Title: Handbook to Interagency Cooperation
Characters: Evan Lorne/Aiden Bancroft-Lorne, Jonas MacFadden, Deke Zulu, Murray, Wall, Megan Reeves, Don Eppes, Charlie Eppes, David Sinclair, Colby Granger/Meredy Eppes-Granger
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis, Numb3rs
Chapter: Step One: How to Tell Your Husband's CO You Slept with a Federal Agent
Written For: Gommeroi (originally my co-author, now I’m finishing this for her)
Prompt: Summary: Past and Present collide when Lorne and Aiden travel to LA to track down a goa'uld and meet with the Numb3rs team. Can everyone put their personal issues aside to find the bad guy in time?
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Spoilers: anything aired is fair game, but we went a bit AU; especially since we started writing this before everything had aired, we didn’t like all of the things that were going on and well, things just kinda got Jossed all around
Warnings: swearing, violence (although not worse than what was on the show), hey Aiden’s here of course there’s swearing, just general about what you’d see on the show, Marine shenanigans
Disclaimer: No one recognizable belongs to me; Meredy doesn’t belong to me either. Not making any money off of this.
( Chapter One )
Aiden knocked on the door frame to Sheppard's office, then poked her head inside. She grinned at the sight of her husband's CO sitting at his desk surrounded by piles of paperwork. His nine millimeter lay like a paperweight on top of one of the piles and she stifled a laugh because she could see him threatening his paperwork with it. "What did you try to shoot this time, John?" she asked when he didn't look up at her knock.
"A nosy linguist," he replied, tossing something onto his desk. He tipped his chair forward and frantically grabbed for the pile he had upset when everything started to fall. Aiden laughed and dashed across the room, managing to catch some of the pages as they fell towards her. She handed them back to Sheppard who added them to the piles on his desk with a grumble.
"I thought the point of the new computer system was to get rid of all this paper," Aiden commented.
"Tell that to your husband," Sheppard retorted.
Aiden surveyed the mess that had been Sheppard's desk. It was piled at least half a foot deep in places. "Even Evan can't generate this much paper in a couple of days."
Sheppard grimaced. "You're right. About half of it is from the SGC and the other half are the AARs from our teams. But some of it is from Lorne!"
"That's more than one hundred percent, John," Aiden replied. "What happened to 'coulda been Mensa'?"
Sheppard glared at her. "I didn't ask you up here to discuss my math skills."
"Yeah, I know. Why did you ask me to come up here?" Aiden asked as she dropped into the chair across from the desk. "I
do have work I should be doing."
Sheppard shifted the papers on the desk, looking for something, then gave up and threw them down in disgust. "I can't find anything in this mess."
"Try filing, John, or at least organizing," Aiden suggested.
He waved off her words and pulled his computer tablet out from the bottom of a pile, sending a stack of papers cascading to the floor. Aiden leaned over to pick them up, but John said, "Don't bother." A moment later, he handed the tablet over to her. "This is what I wanted to talk to you about."
Aiden scanned the report quickly. "A dead body in LA? Since when does that rate our attention?"
"Take a look at the pictures," John said as he tried to find something else on his desk. After a moment he pulled a slinky out of the mess and began to play with it.
Aiden made a face. "Do I have to? I don't see enough dead bodies already?"
"Aiden, just look."
Aiden glared at him, but flipped to the pictures and moved quickly past the ones of the dead body. She stopped when she got to the ones of the writing, then flipped the tablet over. "They're upside down," she commented. "And is that goa'uld?"
Sheppard shrugged. "Apparently. Can you read it?"
"Yeah, I can. Well, could. These pictures are too tiny. So why tell me? Aren't they sending Daniel?"
"No, they're sending you," John told her.
Aiden's head jerked up. "What?! Why me?"
"One of the agents involved is Special Agent Colby Granger. The SGC decided that since you knew him things might go a little smoother if you were the one who was the liaison."
"Well, shite," Aiden replied.
Sheppard raised his eyebrows. While that wasn't the reaction he had expected at least she wasn't throwing things at him. "So you do know him?"
Aiden nodded, biting her lip. "You could say that," she answered finally.
"Although I haven't seen him in a few years."
"How did you meet a federal agent?" Sheppard asked.
"He wasn't an agent when we met; he was Army CID. And it was when I was working in Afghan." She shrugged. "No big deal. We met while he was on stand down for the weekend, spent some time together, and sort of kept in touch after wards."
Sheppard tossed his slinky back onto the desk, ignoring the papers that slid to the floor in response. "Aiden," he warned. "There's more to that story than you're saying. Is this going to cause an issue?"
She looked down at her feet. "Kinda. Sorta. Maybe."
"What. Happened?" Sheppard asked. He knew sometimes he just had to ask Aiden things point blank. She was willing to over share about somethings, but if she thought it would be an issue she tended to clam up.
Aiden twisted her wedding ring, something Sheppard noticed she tended to do when she was nervous even in the short time she had been wearing it, and looked down at her hands. "I slept with Colby the weekend we met." She looked back up at Sheppard. "It was long before I met Evan and, yes, he knows. I don't think it will be an issue. At least it won't be with me or Colby."
Sheppard wanted to pull his hair out. "This is why I didn't want the promotion," he pointed out to her. "I can't just shoot my way out of this."
Aiden giggled. She had to admit that Sheppard had a point. "Sorry, John. I didn't mean to make your life difficult."
He waved it off. "Nah, don't worry. You didn't make it any worse than usual." He reached across for the tablet she still held. "I was going to send Lorne with you, but if you think that's a bad idea, I can send someone else. And you can take whoever from your team that you want."
She shook her head. "I think it would be a worse idea to leave Evan here. If I take him at least then he knows I'm safe and he's not wondering what's going on with Colby."
Sheppard looked confused. "Are you saying your husband doesn't trust you?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm saying this whole
husband thing is still a bit new to him." She shrugged. "It would just be better if he went with me." She shuddered. "And I'll decline the suggestion of taking any of our team to Earth. This is not their type of mission and those boys loose with no supervision and toys to play with is just a bad idea. I'm having visions of Murray blowing up downtown LA...on accident."
Sheppard laughed, but had to agree she was right. "All right. I'll let the SGC know you're coming through in about five hours. Will that give you enough time to talk to Lorne and get ready?"
She nodded and got to her feet. "That should be plenty of time." She grinned at him. "I'll leave you to sort out your paperwork," she called as she left the room. Behind her she could hear Sheppard swearing as he realized she had left his office in complete disarray. Although he was the one who had made the mess, she hadn't offered to help him pick things up.
