A/N: After watching "The Tower" I figure it's time for Elizabeth to get some attention from some else other than John. It's only fair.Also thanks to Bluebanirgh and SallyLizzieBeta-ing the first chapter.

Spoilers: After "The Tower" but before "The Long Goodbye".

Pairing: Sheppard/Weir friendship with potential for more.

Chapter 1

"Almost feels like home," John said, stepping out onto the snow covered ground of Feldara. Elizabeth only gave him a perplexed look. "Before coming here, I was based in Antarctica," he reminded.

"Of all of the worlds you've been to, you pick the ice planet for me to come and have negotiations," she sighed and watched the steam from her breath dissipate in the air.

"It's not my fault that they have an Ancient outpost here," he said.

"An Ancient outpost that the Feldarians consider an ancestral temple," she sighed again. She pulled her coat tighter around herself as she trudged on back towards the Stargate. "How are we supposed to convince them to let us do research in it without offending them?"

"That is your field of expertise," John said with a wink.

"I don't know," she said, pushing a loose brown curl back under her hood. "They didn't look too happy when we asked them to allow our scientists to hang around here for a couple weeks to do research."

"Maybe we could offer them something in return?" John suggested.

"Like what?"

"Heaters or maybe warm fleece blankets?" he said with cheeky smile.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "You are really no help when it comes to this."

"I'm just here to shoot the bad guys," he smiled and patted the P-90 hanging from his vest. "What are you doing?" He looked at Elizabeth to see her stooping on the ground and gathering some snow with her gloved hands.

"I was just wondering if the snow in this galaxy felt like the snow back on Earth," she said, packing the snow into a little ball.

"What difference is there? It's cold, wet, and white. It's snow," John said obviously. Elizabeth tilted her head as she looked up at him. "What? It's true," he shrugged.

"Thank you, Colonel Obvious," Elizabeth said and stood up again.

Suddenly, John felt something cold hit him in the side of his head. His touched the side of his head and found remnants of a snowball. He brushed his hand through his hair to shake out the snow, and glared at Elizabeth, who was giggling into her hands.

"Now what the hell was that, doctor?"

Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. "That, if you must know, was a snowball."

"I know it was a snowball, but why was I the target of that snowball?"

"Because what is the fun of making a snowball if you can't throw it at someone?" she said and started to pack another snowball in her hands.

"That is something I would do." John put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes. "I thought you were better than that."

"I am better...just not that much," she grinned deviously.

"That's it." He stooped down and started to make a snowball of his own, while Elizabeth quickly finished the one in her hand.

John released his snowball first, but Elizabeth ducked just in time, and threw her snowball hitting him in the chest.

He looked down at the crumbling snowball against his chest. "You throw like a girl!" he said.

At his comment she raised an eyebrow in reply and threw another snowball at him, missing him by an inch. "So what? You can't hit a girl with a snowball?" she egged him on.

John held his arm out like he was about to shrug, but instead he swung his arms back and threw another snow projectile at Elizabeth, which she luckily dodged in time. After several more unsuccessful attempts at pegging her, he finally managed to smack her in the face.

Instantaneously, he saw her hands come up to her face as she fell onto her knees. Afraid that he might have hurt her, he ran to her and knelt down beside her.

"I'm sorry. Are you all right?" he asked as he helped to brush away the snow from her hair.

Elizabeth did not reply immediately, since she was still recovering from the sudden coldness of a snowball to her face. As she wiped the snow from her face, she noticed the genuine concern and guilt written all over John's face. She decided to take this moment to her advantage. While he was leaning in closer to observe the damage, she used one hand, grabbed a handful of snow, and threw it in his face.

She could not help but laugh at the look of shock on his snow-laden face.

"All right, that's it," he said, but she had anticipated his revenge and started running.

Since running in the snow was never easy, she didn't get far before he caught up and brought her down to the ground.

Major Lorne cut their moment of fun short when his voice crackled through the radio.

"Colonel, we have gate activity," he said.

John and Elizabeth raised their heads up to look to the direction of the Stargate just in time to see the wormhole connect and two Wraith darts zip through.

"This is getting annoying," John muttered. Then he spoke into his radio. "Major, this is Sheppard. You guys know the drill. We can't let it get back to the Hive ship."

Elizabeth felt John's strong arms pull her up as he kept his eyes on the darts heading for the village they had just left. He held his gun up ready to fire, while she could hear the sound of distant gunfire from the others trying to take down the darts.

John searched the vicinity for a place where they could avoid the Wraith beams, but the area they stood at was bare, leaving them vulnerably out in the open. The best they could do was head towards the Stargate where back up would be waiting for the approach of the darts.

"Come on, let's get to the gate," he said grabbing on to Elizabeth's hand as they tried to run through the snow.

Just then, John heard the dreadful buzz of a dart looming behind them. He looked up to see the dart inching in on them and its beam ready to take new victims aboard. He quickly threw himself into Elizabeth to push her away from the path of the beam.

Moments later, they heard a loud crash where the dart landed.

"Colonel," Lorne's voice came through the radio again. "Please be advised. The second dart is heading towards your direction as well."

"Crap," he muttered to himself. "Come on, it's time to move again."

Before Elizabeth had a chance to pull herself together from the fall, she felt her body being pulled forward as John raced them towards the armed soldiers running in their direction.

As soon as they ran past the line of three soldiers, Elizabeth could hear the rapid firing of rifles behind her trying to shoot down the last dart. The buzzing of the dart came closer, and she turned her head to see its position. She was glad to see that the soldiers had managed to disable the dart, but she was not glad to see that the dart was headed for a collision course with them again. Now she knew exactly how Carson felt when he described how the dart almost crashed into him during Rodney's little 'duet' incident with Lieutenant Cadman.

Before Elizabeth had any time to think of which direction she should run, she heard John yell "Get down!" The next thing she knew, he had wrapped his arms around her waist and had pulled her down onto him to break her third tumble into the snow. As the dart flew over their heads, John instinctually used his body to protect Elizabeth from any flying debris when the dart collided with the ground.

"Are you all right?" John asked breathlessly as he looked down at Elizabeth.

"Not really," Elizabeth said lying on her back in the snow. She was breathing heavily, and tried to pass it off mostly as a side effect of running from the darts. But she suspected that her compromising position with John at the moment was not helping either.

"You can feel better later," John said as he stood up, holding his hand out for her.

"Now I can see why you love going off world so much, and why Carson dreads it," she said, taking his hand and brushing the snow off herself with her other hand.

"Doctor Weir, are you all right?" Major Lorne said as he approached the pair.

"Major," Elizabeth nodded, "I'm fine, thank you. Colonel Sheppard made sure I was safe by keeping me...close to him." She gave John a quick glance.

Major Lorne nodded and turned his attention to John. "Colonel, both Wraith darts have been disabled and the pilots are dead. We made sure of that," Lorne reported cryptically.

"All right, get Zelenka and his people to come and salvage the wrecks. As for the village..." John trailed off and looked over at Elizabeth.

"As for the village," Elizabeth continued where John left off. "I think we should go back and see what the damage is; maybe this might convince them to let us have access to their outpost."

"Village? I thought they were an underground city," the Major furrowed his eyebrows, perplexed.

"They have a village on the surface for trading purposes, but the majority of the Feldarians occupy the underground city," Elizabeth explained. "And I'm afraid a fair amount of people were topside to send us off. I think it is best that we go back and check on them, especially if they are our future allies."

"Understood, ma'am, sir" Lorne gave a quick salute and ran towards the Stargate to report his orders.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" John asked as they started to walk back towards the village.

"Most likely not," she said, making a face and looking at John.

"You're pretty sassy for someone I just saved," John said narrowing his eyes.

"And I thank you for it," Elizabeth smiled.

"You should, especially since I saved you even after I got a face full of snow," John scowled. "I think my nose is still frozen," he said, feeling the tip of his nose.

Elizabeth chuckled as she wiped off some snow that was still on her sleeves.

"Do you think that they might let us loiter around their village a bit longer, now that we sort of saved them from the Wraith?" he asked.

"I hope it proves something at least." Elizabeth said hopefully. "And now that we've figured out how to extract people beamed by the Darts it might put us in a more favorable light."

"Look, here comes pretty boy," John said as he noticed a group of people coming out to greet them as they neared the village. Leading the group was a man with dark blond hair and blue eyes. He was about the same height as John, but his skin, like most of the Feldarians, was pale since they stayed indoors due to the harsh weather conditions. Dolan was thought of by many to be a handsome man, but John thought that Dolan would look better if he got a tan.

Elizabeth gave John a sidelong glance. "Pretty boy?"

"Isn't he just there for decoration? He hardly said a word during the meeting. The Governor did most of the talking."

"That's because Dolan is the Governor's son and second in command, and he's hardly a boy. I think he's about your age, maybe even younger."

"Well, something must be wrong with him since he's still single."

"You're still single," Elizabeth pointed out.

"Because something is wrong with me," John said.

"No kidding," she said rolling her eyes. "Besides, he did strike up some conversation while we waited for our meeting."

"Yes, conversation with you."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at John's comment. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous."

"Jealous?" John scoffed, "Of what?"

"I think you're jealous of the fact that this time there isn't an alien princess for you to flirt and leer at."

"I admit I do flirt, but I do not leer."

"Doctor Weir," Dolan said with a relieved smile. "I'm so glad that you have not returned to your world yet."

"Actually, we were just about to leave, when the Darts came," she explained to Dolan.

"We disabled the two Wraith Darts before they got through the gate. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon," John added.

"We came back to see if you needed some help," Elizabeth said.

"My father was caught in one of the beams." Dolan said looking down at the snow-covered ground somberly. "With the technology you possess, is there any hope of having him returned to us?"

"I'm so sorry to hear that." Elizabeth's face filled with concern. "We will be trying our best to see if we can safely extract the Governor and others who may have been caught in the beams," she assured Dolan.

"Thank you, Doctor Weir," Dolan said taking Elizabeth's hand into his own in a thankful gesture, which did not escape John's notice.

"Now that the Governor is not around, who is in charge?" John asked.

"I will be," Dolan said, "but I hope this will only be temporary, and your people will be able to return my father to us safely as soon as possible."

"We will do our best, Dolan," Elizabeth assured him again.

"Again, thank you, Doctor," Dolan replied, his hand still holding onto Elizabeth's hand.

"I think we should be returning home." Elizabeth sincerely patted Dolan's hand in return and removed her hands from his hold. "If you need assistance, please do not hesitant to ask."

"What was that all about?" John asked as soon as Dolan was out of hearing distance.

"What?"

"The hand holding and stuff," John made some gestures with his hands.

"That is called diplomacy," she said mischievously, knowing that her answer would irritate him.

"Are you trying to get back at me for all the aliens that find me irresistible?"

Elizabeth scoffed. "Why would I want to get back at you? Girls just want to have fun."

"And what kind of 'fun' is that?" he said crossing his arms over his chest.

"That's for me know and you to never find out," she giggled at the appalled expression that crossed over his face. "Come on, let's go home," she said.