Elizabeth knew details about the SGC that she could never hope to learn about a house on Witches Way in Colorado Springs or a townhouse in Georgetown, DC, because her life was her work, and, while she had lived in Colorado Springs, she had lived more at the SGC than at the house, and while she had lived in DC she had spent more time out of the country doing jobs for the UN, then, later, she had spent eighteen hours a day, minimum, on the Georgetown campus, keeping longer office hours than any other staff member that she was aware of, enjoying the atmosphere of the university campus, the mixture of irreverence and dedication most students entered her lectures with, the completely valid and sweetly na�ve questions they would ask her, the potential future leaders of the country that sat in uncomfortable seats to hear her expound on politics and the science behind it; taking the creation of laws to a place beyond Schoolhouse Rock but not getting into the real sausage-making, picking apart international treaties to delve into the minutia that she had always found so intriguing. She knew the SGC the way she knew the halls of Georgetown�s poly-sci building, the way she knew the different floors and people who worked in the UN building in New York, the way she knew so much and yet so little about her true home, Atlantis.
The Briefing Room was a familiar home-base for Elizabeth. She had had so many files to read and things to take care of while she had been in charge of the SGC that she had usually left the office and gone to the Briefing Room to spread out and set things up in a particular order, only moving into the office on a more permanent basis in the weeks just before she was given command of the project in Antarctica.
Once upon a time the Briefing Room was a sort of sanctuary for Elizabeth, which was strange considering it was a fairly high-traffic area that was open to anyone cleared to enter the SGC proper, and it was certainly wasn�t a place that there was an unspoken �do not disturb� sign hanging on the door like there was when she was on the balcony outside the Control Room of Atlantis, but, like Daniel had said when they first met, the Briefing Room did offer the best view in the house. She couldn�t quite get past the fact that the Stargate�s chevrons were red instead of turquoise, or that there was an inner ring that turned while dialling instead of a series of lights turning on and off in a simulation of a turning inner ring, but it was still a pretty amazing view, and it reminded her of home. And the Briefing Room�s oppressive quality from earlier, when she was so sick of the room from the endless debriefings, though her little office was getting that �shrinking room� feel to it, so, while she knew she could have gone back to the hole in the wall that was her temporary office and call John and make him aware of the fact that he had been conscripted to lab duty, Elizabeth had opted to wait for Landry to wrap up with the SG team down in the labs to avoid delaying the conference call with the President any longer.
�So you got John promoted,� Sam said as she perched herself on the edge of the Briefing Room table facing Elizabeth. Elizabeth jumped, not having heard or seen the blonde Colonel enter the room.
�He earned it. I just� made sure I wouldn�t have to deal with Steven Caldwell as my Second In Command,� Elizabeth shrugged, though she didn�t know why she was defending John�s promotion to Sam, of all people, who was probably the only other person in the Mountain who would fight tooth and nail for John Sheppard. Well, Rodney and Carson would, but Carson was still in Scotland, and Elizabeth hadn�t seen Rodney (though she hadn�t actually tried seeking him out; she just hadn�t run into him) for a few days. �Besides, you and I both know that, with his record, John was never going to make Lieutenant Colonel without someone giving the Powers That Be a��
�Swift kick in the ass?� Sam teased.
�So to speak,� Elizabeth smiled. �How did you find out? I just got confirmation tw minutes ago.� Though she had talked to Jack, he hadn�t been able to say for sure that he had been successful in getting John his promotion. Though he had hinted, heavily, toward it being an all-but done deal, he had admitted that he didn�t know for sure, just that he was going by his gut. Which had been more than enough for Elizabeth. But on her way up to the Briefing Room her phone had gone off, and Major Davis, who she had worked with a few times, even before becoming embroiled with the SGC, had called and confirmed that John�s promotion would go through by the end of the week. Which was just as well, since that was about how long Jack wanted John to stay and play guinea pig in Nevada.
�I ran into Walter in the elevator. He let me know,� Sam said. Neither woman questioned how the �Gate technician had found out that John�s promotion was official. It was just accepted that Walter Harriman knew everything there was to know in the SGC, and he usually knew it at least half an hour before anyone else. �How are you gonna tell him? John, I mean.�
That was the problem. In all the hoping that her plan�Hail Mary play, to use one of John�s football idioms�would work, she hadn�t once considered how to break the news to John. And, as his CO, it was, technically, her job. She could pass it off to Landry or Jack, but it felt like it was something she had to tell him herself, not let a total stranger, or a man who might as well have been a stranger for all