FIC Making Friends

[shanachie_quill]

Title: Making Friends
Characters: Aiden Bancroft, Mark Wall, Owen Murray, Evan Lorne
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Summary: Team Building 101-Aiden and the Boom Boys get to know each other.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: swearing, explosions, and well Lorne does something we've never seen before. Honestly Aiden can drive anyone to this point.
Disclaimer: No one that’s recognizable is mine (unless you’ve been reading my stuff for a while…in which case go you!)
Author's Note: Team Building 101 story...I know Lorne doesn't appear til the end, but yeah...its a Lorne team story.


Marine Sergeants Mark Wall and Owen Murray exchanged glances as they entered the shooting range and heard the fire of a nine millimeter. They hadn't expected anyone to be on the range this early, the main reason they had come down here, so they were a little confused. They had been friends for so many years that they didn't need to speak to come to the conclusion that they would see who was shooting. Murray followed along behind Wall as the slightly older man made his way down the range, content as always to let him lead. About halfway down the range, they found the small linguist that had gone on the mission with them a few weeks ago. Her waist length hair was pulled back into a severe braid and she had on goggles and ear protectors. A nine millimeter was clutched in her small hands and she was methodically firing down the line. As she paused and ejected the clip, immediately slamming a new one into place, Wall called out, loud enough to be heard through the ear protectors, "Doctor Bancroft?"

She spun around at the sound of her name, but was careful not to point the gun at either Marine, although she held it in a ready position. She relaxed when she recognized the two Marines. "Hello, Sergeants," she greeted them. She turned back to the shelf that a shooter could rest his or her arms on and set the gun down after ejecting the clip again. "What are the two of you doing down here so early?"

"We could ask you the same thing, Doctor," Wall replied as Murray took up position in the shooter stall beside her. "Civilians don't normally come down here alone."

Aiden gave a one shouldered shrug. "Sheppard told me if I wanted to keep going off-world, I needed to put in a certain number of hours at the range. I'd rather do it without a bunch of Marines staring over my shoulder and correcting all my errors."

Wall nodded. "I can see your point. Who taught you how to shoot?" He had watched her as they approached and she had the basics down, but he could see room for improvement.

"My brother, Eddie." When Wall just continued looking at her, she explained, "He's a Marine."

"Well, that explains why you can shoot, but I can see some room for improvement." He nodded at Murray, who was leaning against the shelf. Again the two men communicated without speaking. "We'd be happy to coach you," Wall told her.

Aiden looked at them suspiciously. "And what do you want in return, Wall?"

"I'm assuming," he started, then stopped and said, "Wait. You can tell us apart?"

Aiden laughed. "You two aren't identical. Murray is half an inch shorter. Your hair isn't as blond and his eyes are a darker blue. I have two brothers who are completely identical, down to their voices, and I can tell them apart. You two are easy. Besides you talk more than Murray does. Now what do you want in return for teaching me to shoot better?"

"You need Marines or muscle sometimes to move things around in your lab or to transport things?" he questioned and when she nodded, he continued, "Just request us when you need someone. That'll get us off the engineers' list and we won't be at their beck and call so much."

Aiden nodded. "That actually makes sense, especially if I'm going to be going out with your team more often. All right, I'll talk to Doctor Weir the next time I'm in the command center and I'll email the engineers and tell them you two are no longer pack mules for the engi-nerds." She held her hand out to Wall. "Deal?"

He shook her hand. "Deal. Why don't we plan to meet here in the mornings, around this time?"

She nodded as Murray's watch beeped. "Mark, we gotta get going if we're gonna try that stuff before our shift," the other Marine spoke for the first time.

Wall sighed and nodded. "All right, Owen. Doc, we'll meet you here tomorrow morning."

Aiden snagged Wall's sleeve as he turned to go. "What are you going to try?"

Wall flicked his fingers at his friend. "Murray got a new toy in the Daedalus shipment. We're going out to the west pier to blow something up."

Aiden's sapphire blue eyes lit up. "Want some company? I've even got a rock you can practice on."

Another quick exchange of glances and then Wall asked, "Don't you have a meeting or something you're supposed to be at?"

She shook her head. "No meetings til 1300 and I can work in my lab a little later tonight in exchange. Come on, please? I promise not to get in the way or to touch anything without permission."

They boys exchanged glances again, speaking a thousand words with just one look. Finally Wall nodded. "All right, but you have to follow all our directions without question immediately."

"No problem. So do you want the rock to blow up?" Aiden asked as they began to police the area she had been using.

"Yes, please," Murray responded eagerly.

"All right, but one of you is going to have to go with me to get it from my lab. I can't lift it alone," she told them as they left the range.

Wall returned her gun to the duty sergeant of the armory and the three headed for the transporter. "I'll go to the lab with you while Owen goes and gets set up with his new toy." They stopped on the level where Aiden's lab was first and Wall and the linguist got out, leaving Murray to carry on by himself. Wall stuck his hands on his pockets as he strolled along beside Aiden. "So why are you willing to let Owen blow up this rock?" he asked.

"SGA-8 brought it back three days ago. They thought it was something that I might be interested in." She sighed as she waved her hand at the door crystals. "Unfortunately its just a rock with pretty scribbles on it."

"Not even a language?" he asked as he followed her into the lab.

She shrugged, pulling a hand cart out of the corner where it had been stuck. "Not that I know of." She indicated a stone that had been set beside the main table. "That's it. Can you lift it?"

Wall studied it for a moment, then nodded. Crouching down, he lifted it and heaved it onto the cart that she had rolled over next to it. He grinned down at her. "Owen's gonna like this. I think he planned to just explode some crates. This is much better."

"Yeah, definitely a bigger boom," she agreed.

Wall looked at her as the two of them made their way out of the lab. "You don't react the way most girls or even scientists do to explosions."

"I have five older brothers, Wall, I was never a girlie girl, much to my mother's dismay. In fact, you could say I was kinda screwed from the start with my brothers. I had no chance to be a normal girl."

Wall grinned. "Your poor mother."

"My poor father, too, who wanted a 'daddy's little girl.' And then his sons were an even bigger disappointment because only two went into the military and neither of them picked his branch."

"What do your brothers and dad do?"

"Dad's retired Army. He put thirty years in and all of us kids did the brat thing. I've got five brothers like I said and all of us have managed to get at least some college in. Eddie and Sean have the least since they chose the military, but the rest of us followed Mom's footsteps and got our doctorates. Mom's a semi-retired professor of Anthropology at Brown Mackie College. As for my brothers: Patrick is the oldest and has a doctorate in mathematics, Eddie's a Marine, Ian is a doctor of history and is working on his master's in Archeology, and his twin, Sean, is an Air Force pilot. Sean was in Iraq the last I heard. Finally the youngest of my brothers and my Irish twin is Daren and he's the only doctor doctor. He's an ER doctor."

Wall shook his head as he tried to follow everything she had just told him. "I'm impressed you can keep all that straight."

She shrugged as they made their way out onto the pier. "They're my brothers. Besides we have our own ways of marking milestones." She grinned as she remembered their celebrations. "And they aren't easy to forget." She looked around the pier, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, but didn't see Murray immediately. "Where are we going?"

Wall frowned. "I dunno." He stepped away from her so he wouldn't be yelling in her ear and bellowed, "Murr-ay!"

A blond head popped out from behind one of the walls. "Did'ja get it?" he asked eagerly.

"Yeah, ya nutter, we got it," Wall called back affectionately. "Come show me where to set it up." Wall motioned Aiden back as the other Marine hurried towards them, clutching a tube filled with a clear gel.

Murray handed the tube to Aiden. "Hang onto this, Doc." He turned to help Wall move the stone, but paused to look over his shoulder and tell her, "Don't drop it."

Aiden turned the tube over in her hand, studying it. The contents looked just like the gel someone might put in their hair, but she doubted that was flammable enough to cause an explosion. "What is it?"

"Blasting gel," Murray answered offhandedly.

Aiden held it farther away from her body, but was careful not to drop it or clutch it too tightly. "And it's safe to just hold?!"

"Yeah, it’s pretty stable," Murray answered as Wall smiled reassuringly.

"Define 'pretty stable'," Aiden replied as the two Marines manhandled the stone into position.

"It won't explode just in your hands. You can shake it. You can probably drop it, but I wouldn't set it on fire or attach a detonator," Murray answered as he stepped back to study the placement of the stone. He motioned for Wall to help him turn it slightly.

"Oh, that's really comforting, Murray," Aiden complained.

Murray plucked the tube from her hand and wandered back over to the stone. "And now you don't have to worry about it. Wall, get her behind the barricade."

"Don't use too much," Wall cautioned as he guided Aiden into the safe zone that the demolitions' team had constructed to protect the people watching whoever was setting off controlled blasts.

"Which one of us is the trained explosions expert?" Murray replied as he wired the stone.

"Which one of us almost blew up the training camp?" Wall retorted.

"Good point," Murray said. He grinned as he jogged over to join the other two. "It's set. Ear and eye protection on." He accepted his own from Wall as he hopped the barrier. When he saw they were both set, he knelt down with them and called, "Clear! Fire in the hole!"

A blast of fire, smoke, and dust erupted; flames shooting up from the position where the stone had been. Through the ear protectors they heard a muffled whumph. Pebbles and larger bits rained down on their position and Wall pulled Aiden back under the overhang to protect her. The dust billowed toward them and Aiden held her breath as it passed.

Aiden looked wide-eyed at the aftermath of the explosion after the cloud cleared. Pulling her ear protection off, she looked up at the two Marines. "Biiiig bada boom," she drawled.

Murray grinned. "Fucking big bada boom!" he agreed.

Wall looked at the crater where the rock had sat a few moments earlier. "We are so screwed," he declared.

"How are we screwed?" Aiden asked.

Wall pointed to the hole in the pier. "Cuz there's a big hole where there shouldn't be one," he responded.

Murray looked over the barricade and realized that not only was the rock pulverized, but Wall was correct, the formerly whole pier now boasted a crater-sized hole and all three of them could see water through it. "Aw, fuck," he said.

"I don't think we can hide this one, Owen," Wall said. The three of them turned as the doors onto the pier slid open and half a platoon of Marines poured out, followed by Major Lorne, the XO of Atlantis and the commanding officer of their team. Wall hung his head as he saw the group. "We are so fucked," he whispered.

The Marines lowered their guns as they realized the explosion hadn't come from attacking Wraith and waited for Lorne to assess the situation. Lorne looked from the large hole in the pier to the two sheepish Marines to the amused linguist. "What do the three of you have to say for yourselves?" he demanded as he slid his nine millimeter back into the holster.

Aiden fought back the grin that wanted to break out at the sight of the annoyance on his face because she knew that would just piss him off and right now he was only annoyed. "Oops," she offered tentatively.

Lorne pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and glared at Aiden. "Oops?" he repeated. "Aiden! Oops is never a good thing. Especially when you're involved."

She held up her hands in a placating manner. "Okay, technically this wasn't my fault. Yes, I gave them the rock, but Murray's the one that set the charges and Wall transported it."

"Somehow that doesn't absolve you of anything since you outrank both of them," he responded. He jerked his head at the Marines that had led the charge out onto the pier. "Dismissed," he ordered them. After they had left, he turned his attention to his underlings. "What am I going to do with the three of you?" he demanded.

Murray kicked at one of the larger pieces from the explosion as Wall tried to formulate an answer. "We were trying to, um." Wall gestured at the hole. "Well, we weren't trying to do that."

"I kinda figured you weren't trying to blow holes in the city. What the hell were you trying to do?" Lorne replied.

"Well, see Doc had this rock that SGA-8 brought her back from a mission and it was pretty useless and Murray got a new toy when the Daedalus came in so we thought we would get rid of it for her," Wall explained. "I guess he used a little too much."

Aiden looked over at the hole the young Marine had created. "Ya think?" she asked, causing both Marines to bite back smiles.

"Not helping!" Lorne snapped.

"Sorry," she whispered. She had known the major for almost three months now and she had never seen him lose his temper before. Obviously this was the last straw. "I guess I shouldn't have let them blow up the rock."

Lorne sighed and took a good look at her. The amusement had faded and he could see tears gathering in her eyes. He hadn't ever seen her cry. "Murray, Wall, go put yourselves on report. Tell Captain Bain we're going to need a construction team out here ASAP," he ordered in a calmer voice. "Doc, with me."

Aiden smiled reassuringly at the two Marines as they gathered what they needed to remove from the scene of the crime. "It was fun until we got busted," she told them.

Wall nodded. "Try not to let him yell at you too much."

"Aw, he's a big teddy bear. Don't worry about me, Wall." She grinned now, looking up at the larger man. "I'll see you tomorrow as planned."

The Marine nodded and grabbed the back of Murray's tac vest. "Yes, ma'am." He saluted the major and hauled his friend away.

Aiden waited until they were through the door before turning to Lorne. "It's really not all their fault. I should have been watching more closely."

"Are you a demolitions expert?" Lorne questioned, crossing his arms as he looked down at her.

She shook her head. "No, but its not the first time I've helped blow things up."

"Aiden, whether it's the first time or the forty-first time, they should not have put you in danger!"

"Is that what you're so mad about?" she asked. She started laughing as he glared down at her. "I was in less danger than I would have been on a mission!"

"That's not the point, Doc. They put you in danger!" he yelled, losing the hold he’d gotten on his temper again.

"I'm a big girl, Evan! I get to make the decisions about where I go and what I do. You may be my team leader, but you are not my dad, my brothers, or my boyfriend. So you know what? Be mad at me for helping the boys blow a hole in the pier, but no fair yelling at me cuz I might have been hurt!" she yelled back, her own temper snapping as he continued to yell at her.

"You are enough to drive me to drink," he ground out. He had enough control left to see the logic of her statements.

Aiden grinned. "My brothers have been saying that for years." She looked out over the ocean. "The boys made it as safe for me as they could. I didn't set the charges and I was behind the barrier long before Murray set anything off. I really wasn't in any danger." She turned back to face him. "What's going to happen to the boys?"

"They'll be reprimanded for blowing the hole in the pier. I suspect they'll be grounded for a couple of weeks. Other than that," he shrugged, "I'm not sure. The captains tend to handle the discipline of the Marines."

"Will it help or hinder them if I make a statement?" she asked as he took her arm and began to escort her off the pier as a team of Marines carrying building materials entered.

"I don't know," he admitted honestly. "But it will look worse if you don't appear."

She nodded. "I'll head down then."

"Aiden," he called as she walked away. "I'm done yelling," he waited until she turned to look at him, "but we aren't done discussing this." He turned and took the steps two at a time in the opposite direction.

Aiden groaned. "How did I know you were going to say that?" she asked the empty hallway.