Shuffle, by tigs (Personal Item Challenge)

Title: Shuffle
Author: tigs
Pairing/Rating: Ford, Team Gen (G)
Disclaimer: If only they were mine...
Summary: "What I want to know, Lieutenant Ford, is why you brought along a deck of cards. How could that possibly, out of everything back on Earth, be the one thing that you couldn’t leave behind?" [Set early Season 1. Contains specific spoilers for Hide & Seek.]



In the pre-Atlantis, pre-mission briefings, they’d told Ford—all of them—that they were only allowed to take one personal item with them on their more-than-likely one-way trip to another galaxy, yes. They’d told them more than once even, but of course no one had listened.

In the first week, after many whispered conversations and unofficial tallies, rumor had it that the city of Atlantis contained:
-312 books not supplied by the SGC, which sadly included 12 Danielle Steeles, 5 Nora Roberts’, and the Complete Jane Austen, but the rest of which Ford wouldn’t mind reading,
-221 DVDs,
-62 stuffed animals of various sorts, from bears to dogs to penguins,
-43 6 GB iPods, their memories entirely full, and
-2 sets of materials and plans for making desk drawer stills.

The key, of course, Ford knew, was to never mention the contraband. Or, if you had to mention it, you whispered about it instead. You’d never go up to Markham in the mess hall, for instance, and say, "Yo, Markham, I hear you managed to sneak the complete *Indiana Jones Trilogy* in with your socks. Movie night tonight?"

No, what you did was this: You went to Markham’s room after dinner, looking both ways before you knocked on the door. Then, when he answered, you whispered, "So, I heard through the grapevine that you might have a copy of the *Indiana Jones* trilogy hidden in with your socks. Do you think I--?" And then you had a private screening in someone’s room, select, invited personnel only.

This only applied to unofficial personal items, though.

Officially, Atlantis contained:
-63 framed pictures,
-49 photo albums,
-42 books in languages that Ford didn’t understand, and another
-27 in languages that he did,
-18 DVDs,
-2 framed PhDs,
-1 Hail Mary football game, and
-1 deck of cards

The deck of cards was Ford’s. During the first week in Atlantis, when everyone was getting the official (and unofficial) tally of what sorts of entertainment were at their collective disposal, people would ask Ford what he’d brought, and he’d say, "A deck of cards, yo. Feel like a game?" And then they’d look at him oddly and sort of back away.

It was McKay who finally asked him the obvious question. They were at dinner, Ford, the Major, and McKay. Major Sheppard was talking about his football game, had been for ten minutes, and since McKay’s eyes had been rolling with ever-increasing speed for the previous seven or so, Ford wasn’t surprised when McKay waved the Major quiet and said, "Okay, yes, we understand. All hail the Hail Mary, but what I want to know, Lieutenant Ford, is why you brought along a deck of cards. How could that possibly, out of everything back on Earth, be the one thing that you couldn’t leave behind?"

Of course it wasn’t, hadn’t been, and they all knew it. McKay and the Major had both seen that he had pictures of his grandparents and his cousin hanging in his room. They knew that three of the DVDs were his, as were 2 of the books.

At this point in time, though, out of everything he’d brought, the cards were the only item he was willing to take out of his room, into public areas, share.

"One of my commanders, back in boot camp," he said, "told us to never underestimate the value of a deck of cards. They’re small, light, easy to pack, travel well, and that they can keep you occupied for hours."

McKay made some comment about being easily entertained then, as Ford had known he would, but he didn’t expand. Didn’t say that his commander had told him about long hours out in the field, and how men with something to do, even if it was only a card game, were happier men. Ford didn’t say that he’d played a lot of cards back in the barracks, back when there was nothing else to do, and that he’d learned more about the people he was fighting next to over those 52 cardboard rectangles than he’d ever learned over the dinner table.

He didn’t know yet if McKay would understand.

That was sort of the point.

*

Ford had bought himself a new deck before stepping through the Stargate, and he’d been in Atlantis for three weeks already before he realized that he had yet to take the plastic wrapper off it. So, on the night that signified the end of week three, as worry about the immediate threat of the Wraith bled away into *we’re still here*, he thought, enough is enough. He peeled the plastic away, stuck the deck in his pants pocket, and made his way to the dining hall.

It was late-ish, after dinner, but there were still some people there, talking, spreading their work out over the tables. He didn’t join them, and instead took his own table. It would be their choice to join him, if they wanted to, but he knew that other people would be coming by the mess, too. Late night snack urges and all that.

Three weeks into their stay in Atlantis, and the dining hall had sort of become the social center of the city. There was no other place to play, as far as Ford was concerned.

He slipped the cards out of their cardboard box, feeling the smooth clean laminate beneath his fingertips, tossed aside the Jokers, and then he split the deck, shuffled it, and listened to the familiar, relaxing whir of the cards mixing together. He did it again, and then he started a game of solitaire, sorting the cards out into seven piles in front of him.

It took him eight turns of the deck to realize that he wasn’t going to win—the two of diamonds was stuck under the three—and by the time he’d gotten the cards back into deck form again, Teyla was sitting across the table from him, watching.

"This is an Earth game?" she asked, and Ford nodded.

He said, "Here, I’ll teach you," and he started to shuffle the cards again. Maybe it was that she was intently watching him fold the cards together, or maybe it was just that they were still so stiff, new, but they slipped out of his fingers and went sliding across the table top. He laughed, of course, even as a blush rose in his cheeks a bit, and Teyla laughed too.

"That’s not supposed to happen," Ford said, and she nodded at him again, her eyes still wide, still twinkling.

"No," another voice said, "it’s not." And then Major Sheppard was there, pulling up a chair. He turned it backwards, straddled it, and said, "What are we playing?" Then, looking at Teyla, he continued, "We can’t really play anything with three, can we?" so he looked around the room, and saw Stackhouse and Markham sitting at a table, and said, "Stackhouse! Markham! One of you get over here so we can play a game."

Stackhouse and Markham both came over, but Markham was the one that Ford dealt into the game, and they started simple, teaching Teyla ‘Go Fish.’

"We’ll work up to Poker," the Major said, patting her on the arm. "Don’t worry."

"I am not worried, Major Sheppard," she said. Then: "Do you have any fours?"

As he grumbled, handing over three of them, she smiled sweetly.

"She’ll wipe the floor with all of you if you ever teach her poker," McKay said, and that was when Ford first realized that the scientist was even standing there, watching. Apparently had been for awhile, too, given the half-eaten MRE in his hand. "As would I."

"That sounds like a challenge, McKay," Ford said, looking up at him, but it was the Major who gestured for him to take a seat.

McKay looked uncertain, and Ford was pretty sure that he was going to shake his head and walk away, but then the Major said, "Come on, McKay. You have time for one game. You have time to show Teyla the basics. Then you can head back to the lab."

Ford could see that McKay was very clearly wavering, and finally, the moment before he stuffed the remainder of the MRE into his mouth, he nodded. He pulled out the chair next to Teyla and sat down.

"I’ll have you know," McKay said, looking directly at Ford for a long moment, and then turning to look at both Major Sheppard and Markham in turn, "that I was considered something of a ‘card shark’ back in my undergraduate days. Just to give you fair warning."

"Thanks," Ford said, grinning and shaking his head at the same time. "I’ll keep that in mind."

Then he looked around the table himself, at the Major and McKay, already bickering, at Teyla, who was watching them amused, at Markham and Stackhouse, conversing about poker strategy, and he decided that his commander had known what he was talking about all along: *never* underestimate the value of a deck of cards.

Ford shuffled the deck one last time and then he began to deal.