Pratfall

***

She and Elizabeth have taken to walking in the mornings. It's not a daily thing, missions and meetings and hundreds of other varied excuses and problems interrupt that little ideal, but they make sure to do it at least twice a week.

"I didn't like breakfast this morning." Elizabeth is humming to herself when Teyla says this. An offhand little tune that Teyla knows was one of her father's favorite pieces to play when she was a child. It is something she only hums when she is in an especially comfortable mood.

"Oh?" Elizabeth stops her humming and raises an eyebrow. "What did you have?"

"The gleenach. It was.. runny." She made a face and was in the middle of raising her tea to banish the remembered taste of the stuff out of her mouth when there is an extremely loud bang and crash from the corridor ahead. There is no following citywide page or alarm, but she and Elizabeth take off running anyway. They are nearby.

The noise came from below the catwalk they are running along, and by the time they get there, the varying clangs and smashes of a very large collision have mostly stopped.

She and Elizabeth screech to a stop and stare. There's a pile of men, marine and scientist, spread across the decking. Some are groaning, some are bruised, and all of them look annoyed.

Teyla and Elizabeth exchange a glance before picking Colonel Sheppard out of the crew. He's recognizable by the hair and jacket, but face down under a pile of Ag chemists.

"Colonel Sheppard?"

"John?"

As one, the mass of piled guys look up and do varying degrees of guilt, insecurity, and humiliation. Teyla tries not to laugh and is a bit more successful than Elizabeth who snorts quietly before sliding quickly into "I am your Leader and thus can be told ANYTHING without visible reaction" face.

"Is something wrong, men?"

"Um, no, ma'am!" Is the general reply. The men are starting to sort themselves out, some of them on the edges righting themselves and starting to slink off.

"Right." Elizabeth turned back to look at her then. "I don't really want to know, do you?"

"No, I do not."

They nodded at each other and walked away.

"So," Elizabeth asked, tone overly cheery. "The gleenach is off?"

Teyla nodded and took a sip of her tea. "I do not think Lt. Murphy quite knows what to do with it."

And so it went.

-fin-

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