ceitie | SGA fic: Five Times Aiden Ford (Almost) Wished He Was on a Different Team

Title: Five Times Aiden Ford (Almost) Wished He Was on a Different Team, And One Time He Didn't
Author: Ceitie
Category: Gen AU
Characters: Ford, Team
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,122
Summary: Aiden wasn’t sure what was stranger, the fact that McKay was showing her face in the gym or that she was carrying a bowl of popcorn in her arms.
A/N: Okay, I lied about finishing my WIP first. This is a companion piece to Storm Damage, and takes place in the same genderswitch universe where Sheppard and McKay are women. Thanks to

blacknoise for being a great beta!

Five Times Aiden Ford (Almost) Wished He Was on a Different Team

1.

Aiden walked into the large, bare room that they had designated as the gym in time to see Teyla Emmagan leaning over the Major, offering her a hand to help her off the floor. Sheppard accepted the help with a grin, and Teyla pulled her to her feet.

Catching sight of Aiden, Sheppard said cheerfully, “Lieutenant! Right on time!”

Before he could do anything more than nod and smile in reply, the gym doors slid open again and McKay came striding in. Aiden wasn’t sure what was stranger, the fact that McKay was showing her face in the gym or that she was carrying a bowl of popcorn in her arms.

She nodded to them all, “Teyla, Major, Lieutenant,” and plunked down on the wide window ledge, pushing the gym bags aside and making herself comfortable.

“McKay, what are you doing here?” Sheppard asked.

McKay smiled, wide and happy, which Aiden found deeply unnerving. “I heard that the young Lieutenant here is planning on sparring with Teyla for the first time today.”

Sheppard put her hands on her hips. “And you came to watch.”

“Hey, if it’s anything close to the ass-kicking that you got when I saw the two of you sparring, this is going to be comedy gold,” McKay said brightly, then added, “What, like you’re not going to watch?”

Sheppard rolled her eyes, then glanced at Aiden and Teyla. “Well, as long as you guys don’t mind…”

Teyla was as serene as ever, but her eyes were twinkling. “I do not mind.”

Of course she didn’t. Aiden dredged up a smile. “No, it’s fine. Just save me some popcorn for afterwards, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” McKay mumbled around a handful of kernels. Sheppard sat down next to her and there was a brief but furious struggle for control of the popcorn, which ended with the bowl planted between them and a joint hunt for the popcorn that had gone flying all over the ledge and into McKay’s hair.

Teyla smiled at him and gestured at the mat. “Shall we?”

Ten minutes later, Aiden was on the floor staring up at the ceiling for the fourth time in row.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant Ford?” asked Teyla.

“You've got to watch her feet, Ford, she’s tricky,” Sheppard called out helpfully.

“Whoops, that’s the end of the popcorn,” said McKay.

Aiden closed his eyes and thought fondly of boot camp.

2.

Teyla came back into the small antechamber with an odd look on her face, and Aiden felt his shoulders tighten up automatically. She had gone to speak with the temple priests about the preparations the team would have to undergo before entering the temple, and going by her expression, Aiden figured that those preparations weren’t going to be something nice and simple like having to wash their hands first.

He really, really hoped this wasn’t going to be anything like the chicken planet, or that time with all the yarn.

Major Sheppard seemed to share Aiden’s sense of impending doom; she grimaced as Teyla approached and asked resignedly, “So, the preparations?”

Teyla hesitated, and her gaze shifted to Aiden. For a second, he could swear that she was holding back laughter. Then McKay made an impatient hurry-up motion and Teyla cleared her throat and told them exactly what the preparations entailed.

Aiden felt his mouth drop open and he closed it and opened it again a few times, scrambling for words. Before he could think of anything beyond Wha…?, McKay snorted inelegantly and said, “That’s all?” and started taking off her vest.

Aiden stared in shock, and then spun towards Sheppard and Teyla. “Ma’am? We’re not seriously going to – to go in there naked– ”

He trailed off as they turned identical mild stares on him. Dammit, he was right, Teyla was trying not to laugh. And now Aiden was blushing. Crap.

Sheppard was no help either, she only ran her hand across her P90 and said, “I don’t like leaving the weapons behind.”

Aiden was pretty sure that that was not at all the point, but he nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah, we can’t just go in there completely defenceless.”

“Yes, because that’s the part you’re so worried about,” McKay said mockingly, and dropped her vest, jacket and thigh holster on the ground.

Aiden spun to glare at her, and oh sweet Jesus she was taking off her shirt. Aiden quickly turned his back, but wasn’t fast enough to keep from seeing that McKay’s breasts were in fact just as large and well-shaped as they looked under her blue science shirts. Aiden thought rather desperately that he had never ever needed to know that, or that McKay apparently liked black bras.

“Dr. McKay!” he snapped, then immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Oh please, Lieutenant, you do realize that there might be a ZPM in there, right? It’s not like we have do cartwheels down the main aisle or perform a blood sacrifice. Pretend for twenty minutes that you don’t come from a society that’s been warped by Puritanical values and start stripping,” McKay said unconcernedly.

Heat rising in his face, he turned his glare instead on his remaining, still thankfully clothed, teammates. Teyla was pressing her lips together and shaking with silent laughter as she removed her weapons; Sheppard had unclipped her P90 and looked amused despite herself.

He tried to suppress his panic. The image of McKay shirtless was bad enough, but there was no way he’d be able to function on this team if he knew what his CO or Teyla looked like naked. Past experience had told him that stupid fantasies about attractive coworkers could only be stamped out if he made sure that there was no real material for them. To give his brain this kind of very, very real material would fuel his fantasies beyond any hope of suppression. And as fun as that might be, the team was more important.

Aiden sent a wild, pleading glance towards Sheppard, who rolled her eyes and said, “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Ford, you can wait in the antechamber and provide backup while the rest of us go inside. We’ll radio you if we have any problems.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Aiden said, and tried not to sound as pathetically grateful as he felt. Just then, Teyla’s boots joined the rest of her equipment on the ground and she reached towards her waistband to unbutton her pants. Aiden yanked his gaze away and from the corner of his eye caught sight of McKay’s tan pants being kicked off of one pale ankle. Giving up on finding somewhere safe to look in the small enclosure of the antechamber, Aiden closed his eyes tightly and waited for the sounds of rustling clothing and quiet snickering to stop.

Finally, Sheppard said from behind him, “Okay, hold the fort, Ford, with any luck we’ll be back shortly and up one ZPM.”

Aiden heard a creaking sound as someone pushed open the door to the outer temple, and he relaxed a little and opened his eyes, blinking at the patterns of stone on the wall in front of him. Then Sheppard added, her low drawl at its most sardonic, “And Lieutenant? If anything happens, keep your pants on.”

Letting his head fall forward and bang softly against the wall in front of him, Aiden said, “Will do, ma’am.”

3.

Aiden saw Sheppard start walking through the tables with her tray, catch sight of their table, begin to back away, realize that they had already seen her, and finally walk as casually as possible over to their table and sit down next to Aiden.

He gave her a weak smile. He had executed nearly the exact same maneuver when he had seen Teyla and McKay sitting together, glaring at him and his food tray from across the commissary. At that point, he had known that it wouldn’t have been worth sitting at another table and having a peaceful lunch only to suffer their joint wrath later. Sheppard had obviously arrived at the same conclusion.

The tense silence was finally broken by Sheppard, who took a deep breath and said, “So the fish-thing is good today.”

Aiden winced as Teyla smiled her most polite, vicious smile and said, “Yes, Major.”

“It is pretty good, isn’t it?” McKay said with false innocence, blinking big blue eyes. “Hey, Ford, maybe you should have stolen some for that picnic with your girlfriend. Or does the glowing squid thing make that too much like cannibalism?”

Aiden glared. “Lay off, McKay!”

“What is your problem, Meredith?” Sheppard hissed across the table. “It’s been two days, just get over it!”

“Oh, and of course you have to rush in to defend your bestest friend ever? Did you and Chaya exchange bracelets after you ran off alone into the middle of that Wraith attack? Some kind of Ancients Only –”

Teyla slammed her fork down with a loud clank, and McKay shut up. Teyla didn’t usually look that pissed unless there was a Wraith in the immediate vicinity and she was in the process of beating it to death with sticks.

“You have all acted very foolishly,” she said. “Now, we will eat dinner. And we will no longer speak of this.”

The tense silence returned, and Aiden went back to poking at his blue turnip and taro root stew.

4.

Aiden blinked. “They think she’s a what?”

Flinging her hands into the air, McKay whisper-screeched at him, “For the third time, Lieutenant, a witch! They think Sheppard’s a fucking witch! Now will you get moving?” She was walking backwards, already turning away from the tavern and towards the narrow alleyway.

Aiden shook himself out of his daze and followed her, and they quickly broke into a run. Pushing himself away from a shingled wall as they turned a sharp corner, Aiden asked a little blankly, “But why?”

“Why do you think?” McKay spat, although the force of her viciousness was lessened by the way she had to gasp for breath between words.

Aiden grabbed her by the vest and pulled her back into a side street, and they pressed up against the wall until the small group of villagers went by. He tried to stay as still and wall-like as possible and hoped no one would notice McKay’s laboured breathing.

As soon as they started running again, Aiden asked, “What do you mean, why do I think? How the hell would I know?”

McKay was too busy running to roll her eyes, but he could tell she wanted to. “They claim that she tried to seduce the Magistrate’s husband with her black arts and demon… things, or something. So once again we’re running around trying not to get stabbed because Sheppard’s the galaxy’s biggest –” She broke off when she saw the look Aiden was sending her, and finished weakly, “ – um, flirt.”

“C’mon, I don’t think this is her fault, she’s been trying really hard not to, you know, smile at people too much ever since, uh –”

“Ever since the time where we all had to get registered as town whores so you wouldn’t get your hand chopped off for illegal pimping?”

They rounded a final corner and came to a stop in an alley just outside of the village square. There were people hurrying through the nearby streets towards the square, and they could hear what sounded like a crowd of people yelling from that direction.

“Okay, fine,” McKay said grudgingly, “I’m fairly sure this whole thing got started because the Magistrate is a colossal bitch and she was pissed because her husband kept trying to grab Sheppard’s ass. All I’m saying is that it still doesn’t change the fact that I’m now part of an official hooker registry.”

Aiden sighed and reached for his radio to see how Teyla’s attempts at conflict resolution and/or stall tactics were going. With any luck, they’d be able to put a stop to this before someone dragged out a giant set of scales and a duck.

5.

The wind whipped against the tent, and Aiden shivered, drawing the sleeping bag a little tighter around his shoulders. His clothes were still damp from the fall into the river; he’d lost his pack and thus all hope of getting any dry clothing to change into. He stared with open envy at McKay, who had fallen into the river right alongside him but was now dry and cozy in Sheppard’s extra uniform, half-curled into Teyla’s sleeping bag. Teyla sat beside her, leaning against McKay’s shoulder and tucking her legs under the unzipped sleeping bag.

They looked very warm. And dry.

Aiden gritted his teeth, refusing to let them chatter, and turned towards the Major instead. “Does it look like the storm’s letting up any time soon?”

Sheppard shifted at her position near the tent flap. “Nope.” Another flash of lightening painted her sharp features in stark light and shadow for an instant, and then a rattling crash of the thunder slammed down along with the darkness. The noise was breathtakingly loud and Aiden tried to ignore his certainty that if lightening struck one of the many trees surrounding their tent, there was no way they’d hear it falling before it landed and crushed them to death.

Aiden looked away from the tent’s entrance when he heard McKay say, “Oh, yes, sure, one second.” She had put down her datapad and was reaching for her wet vest, twisting to avoid having to move out from under the sleeping bag. She snagged one of the straps and dragged it over, then started rifling through the pockets. Teyla was watching her and seemed to be waiting patiently for something, although once Aiden looked closer, he noticed that her expression was more strained than usual.

McKay yanked a pill bottle out of one of the pockets with a huff of triumph. “Hah, I knew I still had it in the vest.” She handed the bottle to Teyla and grabbed her datapad off the floor. “You’re lucky there’s still any left in that bottle though, after last week,” McKay muttered absently, already reabsorbed in whatever she was typing.

Teyla just smiled and said, “Thank you, Dr. McKay.”

Without thinking, Aiden asked, “What is it?”

“Midol,” McKay answered in the same absent-minded way as before, and Aiden sighed and decided he really had to work on the thinking-before-speaking thing. Because now Sheppard was looking over with a slightly concerned air from her crouch by the front of the tent.

“Teyla? You okay?” Another thunderclap banged overhead, and they all flinched at the noise.

After waiting for the rumbling echoes to fade, Teyla said, “Yes, I am fine. It is only some mild discomfort.”

“Which in Teyla-speak means that you can barely breathe through the pain,” said McKay scornfully, ignoring Teyla’s irritated glance.

Sheppard shrugged and turned back to the tent flap, saying over her shoulder, “Okay, but we might be here for a while and I’ve got a heat pack in my backpack if you change your mind.”

“Actually, I’ve never found those to be all that helpful, you know?” McKay said in a musing tone.

Aiden had a terrifying feeling that she was about to start expounding on the subject and said quickly, “Hey, can we not talk about this?”

He suddenly found himself on the receiving end of three steady stares, and Aiden backpedaled so fast that he nearly tripped over his figurative feet. “Or, you could just – keep talking, whatever. Just a suggestion. Uh.”

McKay sneered, Sheppard raised her eyebrow and Teyla gave him her ‘prepare to be bruised by sticks when we get home’ look.

Aiden wondered if he could wait out the storm outside the tent.

And One Time He Didn’t

1.

“Alright, let’s see what everyone brought,” McKay said briskly, and dropped a pack of apple juice, three bags of M&Ms, a bag of those vanilla-peanuts from M35-258, and two bottles of clear liquid that probably came from the still in the fifth floor chemistry lab onto the table.

Aiden grinned and pulled his own carefully hoarded loot out of his duffle bag, adding it to the growing pile of junk food and alcohol. They all oohed happily when Teyla revealed four bottles of Athosian beer, and then Sheppard and McKay started arguing about how to divide it all fairly. McKay eventually grabbed a laptop and started making some kind of junk food value chart, and Aiden just leaned back on the couch and munched on a sneaked handful of vanilla-peanuts.

He hadn’t really stop smiling for the last six hours, ever since the nanites had been shut off and he knew that he wasn’t going to be dead on the floor, bleeding out of his nose and ears in less than half an hour. He hadn’t had to watch McKay die, and Sheppard had escaped a nuclear explosion with only a few bruises, and Aiden was alive and at a celebrate-because-we’re-not-dead party with his team.

He was alive, so he shared his vanilla-peanuts with Teyla and they stealthily tossed them at the back of McKay and Sheppard’s heads, bent over the laptop. When they finally noticed, they launched a counter-attack with the M&Ms, Sheppard tackling Teyla off the couch while McKay dodged and shrieked about head injuries as Aiden tried to whack her with the couch pillows.

Afterwards they sat on the floor amidst the scattered pillows and candy, and McKay got Teyla to open her beer bottle after Aiden couldn’t do it.

Sheppard raised her bottle. “To the science team,” she said quietly.

“To the science team,” they echoed, and McKay stared at the wall and didn’t cry, so neither did Aiden. Teyla placed a hand on McKay’s knee so carelessly that it might have been an accident.

They ended up watching Sheppard’s football tape for the millionth time, until McKay passed out after two drinks and Sheppard fell asleep against her shoulder. Aiden and Teyla sat next to them and handed a bag of Nibs back and forth.

“I imagine that a young woman in the biology department must have been very worried when she found out you were in danger today,” Teyla said with a small, knowing smile.

“You mean Maria?” Aiden ducked his head. “We’re not really – I mean, how do you even know about her?”

Teyla chewed thoughtfully on a Nib. “Girls’ Poker Night.”

Aiden dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, I’m so screwed.” Teyla laughed and passed him a bottle of moonshine.

They talked softly together, careful not to wake their slumbering teammates, until the rays of sunlight filtered blue and gold through the window onto the floor and it was morning.

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Date: 2007-04-25 07:50 am (UTC)

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