a/n: this could be anytime, but I envision it set sometime in season 3.

Elizabeth looked up from the tablet, twitching up an eyebrow. "You want me to play hooky?"

Her watch said it was 2130 hours on a Tuesday night - at least, it was probably still Tuesday - and John Sheppard was trying a new tactic to get her out of her office.

He had a disturbingly steep learning curve, she'd noticed. He'd discovered that asking her to come to movie nights didn't work. She'd already eaten dinner, so that wasn't going to work. But she was naturally inquisitive, and he knew her weakness: interesting new discoveries.

And maybe him, but she'd never admit that, even to herself.

"Doctor's orders."

She shot him a baleful look. "No it's not."

"Fine. Lieutenant colonel's orders." He sat on the edge of her desk like he'd been invited.

"You know there's a perfectly good chair, right over there." She pointed at the chair where everyone else sat when they came to visit.

"Yep, I know." He took the tablet, tapping a few buttons to pull up a more detailed map. "See, I want to head out here and take another look. I only got a few minutes yesterday, and I've been wanting to go back."

"And for some reason you want me to come along, instead of doing -" she waved her hands at the mess of yet-to-be-finished tasks spilled across her desk - "everything I actually have to get done?"

"Well, you know me. I need adult supervision."

Elizabeth tried very hard to glare at him, but he ignored her, because he knew exactly how infectious his enthusiasm was. And he knew she'd been stuck in her office all day.

She sometimes worried that John Sheppard knew far too much about her.

"It's been totally checked out. Entirely safe." He grinned at her, cheeky as ever, and Elizabeth really wished he didn't know just how persuasive he was. "Come on, 'Lizabeth. You'll go stir-crazy, cooped up in here. Let's go for a walk."

They'd been walking along a series of corridors, John constantly checking his scanner, for what seemed like forever. Elizabeth was biting back You have no idea where we're going, do you? when John let out a triumphant laugh. "Okay. Okay. Now we're getting there. Just down this way."

He pointed at one more turn ahead of them, and Elizabeth bit her lip. She'd already been out of her office longer than she should have, and in spite of the miraculous lack of emergencies coming in over her radio, she still got antsy. "This just looks like another set of personnel quarters. What exactly are we looking for?"

"You'll see," he assured her, his voice light. "Just be patient. Good things come to those who wait, you know."

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help the flood of heat in her cheeks.

Human interactions were her specialty, but even with all her experience and keen insight, Elizabeth could never really find the line between talking and flirting where she and John were concerned. Anymore, it felt like every conversation, no matter how mundane, had just that faint trace of something that made her wonder if she was imagining it, or if he really was looking at her like he was thinking the same thing.

Maybe she was just long overdue, but, well. It wasn't her fault John Sheppard was a born flirt with a perfect body.

He rounded the corner in front of her, lights flickering to life around him as they always did, but as she hastened to follow him, he popped back around. "Ah! Hang on. Shut your eyes. I want it to be a surprise."

"John -"

"I insist." He folded his arms. "I think you'll appreciate it more."

She eyed him suspiciously, but really, she'd already come this far.

So she closed her eyes, following carefully as he took her hand and led her forward. With her eyes shut, she could hear the low, barely-audible hum of the city around them, the subtle sound of the sea outside. And something else. Water? It sounded like water, and the air felt slightly more humid.

"Okay. Open."

She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the soft, low light of the room around them. It was a small, circular room, starlight gleaming through windows around them, and there in the center of the floor -

"A pool?"

"Almost."

As if on cue, the surface of the water began to shimmer with bubbles, rippling merrily as steam rose off the surface.

"I'm pretty sure," he said, "it's the Ancient equivalent of a hot tub."

She let out a short laugh. Of course. Of course he would find this. "And I keep thinking there's nothing else here that'll surprise me."

"No kidding." He grinned. "Like I said, I found it yesterday, but I didn't have time to try it out. I'm sure it'll be popular once everyone else finds out it's here, but I figured you might like a chance to come see it for yourself first."

As usual, John Sheppard could catch her off-guard with a single sentence. He could do that, turn on a dime, a confusing blend of mischief and boyishness and thoughtfulness that made her heart hammer in her chest, and the warmth in his eyes was almost too much to take in.

"Thank you." She let out a breath. "You were right. I did need to get out of my office."

"I'm always right, Elizabeth. I figured you'd know that by now."

The room was small, but the skylights extended down the walls, to the point where they blended into the sea, like some endless infinity pool that drifted into the horizon, water disappearing into the night sky. Even the lightning was mood lighting, low and warm and golden, and this might actually have been the calmest she'd felt since the day they'd stepped into the Pegasus Galaxy.

She wondered how hard it would be to relocate her office here.

After cautiously dipping his hand into the bubbling, frothy water, John declared it perfect, and before she could blink, he was pulling his shirt over his head.

"John!"

"What? I don't wanna get my clothes wet."

Elizabeth turned away, face burning as she heard the rustle of fabric, the metallic sound of a zipper, and finally footsteps and the splash of water. "Oh, man, this is great. You've got to try this."

When she looked back, he was standing in the water, beaming. He was still in his boxers, for which she was grateful, but it was still more of John Sheppard than she was used to seeing. A lot more. She knew he was in good shape, but seeing it was entirely different. His arms were toned, his chest lightly dusted with hair, and as he turned around, she got a nice, long look at the muscles of his back.

Oh.

If he'd caught her staring, he didn't remark on it. Just looked back at her with a grin. "Come on, aren't you going to take a dip?"

"No."

"Why not? The water's great. It's like a nice hot bath." He shot her a sly look. ""I'll close my eyes if you don't want me to look."

He smirked at her, clearly thinking she was going to chicken out.

She stripped off her shirt in front of him, flushing as his eyes went wide. He wasn't expecting that.

But he didn't look away, holding her gaze even as she dropped her pants on the ground, leaving her just in her black underwear and bra. His eyes swept over her body, a long, lingering look that set her heart hammering.

"I thought you said you'd close your eyes."

"You didn't tell me to."

It was probably one of her worse ideas. Elizabeth spent every moment of her life making good choices. But relative to the fate of the world and the people for whom she was responsible, taking off her clothes in front of John Sheppard didn't seem so drastic.

Good thing this was so far from the rest of the settlement. There were enough rumors about the two of them as it was; she could imagine just how quickly the news about two of them enjoying a hot tub together in their respective underwear would circulate the city.

She dropped her earpiece on top of her shirt and slid into the water and gasped. "Oh, wow." The water was as comfortable as he'd said, just hot enough to relax her muscles.

"Yeah. Pretty great."

It felt like a proper hot tub, and really, she hadn't realized how tense she was until now. She waded further in, relishing the pulsating pressure of hot water against the tight muscles of her lower back.

Maybe this wasn't the worst idea of the day.

"Jets feel a little stronger than a normal tub," he observed absently, settling back in the water, "but it's kind of nice."

The hot tub itself wasn't huge, but it sank deep enough that the water hit her at chest-level. A ledge curved around the sides, the perfect depth to keep her chest comfortably in the warmth of the water as steam curled around her face.

As the water pounded away at her sore back, John sat back on his own side, watching her across the surface of the water, an unreadable expression on his face. In the soft half-lit glow from the lights around them, his eyes looked darker than usual.

"So?" His voice was light, teasing. Testing. "Worth it?"

She swallowed hard, watching his gaze shift to her mouth.

"Maybe."

The heated glow around them was almost too much, coupled with the smolder of his gaze, and Elizabeth had to look away, desperate to catch her breath for just a moment.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the heap of red and black fabric on the floor near them. Damn. She normally took better care of her clothes, but then, she didn't usually take them off in front of John Sheppard.

It was a distracting experience.

But maybe she could just -

"It's killing you, isn't it?" His voice startled her.

"What is?"

He grinned. "You didn't fold your clothes. They're just sitting there. And you want to fold them."

She glared at him, because she was absolutely not going to tell him that he was right. "No."

"Nah, I think you do." His grin widened, lazy and dangerous. "You're a perfectionist. Total goody two-shoes."

"Not that good," she retorted. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"You think that makes you bad?"

Even his voice was lower, gravelly, sending an ache between her legs, and it wasn't just the hot water flushing her face.

"What do you think?"

He was inching towards her, but she couldn't look away. Her body felt weak. Deliciously, luxuriously weak. It was a weakness she couldn't afford on a daily basis, but now, here, with John eyeing her like he was starving and she was dessert, it felt utterly self-indulgent.

"I think," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on hers, "you spend all day pretending you don't want anything."

"Really?" Was that her voice, so breathy and sultry and positively dripping with sex?

She'd be embarrassed, but she was long past that.

"Yeah."

He was so close she could feel his breath on her skin, see the flecks of gold in his eyes, and she suddenly realized, with crystal-cut clarity that set everything in focus: it was inevitable.

It was always going to happen, whether it was now or tomorrow or a week from now.

"So what do you think I want?"

His hands came to rest on either side of her, trapping her between his body and the side of the tub, and when he spoke, he practically breathed the words into her mouth.

"Why don't you show me?"

She leaned in slowly, pressing a soft, faint whisper of a kiss to his mouth. Just a fraction of the answer to his question, but even this felt cathartic, satisfying the way she'd always known it would be.

It was over in a moment, but then before she could do more than take a breath, he kissed her.

It was hard and hungry, his tongue tangled with hers as he pulled her against his body. She moaned into his mouth, wrapping her legs around his hips, gasping as she felt the bulge of his erection pressing into her.

He kissed her long and slow and deep, and she couldn't help but wonder if he'd been daydreaming about this just as long as she had. She buried her fingers in his hair, smiling into his mouth as she felt the groan rumble through his chest.

He dragged his fingers down her shoulder, tugging her bra strap out of the way as he followed with his mouth, but she had no patience for teasing right now. She reached behind her, fumbling for a moment before she unclasped her bra.

She tossed it aside without watching where it went, and John laughed into her skin, placing a wet, open-mouthed kiss at the base of her throat. "Impatient?"

He looked far too pleased with himself, like he knew exactly how worked up he'd gotten her, and as much as she wanted to lick the smugness right off his face, she was fairly sure this was going to be the most enjoyable conflict resolution of her extensive career.

John pushed her back up against the side again, palming her breasts with rough hands. His beard stubble rasped against her cheek. He rolled his hips into hers, rough, methodical, and it all went a little blurry, sensory overload, and she dug her fingernails into the muscles of his back and bit his earlobe as the orgasm flooded her body.

He came hard, his whole body going rigid against her, his hips bucking against hers as he swore into her neck.

For a long moment she stayed still, hands on his shoulders, trying to catch her breath. He pressed his forehead to hers, and it felt so normal, so simple, like the kind of soft, casual affection they'd shared for years, although she was reasonably sure it was that simple affection that had brought them to the last ten minutes.

She was a grown woman, he was a grown man, they lived on a ten thousand-year-old floating fortress in another galaxy, and they just got each other off, in a hot tub, without even taking off their underwear.

Good thing Elizabeth kept secrets for a living.

"Oh." She sucked in a long, shaky breath. Her whole body was aglow, her muscles limp. "Oh."

"Wow," he murmured. "That was unexpected."

She shot him a look. "Like you hadn't thought about it before?"

"I didn't say that." John traced a light hand over her cheek, oddly tender after all this. "But just - you know, I wasn't - plotting it, or anything. I just thought you needed a break."

"You weren't wrong." She leaned in to press a soft kiss to his lips. "This is a lot better than departmental requisition requests."

"You have a weird concept of dirty talk, Doctor."

She hummed against his mouth. "You've always been so perspicacious, Colonel."

They were almost back to the control room, back in the mundane world of the daily business of a floating city, when John touched her elbow. It was the simplest touch, something he'd done more or less since they'd met, but now?

Now it was subtext.

I like you.

"Do you want to come over later?" he asked.

It was simple, straightforward, and incredibly refreshing.

"Really?"

"In the interest of honesty," he added, "I should clarify - this time, I am plotting to get you naked."

Her cheeks flushed, but she just smiled at him.

"Good."