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Following the sound of his friend�s voice, John found the astrophysicist in Sam�s bedroom. With a disapproving look on his face John manoeuvred Rodney out into the neutral terrain of the living room.
Rodney let out an unintelligible complaint before flopping down on the couch. �I could be making headway on any number of projects right now,� he groused.
Rolling his eyes, John left to do one last sweep around the house. After making sure that the house was locked up tight John dragged Rodney out to the car.
�Where are we going, anyway?� Rodney asked.
John pulled a few package receipts form his jacket pocket and handed them to Rodney. �Things we couldn�t get shipped,� he said by way of explanation.
�There�s a lot of George Clooney on here,� Rodney said, frowning at one of the receipts.
�Teyla,� John said, and Rodney nodded, immediately understanding. He might not act like it, but John knew that Rodney knew more about his team mates than he would ever admit, from things like Ford�s high school soccer career to John�s distanced relationship with his sisters to how Teyla would often talk to her mother and father as if they were still alive when she didn�t think that anyone was around to hear her. �You hungry?� John asked, his stomach reminding him that he hadn�t had anything to eat since breakfast, which had been a long eight hours earlier.
�Starving,� Rodney replied.
�Dinner?� John inquired.
�No citrus,� Rodney warned.
�I promise,� John said with a smile as he pulled made a turn off the road he was on and started heading toward one of his old haunts that, he had been pleased to notice on the way to Sam�s, was still open for business.
Though the music wasn�t terrible and the food was almost half-way decent, Elizabeth had managed to reach a state of total overload much faster than usual, she assumed because she had nearly a year where she hadn�t had to attend anything that required more than a clean uniform and, once, a very itchy headdress that she had only worn because it was the only way they would get the people of a planet they had stumbled upon to trade for their local resource.
Jack had been swept away by a group of military types not long after the two of them had arrived at the party, leaving Elizabeth alone, not really knowing anyone in the room�her political crowd had been slightly different than the one that had gathered for the current shindig�and after making small talk with the one person she had recognized (vaguely, from a diplomatic mission she had been on nearly six years earlier) for a few minutes Elizabeth found herself, once again, alone in a sea of people.
Parties and galas and the like were not Elizabeth�s favourite part of the job, and she was finding it even less appealing after a year of being in the Pegasus Galaxy�to say that she was out of the loop was the understatement of the century. Though she had tried to catch up on world events that she had missed, but, while she was fairly comfortable talking about the big, and relatively unchanging, omnipresent issues, she hadn�t had the time, nor the inclination, to delve into the gossip and the little things about life on Earth, which was what most of the conversations she was hearing bits and pieces of were consisting of. She had never liked the gossip and whatnot that seemed inevitable in gatherings of a group nature, had always tried to avoid those kinds of situations, though, unfortunately, she had never had much success in doing so.
With a flute of champagne in hand and a congenial smile on her face Elizabeth worked her way through the room, stopping only once to exchange pleasantries with Colonel Checkov and his aide before escaping to the silence and isolation of the balcony.