fic: Wrong Kind Of Guy - Part Seven [PG-13]
TITLE: Wrong Kind Of Guy - Part Seven
SUMMARY: In the back of her mind, she could hear a car horn honking, but the only thing she could really see was the cold, dark of his eyes watching her struggle against him in futile rebellion.
CATEGORY: crackfic, shermer_high AU
RATING: PG-13
NOTES: Don't forget to nominate your favourite 'minor pairings' in the Isis Awards! Fic about less-popular pairings in this fandom doesn't get a look-in, and this is a chance to point out the good stuff, and raise the bar. (Come on, tell me you've never written a fic to prove that you could do it just as well - if not better.) Search out your favourite fics and nominate them, because if you don't, who's going to know that there's heaps of good fic out there about pairings people have never considered?
Lookit this way: I got you into Liz/Ronon, didn't I? *g*
Part Six
Wrong Kind Of Guy - Part Seven
Friday night after the school game was a good time to do social stuff, and since most of her friends weren't old enough to drink, they met a local coffee shop after the game and chatted until the owners threw them out or their parents called, wanting to know where they were.
Elizabeth usually sat with Carson, and sometimes Rodney, and waited for John to join them. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. Tonight, Elizabeth was quietly hoping he wouldn't.
Tonight, not only Carson and Rodney were here, but also Ronon and a new junior student by the name of Laura Cadman who'd taken an active interest in Carson and developed a sideline of bickering with Rodney.
Rodney was waxing forth on one of his projects when Elizabeth excused herself from the table, saying she'd be back in a few minutes. However, rather than heading for the restrooms, she headed out to the street where she'd seen someone that she very much wanted to talk to.
If Mark Lorne was surprised when she confronted him on the pavement outside the coffee shop, he didn't appear it. "Liz."
"Mark." Okay, now where to start? "Waiting for Teyla?"
He regarded her for a moment, slightly amused. "Yeah. What of it?"
"It's about John," she blurted, then winced. "Well, not exactly. It's more about..." She was making a hash of this. "You know Teyla had a crush on John when she first arrived at the school?" She winced again. Not exactly the most graceful way to bring up the topic. She really was making a hash of this.
The large blue eyes narrowed, but he shrugged, apparently nonchalant. "Most girls have a crush on Sheppard at some stage or another. She got over it."
"I know." Elizabeth took a deep breath. Teyla's old crush on John wasn't the issue, here; her old crush on John was. "How do you know she got over it?"
Mark eyed her with a great deal of disbelief. "What?"
"You're going out with Teyla," she said. "How do you know she's over John?"
A couple of cars drove by as Mark stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. He seemed bemused by her question, but at least he wasn't looking at her as though she'd just escaped from an asylum. "I don't know. I...just do."
Singularly unhelpful to Elizabeth. "But how?"
His face was a puzzle. "Why's it so important?"
Automatically, her eyes were drawn to the group sitting inside the coffee shop. Ronon was saying something to Rodney that was making the younger guy splutter, while Laura Cadman looked on with smug amusement and Carson shook his head ruefully. While Carson's lips moved, speaking to Rodney, Ronon glanced up, and his gaze met hers, a good humoured affection in them.
She smiled back, an instinctive response, and saw his mouth quirk before he returned to the conversation.
"Ah." Mark had followed her gaze inside. "Can't help you there, Liz," he said, somewhat apologetically. "Teyla's been over Sheppard for months now, so it's different."
Elizabeth nodded, barely holding back a sigh. It wasn't that Ronon was jealous or anything - in fact, she would have preferred it if he'd shown just a little jealousy about her and John. It was just that she felt like she'd let him down somehow.
I didn't expect anything.
She thought that was wrong. She didn't know why she thought that, it was just wrong.
Worse still, she couldn't seem to do anything about it. It wasn't like she could explain to Ronon that her going to the dance with him didn't have all that much to do with John not wanting to go with her and a lot more to do with Ronon himself. He probably wouldn't believe her anyway - Elizabeth wasn't so sure she believed it herself.
What she was sure of was that she liked Ronon Dex. However their friendship had started off, she was more than glad of it now, and John Sheppard had no more to do with that than he had to do with her friendships with Rodney, Teyla, Carson, or Kate.
"We all have to play second fiddle to Sheppard sooner or later," Mark said. Elizabeth regarded him with surprise at the cynicism that layered his voice. "Look at it this way: at least it came up now rather than later."
That wasn't a comforting thought and Elizabeth opened her mouth to say as much.
"I see you're going through the guys like a hot knife through butter, Elizabeth," Kolya said from behind her. Elizabeth whirled, taking a step back in alarm as the older guy paused a few feet away from her, dark eyes studying her with mocking amusement. Beyond him loomed a half-dozen other figures, tall and menacing at his shoulder. "Got tired of Sheppard's replacement already?"
"He's not a replacement," she snapped, instinctively going to Ronon's defence. Then she cursed herself for even taking that moment to answer Kolya as she saw the shadows shift around her and Mark, encircling them.
"Really?" Kolya smirked. "Does he know that?"
"Hey," Mark said, coming to stand beside Elizabeth and confronting Kolya. "Back off. Leave her alone."
Kolya sneered. "Or you'll do what?"
"Mark--"
"Is there a problem?"
The door of the coffee shop closed behind Ronon with a definite click as he emerged into the street. Elizabeth met his gaze with a surge of something suspiciously like relief. This was way past her ability to deal with - although she was sure as hell going to try - and she didn't like the look in Kolya's eyes.
Beyond him, in the shop, Carson, Rodney and Laura were conferring, their eyes on the people outside. Even as Elizabeth watched, Rodney pulled out his cellphone and began talking.
Her eyes were jerked back as one of the guys off to the side snickered. "And the knight in shining armour appears." He was one of the two who'd been with Kolya days before. "You know, you have to wonder what she does for them that makes them so loyal..."
Outrage had time to blossom before Mark planted a fist in the guy's belly and followed it up with one to the jaw.
"Mark!" She knew why he'd done it, of course. They weren't friends exactly, but they were friendly, and Mark was an old-fashioned kind of guy in a lot of respects.
Elizabeth wondered briefly if old-fashioned also meant 'stupid' - which was what she considered hitting someone who was obviously part of a gang when that gang was present. Then she saw Kolya stepping forward, his face convulsed in anger as he reached out to punch Mark.
She got in the way, lifting one arm to stop the hit. Kolya's fist glanced off her wrist and struck her cheekbone instead and she stumbled back against someone who pinned her arms painfully behind her back. "Got her!"
Like hell. A quick glance told her she couldn't count on being rescued this time: the guys were being attacked by Kolya's goons. Giving a good account of themselves from the look of it, but not able to help her.
Looked like it was up to her to save herself.
She stomped down on his instep, hard as she could in her sandals, then kicked at his shin. The hands holding her arms loosened a touch and she tried to jerk away. No luck. The guy had too strong a grip to be easily broken - and with her attack, his hands on her arms tightened unbearably. Elizabeth cried out, a throaty yelp before she kicked out again, this time aiming for the knee.
Then a body crashed into her and the guy, sending them reeling backwards. He let go of her arms to catch himself as he landed, then she landed on him.
Quickly, Elizabeth slammed an elbow in his belly before she climbed to her feet and was satisfied to see him jacknife up, gurgling in pain.
She saw Kolya coming for her, and started to dodge. Even as she took the first step to turn and run, she knew it was futile. There was no way she was going to be able to evade him entirely. And he caught her around the waist in a grip of iron, hauling her away from the coffee shop and her friends.
"Ronon!"
Elizabeth saw him turn towards her, even as two of Kolya's guys leaped back on him again. Mark was fighting against another couple of guys, and she glimpsed a long blonde ponytail in the fray which suggested that Laura had waded in, too. And if Laura was in the fight, then Carson and Rodney wouldn't be sitting it out.
It was one thing to attack her because of John or Ronon. It was another to drag her friends into this.
And Kolya was pulling her away from the coffee shop while her friends tried to fight his thugs.
"Stop it," she hissed at Kolya, then yelped in pain as his fingers dug into her forearm, inciting nerves to unbearable agony. In the back of her mind, she could hear a car horn honking, but the only thing she could really see was the cold, dark of his eyes watching her struggle against him in futile rebellion. "Kolya--"
She got no further.
Someone barrelled into him, knocking him over. Elizabeth was jerked from his grasp, and half-turned to see Teyla blocking Kolya's return strike, and dodging the kick he swung at her, furious.
She grabbed Elizabeth's arm. "Car," she said briskly, heading for the road where John's Taurus sat idling. Carson, Rodney, and Laura were already on their way towards it, someone else ushering them towards it - was that Aiden Ford?
Elizabeth turned, pulling against Teyla, looking for Ronon. "What about--?"
He stepped into her vision. "I'm here."
She rolled her eyes at the unmitigated satisfaction in his voice. "Come on!"
It was more than a little crammed in the car, but Laura had squirmed onto Carson's lap, and Rodney was squeezed back against them as Aiden Ford scrambled in and perched on the edge. Ronon flung himself in and dragged Elizabeth onto his lap. Teyla neatly slipped into the front passenger seat next to Mark, and slammed the door shut behind her. "Drive!"
"Bossy," said John as he kicked the car into gear.
A glance out the window showed Kolya picking himself slowly up the sidewalk, surrounded by his goons. Elizabeth's gaze locked with his as the car moved off, and an atavistic shiver shimmied down her spine. He wasn't finished with her - not now, not ever. In time, he might move on to easier prey, but he'd never give up the chance to needle her - if only because he considered her one of the ways to get to John.
"You guys sure know how to make enemies," commented John as he turned the corner.
"Says John Sheppard," Rodney sneered. "Who is it that Kolya's got the vendetta against?"
"That would be Liz," John said without so much as a break. "She seems to be the one he's targeting these days."
Elizabeth glared at him in the rearview mirror. "Only because of you!" The car turned a corner, and she slid a little on Ronon's lap. The arm around her waist tightened and she gave him a quick, reassuring smile and received a studying look in return.
"Kolya's probably got a dartboard with your face stuck to it," Rodney was saying to John. They turned another corner, and Elizabeth shuffled a little and slipped an arm around Ronon's shoulders the better to balance herself. She caught Laura's little grin at her across the cabin of the car and flushed, but lifted her chin proudly.
"Hell with a dartboard," Aiden said dryly. "He'd have a shooting bale." He turned to Elizabeth, "How'd it start?"
She grimaced. "I came out of the coffee shop to...to talk with Mark, and the next thing I knew, Kolya and his gang were all over us."
"They were pretty bold," Mark noted from the front. "I doubt that's the last time we'll be seeing them."
"So don't wander around alone," John said, glancing at Mark and Teyla. "Although," he added bitingly, "it doesn't look like that's going to be a problem for you."
There was a pause in the car. Elizabeth caught her breath, and opened her mouth to give him a blistering answer. Then Teyla spoke, her voice clear and low and even. "John, sometimes you are a prick."
"Only sometimes?" Rodney muttered. Carson bit back a smile and Laura let out a shout of laughter.
"Hey!" John snapped. "Remember who's driving the rescue vehicle!"
Teyla let loose a breath that seemed to calm her, then turned so she could see into the back. "Is anyone injured?"
"Not I," Laura sang out.
"I'm fine."
"Me, too."
"Bruises," Ronon said. "Nothing that won't heal." His eyes studied Elizabeth for a moment, his fingers brushing her Elizabeth's cheek. She flinched from the slight pain his touch evoked and he pulled his hand back. "Sorry," he told her, more softly as the others chimed in with their injuries, real and imagined. "Tomorrow, you're going to look like someone punched you in the face."
She lifted one hand to prod the bruised skin, wincing. "Which is what happened."
"You okay?"
"Fine," she replied, almost automatically.
Ronon eyed her a moment longer, then nodded, accepting her word.
"You know, I'm surprised they didn't pull knives," Mark was saying in the front.
"Not the only one," Aiden chimed in.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm grateful they didn't," Carson said, speaking up for the first time, his broadly Scottish accents contrasting with the rest of their voices. Even Rodney's Canadian vowels became nearly indistinguishable by comparison.
In all the conversation, Elizabeth hadn't been keeping track of where John was taking them. Laura, however, glanced out the window on her side and asked, "Uh, Sheppard, where are we going?"
"Elizabeth's house."
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "And did it occur to you to ask me first?"
"We need somewhere to regroup," John said.
"You're only a few houses down," Rodney pointed out. "Isn't that a more logical place to go?"
"And you're across the road," said John with a hard edge to his voice. "We could always crash at your place."
Rodney paused, probably thinking of his father's reaction to having his house invaded by a group of his son's friends. "Right. Elizabeth's house it is."
She opened her mouth to object, more out of habit than anything else, then closed it. Rodney was watching her with a slightly pleading expression on his face, and she could see John's wary glances in the rearview mirror. All she had to do was say, 'No,' and one or the other of them would be screwed.
They could be irritating, annoying, immature and arrogant when they weren't thinking about anything but themselves, and she hated it when they assumed she was going to be there for them because 'that's what Elizabeth does' as Rodney had once said when he didn't know she could hear him.
But they were also her friends.
She sighed, more than a little apprehensively. "God, I hope my parents aren't having one of their dinners."
- TBC -
Part Eight
SUMMARY: In the back of her mind, she could hear a car horn honking, but the only thing she could really see was the cold, dark of his eyes watching her struggle against him in futile rebellion.
CATEGORY: crackfic, shermer_high AU
RATING: PG-13
NOTES: Don't forget to nominate your favourite 'minor pairings' in the Isis Awards! Fic about less-popular pairings in this fandom doesn't get a look-in, and this is a chance to point out the good stuff, and raise the bar. (Come on, tell me you've never written a fic to prove that you could do it just as well - if not better.) Search out your favourite fics and nominate them, because if you don't, who's going to know that there's heaps of good fic out there about pairings people have never considered?
Lookit this way: I got you into Liz/Ronon, didn't I? *g*
Part Six
Wrong Kind Of Guy - Part Seven
Friday night after the school game was a good time to do social stuff, and since most of her friends weren't old enough to drink, they met a local coffee shop after the game and chatted until the owners threw them out or their parents called, wanting to know where they were.
Elizabeth usually sat with Carson, and sometimes Rodney, and waited for John to join them. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. Tonight, Elizabeth was quietly hoping he wouldn't.
Tonight, not only Carson and Rodney were here, but also Ronon and a new junior student by the name of Laura Cadman who'd taken an active interest in Carson and developed a sideline of bickering with Rodney.
Rodney was waxing forth on one of his projects when Elizabeth excused herself from the table, saying she'd be back in a few minutes. However, rather than heading for the restrooms, she headed out to the street where she'd seen someone that she very much wanted to talk to.
If Mark Lorne was surprised when she confronted him on the pavement outside the coffee shop, he didn't appear it. "Liz."
"Mark." Okay, now where to start? "Waiting for Teyla?"
He regarded her for a moment, slightly amused. "Yeah. What of it?"
"It's about John," she blurted, then winced. "Well, not exactly. It's more about..." She was making a hash of this. "You know Teyla had a crush on John when she first arrived at the school?" She winced again. Not exactly the most graceful way to bring up the topic. She really was making a hash of this.
The large blue eyes narrowed, but he shrugged, apparently nonchalant. "Most girls have a crush on Sheppard at some stage or another. She got over it."
"I know." Elizabeth took a deep breath. Teyla's old crush on John wasn't the issue, here; her old crush on John was. "How do you know she got over it?"
Mark eyed her with a great deal of disbelief. "What?"
"You're going out with Teyla," she said. "How do you know she's over John?"
A couple of cars drove by as Mark stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. He seemed bemused by her question, but at least he wasn't looking at her as though she'd just escaped from an asylum. "I don't know. I...just do."
Singularly unhelpful to Elizabeth. "But how?"
His face was a puzzle. "Why's it so important?"
Automatically, her eyes were drawn to the group sitting inside the coffee shop. Ronon was saying something to Rodney that was making the younger guy splutter, while Laura Cadman looked on with smug amusement and Carson shook his head ruefully. While Carson's lips moved, speaking to Rodney, Ronon glanced up, and his gaze met hers, a good humoured affection in them.
She smiled back, an instinctive response, and saw his mouth quirk before he returned to the conversation.
"Ah." Mark had followed her gaze inside. "Can't help you there, Liz," he said, somewhat apologetically. "Teyla's been over Sheppard for months now, so it's different."
Elizabeth nodded, barely holding back a sigh. It wasn't that Ronon was jealous or anything - in fact, she would have preferred it if he'd shown just a little jealousy about her and John. It was just that she felt like she'd let him down somehow.
I didn't expect anything.
She thought that was wrong. She didn't know why she thought that, it was just wrong.
Worse still, she couldn't seem to do anything about it. It wasn't like she could explain to Ronon that her going to the dance with him didn't have all that much to do with John not wanting to go with her and a lot more to do with Ronon himself. He probably wouldn't believe her anyway - Elizabeth wasn't so sure she believed it herself.
What she was sure of was that she liked Ronon Dex. However their friendship had started off, she was more than glad of it now, and John Sheppard had no more to do with that than he had to do with her friendships with Rodney, Teyla, Carson, or Kate.
"We all have to play second fiddle to Sheppard sooner or later," Mark said. Elizabeth regarded him with surprise at the cynicism that layered his voice. "Look at it this way: at least it came up now rather than later."
That wasn't a comforting thought and Elizabeth opened her mouth to say as much.
"I see you're going through the guys like a hot knife through butter, Elizabeth," Kolya said from behind her. Elizabeth whirled, taking a step back in alarm as the older guy paused a few feet away from her, dark eyes studying her with mocking amusement. Beyond him loomed a half-dozen other figures, tall and menacing at his shoulder. "Got tired of Sheppard's replacement already?"
"He's not a replacement," she snapped, instinctively going to Ronon's defence. Then she cursed herself for even taking that moment to answer Kolya as she saw the shadows shift around her and Mark, encircling them.
"Really?" Kolya smirked. "Does he know that?"
"Hey," Mark said, coming to stand beside Elizabeth and confronting Kolya. "Back off. Leave her alone."
Kolya sneered. "Or you'll do what?"
"Mark--"
"Is there a problem?"
The door of the coffee shop closed behind Ronon with a definite click as he emerged into the street. Elizabeth met his gaze with a surge of something suspiciously like relief. This was way past her ability to deal with - although she was sure as hell going to try - and she didn't like the look in Kolya's eyes.
Beyond him, in the shop, Carson, Rodney and Laura were conferring, their eyes on the people outside. Even as Elizabeth watched, Rodney pulled out his cellphone and began talking.
Her eyes were jerked back as one of the guys off to the side snickered. "And the knight in shining armour appears." He was one of the two who'd been with Kolya days before. "You know, you have to wonder what she does for them that makes them so loyal..."
Outrage had time to blossom before Mark planted a fist in the guy's belly and followed it up with one to the jaw.
"Mark!" She knew why he'd done it, of course. They weren't friends exactly, but they were friendly, and Mark was an old-fashioned kind of guy in a lot of respects.
Elizabeth wondered briefly if old-fashioned also meant 'stupid' - which was what she considered hitting someone who was obviously part of a gang when that gang was present. Then she saw Kolya stepping forward, his face convulsed in anger as he reached out to punch Mark.
She got in the way, lifting one arm to stop the hit. Kolya's fist glanced off her wrist and struck her cheekbone instead and she stumbled back against someone who pinned her arms painfully behind her back. "Got her!"
Like hell. A quick glance told her she couldn't count on being rescued this time: the guys were being attacked by Kolya's goons. Giving a good account of themselves from the look of it, but not able to help her.
Looked like it was up to her to save herself.
She stomped down on his instep, hard as she could in her sandals, then kicked at his shin. The hands holding her arms loosened a touch and she tried to jerk away. No luck. The guy had too strong a grip to be easily broken - and with her attack, his hands on her arms tightened unbearably. Elizabeth cried out, a throaty yelp before she kicked out again, this time aiming for the knee.
Then a body crashed into her and the guy, sending them reeling backwards. He let go of her arms to catch himself as he landed, then she landed on him.
Quickly, Elizabeth slammed an elbow in his belly before she climbed to her feet and was satisfied to see him jacknife up, gurgling in pain.
She saw Kolya coming for her, and started to dodge. Even as she took the first step to turn and run, she knew it was futile. There was no way she was going to be able to evade him entirely. And he caught her around the waist in a grip of iron, hauling her away from the coffee shop and her friends.
"Ronon!"
Elizabeth saw him turn towards her, even as two of Kolya's guys leaped back on him again. Mark was fighting against another couple of guys, and she glimpsed a long blonde ponytail in the fray which suggested that Laura had waded in, too. And if Laura was in the fight, then Carson and Rodney wouldn't be sitting it out.
It was one thing to attack her because of John or Ronon. It was another to drag her friends into this.
And Kolya was pulling her away from the coffee shop while her friends tried to fight his thugs.
"Stop it," she hissed at Kolya, then yelped in pain as his fingers dug into her forearm, inciting nerves to unbearable agony. In the back of her mind, she could hear a car horn honking, but the only thing she could really see was the cold, dark of his eyes watching her struggle against him in futile rebellion. "Kolya--"
She got no further.
Someone barrelled into him, knocking him over. Elizabeth was jerked from his grasp, and half-turned to see Teyla blocking Kolya's return strike, and dodging the kick he swung at her, furious.
She grabbed Elizabeth's arm. "Car," she said briskly, heading for the road where John's Taurus sat idling. Carson, Rodney, and Laura were already on their way towards it, someone else ushering them towards it - was that Aiden Ford?
Elizabeth turned, pulling against Teyla, looking for Ronon. "What about--?"
He stepped into her vision. "I'm here."
She rolled her eyes at the unmitigated satisfaction in his voice. "Come on!"
It was more than a little crammed in the car, but Laura had squirmed onto Carson's lap, and Rodney was squeezed back against them as Aiden Ford scrambled in and perched on the edge. Ronon flung himself in and dragged Elizabeth onto his lap. Teyla neatly slipped into the front passenger seat next to Mark, and slammed the door shut behind her. "Drive!"
"Bossy," said John as he kicked the car into gear.
A glance out the window showed Kolya picking himself slowly up the sidewalk, surrounded by his goons. Elizabeth's gaze locked with his as the car moved off, and an atavistic shiver shimmied down her spine. He wasn't finished with her - not now, not ever. In time, he might move on to easier prey, but he'd never give up the chance to needle her - if only because he considered her one of the ways to get to John.
"You guys sure know how to make enemies," commented John as he turned the corner.
"Says John Sheppard," Rodney sneered. "Who is it that Kolya's got the vendetta against?"
"That would be Liz," John said without so much as a break. "She seems to be the one he's targeting these days."
Elizabeth glared at him in the rearview mirror. "Only because of you!" The car turned a corner, and she slid a little on Ronon's lap. The arm around her waist tightened and she gave him a quick, reassuring smile and received a studying look in return.
"Kolya's probably got a dartboard with your face stuck to it," Rodney was saying to John. They turned another corner, and Elizabeth shuffled a little and slipped an arm around Ronon's shoulders the better to balance herself. She caught Laura's little grin at her across the cabin of the car and flushed, but lifted her chin proudly.
"Hell with a dartboard," Aiden said dryly. "He'd have a shooting bale." He turned to Elizabeth, "How'd it start?"
She grimaced. "I came out of the coffee shop to...to talk with Mark, and the next thing I knew, Kolya and his gang were all over us."
"They were pretty bold," Mark noted from the front. "I doubt that's the last time we'll be seeing them."
"So don't wander around alone," John said, glancing at Mark and Teyla. "Although," he added bitingly, "it doesn't look like that's going to be a problem for you."
There was a pause in the car. Elizabeth caught her breath, and opened her mouth to give him a blistering answer. Then Teyla spoke, her voice clear and low and even. "John, sometimes you are a prick."
"Only sometimes?" Rodney muttered. Carson bit back a smile and Laura let out a shout of laughter.
"Hey!" John snapped. "Remember who's driving the rescue vehicle!"
Teyla let loose a breath that seemed to calm her, then turned so she could see into the back. "Is anyone injured?"
"Not I," Laura sang out.
"I'm fine."
"Me, too."
"Bruises," Ronon said. "Nothing that won't heal." His eyes studied Elizabeth for a moment, his fingers brushing her Elizabeth's cheek. She flinched from the slight pain his touch evoked and he pulled his hand back. "Sorry," he told her, more softly as the others chimed in with their injuries, real and imagined. "Tomorrow, you're going to look like someone punched you in the face."
She lifted one hand to prod the bruised skin, wincing. "Which is what happened."
"You okay?"
"Fine," she replied, almost automatically.
Ronon eyed her a moment longer, then nodded, accepting her word.
"You know, I'm surprised they didn't pull knives," Mark was saying in the front.
"Not the only one," Aiden chimed in.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm grateful they didn't," Carson said, speaking up for the first time, his broadly Scottish accents contrasting with the rest of their voices. Even Rodney's Canadian vowels became nearly indistinguishable by comparison.
In all the conversation, Elizabeth hadn't been keeping track of where John was taking them. Laura, however, glanced out the window on her side and asked, "Uh, Sheppard, where are we going?"
"Elizabeth's house."
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "And did it occur to you to ask me first?"
"We need somewhere to regroup," John said.
"You're only a few houses down," Rodney pointed out. "Isn't that a more logical place to go?"
"And you're across the road," said John with a hard edge to his voice. "We could always crash at your place."
Rodney paused, probably thinking of his father's reaction to having his house invaded by a group of his son's friends. "Right. Elizabeth's house it is."
She opened her mouth to object, more out of habit than anything else, then closed it. Rodney was watching her with a slightly pleading expression on his face, and she could see John's wary glances in the rearview mirror. All she had to do was say, 'No,' and one or the other of them would be screwed.
They could be irritating, annoying, immature and arrogant when they weren't thinking about anything but themselves, and she hated it when they assumed she was going to be there for them because 'that's what Elizabeth does' as Rodney had once said when he didn't know she could hear him.
But they were also her friends.
She sighed, more than a little apprehensively. "God, I hope my parents aren't having one of their dinners."
- TBC -
Part Eight