Trust Once Broken | SGA John Sheppard

0.111.0

Updated

Hey guys, sorry it took me a little while to write this one. Big changes are coming, big decisions had to be made. Then I had a version all set to go out and I lost it all and had to rewrite it. It was very disheartening. But, we're back!

Happy Reading!

><><
The Return Pt. 1
><><

"So what exactly are the odds of us getting stranded out in the middle of no where," John asked, spinning around the pilot's chair of Jumper 3 Jumper 3.

Sheppard wasn't anxious about the flight itself, but he was antsy to get underway. It was always the same with test flights for him, the anticipation had his adrenaline buzzing in something that would have been excitement in someone else, but Sheppard was too in control for that. Although, up until recently he had never done test flights in experimental aircraft with someone he cared about on board. In the past it had always just been him and he trusted his abilities to fly just about anything, but sometimes thing went wrong. With little family to leave behind, the chances of things going wrong had never really bothered him. But Kai mattered, maybe more than he knew how to say or admit, even to himself.

Kai glanced up from her laptop. John had been fidgeting for the last fifteen minutes waiting for her to give the all clear. She could feel not only his boredom, but also his anticipation thrumming through the Bond like an itch along her skin. It was distracting when she was trying to focus on her work. It was so rare to see him like this and she rarely had until they began work on this project. She soon realized it was why he enjoyed being a test pilot so much. The danger and unknown were a thrill for him, and was so different from the confining responsibilities of his normal duties.

"Probably less than the first couple of tests," she allowed without looking up from her computer screen, but she could still see him turn the chair another time in her peripheral vision. John was distracting to her at the best of times, but with his impatience and excitement blazing down the Bond she found it hard to stay focused. She wished she could have sent him out of the jumper while she finished her calculations, but she had to maintain a pressurized hull. Even the most minor miscalculation could result in a failure of the test and she didn't want to get an earful from McKay.

Kai and John had been working with McKay and Carter on building their intergalactic gate bridge between the Pegasus and Milky Way galaxies. John flew while Kai monitored functions and stability as they used McKay's experimental macro that would allow the jumper to be forwarded from gate to gate in order to span the space between galaxies in minutes instead of the two weeks it took on the Daedalus. They had started small with the new macro, just leapfrogging a middle gate close by. Once that was successful they built on it, and had successfully bypassed twelve gates total on their most recent flight. Today was the real test. Today, they were going to travel from Atlantis to the Midway station between galaxies through seventeen gates and then through another seventeen on to the Milky Way and eventually Earth.

"So worst case scenario we end up stranded at one of the gates and have to wait for the Daedalus to come pick us up?" John asked cheerfully. "What? Ten days max?"

Kai shrugged a shoulder as a smirk twisted her lips. There were worse things than getting ten whole days just the two of them, but it wasn't the worse case scenario. "No actually, worst case is the tidal forces of the forwarding program rip the jumper apart and we end up ejected through the wormhole out a random gate and die in the vacuum of space."

"That would be bad," John acquiesced sardonically.

"It would," Kai agreed stoically, but her lips were still twisted up and there was a gleam of a smile in her grey eyes.