Ford was bored.
At least, he had been bored until about ten minutes ago, at which point he had started being really bored.
It was unnervingly quiet around him. Elizabeth and Teyla had gone in half an hour ago, but Ford couldn't hear any voices; the negotiations must be happening somewhere deep inside the building.
He'd had a movie date this afternoon, too. Couldn't they just grab Major Sheppard and Dr. McKay and get the hell out?
Something twitched behind him.
Ford spun around, dropping a hand to the butt of his handgun.
There was nothing there, at least not that he could see. But there was a faint but definite scraping noise coming from somewhere underground about three feet away, and it was getting louder.
Another ten minutes went by, during which Ford continued to gape at the bare ground in front of him-- and then he began to hear voices. They were too faint to make out, but they were definitely human voices, coming from the same general vicinity as the scraping noise.
A few more minutes, and he began to be able to hear words.
"Whose ridiculous idea was this, anyway?"
"Yours."
"But-- but-- couldn't you have seduced the guard, or something?"
The scraping noise diminished. "Are you nuts?"
"I've been accused of it."
"I'm not interested in guard-seducing, thank you." A pause. "Well, if you were the guard . . ."
There was a loud thump and a muffled noise of surprise, then silence for several seconds. Ford backed away slightly, worried about what might burst out of the ground at any second.
Then someone underground spoke up again. "John, you idiot. Even acknowledging my irresistible charms, did you have to crush the spoon doing that? How the hell are we supposed to dig out now?"
Ford backed away a little further.