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Not surprisingly Rodney stumbled in next, a coffee cup clutched in his left hand, still dressed in his uniform, his lab coat that he so rarely wore showing signs that it had been set on fire very recently, possibly only minutes earlier judging by the faintly smoky smell that Elizabeth caught as the exhausted astrophysicist brushed past her in his single-minded pursuit of his beloved caffeine.
John arrived shortly after Rodney, barefoot, a pair of track pants resting low on his hips, a sweatshirt half-zipped up over his bare chest. His plan had been to hit the gym to try to work off some of the excess energy he seemed to have, but he had been halfway to the gym when he realized he wasn�t wearing shoes and so he had changed directions, thinking that maybe a snack would help him. If not sleep, then at least focus so that he didn�t forget to wear shoes again�the Ancients had been pretty advanced, but they hadn�t thought to install heated flooring when they built Atlantis.
Carson was the last to arrive, having come straight from the Infirmary to the mess hall after his shift ended, his evening meal having been scheduled around midnight for the past few months, and the Scot was more than a little surprised to find that the kitchen was rather full when he showed up for his dinner. Though, he did have to admit, he was even more thrown by the attire of his friends�Rodney and his charred clothing wasn�t too out of the ordinary, though the fact that the left pocket was still smoking a little was; Sheppard with no shoes was strange, the Major usually being ready for anything, and, in Carson�s opinion, that usually meant that shoes were a good thing to put on before leaving your room; and Elizabeth, looking more like a college co-ed than the leader of a scientific and military expedition to another galaxy dressed in her Georgetown Hoyas� sweatpants and matching tank top, not to mention her bunny slippers and bed-tousled ponytail.
�Mass insomnia. Notta good sign,� Carson said, trying for cheerful but missing the mark.
�I�ve drank two full pots of coffee since dinner. I couldn�t sleep now if I wanted to,� Rodney said, talking faster than normal, something John hadn�t thought was possible. �But if I don�t continue drinking coffee I�m going to completely crash somewhere around six in the morning, and after I come down off a caffeine high I can sleep for days if I�m not careful.�
�I�m just feeling restless, Doc,� John assured Carson. �Haven�t been offworld in a while; I�m feeling kinda stir crazy. It got worse when someone,� he said pointedly, his eyes directed at Elizabeth, �gave me the time to departure right down to the second.�
Elizabeth cringed. �Sorry. I do that when I know something big is happening,� she said. �Eight hours, twenty-one minutes, forty-seven seconds,� she added after glancing quickly at the clock on the wall. John let out a loud groan of frustration and Elizabeth cringed again. �Sorry, John. It�s� it�s something that�s out of my control. I�ve done it since I was a kid. When my best friend was counting how many sleeps there were until Christmas, I was counting hours, minutes, and seconds, until Christmas morning.
�Why?� Rodney asked.
�We had a ritual at my house. Six o�clock wake up call�that was when my mental clock hit zero. After that it was officially Christmas. Mom and dad going into the kitchen to start breakfast while my brother and I went straight to the tree to see how much the pile had grown overnight. Big pancake breakfast, then we�d all do the dishes together�a very messy operations�and then we�d put the dog outside�he always wanted to help open presents which had been fine until the suede handbag my brother and I saved up to buy my mom was destroyed by doggy drool�and we�d go in the living room and light a fire and open all of our presents in a mad rush because the annoying and typical presents were on the outside�socks, sweaters from Great Aunt Gertrude, stuff that no one asks for and unimaginative relatives buy in bulk to make sure that they have gifts for everyone in the family�and the good gifts, the ones that we�d actually asked for, were buried in deep, but dad had a rule, and there was only one rule, and that was that we work through the presents in layers from the front to the back,� Elizabeth said. She shrugged. �I kinda feel like that right now. Like when my mental clock hits zero it�ll be Christmas morning.�