When it came to pain, John Sheppard was of the opinion that whenever possible, you should grit your teeth and take it like a man. He was not, in general, a person who eagerly conveyed his emotions to others, and he wasn't likely to let even something like excruciating ouchiness make him open up.
He also had a bad habit of, secretly and silently, holding others to the same standards to which he held himself; yet as he trailed behind McKay, who was holding forth on an impressive list of physical complaints as an exceedingly tolerant Dr. Beckett led him to the infirmary, he found he was smiling to himself, just as secret and silent. Maybe it was the contrast to the utter quiet with which McKay had faced down the energy cloud—it was amusing to see him so bravely stoic then, and so wide-eyed and babble-mouthed now.
And, John had to admit, he was beginning to like McKay; how could you not feel at least a little bit friendly toward someone whose idea of a bonding exercise was to let you push him off a balcony and shoot him in the leg? That had been fun. It had been a while since John had genuinely enjoyed the company of another person.
They reached the infirmary, and McKay, apparently forgetting he had recently been complaining of a back ache, leapt up on one of the examination tables like it was a second home to him and switched over to bitching that his chest itched. Dr. Beckett rolled his eyes, and in doing so, seemed to notice John for the first time. "Major," he said, "can I help you with something?"
"Uh," said John, trying to figure out why exactly he was there, and whether there was some sort of post-averted-disaster procedure he was supposed to follow. The way things were going so far, he might have to come up with one. "I, uh. I have a question for McKay."
It was true, he realized; there was something he wanted to ask him. He looked at McKay, drumming his heels on the side of the table like a five-year-old impatiently awaiting his lollipop. But he was brilliant and not bad company, and apparently, he came through in a crisis. Yeah, John had something to ask him, all right.
"Rodney?" Beckett looked to McKay, apparently asking for patient permission to let John stay in the room. McKay waved his acceptance, looking distracted. He was scratching at his chest, where the now-depleted shield had been; John bet he wished it was still there.
"Do you think it's contact dermatitis?" McKay asked, presumably referring to the itching. "Or something in the mattresses? They're ten thousand years old; who knows what kind of mites or—"
"I'm much more concerned with whether or not you've been burned," Beckett said. "Take off your jacket." McKay did; Beckett inspected his arms and his neck. "The shirt, too," Beckett said, and John began to think that maybe he should wait outside. Over McKay's burble of protest: "I'll check for contact dermatitis, too."
John mumbled something about being out in the hall and started for the door. He was halfway there when McKay let out what could only be described as a shriek. "Carson—! I'm turning into a mouse!"
That made John spin on his heel. McKay was staring down at his chest, wide-eyed with horror, as Beckett made reassuring noises. "All right, I admit, this was unexpected, but hair growth is not an entirely uncommon side effect—and anyway they were white mice," he mumbled.
John was missing something. "What's the matter?"
McKay stared at him. "Just look at me! I've got...fur!"
In spite of himself, John looked more closely. McKay had very pale skin—if anything was startling, it was that—covered with a healthy amount of dark chest hair. It looked perfectly normal to him.
He raised an eyebrow, and directed it at Beckett, who blushed. "The gene therapy I devised appears to have put some hair on Rodney's chest. Er. As it were."
"A mouse!" McKay squeaked, not helping—well, somebody's case, anyway.
"Chest hair is manly," John said, consolingly. "Anyway, maybe it'll make up for the hair that's missing from your head."
That was mean, but John smiled while he said it, which tended to make people think he was laughing with them and not at them. McKay just sputtered, which John suspected would have been his reaction either way. Luckily, his focus soon switched to Beckett. "Well?" he demanded. "Aren't you going to do anything? Take blood? Run some tests? Sacrifice a chicken?"
Beckett sighed. "We'll be taking some blood, certainly. And I almost have the Ancient medical scanner figured out, so I can run you through that in the next couple of days." At McKay's indignant look, he continued. "This project matters to me, too, you know."
"Oh, I'm glad the project matters," McKay snapped, offering his arm up to Beckett's needle with, John was interested to note, nary a complaint or even a wince. "Why don't you round up some more test subjects, see if any of them grows a tail."
"Actually, I suppose I'd better refrain from giving the therapy to anyone else for the time being," Beckett said. He sighed again. "I already had a waiting list."
McKay scowled and pulled his shirt awkwardly over his head before jumping off the table. "Let me know if I should expect whiskers next!"
He fell into step beside John, shrugging on his jacket. "What?"
"You hungry?" John said. "I hear the mess is serving mac and cheese."
"Really?" said McKay, excitedly. Then his wide mouth twisted down into an expressive frown. "Oh, very clever."
John grinned. He considered for a moment, then gave McKay a casual thump on the back. "Seriously," he said, "let's get some grub. I have a proposal for you."
Rodney wasn't sure how it had happened, but somehow, in between laughing at his very serious medical concerns and plying him with the mess hall's already sadly decreasing supply of Jell-O, Major Sheppard had convinced him to join his off-world team.
It was a decision he was already beginning to regret. It wasn't like he didn't already have enough to worry about, what with large portions of the city flooded and mysterious hair growth and life-sucking aliens, for Christ's sake; no, now he had to worry about the fact that he was running through the woods on an alien planet with the aforementioned aliens shooting at him, and his pants were falling down.
He paused, panting, behind a tree, one hand tugging at his waistband and the other clutching a gun he still wasn't fully convinced wasn't so poorly designed it might go off in his hand. Lieutenant Ford looked over his shoulder, then snatched at Rodney's arm. "C'mon!"
"My pants are falling down." It wasn't a specific complaint; he wanted to convey the sheer aggravating ridiculousness of the fact that this sort of thing always happened to him. Sure, other people might get chased through the woods by space vampires, but only Rodney McKay would get sent to Siberia for making fun of someone's hair, or be allergic to a substance commonly put in dish soap and scented candles and little cheerful, deadly slices bobbing about in restaurant drinking water. Only Rodney McKay, who in his chosen field (and pretty much everything else) was an unmatched genius, would have to worry about mooning the pursuing aliens as he fled through the woods.
Ford didn't seem to get the deeper meaning. "I can't say your pants are really my highest priority right now, Doc!" And so Rodney stumbled after him, thinking himself the unluckiest person in the world.
Then he saw what had happened to Major Sheppard.
Later, after they'd defied death what seemed like a dozen times in the course of an afternoon—and was this becoming a habit? Oh, why had Carter smiled at him when she offered the Atlantis position?; later, Rodney found himself hanging around the infirmary after the others had gone. Sheppard wasn't paying attention to him anymore, having lured a pretty blonde nurse over to talk to him, but Rodney had plenty of other legitimate reasons to be there. For one thing, he wanted to talk to Carson—if blood tests were "inconclusive," then he had better get that full body scan, pronto! And also, and also...there was something that had been bothering him, niggling at the corners of his mind, ever since the jumper...
"Carson!" he snapped—fingers and mouth. "Are you going to get that finished any time soon, or am I going to die?" He waited. "Of old age?"
"Rodney." Carson was staring out a series of readouts on a monitor. "These things take time..."
"Hm? Well, maybe if someone who actually knew what he was doing saw to the machine—"
Carson folded his arms. "The scanner is working, I just need to figure out how to interpret the information it's provided."
"Well, let me see!"
Rodney made a grab for the monitor. "Hello?" Sheppard shouted from the adjacent room. "People who recently had a giant bug attached to their necks are trying to sleep?" Apparently he'd decided the nurse's presence was no longer required, Rodney noted, just as Carson said, "Do you know anything about medicine, Rodney?" Pointedly.
"Fine!" he huffed. "I'll be in my room; radio me when you can actually do something." He had to pause on his way out the door to hike up his pants.
Outside in the hall, the Czech scientist whose name he would now probably be able to remember, Simpson of the thousand-yard stare, and the lovely Dr. Dumais were hovering beside the door. "Ah, Rodney," said Zelenka-the-Czech, who was apparently perfectly comfortable with names—first and last—"Has Doctor Beckett cleared the gene therapy for others to try?"
Now, Rodney knew he had his faults, and that a lack of patience (for idiots) was most likely one of them. Yet the tight feeling blooming in his chest was nothing at all like the bouts of irritated frustration he suffered on a daily basis. His eyes narrowed. "Sure," he said, in a cold, calm voice he likewise didn't normally associate with bursts of annoyed anger, "go right ahead." He pushed into Zelenka's space and lifted up his shirt. "See how you like having a pelt." Then he shoved past them, feeling a flash of something like pleasure as he knocked Simpson's shoulder.
By the time he got back to his room, he was feeling more like himself. "Great," he muttered to himself, running a hand over his hair. "Nice going, McKay." Dumais was probably totally freaked out, and now she'd never—
Rodney stopped, pulling his hand away. A tiny tangle of brown strands rested in his palm. Rodney remembered how sick he'd felt a few years ago when his hairline had started to recede and occasional clumps of hair had come away with the comb. It was nothing compared to how he felt now.
He raced into the bathroom, the light coming on with an already instinctive thought. He stared at himself in the mirror, expecting to see a horrible spreading bald spot, or an outtake from The Fly, or something worse that he couldn't even imagine. Instead he looked fine. Normal. If anything, his hair looked thicker than before.
Darker, too. He blinked, leaned closer. Yes: darker, thicker... He brushed at it with his hands. More familiar brown strands fell out onto the sink, but what was left on his head remained positively robust. He turned his head from side to side. There was something...
He froze, the face in the mirror in profile. His ears—
It came to him all in a rush, a dizzying wave of knowledge. Sheppard—in the jumper— They'd had to cut open his shirt. And they'd all seen.
Rodney touched a hand to his chest and stared at the reflection of a face that looked more and more like a stranger.
John was actually trying to sleep—as opposed to faking it to avoid talking to that pushy nurse who wouldn't leave him alone—when McKay burst into the infirmary and shouted, "You!" John found himself startled into making the classic surprised/innocent Me? gesture, but McKay seemed to have already lost interest and switched to bellowing, "Carson!"
Beckett came out of his office looking harried. "This is a hospital. You don't shout in a bloody hospital!"
John refrained from pointing out that a bloody hospital was just the type where there'd be rather a lot of shouting. McKay had already wrested back control of the floor: "Did you use Major Sheppard's DNA?"
"What?" said Carson, at the same time John said, more sharply, "What?" and pushed himself up.
"In the gene therapy," said McKay, like he was talking to a very small child—one who had just backed the family minivan into the front porch, say. "Did you use Sheppard's DNA to get a sample of the ATA gene for when you oh-so-eagerly jammed a needle into my arm?"
"Major Sheppard seemed to respond the most strongly to ancient technology, so yes, I—and you both signed consent forms!" Beckett said quickly. "Rodney, you volunteered!"
"You said the side effects were probably limited to headaches and dry mouth!"
"Um," said John. He was sitting fully now, and possibly looking at the exit with something like longing. "What's going on?"
McKay looked between them both, wide- and wild-eyed. Then abruptly his gaze narrowed. He turned to face John's bed.
"I'm not turning into a mouse," he pronounced, with less relief than one would have supposed. "I'm turning into you."
John shivered. He knew it was ridiculous, just McKay being paranoid—being McKay—again. And yet, he said it with such conviction, with such a hollow, resigned look in his eyes. John recognized that look.
"Rodney." Beckett held out his hands: a placating gesture, palms up. "What you're talking about isn't possible—"
"It isn't?" McKay challenged. Beckett's jaw clicked shut.
"Look at me," McKay said, with a steady softness that seemed to surprise even him. "Look at my hair, look at my ears—"
John saw it now; he couldn't not see it. Like a reflection in a rippling pool: still not quite right, still fundamentally wrong, but getting closer and closer to reality all the time. John wasn't by any means an expert on McKay's features, but he had been—oh, not the past tense, not already—a memorable-looking man. And already his face looked like it was narrowing out, that wide, expressive mouth frowning as it lost space in which to exist. His eyes, too, seemed less impossibly wide, although it might have just been that anger had narrowed them. But the ears—asymmetrical, drawing up into elfin points—those were unmistakable. John had been teased on the playground too often to forget any curve, either apex.
"My clothes don't fit," McKay said quietly, and groped suddenly for a chair in which to sit down.
Beckett found one, looking pale. "I don't—I don't know how—"
"Well, figure it out!" McKay snapped. "Fix it!" Then the anger seemed to leave him and he slumped forward, his head in his hands.
John felt his own heart rate increasing, building toward a panic he calmed with deep breaths and clenched fists. "What exactly does this mean?" he asked, succeeding in making the question less of a sharp demand than McKay's, if not by much. "He's turning into me..." It made his stomach churn just to say it. "You mean he's going to look like me? He's going to look like me a little?"
"No, I'm going to look exactly like you." The words were muffled against the heels of McKay's hands. "My DNA's being replaced by yours. Isn't that right." He looked up. "Carson?"
"I—I need to run some tests— And Elizabeth—"
"Oh, God," McKay said, and sank in on himself again.
Beckett used the opportunity to bustle out of the room. Wait! John wanted to demand. How will this affect me? But he knew that was selfish, a bad impulse that like so many others, he had to rein in.
"You know," he said, making his tensed hands release the sheet they were clutching. "It's really not so bad, being me." He meant it as a joke—and one partially on him, though he didn't expect McKay to catch on to that. He also didn't expect the next panicked thought that entered his mind, or for it to escape unchecked. "Uh. You won't be able to read my mind, right? I mean, you won't get my memories...?"
McKay issued a snort and sat up straighter, like a healthy dose of disdain actually made him feel better. "Do you even know what DNA is?" he asked. Then his eyes widened again, and he looked almost like himself. "Oh no. You don't—you don't know anything! What's your IQ?"
When John didn't answer right away, McKay snorted again, though he sounded less pleased with this exhalation. "You don't even know," he said. "Well, I guess that answers that question. I'm screwed."
John, who knew damn well what his IQ was but had gotten into the habit of never sharing it, felt another stab of selfishness. Sure, McKay was acting like he was the only one who was going to be affected by this, but he wasn't the one who was going to have someone attaching himself to his identity like a leech, like that bug had affixed itself to John's neck earlier. He wasn't the one who had signed some random form along with a dozen others just to be allowed to go on this mission, and who was now being told that his DNA had been shared with someone else without his knowledge. John, in the best of circumstances, was not all that big on sharing.
"Beckett is going to be able to fix this," he said, with conviction he didn't feel. "I'm not going to let this happen."
McKay just laughed, a shallow, bitter sound. "It's out of our hands now," he said, holding his hand up to John's, the lines forming an identical pattern on each of their palms.
He stayed conscious the entire time. Rodney was secretly relieved. As much as he feared pain—which, for those who weren't paying attention, was a lot—there were other things he feared more. If his mind was going he wanted to feel it. He couldn't stand the thought of having all that he was slip away in the dark. He went back and forth on the issue several times, but in the end he decided that Gregor Samsa did not have the better deal.
"You won't lose what you know," Carson assured him. This was after he'd stopped promising to fix it in time, to make everything all right. "The way you process information might change, and your capacity to learn new—" He coughed. "Well, I'm not an neurologist. I'm not really sure what's going to happen."
"Yeah. I know," he said, and he would have said more if he hadn't suddenly realized he could make even those simple words cut like a knife.
Sheppard, Teyla, and Ford—his team for a day, ha—all had to proceed like everything was normal, going off-world without him because that was what the mission required: trading partners and hopefully, eventually, a new power source, even if Rodney wouldn't be around to find it. Instead, Rodney stayed in his room, scribbling notes to himself, things he wanted to promise himself he would never forget.
It actually didn't hurt that much. It made his body hot, sweaty and unable to bear the press of fabric, his mussed sheets. His muscles were sore—growing pains, he realized, like he hadn't felt in years. And it made him ravenously hungry, his cells needing energy that he was sure left him as quickly as he shoved food in his mouth. Sheppard really had a ridiculous body—hairy and skinny as a beanpole. His second toes were bigger than the first.
Elizabeth came by at intervals, to sit and talk with him. He didn't even need a mirror; he could see how far along he was in her face. He yelled at her to go away, but even then she came back.
At night he tried to keep himself awake, doing math problems in his head, trying to determine if part of what he had once taken for granted had been lost. Would he even be able to tell? That was possibly what scared him the most: the idea that he would wake up one morning, or tear his gaze away from his laptop one afternoon, and not realize that this wasn't the way it had always been. That he wouldn't even realize that he wasn't himself anymore, that he had changed.
He'd come to the Pegasus Galaxy to make a name for himself, to discover and do amazing new things that in a hundred years people would look back on and say, awed, "Rodney McKay did that." Instead the galaxy had wiped him out, rubbed his name—his face—from the books, in less time than it took the average redshirt to die in a typical episode of Star Trek. And when he went, there wouldn't even be a body to bury, not a single thing of him left behind.
John recognized that if you'd recently escaped a society built around ritualistic suicide where you yourself had nearly been dealt a messy death by crossbow, it shouldn't be the next part of your day that you were dreading. Still, he couldn't think of anything he less wanted to do than go check in on McKay.
He knew he had to. But man, did he ever resent the way it felt like a double duty. Sure, he owed a visit to a coworker/teammate/friend. But there was an implication in Elizabeth's eyes, in her almost-not-quite order, that McKay was now somehow his responsibility. That John had in some way done this to him.
Outside the door to McKay's quarters, John took a moment to collect himself. The last time he had seen him, briefly, before the mission to Planet Kid Kill, it hadn't been so bad: McKay hadn't looked like himself, but he hadn't looked like John, either. At best he resembled a distant cousin. One not so popular at family reunions.
It would be worse now, John knew. He had to prepare himself. Because apparently, he wasn't meant to be phased by this. Yeah, people genetically altered acquaintances of his to be exact doubles all the time!
On some level he still didn't believe it could happen. McKay would always be McKay, and he would always be himself. There wasn't going to be any muddled middle ground where he'd have to face the possibility of looking into his own eyes.
Or anyway, that's what he told himself as he rang the door chime and listened to a couple of muffled thumps from inside. He straightened his shoulders, drawing himself up to attention—an odd instinct, one that he had almost never felt.
The door opened. John forced his eyes to stay focused, ready for—but there was no one there. He heard some more thumping and realized that McKay must have opened the door remotely, and that he seemed to be in the closet. Throwing things, from the sound of it.
Then there was another sound, a voice. John's stomach lurched: it was not his voice, not the one he heard his head. Instead, it was something halfway between that and the horrible whining parody of the way he sounded when he listened to himself on answering machines and radio playbacks. "Don't mind me, Elizabeth! I would have tidied up, but I've been too busy trying to oversee by e-mail an entire department of overzealous idiots who don't seem to realize that in this galaxy, 'don't touch' really means—"
He stopped suddenly, pausing in the process of shooting an annoyed glance around the corner. John stopped, too. For a moment neither of them moved. Then McKay said, "Oh," and dropped the boot he was holding. John swallowed. They stared at each other.
It really was— It really was exactly as he had said. Exact. Identical. The face he had seen countless times in the mirror, shaving and fixing his hair and adjusting his uniform jacket. His face; and yet so clearly animated by some outside force. John had a ridiculous urge to make faces and see if this mirror-creature would mimic them; he wanted to walk around this foreign, familiar body and see it from all angles, like a cultured museum patron examining the statue of David. He— He wanted to touch him, cheeks and nose and mouth, just to see if he could possibly be real.
"Uh," he said, because he felt he ought to say something. "So."
"How do you even stay upright?" McKay blurted. "I've seen broader shoulders on a coat hanger!"
John laughed, surprising himself. "You get used to it. So, uh," he continued, almost instantly uncomfortable again. "How are you, uh. How are you feeling?"
McKay rolled his eyes, an expression John felt looked goofy and incongruous on his face (but then, he wasn't used to carrying on a conversation looking at his own features). "Not myself," he said, folding his arms. "Did you want something?" he added, pointedly.
"Um." John felt completely disarmed, which he hated. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to just escape—to back awkwardly out of the door like he'd accidentally got the wrong room. But he wasn't afraid of Rodney. He wasn't going to let himself be put off by this.
"Yeah," he said, coming forward. "I want to know that we're going to be able to continue to work together."
"Well, it's not like we have much of a choice, do we?" McKay's expression was smug and defiant; John could see, maybe, why so many of his superior officers had wanted to throttle him.
John took a breath; he wasn't going to force himself to be friendly, but he would force himself to be patient. "Rodney," he said, "I think we already have enough to deal with. You have your overzealous scientists. I have people below me doubting my command decisions. And we all have the Wraith breathing down our necks. So if we can possibly be allies in this..." He paused, considering, then went ahead and said it. "You have to know that I hate this as much as you do." McKay looked skeptical. "All right, almost."
John wasn't entirely sure if he had gotten through; his face was frustratingly hard to read. But McKay's posture relaxed a bit. "I need to borrow some clothes."
Great. More sharing, John thought. But he nodded. "Just...stick to your own underwear, all right?"
McKay opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. "I can get you a spare uniform," John continued. "It's not like we left without extras."
"I knew that," McKay snapped. "I just..."
He drooped. He looked, John thought, like he needed a hug—but twin or not, John wasn't going to give him one. "Come on," he said instead. "We should get people used to seeing us together." He nodded toward the door.
"Used to," McKay repeated dully.
"Yeah. There are lots of things you can get used to," John said, and felt the unexpected flicker of McKay's eyes shooting upward, looking deeper than John was entirely comfortable with.
McKay looked away first, though. He picked his watch up off the bedside table, spent a moment adjusting the strap, then squared his shoulders and pushed past John toward the door. Their eyes were completely level, John realized. Of course they were.
They were dark and weary, McKay's eyes, and John was suddenly faced with a bitter reminder of the playfulness he had first seen and liked in them, that wasn't there now. Bounding up to him in the hall, "Major! I want you to hit me as hard as you can!"
"Uh. I don't think I want to be a member of the Science Team's Fight Club, thanks anyway, McKay."
Eyeroll. "No, I found a personal shield! I need you to help me test it!"
"Personal shield?"
"Yeah, it makes me invulnerable! I think."
John was just trying to provoke him when he said, "Can I shoot you?" But McKay's eyes had lit up like this was the most brilliant idea ever. And it was.
There was no fire in McKay's eyes now, just a quiet resignation. John opened his mouth. "Let's go," he said, at the same time McKay said "Let's go"—perfectly in stereo, and it was weird and wrong and John hated it. But not quite as much as he thought he was going to.
Oddly, he hated it the least when he was with Sheppard; when he was with the Major, he somehow felt the most like himself. He could look over and see Sheppard, frowning into the middle distance, and know him as a separate and distinct entity. He didn't have to worry about people running up behind him in the corridor, calling, "Major! Major!" only to be disappointed.
He tried combing his hair flat to his head, but it wouldn't stay down; Sheppard shot him looks that said, I told you. He cut it instead. He clung to his khaki uniforms and the blue t-shirts he "borrowed" off some of the other scientists. He suggested to Sheppard that they sew lettering across their backs spelling out their last names.
"No way."
"Why not? It'll be like being on a sports team. You brought a football video as your personal item—you like sports!"
"It's different. It...it wouldn't be cool, Rodney. Ford, explain to McKay why in this particular context, back lettering isn't cool."
Ford hadn't been able to look him in the eye for weeks. "It's not cool," he mumbled.
"Well, I wouldn't want to mess with your image!" Rodney snipped. But he didn't sew the lettering on even his own jacket.
Mostly, he worked. On some elusive solution to his own problem and on everything else—he threw himself into it, harder than ever, vanquishing the fear that his capacities were diminished by refusing to acknowledge the possibility. That he was actually a little bored—going down to the labs in the morning, coming back up from the labs at night—that was a good sign, right? It meant he wasn't even being fully challenged by the work. Though it was challenging. It was also just—
He had liked it, hadn't he—his one mission, his brief experience being part of a unit, part of a team. Working together, coming through under pressure. Even the running-jumping-chased by monsters part had been...kind of exhilarating, really.
Or had it? Was that even really him, thinking those thoughts? Or was it Sheppard, Sheppard in him and all around him? He had always disagreed violently with Sam Carter in the past—field work was just a distraction, a way to risk your neck and reduce valuable lab time. So what did it mean that he looked longingly after Zelenka every time he left the labs to follow Sheppard and the others through the gate? Was he just jealous because that had so briefly been him, or were even his emotions no longer his own? How much had he really changed?
These were all the things that Rodney was resolutely not thinking about when Radek stomped into the lab one evening, shouting, "That is it! I quit!"
Rodney ceased poking desultorily at a powerbar (it was weird almost never being hungry—being able to go for hours without feeling it) and dismissed this announcement with a wave of his hand. "You can't quit. What part of 'one-way mission' didn't you get?"
"No, I quit going off world! No more! Lock me in bunkers—posrany darebáci!"
Rodney turned back to his laptop. "So tell Sheppard, and I'll pick somebody else to go. Gall or Simpson or somebody." Across the room, Rodney just barely caught Simpson mouthing No way.
But Radek persisted. "You think I haven't tried? Five times I have told him!" By Rodney's calculations, that would mean about once after every mission. "And he nods and smiles at me, and says yes, we will discuss it, and then next thing you know, there I am in uniform again. The Major," he declared, "is a sneaky, sneaky man!"
Rodney was fighting a losing battle, pretending to be annoyed when he was actually quite bemused. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"Talk to him! He will listen to you. Tell him you—you need me for some important project, I am too valuable to you to go off world. And then yes, suggest Gall as my replacement—he is dying to go, he pesters me non-stop. He should have gone from the beginning, I do not know why you suggested me."
From the look on Radek's face, it appeared he suspected Rodney had put forward his name due to some kind of grudge; in fact, it was simply because Rodney had though Zelenka would be the best for the job. He wasn't about to tell him that, however.
"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'll talk to him at dinner."
Rodney didn't eat in the mess every night—the cafeteria-style atmosphere reminded him unpleasantly of high school, and he kept having bizarre reactions to the food that he preferred not to experience in public. He was continually discovering that nothing tasted quite right—and while in part that was because most of their foodstuffs were freeze-dried or alien (and in a few cases, freeze-dried and alien), there was no reason reconstituted eggs shouldn't taste like reconstituted eggs. But Sheppard's tongue apparently appreciated different flavors, and since Sheppard's tongue was currently in his mouth...
Possibly his attempts to explain this phenomenon over dinner last week was part of the reason he kept getting shifty-eyed looks as he made his way to his table.
Sheppard was sitting with Teyla and Ford over in one corner. Rodney paused a few feet away, suddenly feeling like he was intruding. But that was ridiculous; he marched smartly the rest of the way over and slapped his tray down sharply in front of Sheppard.
The Major looked up. His face remained studiously blank, but Rodney saw it: saw an actual shudder pass through his body, quick but there. Rodney's stomach flipped unpleasantly—there went his strangely elusive appetite again. He half expected to see Sheppard push his tray away, too—repulsed.
Ford was also giving Rodney a look like he was afraid Rodney might ooze out of his chair and glomp on to Ford's arm. Only Teyla offered him a smile, but she gave that little diplomatic grin and nod to everybody. How could he have thought that he might actually have had a relationship with these people?
Well, never mind; he put it out of his head. He had business to attend to, anyway—this was business. "Major," he said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd stop traumatizing my scientists."
Sheppard lifted an eyebrow; Rodney lifted an eyebrow right back. Ford started choking on a piece of broccoli. "What have I supposedly done?" Sheppard asked.
"Zelenka said he got locked in a bunker."
"Well, to be fair," said Sheppard, playing with his fork, "I got locked in the bunker, too."
"Oh, I'm sure he found that very reassuring. Anyway, he wants off the team, which is good, because I need him for...stuff. Important scientific stuff. Why don't you start taking Gall?"
"McKay, I can't keep training replacement science personnel for my team! We're supposed to be increasing the number of off-world teams, remember? Not giving everyone one free ride on Team Sheppard."
The way Sheppard was looking at him annoyed him. "Hey, I didn't ask to leave. That decision was kind of made, oh, entirely without me."
"McKay." Sheppard leaned back. Rodney hated the way he was slumped in his chair—like he wasn't taking this seriously. Well, see how he liked it. He let go of the table (huh, he hadn't actually realized he'd been gripping it like that) and draped an arm casually over his chair back. He shot Sheppard a defiant look.
"I'm sure you would have been a great part of the team eventually, but you have to understand it's impossible now."
"Eventually!"
"I didn't mean—"
"Oh, whatever." This posture really did seem to make it easier not to care. "This isn't about me, anyway"—and whoa, there was an argument he couldn't remember having used in a while. Or possibly ever. "But I am the one who has to sign off on all science department assignments, and I'm not going to make Radek keep going out there if he's miserable, not unless it's somehow vital to our survival. Which, considering that Brendan is perfectly competent," and I do still exist, you know, he thought but somehow refrained from saying, "it's not."
He stood, grabbing the sandwich off his plate and taking a large bite. "I'll tell Gall to report to the firing range tomorrow at 0700," he said around a mouthful of turkey. Then he stalked off again, feeling bizarrely satisfied.
He felt slightly less so when Gall's gratitude made him even more annoyingly obsequious (it was so obvious that he was only greasing the ladder's rungs in hopes that Rodney would fall off); Rodney had found Radek's simple "Thank you" and prompt return to work to be highly preferable. Honestly, as much as Rodney loved being in charge (and he really, really did) and as much as he knew he was a good leader (he totally was!), some of the day-to-day business of running a department was really trying. Maybe he needed a hobby.
Yes, that was it. A hobby. And, even better—hadn't Dumais been talking about starting an Atlantis MENSA chapter? A fun bit of extra-vocational intellectual activity between like-minded peers...plus, an excuse to spend time with Dumais in her off-hours. It was a perfect plan! Which became slightly less perfect when, halfway through telling Dumais that he loved her idea and that they should work to implement it right away, he remembered that he had recently flashed her. No wonder she seemed kind of twitchy around him.
"Uh," he said, "I've been meaning to—a couple weeks ago, outside the infirmary? I want to apologize for that."
"What? Oh, no, it's nothing." She was blushing, but only a little. "You were going though a lot."
"Sheppard's very hormonal," Rodney confided, nodding vigorously in acceptance of this excuse.
"Oh, how are you handling it, by the way? If you don't mind my asking."
Normally Rodney minded very much—he was sick of the concerned questions, the looks of pity and gentle understanding from Elizabeth and Heightmeyer and everyone else who shuddered slightly when they thought he had turned away. But Dumais phrased her query not with forced sympathy but with scientific curiosity. She wanted to understand. She found him interesting. Rodney could work with that. He could definitely work with that.
"Would you like to come have dinner with me?" he asked impulsively, nodding toward the door. "We could talk about it."
She laughed, somewhat nervously. "It's 11:30 in the morning."
"Oh. Lunch then." Her expression changed, but he couldn't quite divine the meaning of the alteration. "Or dinner. Both. Whatever you want. A snack?"
"Lunch is good to start," she said after what, in Rodney's mind, felt like a painfully long pause. But she smiled, and he knew that was good.
They went to the mess, where Rodney walked deliberately past Team Sheppard's table. He sat with his back to them and chatted amiably with Dumais ("Please, call me Martine") about a dozen different topics—barely touching on his altered state, in fact. They agreed to meet again for dinner later.
Later, Sheppard discovered a freakish superstorm heading toward the city, and suddenly everyone was looking to Rodney again.
It wasn't that John liked arguing with McKay; quite the opposite, really. But it was becoming harder and harder not to. It seemed suddenly that he was always around, a persistent shadow—lurking around every corner, turning Atlantis into a house of mirrors. It gave John the creeps. It gave him the creeps, and while he knew it wasn't Rodney's fault, not really, it honestly did seem like the scientist was taking a bad situation and aggravating it. Suggesting they sew their names on their backs—why not label themselves the freaks of Atlantis while they were at it? It was fucking ridiculous.
Then there were the problems he was having with his team. Teyla was fantastic—in spite of what Sergeant 'Another Headache' Bates said, making her acquaintance was the best thing that had happened in this galaxy so far. Ford was a good kid, too, if a bit over-enthusiastic when it came to things that went boom. And John even liked Doctor Zelenka, who was clearly smart, and very funny—if not always intentionally. But man, was he really not with the spirit of the endeavor. Going off-world clearly made him extremely uncomfortable; he'd sulked through his training, and still sighed dramatically every time they got geared up. It was really hard to promote team spirit when one fourth of said team so clearly did not want to be there.
It had crossed John's mind, briefly and uncharitably, that McKay had picked Zelenka as his replacement out of spite; he'd dismissed this when he saw how skilled (if still an unhappy off-world camper) Zelenka was. The feeling came back full force, however, when McKay sided with Zelenka (whom John had thought was finally starting to adjust, to bond with the rest of them) before—insult to injury—dumping Gall on him. That had to be a spiteful move—saddling him with Gall, who had twelve times Zelenka's enthusiasm but none of his charm; who had a good share of Rodney's skill but wasn't—
Well. Wasn't the person John had picked for his team, who John had known almost immediately would be the perfect fourth, the necessary counterweight, the teammate he wanted. John was sure Gall was a great scientist, but John couldn't picture him doing what Rodney had done with the energy cloud, the thing that had made it clear at the time that Rodney was just the sort of person John would want at his side.
And now here he was, hovering hovering hovering, and it wasn't what John had wanted at all.
Well, tough. John should have known by now: you rarely got what you wanted. You still had to do the job, though, John thought, jogging out to the grounding station to which McKay had smirkingly sent him. It was naive to think that, even in a galaxy far, far away, one's life could really change that much.
It was petty, but Rodney had to admit he got some sadistic pleasure out of making Sheppard run all around the city. It was probably part of the reason that, in spite of the looming disaster, he was in a surprisingly good mood. After all, he had come up with a brilliant plan to solve things—he could still come up with brilliant plans! Elizabeth was chatting with him like things were normal, like he himself was. And he had—for perfectly legitimate reasons—made Sheppard sweat.
Not a bad day, really, for hurricane season.
Then suddenly he had a gun in his face.
"What the hell is going on?" Elizabeth demanded. Rodney couldn't have said it better himself—really couldn't, because when the first wave of fear hit him, it had apparently caused his heart to leap into his throat and lodge there. He and Elizabeth were pushed forward. Rodney looked up to see they were being approached by an intimidating man with a scarred face and a uniform that suggested the wearer was trying way, way too hard. Rodney had read the reports: Genii, he thought. The ones who had locked Radek in the underground bunker. Oh, no.
"Doctor Elizabeth Weir," said their captor. His calm, confident voice was not at all reassuring.
"Yes." Her posture was cautiously defiant. Rodney hoped he was projecting something similar, and not the gonna-piss-myself fear he was actually experiencing.
The man's eyes swiveled to him, cold and black. Rodney called up a mental image of Sheppard's own icy glare and tried to shoot it back. Apparently, he did slightly too good a job, because the man's mouth turned up into a knife-like grin as he said, "And you must be Major Sheppard."
Rodney heard Elizabeth suck in a breath, but before he could say anything himself, a little slip of a woman, bizarre-looking in her matching, severe military garb, came up beside the first man and confirmed what she thought she saw. "That is him."
"Good." Then the man raised his gun and shot him.
Rodney didn't initially register what had happened as such. It was so fast: slight movement, then pain exploding just below his shoulder. He fell back against the console, left hand groping for the injured right arm, trying to fight through the shock. You have the wrong man! he thought wildly. But he didn't say anything.
He felt Elizabeth move to his side. "What do you think you accomplished by that?" she snapped. "Do you think that's going to make us more likely to do what you want?"
The man smiled. That smile made something seize up in Rodney's chest—even through the pain, even through the startled tears he was swiftly blinking away. Fury—burning fury like he had never felt, that incinerated all the annoyances he was used to feeling to nothing. He knew exactly what he wanted to do to that smile.
"Oh, I do," the man said. He nodded to two of his men, who ripped Rodney and Elizabeth's radios from their ears, then jerked each of their hands roughly behind their backs. Pain erupted in Rodney's shoulder and Rodney bloodied his lip to keep from crying out. "I think I've made it very clear, Doctor Weir, Major Sheppard. As of right now, we are in control of Atlantis."
It was very clear to Rodney, too. Whoever this Genii son of a bitch was, Rodney was going to make him pay.
John froze when he heard the gunshot. Dammit. Goddammit! That better not mean what he thought it meant. Why hadn't Rodney said anything? He could have explained that he was John's...twin brother, he could have found a way to make it plausible—once he opened his mouth it was pretty clear he was a different person. But he hadn't said anything. If he'd just died in John's place...
But no. John couldn't afford to think like that. He dithered for a second longer—should he secure the last grounding station now? No, time was of the essence. He took off for the jumper bay. He could call in Ford and Teyla, and they could take these Genii sons of bitches down.
But Ford and Teyla couldn't come; the storm was gearing up outside, and John was on his own. All right. Okay. He could do this. He'd seen Die Hard like eighteen times. He just needed a little more information...
The city-wide speakers suddenly crackled to life. "Look," said a doubly familiar voice. John's heart leapt—he'd never been so happy to hear those tones and know they were McKay. "You need the C4, the medical supplies, and the Wraith data device." His breathing sounded labored; John's mind raced. "We'll give them to you. None of that's worth dying over."
Okay, clever. McKay was clever—had to give him that. John took off again; he'd secure the the C4 first...
"You seem to value your life quite highly for a soldier," said that cooly competent voice John had already mentally labeled as 'Evil Alien Overlord.'
"Well, in our military we prefer not to expose—" Rodney's voice cut out suddenly, like he'd accidentally let go of the button. Of course he must have been activating it secretly, out of sight. Shit, if he'd been caught—
"—adiation." John sucked in another relieved breath as Rodney suddenly began speaking again. Maybe his position was just awkward—if he'd been wounded, maybe he genuinely needed the console for support and was just taking advantage...
"Anyway, I'm a pilot," Rodney continued. He sounded as if he were reminding himself, attempting to stay in character. John would appreciate that, normally, but really Rodney should know that you never, ever volunteered any sort of information, no matter how small.
"Of course, how could I forget?" John paused in packing up the C4—that did not sound good. "You had that marvelous spacecraft you were showing off, didn't you?"
"Sure, you can help yourself to one of those, too." No, no, no—he was doing it wrong. McKay was clever, but he had no grasp of military strategy. You couldn't reason or try to compromise with a man like this—you had to show him who was boss, right from the beginning. "The only trouble is," McKay continued. John could hear, soft in the background, Elizabeth start to say, "Ro—" and then cut herself off. "—You won't be able to fly—"
The transmission cut out, this time with what sounded like a violent scraping sound, like something had been pulled across the speaker. Then silence.
John stood in the armory with a half-full case of C4 in his hands. He thought, Oh, fuck.
Rodney thought he had known pain, but that was before Kolya shot him, before he wrapped his big, ugly hand around the bullet wound and squeezed. "You're sure there's no one else left in the city?" Kolya demanded.
If he gave Sheppard up it wouldn't make the pain stop quicker, Rodney reasoned—as much as he could reason, lightning-hot agony shooting up his side. It would only make things worse for all of them, to have this pathetic joke of a ruse discovered. And besides he couldn't, he wouldn't give Kolya the satisfaction.
"No!" he snapped. "Don't you think I would have called for backup if there were?"
The lie somehow sounded a lot more convincing in Sheppard's voice than deception ever had for him. Kolya thought he was Sheppard. He had to think like Sheppard. What would Sheppard do?
Probably cooperate and wait for just the right moment to turn the tables. Rodney felt the throbbing pain in his arm (they'd let Elizabeth tie off the wound so he wouldn't immediately bleed to death, but who knew what kinds of hideous infections he'd get—he'd been shot for Christ's sake!); he looked at the guns pointed at Elizabeth's head and at his own. He wondered if he'd ever get that opportunity.
"We've agreed to give you what you've asked for," Elizabeth repeated. "This is entirely unnecessary. Let him go."
Kolya gave Rodney's wound another squeeze. "Do you often take orders from civilians?" he asked, contemptuously.
Rodney glared. "When they're right."
Kolya smirked, but he loosened his grip, moving his hand down lower so he was holding Rodney's elbow instead. "Ladon," he said, "take your people and allow Doctor Weir to escort you to the armory. I'm going to let Major Sheppard fetch me the Wraith device, then show me one of these ships," another blade-like grin, "that only he can fly."
Okay, that sounded bad. Yet another drop of bad in this whole sea of bad. Rodney risked a quick look at Elizabeth as she was led from the room; her jaw was set, her face grim. Where the hell was Sheppard? He was everywhere you looked when you didn't want to be reminded, but now...
Kolya gave him a shove. "Sora, you stay here and guard the gate," he instructed as several more Genii fell in to march Rodney out of the room.
"But commander—"
"You'll follow orders."
One of the Genii pushed the tip of his gun into Rodney's back (which he was now very glad did not say 'MCKAY' across it). He got the idea. He was supposed to follow orders, too.
From what Rodney had heard, Sheppard had never been very good at that. In general, Rodney had no desire to emulate the man more than he already forcibly had. In this case, however, he was willing to make an exception.
John saw the figures approaching on his lifesigns detector. It wasn't safe to just open fire, not when he hadn't ascertained the locations of the hostages. He hid and watched them pass. It was a good call: they had Elizabeth, four of them, leading her along, the hand on her arm insistent but not too rough. She looked unhurt, which was good—which made John almost shaky with relief, actually. He watched them go into the armory, thinking again of the echoing sound of that gunshot. Maybe it had been just a warning, after all.
Somehow John didn't think so.
No. Don't dwell. Concentrate. If he could get Elizabeth clear, he could take them. He definitely had the element of surprise—first, because they thought no one else was here, and then, even after they saw him. Presumably they'd just come from wherever McKay was, and even the surely infamous Major Sheppard, who'd so suavely defeated them on their own homeworld, could not be in two places at once.
Ha. Now he could. And actually...
He took off his jacket and vest to make it slightly less obvious that he wasn't wearing the same uniform (that science beige was really ugly anyway—they should just scrap it), then stumbled into the armory, effecting what he hoped sounded like a good imitation of Rodney-like indignation. "Hey! I said I'd help, no need to push!"
He kept his eyes up. He'd been right based on the position of the dots on the lifesigns detector: the Genii had fanned out to gather their booty, leaving only one guard covering Elizabeth, and he had looked up to see Major Sheppard get shoved around. Before any of them could realize that there was no one there to do the shoving, John had taken two of them down. Elizabeth wisely dropped, leaving John clear to disarm the third after a shot whizzed far too close for comfort past John's side—if he'd still been wearing his jacket, the bullet probably would have perforated it. He spun on the fourth Genii, who for some reason had gone for his radio instead of his gun. "Commander, the pris—" he started.
John advanced with his gun out, his eyes making it plain that he would shoot to kill if necessary. The man hesitated.
There was a crackle. "What?" came the commander's voice.
"Ask nicely," John hissed, "If he'd like you to fetch the medical supplies, too."
The Genii relayed the question.
"Leave the C4 with Sora's team first."
John barely let him acknowledge before wresting the radio from the man's hands. "You seem to value your life quite highly for a soldier," John said with a smirk. The man didn't respond.
"Elizabeth, are you all right?" John called.
"Yes." From the corner of his eye he saw her get to her feet. "It's good to see you."
John saw a little flicker in the Genii prisoner's eyes; he was probably still trying to figure out how his commander's prisoner had gotten away without the commander being aware of it. Well, it didn't really matter if he figured it out now. What did matter, however—
"Is McKay okay?" he asked Elizabeth. He checked the Genii for weapons, discovered that the man had made the mistake of setting his gun down on the table, presumably in preparation for helping himself to the C4. Rolling his eyes, he pocketed the gun and maneuvered the Genii around toward the door, checking discreetly to make sure that the three that were down would stay down. With the way that he'd aimed, it was likely they would.
He saw Elizabeth shake her head. "Commander Kolya shot him, then took him with him. He wants Rodney to show him how to fly the jumpers."
Fuck. McKay had to spill the beans about the jumpers being ATA-locked. John took a deep breath. He hadn't spilled the beans about John, though. That was the important thing.
"Okay," he said, leading the captured Genii forward at the point of his gun, "let's go pay a visit to your pal Sora, and on the way, you can tell me all about this Commander Kolya of yours." He nodded at Elizabeth, who followed them.
The Genii started forward cooperatively, raising an eyebrow in something almost akin to humor. "You're the evil twin, aren't you?"
"Yeah," said John. "I'm the evil twin."
Rodney was disappointed. An opportune moment—he was still hoping against hope that he'd be able to recognize one—had not arisen when Kolya and his evil henchmen had marched him off to fetch the Wraith device, and had yet to arise in the course of one of the henchmen pushing him up the jumper ramp. "Yes, see, it's a very nice spaceship," he said, trying not to stumble, "a gateship, actually, as I wanted to call it, since it goes through the gate." Kolya pushed past him, apparently to check the size of the overhead compartments and the number of cup holders. "But as I've been saying, I'm afraid it's as useless to you as a Winnebago up on cinderblocks—you need what we call the ATA gene to fly it, and I'd be very much surprised—"
Kolya sat down in the pilot's chair. The console entirely failed to light up.
"—Yes, so you see, I'm not trying to be difficult or anything," he shot a glare at the guard who kept poking him with his gun—as if Rodney were actually trying something, as opposed to just thinking very hard about how he might go about trying something. "But, surely you see the logic of what I'm saying." He tried a grin on Kolya, one that when employed by Sheppard looked like it could charm the panties off a nun.
Kolya did not seem quite so susceptible (which, on second thought, was perhaps a good thing). "But you can fly it."
Well, presumably if he tried, there was no real reason why he shouldn't be able to— But oh, right, he was Sheppard. He of the ostentatious Aviator sunglasses. "Of course!"
Kolya swiveled around in his chair, leaning back. "You know, Major Sheppard," he said, "you seem to me like a man who's gone about as far as he can with his current career." A sneer. "You certainly don't seem very good at it."
"Hey!" He was sure he made a better Fake Air Force Major than a lot of other people.
"In fact," Kolya continued, ignoring his outburst, "I think a change of occupation would do you good."
Rodney didn't like the sound of that. His heart began to pound, his arm throbbing.
"Which is why, as soon as we're through here, you'll be coming with us." Kolya smiled. "I'm sure you'll find being my personal pilot very rewarding."
"Oh, you've got to be—" Forget opportune; Rodney was ready to punch the smug bastard in the face right now. The guards, unfortunately, restrained him before he could move half a step. Kolya laughed.
"I heard you were so fearsome when you faced us before." The look on his face was almost pitying. "I guess anyone can appear fearsome when they have hired goons to stand around them with guns."
Oh, like you should talk, Rodney thought. He forced himself to take a deep breath. This wasn't over. He could still think of something. Anyone as cocky as Kolya was bound to screw up.
The commander's face displayed nothing but total confidence, however, as he thumbed his radio on. "Sora," he said, "has Ladon delivered the C4 yet?"
The radio crackled. "Sorry, Sora's busy," said a familiar voice. Rodney's heart leapt. "I wouldn't have the honor of speaking to the illustrious and renowned Commander Acastus Kolya, would I?"
Kolya's posture changed instantly. "Who is this?"
"The person who's once again in command of Atlantis, who's killed or captured all your men, and who might be generous enough to let you live if you let Major Sheppard go and surrender immediately."
Kolya turned his back on Rodney, though Rodney could see the way his shoulders tightened. "You killed my men?"
The false warmth was gone from Sheppard's voice. "You killed mine first."
There was a pause. Then Kolya's back straightened again. "Yes, but I still have your Major Sheppard, your military leader. And I am beginning to wonder who is really in charge here, and," he turned to Rodney and smiled, "just exactly what that means in terms of what his life is worth."
Another slight pause. Then, "Don't threaten me, Kolya. My generosity is limited, and without it, you're never getting out of here alive."
Kolya moved swiftly, grabbing Rodney by his uninjured arm and shoving him into the pilot's seat. "You've forgotten that I have a jumper. And," he pressed his gun to Rodney's temple, "a jumper pilot."
"Kolya!" Sheppard bellowed. "I have reinforcements coming to the jumper bay right now, and if you move, I'll authorize them to take you out!"
"I don't believe you." Kolya's face was distressingly calm again. "Besides, you can't take us out without killing your Major Sheppard." A slow smile. "Or is this a coup? Maybe you won't actually miss him once he's gone."
Sheppard started to say something else but Kolya casually flicked the radio off and tossed it aside. "Fly," he hissed in Rodney's ear.
Rodney swallowed. "No."
He could feel the end of the gun, digging cold into his skin. "If you don't fly, I'll splatter your brains all over that glass, and what use will your heroism be then? Now take us through the gate."
Rodney sucked in a breath. He could feel the jumper controls under his hands, the entire system poised to respond to his mind's slightest whim—just like he always thought the universe ought to do. What a joke. Kolya's gun still smelled like spent powder.
The jumper initiated, grew bright under his touch. So here it was, the thing he had sold himself for: his body, his name, his life.
Kolya punched in an address and the floor dropped away, Rodney following the flight sequence he knew from going over jumper diagnostics but not from any practical experience. Now would certainly be a good time for any innate characteristics of Sheppard to manifest. Though it would serve Kolya right if Rodney crashed the jumper into the side of the gate and killed them all.
He had a thought then: passing, strange. He filed it away as he faced the event horizon, flickering blue. He wondered if Sheppard was above him, if he was standing there in the control room, helplessly watching; and if there was even a spark of truth to what Kolya had said: that when he was gone Sheppard wouldn't miss him, that he'd be secretly relieved.
Ford and Teyla arrived just minutes too late, of course, when there was little else to do besides make sure the prisoners were safely secured. John barely cared; he was already buckling his vest. "They took McKay," he told his teammates, and didn't have to say anything more. "Think they went back to the Genii homeworld?" asked Ford.
"I don't know, they dialed out from one of the jumpers." He could feel his face contort into something too close to a snarl. "Which they also took." He forced a breath through. "Elizabeth."
When she didn't respond right away, he turned. She'd been leaning against one of the consoles and still was, though now she had turned and was staring at the metal fixture beside her hand. It was spotted rusty red.
"Elizabeth," he said again, more firmly, "do you know how to find out the last address the gate dialed?"
She shook her head. "No. Rodney would—"
He bit his lip. "Yeah." Okay. "Well, what about Zelenka? Can we reach him?"
Ford nodded. "At least you got the city squared away, and we can call everybody back."
John and Elizabeth locked eyes at the same time. "The fourth grounding station...?" she asked, without much hope.
"Oh, fuck," said John.
He took off running.
The jumper was thankfully fairly intuitive—or maybe piloting skill was a genetic trait. They'd come out of the wormhole low over a field of flowers which Rodney had skimmed before being instructed by Kolya to take them up over the approaching tree line. Rodney almost put his plan into action right then; but no, it was too risky for several reasons—not opportune, not yet.
"I am very disappointed," Kolya was saying—to Rodney or to his men, Rodney wasn't quite sure, though he very much hoped it was the latter. "Very, very disappointed."
He didn't immediately elaborate—maybe he was just pissed at the universe in general? That would explain a lot. He was still standing, hovering over Rodney's shoulder, making sure Rodney never ceased to be very aware of his gun. Rodney was going to have to shake him off, if even just a little, for his plan to work. He ran though his mental catalogue of the jumper's systems, thinking frantically. They weren't in space so turning off the artificial gravity wouldn't do any good. But what about the inertial dampeners? Rodney had once seen some idiot who apparently didn't understand the meaning of the 'fasten seatbelt' sign get thrown against the overhead compartments during a turbulent flight. And Rodney was flying. He could always manufacture a little turbulence...
Up ahead, the trees parted dramatically to reveal the shimmering blue waters of a fairly extensive lake. Rodney felt a rush of adrenaline: this was it. Oh god. He was about to risk his life. He was possibly going to get himself killed.
Kolya would pay.
Quickly, before he could dwell on it any further, he thought Off! at the inertial dampeners and took the jumper into a dive.
"What are you—" Kolya started, before being thrown forward against the console at Rodney's side. The gun flew out of his hand, striking Rodney across the temple. Blood stung his eyes but he barely noticed. Kolya was reaching for him, the water rushing toward them faster and faster. But things still weren't positioned quite to his liking. Rodney jerked out of the dive, into a sharp climb, and got a satisfied glimpse of Kolya tumbling back into the rear compartment to join the other two Genii who were already bouncing around back there like overzealous electrons. Rodney quickly turned and slammed shut the bulkhead doors. His stomach was rolling, the pleasure of trapping Kolya and the other Genii in the rear compartment not something he could celebrate with the appropriate amount of zing. He felt light headed, and leaning on the controls for support wasn't working nearly as well as he'd hoped it would—possibly he hadn't been physiologically ready for some of the maneuvers he'd just pulled, since he wasn't actually a pilot who'd long ago scrambled his brains. Also, there was all this red stuff dripping into his eyes. Oh! And pretty blue water coming closer and closer. That would be helpful. Then he could wash the blood away...
He never actually remembered hitting the water, only waking, later, to find it all around him. He thought, Oh, they're submersible. Neat. Then his head cleared—at least as much as it was going to—and he realized he was in trouble.
He could hear a muffled banging from the rear compartment—he'd locked the doors, hadn't he? Yes, but who knew how well the equipment would be working after the crash. More importantly, who knew how the hell he was going to get out of here?
He did—or he must have, prior to being struck upon the head and exposed to whiplash and god only knew how many gees of acceleration—just the kind of thing he knew left Air Force people mentally addled. But he had to have had a plan—even if he was becoming increasingly unsure it had involved actually crashing the jumper. He looked out the windshield, which thank god seemed to be holding, and saw that they had landed at the bottom of the lake, pushed deep into some sandy surface that had lifted up then resettled around them. He turned his head and looked in the other direction—was he hallucinating, or was that light he saw? If he held his breath—
No, no "ifs"—what other choice did he have? He looked around—sadly, there didn't seem to be any convenient "In case of emergency, break glass" panel. Then he saw it. Kolya's gun, that magical weapon that had managed to draw blood from him not once but twice. Well, it owed him, then; maybe now it would pay him back by saving his life.
He moved back as far from the windshield as he could, doing some quick calculations of angles. Assured that he was, under the circumstances, in the best position he was likely to find himself, he raised the gun.
Then he held his breath and started firing.
John wanted to scream. To get to Rodney, they needed Radek, but by getting Radek, they'd dialed the gate, and by dialing the gate they had, apparently, made it about twenty times harder for Radek to retrieve the address dialed by the stolen jumper. Compared to this, saving the city from a hurricane was beginning to seem simple and straightforward.
"You know, time is sort of a factor here!" he snapped.
"Of this I am aware, thank you!" Zelenka ducked under the console again. "I would be able to work faster if you would stop hovering over me, screaming in my—"
The offworld activation klaxon sounded, apparently right in Zelenka's ear. He swore loudly in Czech. "Is that more personnel?" John asked. "I thought everyone was back?"
"If you wait, I am checking!" He bent over the console briefly, then straightened up, surprised. "It is Doctor McKay's IDC."
John felt a surge of hope...which he quickly battened down. It was almost certainly a trick; did they really think it would work twice? "Teyla, Ford," he called, "come with me." He turned to Zelenka. "When we're in position, drop the shield. If you see anyone who isn't McKay come through the gate, put it back up immediately."
Radek nodded mutely. John drew his side arm and went with Ford and Teyla down the stairs. "Okay, Radek!" The shield shimmered and died. John readied his weapon.
The man who came through was soaking wet and bleeding from the forehead and upper arm. He also had John's face. Yet clearly he was Rodney—John would recognize him anywhere.
He looked around at them, blearily. "Thanks for coming to rescue me," he said. He probably meant it to come out sarcastically, or as an indictment, but mostly he just sounded tired. He sneezed, soundly.
Beckett came rushing down from the control room and helped Rodney up the stairs and over to a chair. "I was shot," Rodney announced loudly. "And I got hit in the head, and I crashed the jumper."
"You crashed the jumper?" John realized belatedly that that sounded rather too much like he was exclaiming, You hurt my baby?—and that he cared more about the ship than he did about Rodney.
"I trapped Kolya and the others in the back and then flew it into a lake," Rodney explained. His brow furrowed. "That last bit may or may not have been on purpose. Also," he sniffed, "there was some bad pollen."
"I think he has a concussion," said Beckett, somewhat needlessly. He helped Rodney to rise again. "We need to get him to the infirmary."
John moved to help. "So, wait," he said, guiding Rodney with a hand on his arm, allowing Beckett to take the injured and thus more fragile side, "you trapped Kolya in the back of the jumper."
"Yes," said Rodney, managing peevish a little better this time. "I told you."
"And that jumper is currently at the bottom of a lake."
"That's what I said."
John burst out laughing.
"That," he said, ignoring Rodney and Carson's puzzled looks, "is by far the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."
Rodney was enduring his third and final stint in the Ancient bone-knitting machine Carson had found, gritting his teeth and breathing through the pain, when Sheppard wandered in, looking like he'd taken a wrong turn and somehow missed the mess. "Are you doing Lamaze?"
Rodney tried to sit up to properly glare, which wasn't really possible with his arm and shoulder in the machine. "I was shot! I flew a jumper with a broken arm!"
Sheppard pulled up a chair and straddled it. "Yeah, that was pretty cool. You wanna do it again?"
"Are you crazy?"
Several nurses came over and glared. Sheppard scooted his chair closer, dropping his voice like he'd been the one shouting. "I meant the flying part. I could give you some lessons." He arched an eyebrow. "So you don't crash next time."
"That was part of my cunning plan, you know," he grumbled. He felt like he should be more irritated, but there seemed to be, for once, something legitimately earnest in Sheppard's eyes.
"So, listen, here's an idea," Sheppard said. "You know that Lagrange Point satellite Gall won't stop talking about?"
Rodney rolled his eyes. Honestly, he appreciated the discovery, but you'd think the man had found a black hole or something. "Yes."
"Well, we're going to go check it out in a couple days. You wanna come? You should be all better by then." He gave Rodney's uninjured arm a light punch.
"Oh, should I?" Rodney looked pointedly at the large piece of Ancient machinery that was currently doing unspeakable things to his bones.
"Yeah," said Sheppard, dismissively. "You've got Sheppard genes now. We're like Weebles: we wobble but we don't fall down."
"So I'm part of your tribe now, hmm?" Rodney asked, hating that he sounded somewhat hopeful instead of full of pure, stinging indignation.
Sheppard shrugged in response, and glanced down. For a second he actually looked embarrassed, looked almost...vulnerable.
When he looked up again, his eyes were back to being full of mocking humor. "Fifteen hours stuck in a jumper with Gall, McKay. You can't make me face that alone."
"I faced being trapped in a jumper with Kolya alone," Rodney pointed out, surprised at how suddenly vindictive he sounded, at the way that Sheppard flinched.
His mouth drew tight. "I was coming to get you," he said, forcing on Rodney the full weight of his gaze. "I wouldn't have left you. You know that, right?"
"Sure," said Rodney, noncommittally. But he did know.
"So, the arm's almost better?" Sheppard asked, after a moment's silence.
"Considering it had a bullet in it! Being shot's painful, you know!"
"Yeah," said Sheppard, calmly, "I know."
Rodney spent a moment processing this.
"And the head?" Sheppard asked, making a vague gesture above his own eyebrow.
Rodney frowned. "Carson said it will probably scar." He rolled his eyes. "There, now people will be able to tell us apart."
Sheppard nodded, seeming to consider this. "Yeah, 'cause you'll be the one with the sexy and distinguished scar."
His enthusiasm was oddly catching. "You think?"
"Oh, yeah. Chicks dig scars. They think they're...rakish."
"Rakish..." Rodney said happily, lying back as his insides knit and mended.
He could work with that.
John was having too much fun. They'd been in the air for about fourteen hours, he and Rodney switching off between the pilot's and the co-pilot's seat. The jumpers were easy ships to fly—as the, er, crash course Rodney had given himself proved—but if you really got to know them, learned to finesse them, they'd do incredible things for you. Rodney already had the basics down and his tendency to weave was easily corrected, so John got to spend the bulk of the time teaching him his own special, signature moves, and also just enjoying the fact that they were flying through space. Rodney got into it even more than John had thought, had hoped, he would—not fussy and hesitant at all, really, he seemed to take John's little goading challenges in the spirit in which they were intended, gripping the controls and taking the jumper into dives and evasive maneuvers, even when there was nothing to evade besides imaginary TIE fighters and Death Star tractor beams. They spent a great deal of time high-fiving each other via elaborate handshake/salutes John had learned at the Academy ("I can't believe you people actually think this makes you look cool," Rodney said, but kept doing it anyway) and cheering/spurring each other on, which meant that by the end of fourteen hours, Gall and Abrams were thoroughly sick of them.
"Can you please stop doing that?" Gall asked as Rodney complied with John's request to "pretend like you're trying to lose a fleet of Star Destroyers in a field of asteroids."
John turned around in his chair. "You're not nauseous, are you? This thing has inertial dampeners."
"Yes, and having flown with them off?" Rodney interjected. "Believe me, you can really tell the difference. This is nothing."
"Yes, but I know that we're moving," said Gall. "That's enough."
John turned back and gave Rodney a pointed look. You see what you stuck me with?
Rodney's answering shrug said, Hey, it's not my fault. Then a certain gleam came into his eyes. One that said: Now watch this!
John may have whooped.
A few hours later, on the planet, John was definitely not whooping. The fun had drained from his body, what remained turning sick and stale at the pit of his belly. Gall lay on the floor, whimpering softly. John could barely stand to look at him. My fault, my fucking fault...
Luckily, Rodney seemed intent on providing a distraction. "Help me lift him up, we can carry him!"
"I don't think we should deliver an injured person right back to the Wraith who did this to him!" He double-checked his ordnance again. "You wait here with Gall," he told Rodney firmly, "and when I'm done making sure the Wraith isn't using our own equipment to sic all his little buddies on us, I'll come back for you."
He'd gotten right in Rodney's face, but to his surprise Rodney hadn't flinched or backed down. He met his gaze head on. "Will you?"
John felt a flare of anger, nuclear-hot. "If you want to be on my team, you will follow orders, McKay!"
He heard Rodney calling, "Major! Major!" as he raced away, but he tuned it out, mind as blank and empty as a dead channel.
Rodney squeezed his canteen so hard he was sure he heard the plastic start to crack. Brendan had barely managed two sips before he'd started to choke and wheeze again. This was...he couldn't even put a name to what this was, this awfulness that seemed to follow Sheppard wherever he went. Why had he ever wanted to be part of it?
Well, now he was: trapped on this planet, Abrams dead, Brendan...Brendan in really bad shape. And if he were honest, it was just as much his fault, too.
Fine! He was willing to take that responsibility. But that meant he should be out there fixing it, not waiting here, watching Brendan die, listening to Sheppard nearly blow himself up.
"Stay off the radio!" Sheppard barked. "I'm busy."
Rodney fumed.
Brendan started coughing again. Rodney felt another heartsick lurch. "Do you want some more water?"
He shook his head. "Like that will really do any good."
"You'll be fine," Rodney emphatically lied. "Carson's really been throwing himself into testing the Ancient equipment. Just look what he did to my arm." He flexed the recently shot shoulder.
"Look what he did to your face," Brendan pointed out.
"Ha ha." He tried not to think about how Brendan was now equally transformed, his face lined and grey and withered. Rodney knew when he had gotten the better deal.
"Sorry about before." He felt suddenly like it needed to be said. He tried to crack a smile. "I know Sheppard is obnoxious. Apparently he and I together are very obnoxious."
Brendan managed to roll his eyes. "You're very alike."
"Well, duh." Rodney realized, belatedly, that this was perhaps not the nicest thing to say to an injured person.
Brendan also seemed to be able to manage condescending. "Not like that. That's all—" His hand trembled as he tried to wave it, then sank back miserably against the ground. "—Surface. I mean—" He started coughing again.
"You wish you were out there with him, don't you?"
"No! I wish we had all stayed together, that's all!"
Brendan shook his head, the slightest motion like a trembling leaf. "You do. I can tell. You want in the fight. I don't think a year of off-world travel would make me feel that way..."
"Well, stop talking and save your strength so you can find out!" Rodney said.
Brendan said nothing for a minute. Then he said, "Don't lie to me."
He was lying there, slumped, looking shriveled and drawn, like a broken doll. Rodney couldn't stand it anymore—that sick, spinning feeling, like they were alone and no one was coming. "Come on," he said suddenly, decisively. "I'm going to carry you back to the ship. We're going."
"You're going to carry me?" Brendan laughed—a horrible, rasping sound. "Rodney McKay is going to carry me?"
"Shut up!" Rodney snapped. He pulled the remains of the cocoon off, ignoring the dull sting of it against his fingers, and hoisted Brendan up. He felt disturbingly light. Like he was...empty inside, sucked dry.
"Are you all right, does that hurt?"
"Can't feel anything, really..." Brendan said. He sounded far away.
Rodney could feel him, though, the weight of him becoming slightly more real as they pressed on. The sand whipped at Rodney's skin, sharp little pinpricks. The sun stabbed at his eyes. Even with Brendan's weight on his back, he kept wanting to be assured of his presence. "How're you doing, Brendan? We're almost there. You're gonna be fine, just fine. We'll probably get there just in time to help Sheppard pick little Wraith pieces out of his hair. Does that sound good?"
Brendan mumbled something. Rodney shifted the weight on his back, uncomfortably. He was letting Brendan's feet drag, that couldn't be good. And maybe you weren't actually supposed to move an injured person? Even to get him out of a combat zone? Why hadn't he listened to Sheppard?
"Brendan? Brendan! Come on, stay with me!"
Brendan moaned against his back. "You have a very whiny voice, do you know that?"
"It's not my voice, it's Sheppard's. I have a lovely robust tenor." Rodney stumbled, caught himself as he almost fell, and forced himself to straighten up. He could feel the sweat coursing down his back, under his vest.
"Tell me...tell me more about what you're thinking we can get that satellite to do. Okay? Brendan?"
"...use it to kill the Wraith..." Brendan mumbled.
Rodney nodded vigorously, keeping his eyes on his feet, carefully moving one after the other. "I like that plan. I hope I told you, I think that is a very good plan." There was a sudden explosion of gunfire, much closer than Rodney would have expected. "Shit!"
He dropped, jostling Brendan badly on the way down. "I'm sorry!" he whispered.
"S'okay." Brendan slumped against a sand dune. "I can't really feel it..."
Rodney peered up over the rise. "I think they're close. I should probably... Will you be okay if I go check on Sheppard?"
Brendan nodded, weakly.
Rodney looked at him and swallowed. "I'm coming right back, okay? I didn't come all this way to leave you here. I'll be right back!"
Brendan's breathing was slow. "I know," he said. He glanced up. "Whatever happens, Rodney...thanks for—"
"No, shut up! You're going to be fine." Rodney took a deep breath and adjusted his grip on the Beretta.
He bounded over the dune in time to see the Wraith looming over Sheppard with a knife. He fired without thinking, but thankfully not without aiming; the Wraith jerked twice, hit, then turned to face him, snarling. Rodney nearly started back but forced himself to stand his ground. "Major!"
"Just keep firing!"
The bullets barely seemed to slow the thing down. Rodney scrambled to reload, but though he'd kept going to the firing range even after getting dropped from Sheppard's team, he'd been sort of lax about this part. His hands were sweaty from carrying Brendan.
The clip finally went in. He started firing again, still to little effect. His mind was so full of fear and adrenaline that he couldn't even tell the difference anymore. This must be what it was like to run on automatic, to act without thinking.
Suddenly Sheppard said, "McKay, run!" and Rodney didn't think about it at all. He ran.
John found Rodney kneeling at the base of a dune, checking Gall's pulse. He already had a pretty good guess what he would find. Rodney's, "Goddammit. No. Goddammit," did the job of confirming it.
Rodney sat back, slumped against the sand, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes. John shivered, slightly, in spite of the heat, the image reminding him too suddenly, too much, of something else. "You carried him all the way here?" he asked softly.
"Yeah."
John sighed and sat down beside him. "We should go back for Abrams, too."
Rodney bent his head. "Yeah."
John reached into his vest, unscrewed his canteen, and took a big gulp. "Ford and Teyla will be here soon. We can wait." He offered the canteen to Rodney.
Rodney took it, eying John's bandaged arm as he did. "Copycat," he mumbled.
"Yes, well." John nudged him lightly with his unhurt shoulder. "We're brothers in arms now."
Rodney's laugh was bitter. "I guess so." He turned and looked John head on, in a way John found uncomfortable and disarming, a pinning glance. "How can you do it? Keep going out there when you know you can lose people. When you know your shitty decisions can get people killed?" He sniffed, suddenly, and looked like himself again—as much as that was possible. "I'm not used to making decisions that are anything but brilliant."
John sighed, staring out across the sand. He felt like being honest, for once, but that question...he wasn't sure he knew an honest answer.
"You just do the best you can, I guess."
Rodney nodded. John looked over at him, slumped there beside him—he still looked bowed, beaten. Sitting there with the body he'd dragged across the desert for nothing.
He wished, suddenly, that he could say the things he wished someone had said to him when he'd faced his own great failure, when instead they'd given him nothing but a large black mark in a field of icy white.
Then he realized that he could.
"Look, you did good today." He saw Rodney blink but he didn't look up. "The stuff with the Genii, too. Have I told you how much I love the image of Kolya banging around in that drowned jumper like an old sardine in a can?"
Rodney snorted; he rolled his eyes. "That was nothing, though. I mean—" He waved his hand. "I don't know if it was even me." He glanced over at John. "Probably your stupid heroic streak. Contagious."
"Rodney..."
"What?" His eyes were challenging.
"Bravery is not genetic."
Rodney folded his arms, as if he were saying Prove it.
"It's not! It's not something you're born with, or that is innate. And just because you're brave once, doesn't mean you will be again. It's a decision you have to make, every time."
Rodney seemed to be considering this. John nudged him again, prodding him; it was suddenly very important that he see—
"I saw you make that choice back when I first met you. The energy cloud, remember?"
Rodney started to nod, then began shaking his head even more vehemently. "But I was already infected with you then!" he said, with a thrusting finger. He sounded almost triumphant.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," said John. "You have to know that was you. Don't take it away from yourself." He tilted his head to the side. "It's not like you to deny yourself credit. Who are you and what have you done with Rodney?"
This laugh was warmer, but still slightly hollow. "I wish I knew."
When they finally got back to Atlantis, Rodney went directly to his quarters and slept for something like fifteen hours straight. When he woke again, it was to find Martine Dumais ringing his door chime.
"Would you like to have that dinner now?" she asked.
"Yes! Of course!" he said, then realized he was standing there in his boxer shorts.
He felt the tips of his ears start to burn. Martine just laughed. "I'll meet you there in half an hour, yes?"
He nodded eagerly, then threw himself into the shower, gratefully scrubbing the last of the sand and the sweat from his body. Somehow, he managed to find a clean shirt amongst his sadly diminished supply, then spent a few seconds trying to do something about his hair, before remembering that nothing could ever fix this hair, ever. He gave himself a quick shave (Sheppard could work the five o'clock shadow look, but it gave Rodney some bad flashbacks to the poorly-thought-out soul patch era of his youth), then made his way to the mess at what he hoped was a hurried but still dignified pace.
Martine was already in line when he got there. Rodney thought about joining her, but that would mean cutting in front of Bates, and just—no. He went to the back of the line, where he was soon joined by Peter. He could feel Grodin giving him the now all-too-familiar once over, trying to establish whether the person standing in front of him was Rodney or Sheppard. He'd start asking "clever" probing questions next: "So how did work go today?", etc. Rodney rolled his eyes and decided to save him the trouble. "Yes, hi, it's me, McKay."
"I knew that," said Peter, the big liar. Rodney rolled his eyes again and mentally urged the line to move faster.
Peter apparently wanted to talk about the aborted mission to the satellite, which Rodney really didn't want to think about right now. "Do you know what they're serving tonight?" he asked instead, cutting Peter off mid-sentence.
"Ah. I believe the listserv said vegetarian lasagne, lemon chicken, green beans..."
Catching sight of Rodney's scowl, he stopped talking. "I take it another 'ban citrus' petition has been ignored?"
"Apparently."
"Perhaps you should ask to transfer from Head of Science to Head of Commissary."
"Ha ha." He turned, somewhat relieved, to the Marine who was on chow duty. "Lasagne," he said with a sigh.
A chunk was slopped onto his plate. "There you go, sir."
Rodney would have corrected him, but he rather liked being called "sir."
"Better to have the lasagne, anyway," said Peter, collecting his own piece. "After all, meat is murder."
"That cheese came from a cow, you know," Rodney said, and went to go find Martine.
She was sitting alone, her feet up possessively on the chair opposite her. When she saw him she smiled and kicked the chair out. Rodney grinned and sat down, his face falling almost instantly when he saw the lemon sauce covering her plate and dripping sticky from one of her fingers, shining her lips. "What?" she said, when she saw his expression. "Rodney, what's wrong?"
"Um," he said, carefully sitting back, "I—well, I guess there's no reason you'd know this, but I am highly—deadly allergic to—"
He stopped suddenly as it dawned on him, as it hit him like a dropped brick. "I'm an idiot," he said.
Martine tilted her head, charmingly puzzled at this admittedly bizarre statement. "What?"
He shook his head, clearing it. "Nothing. Sorry. Actually...this is going to sound weird, but can I have a bite of your chicken?"
She nodded and let him eat it right off her plate.
"Well," he said a moment or so later, in which nothing remarkable—like a case of anaphylactic shock—had occurred. "That's...different."
"It's the same chicken they always make," said Martine. Fortunately she still sounded more bemused than 'Oh my god, I am eating with a crazy man, please get me out of here.'
"It's different because I'm with you," Rodney answered. A second later, when he realized exactly what it was he had just said, he had to physically restrain himself from stabbing himself with his own fork. And yet—miraculously—Martine didn't seem offended, or on the verge of gagging. She was smiling. After a moment, she giggled.
Sheppard must have some kind of freaky magic powers. Rodney wasn't sure whether he felt excited or disappointed that he would possibly have the chance to employ them.
However, the rest of the dinner conversation went incredibly well, and that—combined, oddly, with the lingering taste of lemon on his tongue—made him bold. As they were finishing, he told Martine that he still had a stash of chocolate bars hidden in his room—would she like to help him liberate a few? She would? Excellent. And apparently she would also like to stand very close to him in the transporter. Rodney felt a rush of excitement moving through this unfamiliar body—still the most familiar thing in the world.
They were two feet inside Rodney's door when Martine put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Rodney swallowed his little huff of surprise and kissed her back. She tasted sweet with just a hint of sourness, a shadow taste of the forbidden. He felt a little awkward kissing with these lips, a little fumbling and unsure, but when she pulled back he was able to show her one of Sheppard's smiles. "Sorry," he said, hoping to show her that he was capable of modesty, "I'm used to having a bigger mouth."
To his surprise, this time she didn't smile back. Instead she stepped away from him, looking suddenly fraught. "Oh, god. This is strange, isn't it? You're not— I mean," she'd started gnawing her lip, "I almost feel like we should ask Major Sheppard's permission."
Rodney felt himself droop. "You want me to ask the Major for permission to have sex," he said flatly. Then, a second later: "I mean, not that we were going to— I didn't mean to presume—"
Martine waved this concern away, but still reached to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I'm not sure I— I mean, I was willing to fuck—" She had the slightest trace of an accent when she said the word 'fuck,' and Rodney felt his heart flip even as he tried to resign it to the surely inevitable disappointment. "—One of my bosses, but two of them, I don't know..."
"Sheppard and I aren't actually a unit, you know," Rodney said, somewhat desperately. "I actually don't even know him that well."
Martine shook her head, touching those long, graceful hands to her forehead. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She sounded like she genuinely meant it. "I just, I tried to be impulsive, but I am not by nature an impulsive person, you know?" Rodney had to nod, to admit he did. "I need to think about this," she said, reaching out and drawing her fingers lightly across his wrist. "Just a few days, can you give me that, to think about this?"
And of course Rodney found himself agreeing. Showing her to the door, saying, of course, of course.
He could wait.
John heard his door chime sound and gratefully set aside War and Peace. "Yeah?" he shouted, rotating his feet over the edge of the bed.
The door slid open. "Hey," said Rodney.
He was holding a handful of chocolate bars. "Where'd you get those?" John asked, vaguely impressed.
"I've been saving them," Rodney said. "Here." He dumped them on the edge of the bed. "For saving everyone today."
John was pretty sure he was missing something. "It was your plan. Partly." Rodney didn't respond. "And also your fabulous advice. 'Get far away from the nuclear explosion'—I was thinking I might make a sampler."
Rodney still wasn't saying anything—just looking down at him, kind of hollow-eyed. He'd had a very close call himself—maybe he was in shock? "Hey, are you okay?"
Apparently, that was what Rodney had been waiting for. He sank down onto the bed at John's side, nearly smushing his offering of chocolate bars. "One of the women who died today," he said after a moment, "I was kind of seeing her."
John blinked, then swore. "Jesus, Rodney! I'm so sorry."
Rodney shook his head. "Yeah, well. We hadn't—it wasn't serious."
He seemed pretty seriously upset, though. "Have you talked to somebody? Maybe Heightmeyer or somebody?"
Rodney shook his head. "Everyone else—they just bring it around to you. Even Martine—" His voice cracked slightly on the name. "Anyway," he continued, much more strongly, subtly shaking himself, "I might as well bring it back to the source, hmm?" He shot John an oddly defiant stare.
John felt torn between being angry that once again people—and even Rodney himself—seemed to think that because this had happened, Rodney was now his responsibility, and wanting...well, wanting to reach over and put a hand on Rodney's back, to offer his own shoulder as a place for Rodney to cry out the tears of frustration and grief that John never allowed himself to shed. Instead he stumbled toward something resembling the middle ground. Staring straight ahead, "This is why it's sometimes better not to get attached," he said.
Rodney scoffed. "Oh, please. So your solution is 'Never have sex again'?"
"I never said anything about sex," said John, arching an eyebrow that he hoped conveyed the full extent of, 'What are you, a woman?' as well as, 'Please, can we never talk about this kind of thing again?'
Rodney may or may not have caught all that; he rolled his eyes. "Charming, Major. I can't believe—" He stopped, abruptly.
"What?" John pressed, in spite of himself.
The tips of Rodney's ears pinkened; John knew what that meant. "Martine actually wanted me to ask your permission before we had sex," he said in a small voice.
It took John a moment to parse that. "What?" he said.
Rodney shrugged, struggling between bewilderment, grief, and embarrassment.
"Rodney, for the record," John said quickly, "you absolutely do not need to ask my permission. Have sex with whoever you want—I don't need to hear about it, I don't want to know about it—"
"Well, I kind of figured that." Rodney fidgeted. "It's not like I've been asking for your permission every time I jerk off."
John gave in and put his head in his hands.
He gave it a good thirty seconds and then peeked, hoping against hope that Rodney had somehow taken the hint and left. No such luck, of course. Rodney was studying him like he might a particularly interesting—and possibly enthusiastically blinking—Ancient artifact. "Did you really mean that?" he asked. "About not becoming attached? To anybody?"
John sighed. "It was advice, Rodney. Advice, like orders, being one of those things I'm not so good at following. Even my own."
Rodney looked like he wasn't quite sure what to make of that. John felt the same way about pretty much this whole conversation. "So," he said abruptly, patting Rodney on the knee and quickly standing up, "you gonna be okay?"
"I was planning on a nervous breakdown, actually"—which, as far as John Sheppard was concerned, meant yes.
"Good." John paused, looking down at the figure on the bed. He'd just been thinking that he wanted to have a very different conversation with Rodney, but now he was unsure again. Did he really want to encourage him into thinking that they were—what? Friends? Confidants? Brother-confessors? That was the last thing he wanted.
But he had other concerns besides his personal ones to think about. And there had been a time when he'd been decisive. Months ago, on this very issue, he'd been decisive.
"So," he said casually, "you may have noticed that I seem to have a problem where I keep losing teammates..."
"Yes, it speaks very highly of you," said Rodney.
That...stung, but he was pretty sure Rodney hadn't meant it to. Nor could John deny it.
"I was thinking," John continued, still going for casual, "that I might break the curse by returning to the original lineup."
Rodney's eyes darted up, but other than the movement, his expression remained frustratingly vague, frustratingly familiar. How unfair that someone else should be able to turn that expression on him.
Still, John smiled in the face of it. "Wanna come check out a space gate with me?"
"When I said, 'You don't need my permission to have sex,' I didn't mean, 'Please, have sex with women I...''" Sheppard's vocabulary appeared to abandon him. "Not the same woman!" he finished, lamely.
"Well, you should have specified, shouldn't you?" Rodney folded his arms and glared. "Besides, it wasn't sex. It was a deeply meaningful sharing experience."
"I know! She'd shared it with me five minutes before!"
"What's your point?"
"I was with her first!"
Rodney smirked. "I was with her longer."
"Gentlemen," said Elizabeth tiredly, "is the gateroom really the place to have this conversation?"
"Can I borrow your flashlight?" McKay asked.
John handed it over. "I don't know why you even bother to ask when you'd just take it anyway. First flashlights, then women—"
"Oh, very mature," said McKay, who was one to talk. "I think Old Elizabeth expected more from us when she gave us these gate addresses, don't you?"
They returned to their work for a few minutes. "You know," John couldn't help interjecting, "if I weren't so forgiving, you wouldn't even be here."
"Ha." He didn't look up from studying the stones. "You just don't want to have officially lost more teammates than you've kept."
John raised his head to release an appropriate rejoinder and caught Teyla glaring at him. "Would you two stop? You are both being very tiresome."
"Priestesses like this Chaya Sar must be highly respected and sought after among your people," he heard Alina whisper. Teyla seemed to pause to consider this. And in that moment of silence, John heard gunshots.
The argument vanished like a Wraith in the mist. John went quickly to the chamber's opening; he could sense Rodney and Teyla moving to stand beside him. "Ford?"
"Major Sheppard," said a creepily familiar voice. "I'm afraid the Lieutenant has had to step away for a moment."
"Who is that?" asked Teyla.
"Oh," breathed Rodney, stiffening beside him, "It can't be..."
John didn't recognize the face, but he knew the man anyway: standing above them, his gun pointed down at their heads. "Surprised?" he said, and then to John's deep if unfortunately fleeting delight, a brief look of shock passed over his own face. His eyes moved back and forth between John and Rodney. "Well," he said, "as am I, it seems. This explains much." His gun swiveled back and forth with his gaze now. "Which of you is the incompetent one?"
John felt Rodney start uselessly forward and put out a restraining hand. It didn't restrain Rodney's mouth, however.
"You mean the one who trapped you and your men at the bottom of a lake like a...a sack of kittens?" Rodney's eyes had darkened to black; John had never seen him look so furious before. "How'd you escape?"
Kolya continued to look smug. "That planet houses but one of many secret facilities belonging to my people. Do you really think we arrived unnoticed, or that they would not come to investigate a crash?"
Rodney grinned. "So you're saying you had to be rescued. Too bad you weren't incompetent enough to escape on your own!"
"Rodney," cautioned Teyla, wisely, "do not make him angry."
"What did you do with Ford?" John asked. He had to steer this to their advantage somehow, but he couldn't think of a way. Kolya held all the cards. And the rope.
"He's fine. Better off than you." Kolya smiled at them like he might at a good cut of meat being given to him to carve. "I came here in search of the lost treasure of the Quindozum, but now I'm thinking I might prefer to cover the mouth of this chamber and forget about the whole thing."
"No! You promised!"
John turned, surprised to hear one of Alina's assistants speak. Alina herself was apparently a bit quicker on the uptake than he was, her eyes narrowing as she hissed, "Suneera!"
The girl whimpered excuses, then reeled from Alina's slap. Kolya chuckled. "It seems you have a rat in your hole. Now, should I seal the trap...?"
"And what good would that do you?" Rodney again, a look in his eyes that made John uneasy it was so familiar. "Sure, you might feel satisfied with your petty revenge for five minutes, but you'll never find your prize without us." He lifted his chin, then, in a movement that was all him. "Let me out of here and I'll find it for you. But then you let my team go."
He was throwing himself to the wolves. John admired it but couldn't stand by and watch it happen. "Shut up, McKay!"
He hissed back. "Have you got a better idea?"
"Not yet, but—"
"Is this some sibling rivalry I see?" Kolya boomed. The bastard was enjoying this.
Rodney turned and glared. "Do we have a deal or not?"
Kolya dangled the rope like a shining piece of bait. There was nothing John could do as Rodney reached out and took it.
Rodney stared down at the stones. He'd come this far, reasoning his way through, ignoring as much as he could of Kolya's crap, even when he felt crazily close to snapping and making a move on him, despite knowing that would surely result in his own death. But now it had finally happened. His mind had failed him. He stared down at the stones: nine stones, arranged one to nine. He knew that was wrong. But everything else he was coming up with he knew to be wrong, too.
"This is taking too long," Kolya said, voice eerily calm. Of course, he could afford to be calm—he didn't really care if he killed them all in the process of getting the ZPM, or even if he got the ZPM at all. "Choose and go."
"You got somewhere you got to be?" Rodney snapped. His palms were sweating. He was going to press his sweaty palms to the device and then he was going to die, just like Kolya's man had.
And then Sheppard would die. And Teyla. And Ford. And Alina.
Okay, concentrate. Concentrate. The five had to go in the middle...
"I think it's got to be something to do with fifteen," said Sheppard for the second time.
"Quiet! Let me think!"
Beside him, he saw Sheppard roll his eyes. "Heard the term two heads are better than one?"
"It's a common misconception!" Rodney hated how his voice sounded. He'd felt so in control earlier, even with Kolya pushing him around. He'd known he was better than Kolya.
But he wasn't. He wasn't better. He'd been weakened, reduced. Before Sheppard had seeped into his head, he would have been able to solve this, no problem. He knew it.
"Choose and go," Kolya intoned. Rodney's death knell.
Nine to one. Could he really think of nothing better than nine to one? Oh, why did Sheppard have to be such a lout? Sure, he was brave, and Rodney had appreciated borrowing his bravery, but what good did bravery do him here?
"I'm sorry," he said, to no one in particular. He lifted his palms.
"Wait!" Sheppard had snatched his hand in his. Rodney turned to him, surprised. "The brotherhood of fifteen," Sheppard said.
"What?"
"The numbers one to nine have to be put in a three by three grid with fifteen in every direction!"
Rodney stared at his face, then down at the pedestal. "Ah ha!" For a moment he felt the triumph as if it were his own. Well, it was: it meant he got to live. "It's a magic square. How did you know?"
Sheppard shrugged; he looked almost embarrassed. "It was on the MENSA test."
"You're in MENSA?" Rodney's heart began to pound. Sheppard was smart? Sheppard was actually certifiably smart? But then, he'd known Sheppard was smart—he'd seen it. Why had he been such a dumbass about it?
"Let's talk about this later," he said. Sheppard did not looked thrilled at this suggestion, but he leaned over to help and together they arranged the stones.
"Two, nine, four," Rodney started.
"Seven, five, three," Sheppard continued.
"Six, one, eight!" they finished. "That's got to be it," Rodney said.
"Good luck," said Kolya, smirkingly.
I'm going to kill you, Rodney thought. He laid his hands on the imprints.
The room collectively held its breath; then a ZPM slid out of the wall.
Rodney held back his cry of delight. He could see Kolya's hungry eyes on the ZPM, Rodney's ZPM, and if he thought he was going to get his greedy, cruel hands on it, he was sorely mistaken. Rodney walked slowly to the wall, thinking, thinking.
Then everything exploded.
They had done it. They had turned the tables. John surveyed the end results, pleased. Then he walked over to Kolya.
"We'll send a villager to pick you up in about an hour." He gave Kolya the full weight of his stare. "It's better than you deserve."
Kolya didn't flinch. "The smart thing would be to kill me now."
John wanted to. He really, really wanted to. But he knew what Elizabeth would say; knew they needed all the allies in this galaxy that they could get. Some arrangement might still be reached with the Genii.
He was about to hammer these points home with a few opened-ended threats when he felt a movement beside him.
"You're right," said Rodney. Before John could say anything, he'd raised his gun and shot Kolya through the head.
The report echoed loudly through the small chamber. "McKay!" John said as it died. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Sorry, I just meant to scare him. Guess my aim was off due to my recent blinding."
His expression was entirely flat. He was lying.
"Elizabeth can yell at me later." He turned and walked away.
Out in the light, Alina and a group of her people gathered around and thanked them for finding the potentia, wishing them luck with it when they returned to their people in the city of the Ancestors. Rodney was surprisingly gracious with them; John couldn't look at him.
They gathered up their things and prepared to go through the gate.
"It has been an honor to serve the Ancestors," Alina said, bowing slightly as the wormhole engaged.
"Yes, well," said John, slightly puzzled, "it's our honor, too."
Teyla drew close to his side as they approached the event horizon. "Major, I think the Daganians mistakenly believed that we are the Ancestors, and not merely residents of their city." She looked troubled by this, but John didn't really know what to do. "Should we go back and tell them?"
"I think we've dealt with enough headaches for today," he said. "Besides, we're doing what the Ancestors would have wanted with the ZPM anyway, right?"
Any protest Teyla might have made regarding this assumption vanished when they returned to the city to discover that three Wraith hives were on their way.
Rodney found Sheppard standing on one of the balconies. "So," he said, "we have two weeks to live. That really...sharpens one's priorities, doesn't it?"
Sheppard shrugged. "At least we have that ZPM. If the shield can hold, we might have a fighting chance."
Rodney eyed him for a moment, then moved to lean against the rail at his side. "Do you really believe that?"
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "I have to."
"Ah, optimism. I've, uh," Rodney shifted awkwardly. "Never been much good at that."
He paused for a moment, considering. Remembering: two weeks. "Are you still mad at me?" he finally asked.
"What for?" asked Sheppard, casual. The big liar.
Rodney rolled his eyes, waved his hand. "For Chaya. For killing Kolya."
Sheppard shook his head. "I can't believe you did that."
Rodney sighed, staring down at his hands where they lay across the metal bar. "It was...rash, I know. I guess I didn't really think it through. Because I'd never... I'd never, ah..."
"Yeah, it's always nice to have that first kill be impulsive," Sheppard said.
"It wasn't—" Rodney suppressed a shudder. When he spoke his voice came out low. "I don't actually feel guilty about it."
"For your sake," said Sheppard, "I hope that one day you do."
Rodney felt a rise of anger. "So, what are you saying? Do you really think it was a bad thing to do? He shot me! He kidnapped me! He was going to destroy the city! Do you think he felt guilty about any of those things?"
"No, but we're supposed to be better than he is." Sheppard's voice remained level. "Trouble is, we're not." Rodney caught his glance, sly and sideways though it was. "I'd kind of thought you were, though."
Rodney felt baffled. "What are you saying?"
Sheppard shook his head. "Nothing. Just, it didn't seem like you. It's kind of freaking me out."
Rodney's heart pounded. "What, you mean you really think I'm changing? That I have? That in the chamber, that was all you? Your," he couldn't help the air quotes, "'killer instincts'?"
Sheppard shrugged. "I've killed. I do kill, when I have to. Don't know if it's in my DNA, though. And I do know what DNA is, by the way," he said, turning and giving Rodney a pointed look. "Deoxyribonucleic acid."
"Was that on the MENSA test?" Rodney asked, going for acidic himself. He didn't quite get there.
"I can't believe you figured out that that was a magic square and I didn't," he said instead. "Not that I'm not grateful!" he added. Yet he continued to eye Sheppard suspiciously. "What's your IQ really?"
Sheppard grew still for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. He leaned over and whispered in Rodney's ear.
Rodney's eyes did not go wide; he didn't let them. "I suppose that's...adequate."
"Gee, thanks."
"It's considerably lower then mine, of course."
"Oh, of course."
"Or at least lower than mine was," said Rodney, suddenly morose. He slumped down, leaning his chin against the rail. "I mean, even if we somehow miraculously do survive the Wraith attack, how am I supposed to win a Nobel Prize now? Who am I? Nobody will believe that I'm Rodney McKay looking like this—" He gestured at his stupid lanky hairy self. "I was too well known in my previous, much more attractive, incarnation. I'll have to start all over! But as who? I have no identity of my own, you have no doctorates..."
"I have an M.S. in math?" Sheppard offered.
Rodney might have done a double-take. "Okay, one—why are you wasting yourself on the military? And two—that's very nice, but I prefer my three PhDs, thank you very much. But they might as well not exist!" He opened his hand like they might get to see his advanced degrees pop out of them and vanish on the night breeze. "I don't exist," he said, dropping his hand back down to his side. "I can't even say goodbye to my sister."
Sheppard was looking at him. It wasn't pity in his eyes, thank god. Sympathy, maybe. Rodney sighed. "So who'd you send a message to?"
Sheppard turned back to the water. "Sumner's family."
"Oh." Rodney realized Sheppard must still have issues over that. "That was good. That was a good thing to do."
"Yeah."
"So who else did you say goodbye to? Do you have a sister? Any siblings?"
For some reason, Sheppard rolled his eyes. "No."
"Your parents, then?"
"Rodney, just drop it!"
Rodney blinked at the sudden edge to his voice. Oh.
He swiftly changed the subject. "I haven't spoken to my sister in years. We had a huge fight. I wanted to say I was sorry."
"I'm sure she knows," Sheppard lied.
Rodney nodded and accepted it.
He turned and looked out at the ocean. "Maybe I can go see her if we ever connect with Earth again. I can pretend to be my—Rodney's friend. With a message for her from him. Maybe I died heroically and the last words on my lips were an apology—"
"We're not going to go out apologizing," Sheppard said firmly. "Go out fighting, that's what we do."
"Sure. Of course." Rodney nodded vigorously. "Or, you know. We could not die at all?"
Sheppard actually smiled. "And you say you're not an optimist."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar; Rodney recognized it as one of the ones he had given him. He broke it and two and offered half to Rodney.
"To Atlantis," said Sheppard, "may we do right by her."
"And to Earth," agreed Rodney, "may we see her again."
They toasted each other with months-old chocolate bars. "To Atlantis," Rodney echoed.
Sheppard nodded. "To Earth."
Rodney thought, To brothers in arms.
"Well, so it turns out, Earth blows," Rodney said.
John succeeded in his efforts not to spit out the Daedalus' terrible coffee and raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Of course, for all I know we weren't even on Earth, because I don't think I saw the sky or anything outside the Mountain the entire time we were there!"
John grimaced. "Oh."
"Yeah, and my plan to show up on Jeannie's doorstep pretending to be a comrade of the brave Doctor McKay, who died heroically in my arms? That was a wash." He paused, halfway through his own sip. "Um. And how did your—was Ford's...."
"As well as could be expected, under the circumstances." John didn't want to think about his stiff, rehearsed, We regret to inform you... He quickly redirected the subject. "I notice you're being a little stingy with the congratulations here, McKay."
Rodney's posture suddenly straightened from the same slump John realized he himself was still enjoying. "Of course, how could I forget? We're Lieutenant Colonels now!"
John's spine abruptly straightened, too. "Excuse me—we?"
"Well, yeah." Rodney shot him a smirk over his cup. "When people come up to me in the hall and start talking to me thinking I'm you, now they'll mistakenly call me Colonel instead of Major."
John couldn't help a small pout. "No one ever mistakenly calls me 'Doctor.'"
"Well," said Rodney with a wave of his mug, "I'm inimitable."
John waved his own mug. "I'm inimitable," he said in the exact same tone.
Rodney set the mug down. "Oh, very funny."
John's mug went back on the table. "Oh, very funny."
"You're twelve, you know that?"
"You're twelve, you know that?"
"Really, do your dignity a small favor and cut it out."
"Really, do your dignity a small favor and cut it out."
"This is not conduct becoming a Lieutenant Colonel!"
John was vaguely aware of Elizabeth appearing in the doorway. He had more important business to attend to, however. "This is not conduct becoming a Lieutenant Colonel!" he returned.
"I'll come back," said Elizabeth,
"You know," said Rodney, leaning forward and pointing an accusatory finger, "even Jeannie was never this annoying."
"You know," John waved that finger like crazy, "even Jeannie was never this annoying."
"Even when she was like, 'Mer, Mer, explain thermodynamics to me!'"
"Even when—" John stopped. "Wait, 'Mer'?"
"My name's really Meredith," said Rodney, taking a swig. "Also, I win."
It was a relief to be back in Atlantis. And not just because they'd almost ended up docking not on the pier but in the middle of a nearby sun. It felt good to have the hum of the city all around him again—he'd forgotten how omnipresent it was, like wonderfully relaxing white noise. It felt good, too, to be able to move around without an escort, to be able to step outside on a whim, to be considered a leader and not a threat to national security due to some bizarre reason related to his face. And it felt good to be around other familiar faces again.
Of course, there were also suddenly a lot of new faces. Thanks to the Daedalus they could finally bring in new personnel (Rodney tried not to think too hard about how many were actually replacement personnel), and so he had new scientists to train, new Marines to avoid. Then it struck him, as he was showing a new batch of botanists around their department: for the first time, really, he was interacting with people who hadn't known him, before. People for whom this face, this body, might as well be the real deal. Someone would say 'Rodney McKay,' and they wouldn't see him. They'd see Sheppard. Even in his own mind, the truth was becoming hazy.
He pushed down his panic, though—he was getting better at that, he thought. Genii invasions and Wraith attacks and nearly crashing into a sun would do that to you. Besides, there were ways he could turn it to his advantage.
"Your orders, sir?" asked the new Air Force Major they'd brought on board to be Sheppard's 2IC.
Rodney produced a piece of paper and scrawled a list.
Sheppard found him later. "Rodney, please stop Punk'ing my men."
"What? It's an initiation ceremony! You 'zoomies' are big on that, right?"
"Rodney..." He touched a hand to his forehead in annoyance, but he was faking it. "I don't give orders to your scientists, do I?"
"Oh, please—like they'd listen to you. They barely listen to me." He shot Sheppard a mischievous look. "Did Major Lorne enjoy collecting the 'special box' down on the east pier?"
"He's totally going to get you back for that," said Sheppard.
"We'll see," said Rodney, breezily. "He might get you."
John plopped down at the table. "Not bad, huh?"
Ronon barely glanced up—not quite the reaction John had been hoping for. "It's fine." He raised his eyes again. "Which one are you?"
John bit down on his annoyance. "I'm Colonel Sheppard."
Ronon continued to stuff food in his mouth. "Which one is that?"
"The cool one?"
This was apparently not specific enough; Ronon failed to react. "I'm the first one you met on the planet. The one who freed those botanists you kidnapped?"
"Right."
"I'm a pilot and Rodney's a scientist; I know we look alike but it's not actually that hard to tell us apart..."
The continuing delivery of food to mouth was momentarily paused. "Do you have a point?"
"Yes, I wanted to know what you thought of Atlantis." Be cool, John. He was the cool one, remember?
Ronon returned to the food, shrugging. "It's fine." He kept eating.
"It's disgusting!"
"Yeah. Cool, huh?"
Lieutenant Cadman laughed. "Very."
Rodney peeled back another layer of the dart they'd captured. "Biomechanical systems are very interesting," he agreed. "Their hives are like this, too. Living ships."
"Does that make them easier to destroy?" Cadman asked. "That they're alive?"
"Unfortunately, no." He turned to her. She'd looked cute in her little Marine beret, but with her hair down, all loose and relaxed, she was gorgeous. And she'd approached him! When they'd gotten back from the planet where they captured the dart, she had approached him and told him she "liked the way he hustled." Rodney made an effort not to start bouncing up and down.
"But it should help to have an explosives expert on our side," he told her.
Cadman grinned. "I think being on your side is something I'm definitely going to enjoy."
The last few days had apparently been productive. John had finally been able to secure them a new teammate. Meanwhile, Rodney got himself a girlfriend.
"She's a friend," said Rodney happily, "who's a girl."
"A sex friend?" asked Ronon.
Rodney just beamed.
Ronon turned to John. "I thought you were the cool one."
"I'm going to talk to Teyla now," said John loudly. "Hi, Teyla. How are you?"
"So kind of you to ask," said Teyla, dryly.
It was almost a relief when, not long after, their spaceship got shot down.
Rodney could feel splinters from the blaster shot the disgusting murderous leader had fired at his head. Well, near his head—judging from the hole in the shack wall, if he'd actually been aiming at Rodney, there wouldn't be much head left. Okay, he definitely got the message.
"All right," he said quickly, thinking hard. "I'll fix it. But, uh. I'll need my brother to help me." He shot Sheppard a quick look. Please, please play along.
"You what," the DML said.
"Well, you know," Rodney tried a smile, "two heads are better than one? Besides, we're like—a team, a unit. Like, Wilbur and Orville Wright? Auguste and Louis Lumière. Um..."
"Joel and Ethan Coen," suggested Sheppard. Rodney remembered at the last second not to glare at him and instead shot another sparkling grin at the DML.
"Fine," he growled. Rodney felt someone move behind him and start undoing his bonds.
The DML strode out following his pronouncement, apparently confident or cocky enough that they wouldn't try to pull anything once his back was turned. Rodney glanced around and saw that Sheppard, also in the process of being untied, was trying to whisper some last words to Ronon and Teyla. "Ow!" he said loudly to the prisoner who was untying him. "Can't you be more careful? You're chafing my wrists and I have very delicate skin..."
Ronon snorted at the outburst, but Rodney saw Teyla nod—apparently Sheppard had managed to get his message across.
They were led from the shack and back toward the puddlejumper. Luckily, space inside the jumper was limited: they were left inside with only one guy, the rest of the guards covering the entrance. Rodney crawled under the console and gestured for Sheppard to follow so that they could "check the damage."
"P