Two Sides

Author: Cheryl W.

Summary: There are two sides to every story. When a misunderstanding divides Sheppard's team while they are on leave on Earth, it's up to Beckett to get things straightened out between them. Set in Season 2.

Author's Note: Thanks again for the wonderful welcome into this fandom on my first fic. So here goes fic #2…it even has a plot!

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Chapter 1: Lt Colonel Sheppard is a snob

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The mess hall in Luke Airforce base, Arizona, USA, Earth was double the size of the mess hall in Atlantis and Rodney worried that Colonel Sheppard wouldn't find the table he, Ronon and Teyla occupied. He was busy keeping an eye out for him as he sampled the three deserts he had on his plate, ready to wave his friend over to take the seat they had reserved for him. Admid a bite of blueberry pie, he muttered, "Finally" as the wayward Colonel made his appearance in the hall. Rodney waited as Sheppard got his food in the mess line, while of course chatting up a beautiful brunette in front of him. At last Sheppard's eyes were scanning the hall for them so Rodney gave a wave. Then Sheppard was zigzagging his way across the hall toward them.

"Ah, here comes the Colonel," Teyla stated the obvious, her lips turning up into a smile of greeting at their teammate's approach.

Rodney opened his mouth to gripe what took the man so long to find the mess hall since he had bragged that he had the layout all memorized from the time he had been stationed there. However, the words died on Rodney's lips as Sheppard walked right by the table, didn't even acknowledge them and the open chair designated for him. Instead, Sheppard called to a man sporting an Air Force pilot's jacket a few tables beyond the Atlantis team.

"Winston!?" the Colonel's call incited the man to turn around and offer a huge startled smile to John. Sheppard numbly put his tray down on the nearest table and approached the pilot. Then, as the Atlantis team watched, John and the so named Winston dove into a fierce bear hug with Winston picking John up off the ground. There was an even more uproarious reunion as two other pilots joined in hugging John.

Teyla smiled as she watched the four men, glad that someone apparently valued John as she and the Atlantis personnel did, were showing John that they had missed him. She noted that Rodney and Ronon were also watching the exchange with amusement. It was unusual seeing John so gregarious when he seemed reluctant or unable to express his feelings when it came to them. In her memory, she didn't think she had ever witnessed John giving anyone a hug before, receiving hugs and her forehead to forehead show of respect yes but this unabashed affection was something new. She fought down a pang of jealousy that John remained so reserved with them. It had taken more than a year before the Colonel said she could call him by his first name and that only came up when he was suffering the effects of the retrovirus.

For Ronon, it was good to see Sheppard like this, less guarded, enjoying the company of his friends. It reminded him of his companionship with his fellow soldiers on Satedan. There were always hugs and loud boasting of their feats and drinking, lots of drinking. He wondered if he'd finally see John Sheppard drunk this night when they probably joined John and his friends on the ritual all soldiers undertook when they were reunited.

Rodney watched the Colonel's reunion with his Air Force buddies with fascination. This wasn't the John Sheppard he had come to know over the past two years. This Sheppard was truly laid back and unencumbered by the weight of his responsibilities and he was actually letting someone hug him, was even hugging them back. He didn't think Sheppard had that in him, not really. Sure the guy would die to save you but give you a hug?! Smile and say he had missed you like he was doing to his old pilot friends?! Definitely not. Suddenly Rodney was starting to think he didn't know his friend at all, that John had been a chameleon with him, only showing the barest hints of who he really was. The thought bothered Rodney, a lot and he decided to study the situation more when John introduced his friends to them.

Except Sheppard didn't. Introduce his friends to them that was. Instead the four pilots walked right by them and Rodney's plastered on smile of greeting melted away as did Teyla's and Ronon's. In stunned silence they watched John leave the mess hall with his good pals, having never acknowledged the presence of his Atlantis teammates.

"The Colonel must not have seen us," Teyla offered up an excuse for Sheppard even as she tried to convince herself her words were not false.

But Rodney had flung his fork down on his tray in anger. "Oh he saw us. He's just too cool to be associated with us here on Earth. He doesn't want to lower his standards," at Ronon's growl at that statement, he backpedaled, "I was talking only about myself, of course. You…he would have introduced…if he saw you…"

"'Course," Ronon untruthfully replied, stung too by Sheppard's snub.

Again Teyla tried to be the voice of reason. "Well, he does spend all his days with us and has not seen these men in a very long time. We should not begrudge him time with them instead of with us."

"Yeah, whatever," Rodney grumbled. "Guess he's not going to hang out with us after all," sadly eyeing the door Sheppard had left through with his true friends. And Rodney couldn't help feel betrayed and disappointed. John Sheppard was exactly what he had first judged him to be after all: a stuck up jock who only used geeks like McKay, never befriended them..unless to prank the geek into thinking someone cool would actually be caught dead hanging around them. Rodney had known the type all his life. But Sheppard…he had really thought they were friends, that it wasn't all about John's lack of friend options on Atlantis or necessity for Rodney's beyond exceptional brain functions. 'Oh great. I'm the dupe I was in high school all over again.'

As hurt silence fell over their table, Ronon was busy chastising himself for forgetting his place. Early in his military career he had made the same mistake, thinking he was an equal to one of his commanders outside a mission. He had seen the commander on base talking to another member of another team and he joined them without an invitation, adding his own opinion to their conversation. When the other man left, his CO chewed him out. He can still remember every word. 'What was that?! You come if I call you, you talk only if I need you to. We are not pals, we are not equals, you are dirt under my boot, Dex. You learn your place before I remove you out of my unit! That clear?' And his response had been 'Crystal sir,' but apparently he still wasn't clear on knowing his place.

Yes, in the intervening years he had been a leader in his own right, then had been a Runner solely in charge of his own survival and now he took orders from a man he'd been to hell and back with and he'd make that trip again any day of the week at Sheppard's side. And for the most part, the Colonel treated him as his equal. 'But I'm not. He's my CO and I'm his subordinate and maybe on Atlantis rank gets a little lax but we're not on Atlantis, we're on Earth, on a military base, one Sheppard used to serve on.' Part of Ronon agreed with Sheppard's decision to not fraternize with his junior officers here and another part of him…the part that thought of John Sheppard as his brother, felt piercing pain at the denial of the bond he thought they shared in equal parts. "I've lost my appetite," he announced, dumping the leg of chicken in his hand onto the tray and getting up.

"Yeah, me too," Rodney agreed even as he was stuffing in the last piece of his pie, effectively clearing his plate as he stood up too.

Only Teyla remained seated, her eyes scanning back to the door that John had left through, hoping they were wrong, that he would return, would uphold his promise to show them the sights around his former base. But the door remained closed and she forced herself to accept he was not returning to them. And it hurt because she had envisioned John sharing his friends, his memories with her and Ronon and McKay. Had thought coming here, to Earth, to this base, that she might learn more about John than he would ever tell them himself. But now it seemed she and the other were excluded instead of included from John's life here on Earth.

He had walked right by them and after talking to his friends, left with them, never even remembering that he had promised the afternoon be spent with them. All this time, she had convinced herself that it did not matter that she was not of Earth, that she did not understand all of the Earth customs or approve of them. All because John accepted her for who she was, had from the very start, even when Colonel Sumner would have dismissed her.

But today John had dismissed her and it hurt worse than Sumner's belittling her place with her people ever could because John meant very much to her. Now she realized that she and Ronon and Rodney were an embarrassment to him, not worthy enough to be introduced to his friends…or to get past the walls John erected to keep people out. And right now she felt like she had run full force into John Sheppard's walls and had been a little broken upon the impact. "I am no longer hungry either. Can we leave?"

Dumping their trays, the three members of Sheppard's team left the noisy mess hall in silence, never knowing that they had missed John's reentry into the hall by mere minutes.

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Grabbing his loaded lunch tray, John was about to search for his friends when another familiar face brought him up short. Stunned, he headed toward the man who had been his co-pilot for more than a year and had once been like a brother to him. "Winston?"

The dirty blonde haired man turned around and his expression blossomed into startled joy. "John! Holy crap! It is you!" And he met John half way, pulled him into a tight relieved bear hug, lifted him off the ground and squeezed harder before settling him on the ground again. "Buddy I've tried to find out where they stuck you but no one would tell me."

"I'm doing some classified work," John vaguely replied, returning the hug before pulling back eyeing his friend. "You've got some grey hair going on here," tapping his friend's temples.

"Bullcrap. It's you with the lines on your face," grabbing John's face and turning it side to side. "And they ain't character lines, buddy boy."

Then other voices boomed across the room. "As I live and breathe, it's Shep. Woo hoo!" and this black man hugged John too and then the brunette man with him gave John a hearty pounding on his back. "I ought to tan your hide for going dark on us," the black man, Mario, threatened good-naturedly.

Before John could make a reply, Dan Winston was tugging on his arm. "Come on, let's head outside. I can show you my new car."

"New car?! Or car new to you?!" John teasingly ventured, enjoyed the twinkle of mischief in his friend's eye as the brunette, Carpenter, chuckled and taunted his fellow pilot, "Ah, he knows you so well." Then John was being propelled across the mess hall and out the door by the guys he had fought beside, sometimes for their very lives. Unknowingly, John and his entourage walked right by John's Atlantis teammates.

Outside Winston showed Sheppard his car, a classic Mustang in the process of being restored, or so his friend claimed. But John eyed it critically. "Hate to break this to you, but one restored door doesn't make this worthy of the classic license plate, Dan."

"Hey, I'm just getting started," Winston defended, running his hand over the rusted out side panel, envisioning how great it would look when he could afford to replace yet another part. But then he turned around, leaned against his car, and studied his friend who he hadn't seen since the whole almost court-martialed thing. John looked good, better than he had when they had last talked…or argued as the case had been.

Mario was the brave one to talk about the elephant in the room as he gave John's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You had us worried, Sheppard. After what happened…."

Dan piped in, "And our piss poor try at an intervention, we thought we had pushed you the wrong way." Hoped this impromptu reunion could patch up what he had broken between them.

"I needed pushing…" John ruefully admitted, remembered those dark days when he was grieving for his lost friend, felt guilt at his failure to save him and was between a court martial, a dishonorable discharge or a transfer to the ends of the earth where him screwing up more couldn't impact any more lives. He had spent some time drowning in a bottle and his friends had tried to be there for him but he had angrily pushed them away. "Should have thanked you back then instead of getting pissed off," John offered, could see now their intentions had been good.

Winston, like the good friend he was, didn't condemn him for being a jerk but gave him an out. "We all understood. But now…you seem…." His eyes again scrutinized John, marking the different in his friend the three years had wrought.

"Seem less unhinged, less drunk? Less likely to blow my brains out?" John suggested up their choices but his friends paled at his words. So he hurried to put a softer edge on things. "No, hey, I'm ok now."

"Really? Because …we're here for you…" Carpenter offered, for the first time joining the conversation. Always was one for keeping quiet until he could come up with the right words.

"I'm ok, Carp." At his friend's stare down of worried doubt, John tried to be more reassuring. "Really. Maybe things turned out the way they were supposed to for my career."

"That's crap and we all knew it," Winston spit out, eyes flashing in indignation for what his friend had gone through and had been brainwashed into thinking that he had it coming. "You didn't deserve to be sentenced to a frozen hell for trying to save lives, John."

"Didn't really save any lives, though, did I?" John sadly corrected his friend, remembered sharply watching Holland draw in his last breath as he helplessly knelt over him in some forgotten piece of sand in Afghanistan.

Winston grabbed John's arm, yanked his friend to face him head on, wanted this to sink in once and for all with his friend. "You tried a lot harder than the Air Force was going to. You did more than your best, John, and you should be proud of that…we are."

John nodded, didn't have words for anything he was feeling and luckily his friends got that about him, let the silence be a bridge to safer topics of conversation.

"So this new high security assignment, you like it?" Winston asked, hoped John would be honest with them.

"Yeah, I gotta say I do," and John couldn't hold back his smile because, for all the terrible things Atlantis had dumped on him, getting his friends, finally feeling like he had a family, knowing that he was needed and had the power now to actually save lives, it was worth everything.

"And you got someone watching your back? Because with your luck…you need like an army ready to bail your butt outta trouble," this came from Mario who looked way to serious waiting for an answer.

But John objected to the sully on his reputation. "Hey, I have good luck."

"Good luck like you surviving being shot? That's your version of good luck?" Mario prodded, clearly not on the same page as John's definition.

"Surviving is good luck," John insisted but then he nodded solemnly, answered his friend's concern truthfully. "But yeah, I got a team watching my back and sometimes they are as impressive as an army in and of themselves."

"They better take care of you or we'll have their hides," Winston threatened before he clamped a hand on John's shoulder and grinned the grin that always got John into trouble stateside. "So you up for some surfing and bar hopping? They built a new bar on Manchester drive that even has an electric bull ride."

And as much as John missed his old Air Force friends, they weren't the ones he was looking forward to spending time with on his leave. "I'll take a rain check, Dan. I have plans with my friends who are probably in the mess hall somewhere wondering where I'm at."

"Ok, buddy. It was so good to see you," then Carpenter reached out and they shook hands.

"You tell that team of yours to keep saving your scrawny butt or they'll have to answer to me," Mario said, drawing John into a hug before releasing him.

Then Winston stood there, taking in Sheppard like he didn't think he'd see him again in a long while. Pulling his friend into a tight hug, he said, "I'm glad you're doing good Sheppard. You ever need us, you know we'll be there."

"I know," John replied, gave Winston a tight return hug and then his three friends got into Winston's Mustang. Smiling, John gave them a final wave as they drove away and then he turned back to reenter the mess hall, already planning what he'd show his friends in the nearby area.

But ten minutes later and with no sight of his team to be found in the mess hall, John snagged the arm of one of the Atlantis' Marines also on leave. "Lieutenant, have you seen McKay, Ronon or Teyla?"

"Yes sir, they left here about fifteen minutes ago. I saw them get in a taxi."

"Left?" John numbly repeated and the Lt. nodded his head then walked away when he sensed his CO no longer needed him. The feeling of abandonment came out of left field for John. Sure, they weren't on a mission, weren't required to stick together but he had thought…they had made plans…sort of. He had made plans in his head of them being together this leave, him showing them the Grand Canyon and the desert, eating out, going to his favorite bar.

Apparently he had misread things. I mean, of course they were sick of spending time with him, had to do it 24/7 on some missions so yeah, he got that they wanted away from him. They all needed their space. He had just thought…they didn't. He didn't. Not right then. Not there. And yeah, the last missions had not been good, him getting imprinted with Thalen sucked right up there at the top but surely they weren't still holding that against him. Knew they could trust him to be…well, him.

But John knew he was seeking an easy out. It wasn't about Thalen's possession or the missions, it was about him. They needed a break from him, good old John Sheppard. And it wasn't like it hadn't happened before. Just ask his dad and brother. He had just thought this one time that he had found some people who would put up with him no matter what. It wasn't McKay or Ronon or Teyla's fault that was too much to ask. It was his.

Leaving the mess hall without giving a thought to eating, he decided to go to the bar now and alone instead of with his friends tonight as he had planned. He had someone to see and he could buck up and do it on his own. He didn't need anyone else, had made sure of that since his Dad had made it abundantly clear that if he didn't do as he wanted him to, he could expect absolutely no help from that quarter. Trouble was, John had gotten used to needing others, needing them: his team.

Suddenly he felt like he had lied to Winston. He didn't feel in a good place at all. The tables had turned in just a half an hour's time span. 'Welcome Home, John,' he bitterly thought as he pushed out the mess hall doors, hailed down a cab and ventured into the city that had been his home a couple years back but now felt as foreign to him as an alien galaxy once had.

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TBC

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Thanks so much for the overwhelmingly awesome welcome into this fandom with my first fic, "Not Alone." I was braced to get one review if I was lucky and then you guys just gave me this outpouring of support and praise that I really appreciated! And because of that support, I'm off onto another storyline. I'm hoping you guys enjoy this story as it unfolds.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.