Dancing Around the Four Sides

:-D

Excerpt from the peach-orchard thing:

The knocking has increased in strength and frequency. "I'm coming," John yells toward the door. Maybe it's not someone hungry for peaches. Maybe it's Henry, wanting to borrow John's post-hole digger again, or Teyla, come to tell him another gasket's blown on the duster, again. But it's not Henry, or Teyla, or anyone else John knows when he finally opens the door -- it's a stranger, a guy maybe about the same age as himself, dressed in a blue suit that looks as if it's just been pulled off a rack and thrown on. There's another guy too, someone John can barely make out through the tinted windows of the black Ford Expedition parked in John's driveway.

"Sheppard?" the guy at the door says. "Colonel John Sheppard?"

"Actually, it's Mister Sheppard now," John says, and the guy blinks.

"Huh," he says. "Yes, yes, of course." He tugs at his suit as if willing it to fit better, then gives up and clears his throat. "Look," he says, "I'll make this quick. My name is Rodney McKay, I'm from Acme Incorporated, and I want to buy your peach crop. The -- whole thing."