want my Word font to be transferred into HTML-tags, thank you very much. Because you know what that means? It means I have to use copy/paste about a hundred times to purge the text from the tags I don't want and then I have to go through the entire text to purge it from all the paragraph crap. Five Times Christmas Wasn't Business as Usual has eleven pages in Word. Do you, dear someone who fucked up the LJ editor have any idea HOW FUCKING LONG IT TAKES TO EDIT IT NOW? Oh God.
Okay, uh, rant over. People actually looking up the journal instead of seeing my posts on their flist might get a bit confused because, you know, it's not the 25th right now but I'll be away until the 26th, so I decied to post those fics in advance. Just a little heads up.
Take me Away to the Moonlight
"Save me
take me away to the moonlight
the people around me don't feel right
what are we doing here.
Come on and save me let's get away from the action
you are the only attraction
take me away from here."
Clout, "Save Me"
She wonders how all the other Lanteans do it, especially those in higher functions. She's just a little IT technician but she's thoroughly irritated after the fifth Welcome Back reception in a row. Actually, the fifth Welcome Back reception in two months, and that’s not even counting the ball in DC two weeks ago.
They've been back from the Pegasus galaxy for about three months now and after four weeks in San Francisco Bay that were mostly spent on maintenance of about a thousand systems that got fried on Atlantis' wild ride through the galaxies, obviously the entire brass with a high enough security clearance wanted to see the city from Pegasus.
She tried to get out of it this time but Joe had mumbled something like "If I have to go, you have to go." and dragged her along for just another evening of polite conversation in the cafeteria. Serves him right that he's trapped in a conversation with Dr. McKay and Major Lorne now. Okay, a conversation with Major Lorne isn't a bad thing, if a bit... intimidating, most of all when Laura isn't there - like now, which is why she didn't join the conversation and left Joe to fend for himself - but a conversation with Dr. McKay? Not on her life. She'd tried to like him but she failed miserably. She's pretty sure, though, that McKay doesn't even want people to like him so it's probably okay that she doesn't.
So, how to dodge... Huh? What are they suddenly doing with their hands at their ears? And… why are they coming her way now? “Come on, Kass, we’re needed.” She raises her eyebrows at the two soldiers and their slightly alarmed faces.
“What on Earth…” Hey! No manhandling the resident female IT techie, Lieutenant McSmartypants! “Will you just let go…”
“It’s urgent, Miss Wilson.” Oh, and that justifies Joe putting his Hand around her arm and… “But no reason to jostle your girlfriend, Lieutenant.” Great, now her boyfriend’s boss sounded like Joe was abusing her which isn’t true. She was irritated, not hurt.
Not giving in to the temptation to rub her arm, she feels the need to correct something. Mostly the allegation that she needs anyone to rescue her from anything or anyone, much less her boyfriend. There was nothing she needed to be rescued from. “It’s okay, sir. No harm, no foul. Now what the hell...”
“Kassandra!”
“…is going on?” Joe can be such a… baby sometimes. Such a… country boy. Okay, so usually that’s actually kind of cute…
“Laura said she found some irregularities in the virtual paperwork when she was going through some of it. She sounded a little… concerned.” Mh. If she got it right, the translation for “concerned” is “confused like hell” or something like it. Actually… this is starting to get interesting. She decides to tag along for good measure, even she has no idea why her presence is needed. Or Joe’s, for that matter. Anyway. She tags along.
The boys don’t talk much on the way to the Gate Control Room where Laura is currently on watch and she has to say, she finds it amazing how they manage to be so damn fast in their Blues. But then again, she thinks a little sourly, they also don’t wear a skirt and damn killer heels. Why exactly did she let herself be convinced by Joe to wear…
“So what’s the matter?” Oh, right. Mysterious virtual paperwork issue. Must concentrate on that. And wow, she just realized that she never saw Major Lorne in full CO mode before. It’s… impressive.
Laura, however, doesn’t look really impressed. “Schedules are the matter. There’s some slight… issue with them.” Is she just imagining it or is Laura keeping her voice down so as not to alert the rest of the skeleton crew? If so, she probably doesn’t have to make the effort. The arrival of two soldiers in their Blues and a computer technician in high heels and a skirt right from another very important reception probably spoiled it before she even began.
And… Major Lorne doesn’t look really happy. “Schedules? You pulled us off that reception for schedules?”
At that, Laura only rolls her eyes and pushes the laptop she was working on around so they can all see the screen. “Look for yourself, Major Shouldn’t Pretend He Likes Rubbing Elbows With The Brass.”
Ouch. That kind of dirty look… she’s glad Laura’s its target, not her. She’s not sure if she could deal as well with it as Laura who just… smirks. Major Lorne seems to ignore it with simply leaning down on his hands on either side of the laptop and Joe looks positively uncomfortable. She wonders if he will ever get over this non-frat rules thing. Or maybe it’s just him being a country boy again. With Joe, you never know.
Major Lorne keeps scrolling through the file and… it starts to dawn on her what’s the issue. Before she gets to say it, though, Joe mutters, “But… they’re gone.”
Laura nods, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Exactly, Captain Obvious.” Then she leans forward again and pulls the laptop towards her again. “And it’s not just the schedules. It’s the entire roster.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she hears Major Lorne groan and he straightens up again. “Alright. Did you alert Sheppard about it?”
There’s a snort from Laura, then, “He’d only have delegated it to you, anyway.” Why does she have a feeling that Major Lorne thinks that this is a good thing?
Oh right, because he just nodded a little resignedly. She wonders if he knows that some of the lower decks like to call him “Sheppard’s file rat” when none of his soldiers are there to listen.
Mh.
Okay.
She’s pretty sure he does know that. And not just because Joe likes to complain that there’s nothing his boss doesn’t know about. Right now, though, the boss seems to be a little clueless. “Okay… any suggestions? Anyone?”
She looks at Joe and it’s a little ridiculous how proud she is of him when he simply grabs a chair and sits down next to Laura, in front of the laptop. “I… think I have an idea.”
Interested in what that idea is, she steps behind him, to watch him scroll and type and look for what the hell happened to the military schedules and rosters. She can’t help throwing in some remarks now and then and as always, Joe can’t help bicker back. She pointedly ignores the amused looks they get from Laura and Major Lorne. It’s much more important that she concentrates on the laptop’s screen because… “Damn, Joe, you’re doing it all wrong.” Oops.
“Excuse me?” Oh yeah, she thinks, you know exactly what I mean. And that I’m right. Ignoring his indignant stare and huff, she throws decorum to the wind and sits down in his lap. He’d never have vacated that chair, and she’s her own woman. A woman who’s still ignoring the looks and now also snorts and chuckles of amusement coming from Laura and Major Lorne.
Joe tries to protest one more time but she just rolls her eyes and gets a little more comfortable in his lap. Yeah, she thinks, that’s what you get for making me dress up and dragging me to yet another boring reception.
Okay, where to start now… oh right. When she saw Joe wrestling with the database she started to get a suspicion. Something in the way he couldn’t get any access was familiar to her… she tries a few shortcuts and backdoors that turn out to be dead ends but then she remembers an algorithm… and lo and behold, schedules file… what the fucking hell?
She blinks a couple of times before she manages to believe what she’s seeing there. No schedules, no rosters. Just a text message.
Oops. Seems as if someone accidentally messed up the database. So sorry I couldn’t put it in order before I got dragged off to commie land and let you enjoy your nth reception in a row in peace. But I’m sure McSmartypants and Miss Wilson will be a big help. Hope you didn’t forget your authorization codes, Evan. You’re gonna need ‘em.
Oh, and Maureen says none of this was her idea but she’d like to remind you and Laura not to do anything she wouldn’t do while we’re gone. Whatever she means by that. Anyway… tell the farm kids to have fun solving this!
Tom
PS.: Are you serious? Go after me? I'm your knight in shining armor!
This. What. Huh? She’s… pretty sure that… she’s not supposed to find this funny but damn, Laura is grinning and even Major Lorne looks like it’s very hard not to grin about it. Actually, it seems as if Joe’s the only one who’s still much more focused on the puzzle than on the fact that, apparently, something happened to the database before Maureen and Major Moore took off for St. Petersburg and it went off like a time bomb today. She’d really like to believe it’s just a very weird coincidence but with Major Moore and IT related issues… there’s hardly ever any coincidence.
After another moment when Laura and Major Lorne try to look stern and not amused and Joe is trying to grasp the concept of saving someone by the bell, Major Lorne finally says, obviously struggling not to laugh, “So… I believe this is very high priority. Too high to be ignored. I’d say… we take care of this immediately.”
She looks at Joe and finally there’s some recognition on his face. And… relief? “Of course, sir. Kassandra, would you please… erm…”
No chance in hell. “Actually, I’m finding this a very convenient arrangement.” So. The guy who had sex with her in a fucking jumper with the door unlocked just blushed crimson at the thought of her keeping seated in his lap while they’re solving an unfortunate database error while his superior is watching. She’s so going to thank Major Moore for this, all his smugness be damned.
And to be honest, from the look of it, both Major Lorne and Laura will - after retaliation, she’s sure of that - be thanking him, as well. Major Lorne just got himself a chair and took off his jacket while Laura positioned herself suspiciously close to the Major and she didn’t miss Laura’s hand on the backrest of Major Lorne’s chair - and subsequently Major Lorne’s back - either.
Well, she thinks as they all settle in for a couple of hours of digging around in the database’s innards, this is a lot better than standing around the cafeteria and wondering how to dodge any of the officials. Actually, it’s her idea of fun. Saved by the bell, indeed.