Well, he'd found it. This was hell.

"... and apparently Ronon's taking her side on this one, and I have no idea what's going on..."

Lorne nodded, made the appropriate faces, and poked his food around on his plate as he listened to Sheppard ramble on about Teyla and her pregnancy. About how he'd snapped at her and removed her from active duty and how could she not tell him and so on and so forth. The fact that Sheppard was acting like an idiot did not help the discomfort he felt at hearing the other man ramble on about this woman he'd been working with side by side for a couple of years now, clearly nurturing a deep affection for her.

"I don't know." Sheppard rubbed his temples. Lorne knew exactly how he felt. "Maybe ..."

"Maybe you should try talking to her." He said it, but he didn't look up to see the other man's reaction, poking at what was supposed to be Salisbury steak with his fork still. At least, it claimed to be Salisbury steak. "I hear women like that sort of thing."

Sheppard made a noise that Lorne interpreted as I would but I don't really know a damn thing about talking to women and I don't want to betray my ignorance. Lorne could translate because he'd made that exact same noise quite a few times. Sheppard had even less excuse, as far as Lorne was concerned. He'd been married. He had to have at least done a few things right.

"What?" He finally looked up at the other man.

"I just..." Sheppard shrugged.

"You've had to have known pregnant women before."

His commanding officer gave him the sort of eyerolling look that normally would have gotten him more sarcasm in return. But this was Teyla, and Lorne actually liked Teyla. Lorne liked Sheppard too but there were times when he just wanted to smack the man upside the back of the head. Teyla came in for far fewer of those impulses.

"That's not the point. It's not that she's pregnant, it's..."

It's exactly that she's pregnant, you fool. It's that she's pregnant, which means she was seriously involved with someone because Teyla wouldn't do casual. Which means that she has someone and it isn't you. And that bugs you. Lord knows, it bugged Lorne, in his own relatively similar circumstance. He settled for conveying all that in a look, which had much the same effect.

"It's..." he gestured for Sheppard to go on.

The other man shrugged after a little while, evidently not finding anything to say that was to his liking. Or at least, nothing that would justify the entire tirade he'd just indulged in. "She didn't tell me. She should have told me, I wouldn't have let her go on the mission, get stunned..."

"If that's all you're worried about," and Lorne knew it wasn't, but he leaned back as though he had no personal stake in the conversation. "Keller should have told you. She's the chief medical officer, it's her job to know the status of the teams and whether or not they're capable of being in the field. If she had a concern, she would have told you." Granted, Lorne wasn't certain about the wisdom of letting Teyla get stunned or the advisability of some of the things they did in the field. But just because Keller hadn't anticipated every contingency, he reminded himself, did not make her a bad doctor.

It did make him a cranky Lorne. But this whole conversation was making him cranky.

"It would have been better coming from Teyla."

Lorne stopped even pretending to eat and said nothing, because there really was nothing he could say against that. It was true. John would have been less hurt if Teyla had told him, but she hadn't, and that was that.

And he wasn't going to be able to keep up this conversation much longer.

"I still think you should talk to her," he said, dumping the trash onto his tray and turning to go.

"Well, what do I say?"

Lorne was at least glad for the small bit of luck that his back was to the other man, just so he didn't have to deal with Sheppard's questions on why the wincing. He sighed, turned around. "I don't know, man, say anything. Say what comes into your head." Or your heart. Too sappy?

Too sappy. And Sheppard was beyond bad with words anyway, where feelings were concerned. They stared at each other for a second before he turned and left.

Lorne wasn't too good with words either.

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