Gigi Sinclair

Twelve weeks. That was the length of time John Sheppard's ex-CO had told them you could go in confined quarters, with a small group of people and no outside contact, before you caved in and either killed someone or fucked them.

That CO, a Colonel Dyer who had later lived up to his name on a shooting range in Arkansas, had shared this theory ten weeks into a mission in the high Arctic. Sheppard hadn't entirely believed Dyer—who was, as every one knew, a weirdo and probably a sociopath—but then, at the time, Sheppard had been young, naive and getting regular handjobs from another lieutenant. Now, after only three weeks in Atlantis, Sheppard was starting to see what Dyer meant.

Not, of course, that Sheppard was exactly spoiled for choice when it came to either option. They'd already faced enough wraiths and bogeymen and other oddities to make Sheppard sure, if he hadn't been before, that they were going to need every member of the team alive if they wanted to survive to make it home someday. Murder as stress relief was clearly out of the question, much as Sheppard may have wished otherwise. Especially when McKay got off on one of his bitch- fests.

The sex angle wasn't looking too promising, either. Weir was good- looking and smarter than just about anyone Sheppard had personally met, but she was a civilian and anyway, fooling around with women tended to lead to complications none of them needed. The same went for Teyla, even if Sheppard could get his head around the whole "sex with an alien" thing. It would make a hell of a "Penthouse" letter when they got home, though. If they got home.

Sheppard had never shied away from a little fun with the guys, but those prospects weren't very bright in this case. McKay wasn't a bad guy, but even if Sheppard was able to overlook the whining, he had the feeling McKay and Beckett had passed their twelve week mark back there in Antarctica, and since neither of them were dead, Sheppard was pretty sure how the situation had resolved itself. McKay and Beckett even had a weird couply vibe going on, with little private jokes not even Weir understood and the strange, comfortable silence Sheppard had witnessed when he found the two of them working together one afternoon.

That left Ford as the only viable option. He was pretty, you'd have to be blind not to notice that, and Sheppard had even told him as much. But he was Sheppard's 2IC, and Sheppard had never believed in screwing up—or down—the chain of command.

Sighing, Sheppard leaned back in his chair and absently ran a cloth over the barrel of his gun. Maybe, he thought, he should have pushed to get Daniel Jackson on the team after all.