Summary: Teyla has an accident with an alien device that leads to revelations about the team. Rodney’s not too happy about his. McKay/Sheppard, Teyla/?.

Spoilers: Up through and including 3×08 McKay and Mrs Miller.

*

The first civilization they came across that was advanced enough for Rodney to be genuinely impressed — without them being Replicators, of course, which were also very impressive once you got past the part where they wanted to kill everyone in Atlantis and got their kicks out of sticking their hands in people’s heads — was P1X-887, a world of happy, smiling, lab coat-clad scientists. Their team had been greeted by the Supreme High Chancellor as soon as they’d set foot on the planet, and the people of Midea, as the world was called, seemed very eager to share their technology. It was wonderful. Rodney was instantly suspicious.

“You want to give it away, just like that?” he asked. “You don’t even know us. We could be planning to take over your planet.”

Sheppard elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. “That’s just Rodney’s way of saying, yes, we’d love to see your technology.”

The Chancellor was obviously a very wise man, as he had recognized Rodney’s significance almost immediately. He seemed to be under the impression Rodney was the team leader; Rodney felt it was in everyone’s best interests not to correct him. “It is rare we meet travelers who have knowledge such as yours,” he said, leading Rodney and the rest of the team towards what he’d said was their main research facility. He was an old geezer with a trimmed white beard, dressed in a long, grey robe with bell sleeves. He also had a tall, pointy grey hat that was a little more Harry Potter than alien. Sheppard had already slipped and called him “Dumbledore” twice.

“Well, very few people have quite the amount of knowledge I do, Your Honour,” Rodney replied smugly. He threw Sheppard a smirk; Sheppard rolled his eyes.

The Chancellor smiled. “The people of Midea hope we can trade with the people from the city of the Ancestors.”

“Yeah, the Ancestors,” Sheppard said, sounding uncomfortable.

The Chancellor frowned at him. “And we hope to trade with you as well,” Teyla added hastily.

“If I could just see some of what your people are working on, that would be great,” Rodney said, directing them back to the more important issue: his getting to see the technology.

The Midean capital was a sea of large, dome-shaped glass buildings that reminded Rodney of bee hives. The paved streets were relatively empty, but a quick glance around showed the buildings full of workers. The life signs detector confirmed this as well; like Rodney was going to walk around an advanced alien planet without checking a few things out first. He wouldn’t be making that mistake again. Luckily, the stargate was situated right outside what appeared to be the city hall, so their journey was brief. Rodney liked this planet. Maybe this would finally be the planet that would provide them with something useful for fighting the Wraith. Or at least something to make their daily lives easier.

Half an hour and a tour of the primary laboratory facility later, he realized he was terribly, horribly wrong. This wasn’t the planet of helpful Wraith haters. This was the Blind Date planet.

“So you’re telling me,” he said, standing in the middle of one of the largest and most well-equipped research labs he’d been inside of in two galaxies, “everything in your culture is centred around finding a spouse?”

“Not just a spouse, true love,” said the Chancellor.

“Twu wuv,” Sheppard murmured under his breath. Rodney tried to catch his eye for a shared look of disgust, but Sheppard was gazing straight at Chancellor Cupid. “You’ll forgive us if we find that a little weird.”

“There is nothing more important than finding your true love,” the Chancellor continued airily. “Without love, there is no reason to continue. It’s the goal of everyone on Midea to help their fellow citizens find his or her love match.”

“So the giant super computer…?” Rodney asked, gesturing to the lab across the hall.

“Is for predicting love matches,” the Chancellor supplied.

“Fantastic,” he muttered. Another planet of crazy people. Just what he needed.

“What if someone doesn’t want to find true love?” Ronon asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

The Chancellor looked horrified. “I think what he means is, what about the people who want to wait?” Sheppard asked.

“Why would you deny yourself love?” the old man asked.

He looked about ready to start lecturing, which was just one more experience Rodney really hadn’t hoped to go through on this mission, when there came a crash from behind them. Rodney turned to see Teyla and a young man picking things up several metallic objects that had fallen to the floor, and placing them back onto a tray. “I am very sorry,” Teyla was saying, “I did not realize you were there.”

She reached for one of the objects.

“No!” the Chancellor cried.

Before Rodney’s very eyes, Teyla flickered out, like someone had hit a switch. In her place was Sheppard. Another Sheppard, because the real one was standing next to Rodney, his brows furrowing in confusion.

“Oh, this is going to suck,” Rodney said.

“Yeah,” agreed Ronon.

“What is going on?” the Sheppard holding the object asked. Only it was Teyla’s voice, which was creepy and wrong, coming out of Sheppard’s body like that. Sheppard — Teyla — climbed to his — her — feet. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

The real Sheppard said, “This is weird.”

“Yeah,” said Ronon, “I didn’t know giant boxes of pancake mix could talk.” The fact Ronon looked genuinely disturbed did not make his statement any less bizarre.

“Right,” Sheppard said slowly, squinting at Ronon. He turned back to Teyla. “Teyla, it doesn’t look like any of us are seeing you as… well, you.”

Rodney eyed the old man, who seemed flustered. “It happened when she touched that device. What is it? It can’t be Ancient, she doesn’t have the gene.” He snapped his fingers. “Teyla, give it to me, maybe there’s a way to shut it off.”

“No, you must’n't!” the Chancellor said. “The device makes other people see the wearer as whomever they desire the most. This is an indication, my dear,” he said to Teyla, “you are in need of love.”

“Huh,” Sheppard said thoughtfully, while Teyla inspected the small, round device in her hand. Sheppard’s hand.

Sheppard’s hand. Rodney froze. “Did you say ‘the thing you desire the most’? Ah, what do you mean by ‘desire,’ actually?”

“Like in a man loves a woman kind of way, Rodney,” Sheppard said, sounding irritated. “It’s for finding love, not for finding friends.”

This was unbelievable. It was more than unbelievable, actually; it was impossible. For one thing, was the device telepathic? He hadn’t seen any technology like that in the Pegasus Galaxy thus far — just that Tok’ra memory tool he’d had a chance to look at when he’d been at Area 51. Was this an Ancient device that had somehow been lost on Midea?

But the more pressing question was why the hell was he seeing Sheppard? If anyone was the love of his life, it was Sam Carter. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

Ronon crossed his arms over his chest. “Your thing is broken. I don’t see a person.”

Relieved, Rodney asked, “What do you see?” Clearly the device wasn’t working properly.

“A giant box of pancake mix.” Rodney’s hope fizzled and died. All four of them stared at Ronon, who raised his eyebrows in response. “I really like pancakes.”

“Well, there goes another food the Pegasus Galaxy has ruined for me,” Rodney grumbled.

“Does this mean you’re pansexual?” Sheppard asked Ronon.

“I don’t know what that means,” Ronon said.

“Yes, let’s just stand around here all day making jokes about Ronon having sex with pancakes,” Rodney scoffed. “That’ll be really productive. Chancellor, how do we turn the device off?”

“You can’t,” the Chancellor responded. “It is programmed to remain on until the wearer finds his or her true love.”

“How does this help her find true love?”

“Ah,” said the Chancellor. He raised a finger in the air. “That is for the wearer to discover.”

“You’re kidding,” Rodney said incredulously. “Is this your way of saying you don’t know what it does?”

The Chancellor’s eyes narrowed. He looked ready to start on something when Teyla jumped in. “Perhaps it is best if we leave it on for now,” she said. “It is not doing any harm, and this way we can take it back to Atlantis to study. If that is alright with you, Chancellor.”

“As long as there are plenty of single men in the city of the Ancestors!” the Chancellor said jovially.

“Please stop talking,” Rodney said.

*

On the way back to the stargate, Rodney asked Ronon, “You seriously see her as pancake mix?” Ronon grunted an affirmative.

“I guess there are worse things to see,” Sheppard said slowly. “You know, like, kids or animals. Or General Landry.”

Rodney frowned. “Now I’m not sure I want to know what you’re seeing.”

But Sheppard kept looking at Teyla oddly. Rodney would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit curious. “Hey, here’s a question,” Sheppard said. “Do I seem kind of… repressed to any of you?”

“Believe me, Colonel, if anyone’s repressed here, it’s me,” Rodney said. He was starting to get a headache from having one Sheppard on either side of him. He had a feeling his next session with Dr Heightmeyer was going to be an important one.

Sheppard looked at him in surprise. “What do you see, McKay?”

“Nothing. Nothing important. You don’t want to know, trust me. What do you see?”

“A hot babe,” Sheppard said, tone implying this should be obvious. All he was missing was the “duh” at the end.

Rodney glanced over his shoulder at Teyla. She smiled back thinly. It was unusual, seeing such a Teyla expression on Sheppard’s face. The real Sheppard, meanwhile, was biting his lip, and Rodney was definitely not going to think about what two John Sheppards would look like together, with their identical pouts and crooked noses and hedgehog hair. No, it was crazy to think that, because either Rodney was seeing Teyla as Sheppard due to a malfunction, or he was sick in the head.

He sighed. “We’re pretty screwed up, aren’t we.”

“I’m good,” said Ronon.

*

Walking back home through the gate created a flurry of excitement. The normal low-level buzz around the command room grew louder when Teyla stepped out from behind Ronon, and someone in the back exclaimed, “Holy mother of God!” A bunch of people scurried over to the balcony to peer down at her.

Elizabeth jogged down the stairs. “John, what’s going on?” she asked.

“Teyla touched something she shouldn’t have,” Sheppard explained.

“Teyla did?” Elizabeth repeated, raising an eyebrow.

Teyla gazed back innocently. It was such a Sheppard expression — one that always should have annoyed Rodney, but never did — that Rodney was taken aback. He had to get out of there. “I’m going ahead to the infirmary for my check-up. There’s really nothing for me to report, and I have a lot of work to catch up on,” he said, walking backwards towards the exit. Two Sheppards blinked at him, and Elizabeth frowned. The only one who wasn’t paying attention to him was Ronon, who was busy staring at Teyla like she was a cheeseburger and he hadn’t eaten in a week. Which was a horrible, horrible analogy, considering he saw her as pancakes.

“Rodney,” Elizabeth called.

“Busy!” he shouted back.

“Wonder who he sees,” he heard Sheppard say as the doors whispered shut behind him.

*

There wasn’t anything in the Ancient database on the device from Midea. Granted, he hadn’t expected a search for “hologram love machine” to come up with much, but there wasn’t a single file anything that remotely resembled what he was looking for. He’d have to get Elizabeth on it later; his Ancient was a tad more rusty than hers.

After a few hours of searching, he did find a file with a few notes on the planet. His Ancient wasn’t great, but he definitely made out the words “crazy” and “marriage” and “cult.” Three words he never wanted to see put together.

Rodney tensed when the doors opened, but it was just Zelenka, carrying a tablet under one arm and pushing up his glasses with his free hand.

“John is looking for you,” Zelenka said, instead of, “Hello.”

Rodney barely managed not to roll his eyes at Zelenka’s use of Sheppard’s first name. If anyone should be seeing Sheppard as their love match, it was him. “He’ll just have to wait,” Rodney said tersely. “I’m not at his beck and call.”

Zelenka looked up from his tablet, pulling a stool to the lab bench closest to Rodney’s console. “Are you hiding?”

“No,” Rodney said.

“But you never come into my laboratory unless you do not want anyone to find you,” he said.

“What are you talking about, I’m in here all the time,” Rodney protested.

“You said it smelled like a cabbages, and that being in here for too long made you long for death.”

“No, I said your constant ramblings in Czech made me feel like I was trapped in a room with the kid from the Exorcist,” Rodney said. He paused the scrolling words on the screen and took a seat opposite from Zelenka. He wasn’t getting anywhere with the database. “Although I’ve noticed the smell of cabbages has mostly dissipated. Well done.”

Zelenka snorted. “While you are not hiding from John, I have something you can look at.”

From the front pocket of his jacket, he retrieved a small, circular object. The glass was a quarter inch thick, and it was framed by a thick piece of black plastic. “Dr Coleman found it in one of the abandoned rooms. It was covered in cobwebs,” Zelenka said, while Rodney weighed it with his palm.

While Zelenka went back to his tablet, Rodney continued to study the thing. He held it up to the light; there was a faint reddish sheen on the glass, but that was the only distinguishing feature he could pick out. Sheppard probably would’ve been able to figure out what it was. Sheppard had always had the uncanny ability to think outside the box, no matter what the situation.

But then, in a flash of amazing insight, it came to him. “I’ve got it!” Rodney exclaimed.

Zelenka jumped, knocking his tablet to the floor with a loud clatter. “Kurva drát,” he swore. “What is it?”

“I know what this is.” Rodney held up the artifact proudly. It was so obvious; he didn’t know why it had taken him so long to figure out. This was exactly why being preoccupied with his and Sheppard’s non-existent sexual relationship was a bad idea.

Zelenka leaned forward. “Yes?”

“It is a monocle, like you see in movies,” Rodney announced.

Zelenka visibly deflated. Rodney put the monocle over one eye and squeezed the other shut, raising his chin. “What do you think, do I look dignified?”

“Dignity is impossible for you,” Zelenka said.

“Huh, I wonder what the Ancients needed monocles for,” Rodney mused. He didn’t see any differently with it on; it like wearing a pair of fake glasses. Even the reddish tint on the outside of the glass didn’t do anything. “It doesn’t seem to have an actual purpose.”

“Perhaps it is for a costume,” Zelenka said dryly.

“What, for Ancient Halloween?”

On a bench against the wall sat a crate Zelenka and some of the other scientists had been using to keep Ancient objects they’d thought were useless. Rodney began shifting through it. Maybe he could find something that went along with the monocle. “You didn’t see a pipe in here, did you?”

He stuck his head in the crate, pulling out all sorts of interesting yet probably useless artifacts. In the glee of discovery, he’d almost forgotten Zelenka was there, until Zelenka casually asked, “So who do you see instead of Teyla?”

Rodney’s head shot up. He glared. “You’ve been waiting all day to ask me that, haven’t you.”

“I have,” Zelenka admitted. He didn’t sound ashamed.

“Who I see is none of your business,” Rodney said stiffly. Like he’d let anyone know some malfunctioning alien doo-dad was telling him Sheppard was his one true love. “Fine, if you must know, I see Colonel Carter. Of course. Who else would I see?”

“Oh, I thought you would have seen John. My mistake.”

“Why would you think that?” Rodney asked, shocked.

Zelenka’s gaze shifted to something in the distance. “No reason,” he replied slowly.

“Zelenka, you disgusting little monkey, if you’re not straight with me–”

“Ho, straight!” Zelenka said. He wagged a finger at Rodney. “That is a good one. Is it really so strange to think someone else has noticed your, how shall I put this, infatuation?”

Rodney felt his heartbeat quicken. Oh no, he was not panicking just because Zelenka thought he had feelings for the most frustrating person in the Pegasus Galaxy. “Infatuation?” he echoed loudly. “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me, and, yes, I’m including your theories on special relativity. Colonel Sheppard and I are friends. We’re– very good friends, who happen to save each other’s lives on a near-daily basis. There’s nothing romantic about it.”

“Okay,” Zelenka said, but when he turned away, Rodney saw him rolling his eyes.

That pissed him off. What made Zelenka think he knew Rodney better than Rodney knew himself? That was why he was a second-tier scientist while Rodney was in charge, because he jumped to conclusions without knowing the facts. He didn’t know a single thing about Rodney if he thought that, and he certainly didn’t know anything about friendship. And just because Rodney hadn’t had many close friends during his lifetime didn’t mean Rodney didn’t understand his relationship with Sheppard for what it was.

“What kind of person do you think I am?” he demanded. “Do you really think I’ve been carrying a torch for Sheppard this entire time? The entire three years we’ve known each other? All the times we’ve saved each other’s asses and worked in close combat situations, relying only on each other for our very survival? All the time without either of us seriously dating anyone, because no one outside our team could possibly understand what we’ve been through? What, I ask you, what kind of person would that make me?”

Zelenka’s eyes narrowed. “You know, Rodney, perhaps I would take you more seriously if you were not wearing the monocle.”

*

The next morning, when Rodney carried his tray over to their usual table, Ronon and Elizabeth were already there. Ronon was chowing down a stack of pancakes like he wouldn’t get a chance to eat for another seven years. Elizabeth’s back was to Rodney, but he could see she wasn’t eating. She was probably as grossed out by Ronon’s eating habits as the rest of, oh, civilized life.

“You know, considering a box of pancake mix is your one true love, this is really quite disturbing,” Rodney said, taking the seat next to Elizabeth.

Ronon paused. “How come?” he asked, mouth full.

Rodney rolled his eyes and dug into his eggs. Elizabeth was staring at something in the distance, plate still untouched, and his curiosity was piqued. He asked, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she answered with a shake of her head. But then she nodded in the direction she’d been staring at, and Rodney glanced over.

Rodney’s chest tightened at the sight of two Sheppards sitting together at a corner table. It wasn’t them sitting with each other that was the problem, because Sheppard and Teyla ate together all the time. They were friends, after all; she’d been Sheppard’s friend long before Rodney had magnanimously decided Sheppard was less of a clown than he’d previously thought. But the way the Sheppard on the left side was leaning back, head tilted, lips curled, that was horrifying familiar. He wondered what Sheppard saw when he looked at Teyla. He really couldn’t imagine Sheppard would see anyone in Atlantis. An old girlfriend, perhaps? One of the many men and women who had thrown themselves at him offworld? That slut from the cloister? Chaya?

“What do you suppose John and Teyla are talking about?” Elizabeth asked.

“That bimbo,” Rodney muttered.

“Watch what you say about my pa– about Teyla,” Ronon warned.

Elizabeth was also peering at Rodney disapprovingly. He waved a hand dismissively. “No, no, not Teyla. Whichever space babe of the week Sheppard’s seeing in her place.”

“Is that what you think he sees?” Elizabeth wondered. She sounded amused. When he looked at her in surprise, she quickly started eating her breakfast. He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Ronon said. “Sheppard flirts a lot, but I don’t think he loves any of those women. That’s what the device is for, to show you who you love.”

“You see pancake mix,” said Rodney irritably. “You can’t marry pancake mix, now can you?”

Ronon leaned forward with a knowing smirk. “What do you see, McKay?”

“I have to go back to the lab,” Rodney said hurriedly.

*

There were many things Rodney could be working on, including taking apart Teyla’s hologram device, but he found the thing he wanted to sort out the most was the monocle. But there wasn’t anything to really do to it. The plastic casing on the outer edge was seamless, and the glass appeared to be just that: glass.

He was considering taking it over to the main labs to test different kinds of chemicals on it when the door opened, and in walked someone he’d really been hoping to avoid.

“Hello, Colonel,” he said flatly. Sheppard’s eyebrows shot up, and Rodney added, “Well, I suppose since you’re here, you might as well help me out on something.”

“You see me as John?”

That wasn’t Sheppard’s voice. Rodney’s stomached bottomed out as he had the horrible realization it was Teyla standing in the doorway, and he said hastily, “Of course not, that was a joke, why on Earth would I ever see Colonel Sheppard as the love of my life? The very idea is laughable. See, this is me laughing. Ha ha ha!”

“Rodney,” Teyla said.

“There’s something wrong with your match-making device,” Rodney insisted.

Teyla carefully sat on the stool nearest to the lab bench. That was unlike Sheppard; he preferred to peer over Rodney’s shoulder or lean all over everything, like a big, slutty leaning thing. “You do not need to worry about me telling John,” she said. “I believe he is avoiding me.”

“Why is that?” he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

While her movements were all her own, it was amazing how the device managed to make Teyla’s distasteful expression look identical to Sheppard’s. Rodney would really have to get his hands onto some of that technology. But his focus on the device faded when Teyla said, “He became quite nervous when I realized he saw me as a man.”

“What?” Rodney demanded. “Sheppard’s into men? That can’t be! I’m shocked! Shocked! That’s– actually, that does make sense. So who does he see? Is it Keras from the kid planet? I knew that piece of jailbait ass had a thing for him. My God, Sheppard’s practically robbing the cradle.”

“I am sure John did not sleep with Keras, Rodney,” Teyla responded. “And even if he did, that was years ago. They have not seen each other since.”

“How do you know he hasn’t? What with this whole homosexual double life he’s been leading.”

Teyla looked annoyed. Or at least, she was making the same face Sheppard did when he was annoyed. “Because we would know if he was taking trips through the stargate often enough to have a relationship with someone on another planet.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Rodney admitted grudgingly. He narrowed his eyes at her. “So if Sheppard’s hiding from you, why are you here?”

Teyla squared her shoulders. “It is very uncomfortable when everyone sees you as the one they desire. Everyone is acting very strange around me. Ronon keeps calling me ‘Pancakes,’ and even Elizabeth is not herself. I was hoping you, at least, would behave normally. Since you have a difficult time telling someone you like them even as a friend.”

“Thank you,” Rodney said, touched.

“What are you studying?” Teyla asked, nodding to the monocle.

“I’m trying to figure out what the function is of this,” he said. He held it between his thumb and forefinger.

“It looks like half of a pair of glasses.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he snapped.

Teyla gingerly took it from him and lifted it towards the light. This gave Rodney the perfect opportunity to study the slope of Sheppard’s narrow jaw, the slight upturn of his nose. From this angle, his eyes were a soft green. Okay, so Sheppard was hot; this wasn’t news. It didn’t mean Rodney was in love with him or anything.

She handed the monocle back to Rodney. He was finishing putting it on just as Zelenka walked through the door, and immediately, Teyla shifted from Sheppard to Ronon.

“Oh my God,” Rodney said. He gestured for Zelenka to stop moving.

When he pulled the monocle off, Teyla was Sheppard again.

Rodney stared at the monocle in his hand, and then back at Zelenka and Teyla. “Zelenka,” he asked slowly, “you wouldn’t by chance see Ronon when you look at Teyla, would you?”

“How did you know?” Zelenka gasped.

“Ronon?” Teyla asked. “That is even stranger than you seeing John, Rodney.”

“You do see John?” Zelenka smirked. “I knew it. Did I not say I knew?”

“You see Ronon,” Rodney pointed out.

“He is very tall and muscular,” Zelenka said defensively. “He is, how would you say, man candy.”

“I would never say that,” Rodney said.

“Neither would I,” said Teyla.

*

“You have to do this,” Rodney insisted.

“No,” Teyla said stubbornly, “I will not.”

“It’s an important scientific breakthrough–”

“You want me to do this so you will know who everyone is in love with, and you can blackmail them,” Teyla interrupted, glaring. “I will not subject the others to your pettiness.”

Rodney crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll have to go in the control room eventually. I can wait.”

It turned out Teyla was far less frightening when she looked like Sheppard, whose faces tended to be more ridiculous than menacing. She gave Rodney one last, long scowl and stormed down the corridor.

“I’ll be waiting,” he called her to back.

She returned ten minutes later.

“Well, well, well,” he said smugly, “look who’s come crawling back.”

“I had forgotten I have a meeting with Elizabeth,” Teyla said coldly. “You may follow me in, but I will have nothing to do with your scheme.”

“That’s fine,” Rodney said, moving aside so she could step through the doors.

When he left by himself a few minutes later, it was in outrage. He’d been hoping for something funny, or at least something he could use against them, but everyone — literally everyone — in the control room was in love with the same person: Elizabeth. That was so predictable. Zelenka loved Ronon, Ronon loved pancakes, he loved (supposedly loved) Sheppard, but everyone else had a thing for the boss.

*

He was headed to Zelenka’s lab when a supply closet door opened, and out shot a hand. It latched onto the front of Rodney’s jacket and pulled him in.

“What the hell?” he started to shout, when he realized he was looking at Sheppard. A Sheppard. He didn’t know which one. “Hello?”

“Hey, Rodney.” Definitely the real Sheppard then.

“Why are you hiding in supply closets?” Rodney asked suspiciously.

Sheppard smiled brightly. Rodney recoiled. “You haven’t happened to see Teyla recently, have you?” Sheppard asked, unusually chipper.

“Uh, recently?” Rodney responded. He tried to think fast. “How recent are we talking about?”

Sheppard rubbed the back of his neck. His smile faded a little. “Did she say anything to you about me? Maybe about what I see?”

“No, she hasn’t,” Rodney lied. “And if she has, why would you think I’d care? Do you think I don’t have anything to do but sit around and gossip over what kind of guys John Sheppard finds attractive?”

Sheppard’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“I mean, women,” Rodney said.

“So she did talk to you,” Sheppard said accusingly.

Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose. “Honestly, that’s all she said. I have no idea who you see when you look at her. Although you could’ve told me you were bisexual. I thought we were–” He waved a hand. “Close. In only the way two semi-heterosexual guys can be.”

“We are,” Sheppard said. He looked uncomfortable now, instead of defensive. “I never said anything ’cause I don’t really date all that much, and dating women was just always one of those things I was expected to do, you know?”

“No, not really,” Rodney said honestly.

“I was on the football team,” Sheppard explained, like it should have been obvious.

“I have no idea how that relates to what we’re talking about. So while you’re not dating men, would you tell me if you slept with Keras?”

Sheppard looked taken aback. “Who’s Keras? Wait, the guy from the kid planet? That was three years ago.”

“Well,” Rodney said sheepishly, “I just thought– since he was so interested in you, and you’re– nevermind. It’s not important.”

“He wasn’t interested in me,” Sheppard insisted, frowning, “he just wanted me to be the person he spent the last moments of his life with. It’s not his fault the ritual called for naked touching. It was a ritual.”

“What?” Rodney asked shrilly.

“Hey, you’re seeing Teyla as Carter, right?”

“Yes, Colonel Carter,” Rodney said carefully. “You know me and my masturbatory fantasies about Carter. I do love those perky blondes.”

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Sheppard said.

*

The next time he lured Teyla into the labs for some assistance on something he could have easily had anyone else in Atlantis do, he worked fast.

“Major Lorne, could you come to the main laboratory right away?” he asked over the radio, turning away so Teyla couldn’t hear.

“Sure thing, Dr McKay,” Lorne’s voice said in his ear.

When he walked through the door a few minutes later, Teyla’s device shifted her over to Elizabeth’s form.

Rodney rolled his eyes in disgust. God forbid Lorne be original and fall for someone else.

“What can I do you for?” Lorne asked cheerfully. He beamed at Teyla.

“That’ll be all, Major,” Rodney said.

*

Rodney had only briefly considered spying on Sheppard and Teyla so he could see who it was Sheppard loved. He’d almost called both of them into his lab at least four times, but each time he’d stopped himself at the last minute. Rodney was hardly the type of guy who preferred to live in blissful ignorance, but there was this little voice in the back of his mind — the kind of voice he usually ignored — that said, “You want to maintain the delusion you have Sheppard all to yourself.”

Knowing Sheppard’s love of all things bad ass, his mysterious love interest was probably Ronon. Or Lorne. Or, God help him, Caldwell. Maybe it was someone from Earth, and Sheppard had been pining away this whole time. Maybe it was some dead guy Rodney could never compete with in a million years. If his seeing Sheppard wasn’t all a vicious lie meant to ruin his life, of course.

If he was being really honest, Rodney would admit the thought of Sheppard being in love made him a little queasy.

So it was really unintentional when he stumbled across Sheppard and Teyla alone in the commissary, and it was merely a coincidence he was wearing the Ancient monocle. (He’d been hoping to catch Elizabeth and Teyla walking through the corridors together, so he could figure out just why Elizabeth got that strange look on her face whenever the two women had been in the same room at the same time, in his pre-monocle period.)

When he saw a very handsome, and very familiar, person sitting at the table with Sheppard — himself, Dr Meredith Rodney McKay — he did the only thing any reasonable person would do:

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded, disturbing their little tete-a-tete.

Sheppard squinted at him. “Are you wearing a monocle?”

“What I’m wearing is not as important as what you’re doing.”

“Getting something to drink with Teyla?” Sheppard said.

Teyla was looking at Rodney like he was something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. Except it was with Rodney’s own handsome, handsome face. “Rodney, you should not be here,” she all but growled. Oh, that was bizarre, Teyla’s voice coming out of his mouth.

Sheppard seemed curious at her words, but Rodney would rather throw himself off the nearest balcony than let Sheppard know he’d been spying on everyone. He had his dignity, after all. “You know, Rodney, She’s not really Colonel Carter,” he said.

Rodney looked at the image of himself and Sheppard at the table, at Sheppard all relaxed and smiling in a way he’d seen a thousand times over. It was at that point he realized the Midean chancellor had been right, and he really had been looking at the person he loved the most.

*

The problem with Rodney knowing Sheppard was in love with him was, well, knowing Sheppard was in love with him. And he loved Sheppard back. Probably. He hadn’t been in many situations like this in his lifetime; mostly, he spent his time trying to convince the other person he was worthy of dating. It was rare for him to fall for someone who loved him back without him having to work at it. Katie Brown had gone out with him because she’d liked him, and look how that had turned out.

What Rodney needed to do was be upfront with Sheppard about it. Sheppard loved him. There was little chance this could all go horribly wrong.

The next day at lunch, he sat down at Sheppard’s table.

“John,” he began immediately.

Sheppard’s eyebrows arched. “Meredith?”

Rodney was bursting to tell him everything, that he saw Sheppard just like Sheppard saw him, and they could run off (okay, fly away) into the sunset together, or maybe just that they should go talk privately before one of the Marines gay-bashed them, but what came out was, “You know, I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’re bi.”

“I can’t believe you won’t shut the hell up,” Sheppard hissed, pointedly glancing around the commissary, which was mostly empty.

“What was that?” Ronon asked around his mashed potatoes.

“Could we not talk about this in public?” Sheppard asked lowly.

“Please, it’s hardly like Ronon is public,” Rodney scoffed.

“Are you talking about Sheppard liking guys?” Ronon asked. “‘Cause I already knew.”

Betrayed, Rodney glared at Sheppard, who snapped, “I didn’t tell him.”

“I watch a lot of movies with the Marines,” Ronon said. He sucked a glob of gravy off his thumb. “There was a gay guy in Be Cool.”

“Who, The Rock?” Rodney asked. “You used The Rock as a basis for figuring out Sheppard’s sexual identity?”

Ronon nodded seriously. “He was funny. He had an afro. It made me think about picking my hair out.”

Rodney snorted. “All that hair wouldn’t fit in one room. It would get in fight with Sheppard’s hair for team supremacy, and–”

“Hey,” Sheppard cut in.

“I’ve learned a lot about Earth from movies,” Ronon said. “Like how high school was the most important period of your life, and how everyone likes good-looking people the most.”

“Erm,” Rodney said.

“That’s not really true,” Sheppard said. “See, they’re just movies…”

“Also,” Ronon continued, pointing a food-slathered finger at Rodney, “never stick your dick in apple pie.”

“Never stick it into something you could otherwise eat,” Rodney said wisely.

Ronon looked pleased. “That’s good advice.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Sheppard said.

*

“You’re not still mad at me for hanging out with Teyla, are you?”

Rodney startled at the voice. He glanced over his shoulder at Sheppard in the doorway, his hands on his hips. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, you lunatic. What are you doing down here? Are you following me?”

“Here” was the formerly-submerged room where Simpson had found the monocle. Rodney had tried everything he knew of to find out exactly what the device was, but he was out of resources. The database revealed nothing; anything he tried to do to the monocle had no effect. If he hadn’t been such a determined person, he would have written it off days ago. Instead, he’d had the brilliant idea of returning the place of its origin. Perhaps there was something in this room that would give him a clue.

Unfortunately, the wide, blue room was mostly empty. There was something that might have been a desk mounted to one wall; that was where the monocle had been found, most likely.

Sheppard shrugged. “I was bored,” he said easily, practically sauntering into the room. “I finished all my back-logged paperwork, so I don’t have anything to do. It doesn’t look like Teya’s going to go back to normal anytime soon.”

“Yeah, about that,” Rodney muttered.

Sheppard stopped walking when he barely two feet away from Rodney. Why had Rodney never noticed how Sheppard was just about crawling all over him all the time? He swore he didn’t used to be this stupid. Maybe it was all the sun he was getting. And all the time he was spending with Ronon.

Oddly, Sheppard breathing down his neck gave him courage. If Sheppard wasn’t going to the brave one, it was up to Rodney to get them out of this mess.

“I need to say something to you,” he said, a little louder than necessary. He drew himself up to full height. “Look, I know you see me when you look at Teyla.”

Sheppard’s expression stilled. “What?”

“And I’m not upset–”

“What makes you think I see you?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney felt his face flush. “Ah, well, remember the monocle? Zelenka thinks it was left by the Ancients, and it allows me to see everyone’s so-called ‘one true love.’”

Sheppard cocked his head. “How does that work?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Rodney said. “It’s made of glass, but it has this reddish– The point is, I saw you see me.”

“Rodney,” Sheppard started. His eyes darted left and right nervously.

“I wanted to tell you that it’s okay. It’s more than okay, really, because I’m very– flattered. I’m very flattered, and it’s nice knowing–”

Sheppard interrupted him with, “Cut the crap. We really don’t need to have this discussion, I’ve heard it all before. You like me but you don’t like me, you’re not gay–”

“Ah,” Rodney said, wincing.

“You are gay?” Sheppard shouted. “After you got mad at me for not coming out to you?”

“Well, excuse me for not being in touch with my sexuality at every moment of every day,” Rodney countered, throwing his arms in the air.

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“Does too!”

“Does not! And are you saying you do like me?”

Sheppard was still shouting, which was probably a bad sign, but by this point Rodney was too worked up to care.

“Yes,” Rodney yelled back. It was entirely possible he was flailing, just a little. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, if you stopped interrupting.”

“Well, good!” Sheppard exclaimed.

“Fine,” Rodney shouted. “Should we make out now?”

“I don’t see why not,” Sheppard said, and jumped on him.

Twenty minutes later, they both both lying on the floor, panting, their pants and boxers around their ankles. Rodney’s entire body felt like it was made of rubber, and from the stunned look on Sheppard’s face, he was feeling the exact same way.

“That was the best sex I’ve ever had on a floor,” Rodney said.

“Mmmm,” Sheppard sighed. He sat up and pulled his pants back up over his nice, lean thighs. Rodney had a lot of plans for those thighs, now that he’d been up close and personal with Sheppard’s mostly-naked body.

“The funny thing is,” Rodney said, moving to get his clothes back on and in order, “I didn’t even know I had feelings for you.”

“I did,” Sheppard said, “but mostly it was me imaging shutting you up with, well, something other than words, let’s say.”

Rodney eyed him. “If you mean your cock, we’re going to have to work our way up to that.”

Sheppard smirked. Then his gaze shifted and he asked, “Hey, so this is what you used to find out what everyone sees Teyla as?” He reached over and plucked the monocle off the floor, where it must have fallen out of Rodney’s pocket during their rush to tear off each other’s clothes.

“Will you put that down?” Rodney asked, as Sheppard put it on. He looked completely ridiculous. “It’s Ancient, you don’t know how to handle it like I do.”

“Whoa,” Sheppard interupted. “You’ve got to see this.”

*

“So the device appears to be, essentially, for reading messages written using a certain kind of– well, we’re not sure if it’s ink or paint yet. Some of the chemists are working on that.”

Sheppard added, “When I put on the, uh, monocle in that room, there were a bunch of messages written on the wall in Ancient.”

“And here I just thought you were going crazy, Rodney,” Elizabeth replied, but she was smiling. She looked a little too happy about this, actually. “I have to say, using a monocle as a tool for reading secret messages seems a bit silly. I always thought the Ancients were more sophisticated than that.”

“Well, the stuff written on the wall roughly translated to, ‘Ciceron is a butthead,’” Sheppard said sheepishly.

“Right,” Rodney said, “our best guess is it was a children’s toy, like a decoder ring from a Crackerjacks box.” All that precious work for nothing. At least he knew some potentially embarrassing things about a good number of his peers now. It was the only thing keeping him going. Well, that and the inevitable sexual olympics he’d have with Sheppard later.

Elizabeth folded her hands on her desk. She kept smiling, though, which was beginning to creep Rodney out. “Well, that’s interesting. I guess. Is there anything else you need to tell me about this device?”

Rodney and Sheppard exchanged glances. “No,” they said simultaneously.

“Hey,” Sheppard said quietly as soon as they were out of Elizabeth’s hearing range, “I need to talk to Elizabeth about some stuff, but do you want to have dinner later? Just the two of us? I mean, since we already, you know.” He made a funny gesture Rodney couldn’t decipher, but he got the gist.

“That sounds, um, very good,” Rodney said, keeping his voice steady. “I’ll see you then?”

Sheppard grinned. “Yeah.” He backed up a few steps without tearing his eyes away from Rodney’s, before finally turning and heading back into the office.

Rodney stood there for a brief moment, unable to move away. Until Sergeant Campbell cleared his throat and said, “Uh…”

“Oh, go back to drooling over Elizabeth,” Rodney snapped, and Campbell’s face turned red.

Later, he was alone in his lab when Teyla came strolling in. Only she wasn’t Sheppard anymore; she was herself.

“Oh no, one roll with Sheppard and I’ve fallen out of love with him already,” Rodney cried.

Teyla’s brows knitted. “I am sorry, what was that? Rodney, the device stopped working.”

He was instantly relieved. “I knew that. Did the projector run out of power?”

“No,” she replied. One corner of her mouth rose. “I believe the device did what it was intended to do.”

“Who’s your ‘true love’? And more importantly, are you saying the Mideans actually created something to help single people find a match?”

“While the rest of Atlantis saw me as someone else they desired, there was one person who saw me as myself.” She ducked her head, cheeks pinkening. “Elizabeth. That was why she was behaving oddly around me. I believe it was a revelation for herself as well.”

At least seventy-five per cent of Atlantis was in love with Elizabeth, but somehow, this surprised him the most. “Elizabeth? Really?” he said in surprise. Then he realized how that sounded. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The opposite of wrong, really. It just never occured to me that you two would be interested in each other. Although I guess that makes sense, since there’s no hierarchy keeping you apart.”

“And she has a nice ass,” Teyla said.

Summary: Pre-The Return. Sheppard has a run-in with a Wraith. Things go downhill from there. McKay/Sheppard, Teyla/Other.

Spoilers: Up through and including SGA 3×08 McKay and Mrs Miller, and a tiny one for SG-1 7×07 Enemy Mine.

*

Part One: My So-Called Wraith

As a general rule, John Sheppard didn’t have high expectations. That was the kind of guy he was; the lower the bar was set, the less chance there was for disappointment.

It went without saying he hadn’t had any expectations when he’d walked through the stargate and into the Pegasus Galaxy. All he’d known was it was alien, it was far from home, and it would be hard-pressed for him to get into more trouble there than he already was on Earth. He hadn’t expected becoming commanding officer. He hadn’t expected having his own team. He hadn’t expected protecting Atlantis from Wraith, Genii, and more recently, evil killer androids. And he really, really hadn’t expected getting his life sucked out by a space vampire. That one in particular had never even crossed his mind, not when he’d been thinking things like, “What if the wormhole screws up and my head ends up on my ass?” and, “Will there be Vulcans?”

When John stepped back in the puddlejumper after saying goodbye to the Wraith who had saved him from Kolya’s SS agents, Rodney hissed, “I can’t believe you let him go.”

“He saved my life,” John said.

“So?” Rodney asked.

John rolled his eyes. “We have a bond?”

“He killed you!” Rodney exclaimed.

“He brought me back,” John said.

“Well, excuse me for being a little traumatized,” Rodney snapped.

He stomped to the front of the jumper. The three Marines in the back with John pointedly studied their boots.

John glanced up at Ronon, who raised his eyebrows in response. “What?” John asked.

“I’m traumatized too,” Ronon said.

John glared. “You are not.”

“You were old,” Ronon muttered.

One of the Marines raised his hand. “I’m traumatized.”

“I don’t even know you,” John said.

*

John’s first indication something was wrong was when he began considering getting a tattoo.

It wasn’t the tattoo that was the first giveaway; it was where he wanted it done. A few mornings after Jeannie Miller went back to Earth and Rod McKay went back to the Bizarro dimension, John spent a good ten minutes in front of the mirror wondering how badly a tattoo on the side of his face would hurt, and if he could get something deep and meaningful. Or if that failed, those dots Dax had on Deep Space Nine. Suddenly, it seemed like an amazingly cool idea. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“What do you think the Marines would say if I got a tattoo on my face?” he asked Rodney at breakfast.

“They’d say you were the coolest guy in cell block D,” Rodney said flatly. His head snapped up, eyes going wide. “Not that, uh, anyone would look at you and automatically think anything about prison. Or torture. Or being in prison and tortured. Because that would be ridiculous.”

He paused, and they stared at each other over their waffles — Rodney obviously flustered, and John remembering how after he’d almost turned into a Wraith last year, Rodney hadn’t said the words “bug” or “blue” for two months.

“You’re lucky my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder keeps me from kicking your ass, McKay,” John said. Rodney’s expression turned slightly pained, and he added, “Don’t worry, the day you can’t make prison jokes around me is the day I start a Mensa club.”

Rodney still looked worried. “Yes, well. I’ve been trying to work on that whole…” He waved a hand. “Insensitive. Thing.”

“Yeah?” John asked. “How’s that going for you?”

“Let’s see, I’ve brought up you being in jail, and earlier today I told Elizabeth I slept so well last night I might as well have been in a coma.”

“So about as well as could be expected, then,” John said. Rodney snorted.

John was considering going through the line again for seconds when Rodney asked, mouth still full of food, “Hey, don’t the Wraith like putting tattoos on their faces?”

*

In retrospect, it had starting happening almost immediately after he’d escaped. Nothing John ate seemed to fill him up. Inititally, he thought it was his metabolism, because he had been working out a lot lately, but his weight didn’t change. He had worried he was developing some kind of unconscious, PTSD-related eating disorder, but then he remembered he wasn’t a chick. No matter what Rodney might say.

He’d been back from his stint as a PoW for three weeks when the nightmares started. Seeing himself as a Wraith was hard, but going to his friends’ rooms and feeding off them one by one was a lot harder. It always went in the same order, too: Ronon, Elizabeth, Teyla, Rodney. He’d feel a rush of pleasure, and then a warm fullness, like he’d just eaten a meal at Red Lobster, his favourite restaurant back on Earth. Of course, it wasn’t his favourite anymore. He felt drawn to the fried shrimp bucket, yet it repelled him.

One good thing about Rodney’s obsessive nature was no matter what time John woke up sweaty and freaked out, he’d be in his lab. Rodney never seemed to know what time it was, so John never got a lecture on how all good colonels should be asleep at four ‘o’ clock in the morning. Occasionally, when wandering the halls at early hours, he’d run into Elizabeth — he really didn’t want to know what she was doing — and she’d give him concerned looks. All Rodney did was talk about everything and nothing until John fell asleep again, the top of his head brushing McKay’s laptop.

“You don’t think it’s possible for the Wraith to have sucked out my brain, do you?” John asked one night, pulling up a stool to Rodney’s cluttered lab bench. He’d had a week of solid nightmares, and he was getting less scared and more pissed off with every one that hit.

Rodney looked at him like he was an idiot. “First, you’d have to have a brain for him to suck out,” he said.

John grimaced. “I’m serious! I think that stupid Wraith did something to me.”

Rodney stiffened and pushed his laptop aside. “‘Something’ how?” He peered at John with bright, sharp eyes. “Can you still do your job? Do we need to talk to Elizabeth? Am I in any danger?”

John rubbed the back of his neck. “No. It’s mostly nightmares and… stuff.” It sounded stupid when he said it out loud.

Rodney made signs that elaboration was needed. “Wanting to feed off me ’stuff’?”

John glared. “I just feel off, that’s all. I’m tired, and all I want to do is be alone.”

“And yet, here you are,” Rodney said sarcastically. “Colonel, I know I’m not exactly the epitome of mental health, but it sounds to me like you might be depressed.”

“I’m not depressed,” John said angrily. He never should have made that PTSD joke.

“You’ve been through quite an ordeal, and you didn’t exactly have a lot of time to recuperate. There’s no need to be ashamed. It’s perfectly understandable.”

“I am not depressed,” John repeatedly, enunciating each word slowly. “The Wraith did something to me. I don’t know what he did, but I can feel it.”

“Well, have you talked to Carson?”

“Carson can’t help if it’s in my head.”

“Okay, okay. It’s not like your well-being has any bearing on the safety of this expedition or anything.”

“If I start turning blue, I’ll see Carson,” John snapped, scratching his arm.

Rodney reached around him and opened a plastic container filled with something that smelled disgusting. John gagged. “What the hell are you eating?” he demanded, scooting his stool away quickly.

“It’s Thursday,” Rodney said. “Fishsticks?”

His stomach turned. “Can you eat it away from me?” he asked.

Rodney’s brow furrowed. “Sheppard, seriously, go see Carson.”

John dropped his face in his hands. “I’m starving,” he groaned.

“Are you telling me,” Rodney asked, voice rising, “that you long for the taste of human flesh?”

John stared. “Actually, I was thinking of a pizza.”

“Mmm, pizza,” Rodney said.

“Mmm, human flesh,” John sighed.

He didn’t go see Carson. He saw Heightmeyer, but that was only because Elizabeth wouldn’t have let him go on missions if he’d refused.

“Are you still having nightmares?” Heightmeyer would ask.

“Yup,” he would answer, and then stare at the water out the window as he made up traumatic stories about his childhood to distract her. His favourite was the one where his parents were Mormon missionaries who traveled around the world to spread the word of Jesus Christ while he sat home and lived off peanut butter and crackers, next to the one where his parents were traveling circus midgets.

Although that had backfired: “Is that why you have such a problem with your sexuality?” Heightmeyer had asked. “Because of your religious background?”

“I’m not gay,” John had said.

She’d given him a sorrowful look. “John, I can’t help you unless you’re honest with me.”

One day, shortly after he’d asked Rodney about the brain suckage, she said, “Rodney says you’re not dealing well with what happened. What do you think?”

“I think Rodney needs to shut his pie hole,” John grumbled.

There was no way in hell he was telling her about the Wraith getting in his head. Even if she did believe him, Carson would probably lock him up and dissect his brain or something.

“You went through serious emotional and physical trauma,” Heightmeyer said soothingly.

“I’ve been through worse,” he said.

“Really?” she asked.

He pretended to think about it. “There was that time my father threatened to disown me for throwing up on the scout for the Detroit Tigers, after my brother hit me in the head with a wild pitch.” It was, perhaps, the first time he’d mentioned his family since coming to Atlantis.

“John, stop lying to me about your childhood,” Heightmeyer said.

*

On top of being starving and afraid of seafood, he was losing interest in little things. He noticed football suddenly wasn’t any fun anymore, and he traded his sports DVDs to Zelenka for some artsy European films. When Ronon wanted to play “who can jump off the highest surface without getting hurt,” John said he was busy. He found himself telling Teyla over and over that he couldn’t hang out with her because he had too much work to do. Even Rodney, while still being annoying (yet sometimes annoying in a fun way, and when he was being a smug bastard, good-looking in a way that had John worrying about his own sanity), had noticed John wasn’t stopping by the labs as often.

Mostly, John spent a lot of time playing golf alone on the pier. It was quiet. It was nice.

It wasn’t the same as when he’d been turning into a bug. That time he’d felt himself changing from the inside out. He’d been full of rage, and it had taken him over. But whatever was going on now, he still felt like himself, just worn out and very, very hungry.

Thankfully, no one seemed to notice anything unusual. If there was one thing John was good at, it was being level-headed when things went south. There was no reason to let anyone know he was feeling weird. It wasn’t like it was hurting anyone. He was cool as a cucumber. He was steady as a rock. He was as unstoppable as… an unstoppable thing.

He was at the point of wondering whether Rodney was right and maybe he was just having a reaction to the torture, when something happened that confirmed every suspicion he’d had since his return.

They were in the briefing room; he and his team had just come back from an unusually boring mission to yet another farming planet. It had been a standard first contact mission. They’d gone in, did some recon, said hello to the locals, convinced the feudal lord they weren’t there to cause trouble, and gated home without incident.

“How did your mission go?” Elizabeth asked as they took their seats.

“Our mission was most successful,” Teyla said happily. She immediately launched into a riveting tale of the different kinds of harvesting techniques the people of Glendoria used.

John couldn’t help it: his mind wandered. He was concentrating on twirling his pen between his fingers when it slid from his grasp and rolled under Teyla’s chair. It was too far for him to reach from where he was sitting. He tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at him. Teyla, get the pen, he tried to will with his mind. He needed that pen to stay awake.

Teyla continued with her speech, obviously pretending John wasn’t trying to get her attention. Elizabeth’s eyes flickered to him; he placed his palms flat on the table and smiled like he had an idea of what the hell Teyla was talking about.

TEYLA, he projected as loudly as possible.

Teyla twitched and looked around the room. “Excuse me, Dr Weir,” she said smoothly, bending down to take the pen out from under her chair. She passed it to John.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

“You are welcome,” she said. “Dr Weir, as I was saying…”

It took him a second to realize what had happened. The pen slipped out of his fingers and clattered to the table. “Aren’t you a butterfingers today,” Rodney said.

*

Their latest search for ZPM’s — something John liked to think of as Round Two, the Elimination Chamber — left John with a feeling of deja-vu. When they stepped through the gate, he had to look over his shoulder to make sure Ronon was there and not Ford. Rodney would rattle on about power spikes, or sunburn, or the latest lab accident; Teyla would correct whatever direction John was heading in. It was just like old times, only this time their missing power source was Rodney’s fault. A guilt-ridden astrophysicist was a cranky astrophysicist.

P3X-461 was a world of wide, open pastures. On the one side were farms of what looked like blue corn. On the other, Earth cows. He could hear the squawks of chickens in the distance.

“That’s not something you see every day,” John said thoughtfully. “In the Pegasus galaxy, I mean.”

“I would kill for a medium-rare steak right about now,” said Rodney without glancing up from his PDA. John’s stomach rumbled in sympathy.

There was a road leading from the stargate. John hoped this meant this civilization was advanced enough to have indoor plumbing. Air conditioning would be nice too, but he wasn’t betting on it.

It was a nice day on Blue Corn World. The sky was clear, the birds sang. Rodney made disappointed noises as he checked his PDA; Ronon and Teyla lingered behind, talking about some Athosian woman who was cheating on her husband with one of John’s officers. It was, according to Teyla, “unwise,” and Ronon, “funny as hell.” John put his sunglasses on and raised his face to the sun.

Unfortunately, his mood went from relaxed to uneasy as he started noticing the change in the farm animals. Near the gate the cows and chickens were fat and healthy, but the further they went down the road, the more thin, wizened, and pale they became. The chickens were nearly featherless, and the cows’ skin was turning grey.

“Something appears to be wrong with these animals,” Teyla said.

“I’ve noticed that too,” John said. “McKay?”

Rodney looked at him sourly. “What, am I a veterinarian now? Maybe they have the Pegasus version of Mad Cow Disease.”

“The chickens too?” John asked.

“I don’t know. E coli?”

After about half an hour of walking, the road forked. There was a signpost, but of course, no one could read it.

“What do you know,” John said. He put his hands on his hips.

Rodney hmm-ed, scribbling something on his PDA. “We have two options. We can either head towards the pre-Industrial village on the path to the right, or we can head for the football field on our left.”

John frowned. “Football…?”

He turned in the direction Rodney was gesturing to, and his words caught in his throat. Down the road was a perfectly trimmed green and white football field, goal posts and all. There were even stands for an audience.

“Field,” he finished weakly. Cows, chickens, and football. Maybe they’d stepped out of the wormhole and into the mid-western US. “Did I hit my head when I walked through the gate?” he murmured to Rodney.

“Did anyone drink the water?” Rodney demanded.

“I say we go to the football field,” Ronon said, sounding amused.

“Funny, I was going to suggest we go to the village,” Rodney said dryly.

A thin, drooping chicken wandered up to them, dragging its feet. It looked up at John with cold, dead eyes. “Bock,” it cried weakly, then collapsed.

All four of them took a big step backwards.

“This is officially the creepiest planet we’ve ever been to,” said John.

“All we need now is for the inhabitants to be pretending to be Amish, and we’re set,” Rodney agreed.

*

Looked like a football field. John toed the grass. Felt like a football field.

“Stop that,” Rodney insisted from the sidelines. “What if it’s booby-trapped?”

John raised an eyebrow. “The field?”

“Force fields, land mines, triggers, hello!”

“John, Rodney is right,” Teyla said. But she poked the ground with the butt of her P-90.

“Maybe it’s not football,” Ronon said. He was standing next to McKay. “Maybe it’s just something that’s similar.”

Teyla shook her head. “No, I agree with the Colonel and Rodney. This looks exactly like a football field from the videos I have seen.”

“So we’re in agreement then,” John said. His teammates all looked at him. “This is bad.”

He scanned their surroundings; there was a forest not far from here. It didn’t look especially dark or sinister, but there was something about it he couldn’t put his finger on.

“I say we go there,” he said, nodding at the trees.

“You’re kidding me,” Rodney said. “Why don’t we go to the village and ask the helpful native population?”

He glanced at Teyla. She was studying the forest with an odd, intense expression. He didn’t need telepathy to tell him that whatever it was, she felt it too. She hadn’t mentioned the mind reading incident yet, and he had a feeling she hadn’t even realized what had happened. He sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up on his own; it was way too awkward. He could imagine what she’d say: “I am not sure how I feel about this change in our relationship.” Their talk on the Daedalus still gave him the wiggens, and that had been months ago.

“Come on, McKay,” John said casually, turning the safety off his P-90. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Ronon chuckled, unholstering his gun.

“One mission,” Rodney grumbled as the team headed for the woods. “I ask for one mission where we don’t endanger our lives.”

*

There was definitely something going on with the forest. The closer they got, the more John could feel it. By the time they reached the first scattering of trees, his skin was covered in goosebumps, and his mouth was dry.

He couldn’t tell if Teyla felt it anymore. Her face wasn’t giving anything away.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Rodney asked.

“Something weird. Unusual. Out of the ordinary,” John said.

John was kind of proud when Rodney took the safety off his gun and trailed after Teyla without having to be told. He did throw John a look that either meant don’t-get-yourself-killed or I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this, but John wasn’t going to let that ruin the moment.

Ronon was twirling his gun when John turned back to him. John started, “Don’t forget, look for–”

“Something weird,” Ronon said, smirking a little. “I heard you.”

The great thing about doing recon with Ronon was Ronon didn’t need silly things like words. He didn’t talk incessantly or make funny noises while reading data, like Rodney, or ask John a lot of questions, like Teyla. Nope, Ronon was a soldier, a warrior, and he and John together were like two kindred souls finally–

Ronon took off running.

“Hey!” John cried.

“Wraith,” Ronon shouted over his shoulder. “This way!”

They really needed to get Ronon a radio. They — by which John meant Elizabeth — had decided he didn’t need one after John had caught him chewing the mic during a meeting. It was like trying to teach a puppy to talk into its collar.

“I’m coming,” John yelled back, watching Ronon get smaller and smaller. He radioed Rodney and Teyla: “Ronon found a Wraith. We’re going after it.”

“We are moving in your direction,” Teyla confirmed.

As fast as he could, John followed Ronon’s path, jumping over logs and ducking under branches. But he was too late; five minutes later, he stood completely alone in the middle of the woods.

“Ronon?” he called.

A twig snapped.

He ducked behind a tree as a male Wraith stepped out of the bushes. The Wraith seemed to be muttering to himself in that creepy hissing language.

John silently counted to three and came out shooting; he missed as the Wraith dove behind a tree trunk, and John threw himself behind the tree closest to him, listening for any sign of movement. There were no answering shots, and if John could back the creature into a corner, he might be able to get enough holes in it to kill it, or at least hold it off until Ronon or Teyla got there.

He was just about ready to fire again when a hand grabbed his shoulder. John gasped and spun around to find himself face-to-face with the Wraith. He registered the geometric tattoo on the left side of the Wraith’s head, but his hand holding the gun came up automatically.

His finger was already tightening on the trigger when the Wraith said, “Sheppard,” breaking out into a huge, pointy-toothed grin. It was the Wraith who had saved him from Kolya.

John shot him in the chest.

The Wraith stumbled to the ground, gasping. “Sheppard?” he repeated incredulously. Something fell out of his hand and bounced off.

“I’m sorry,” John said, cringing as the Wraith pressed one hand against the open wound. “I told you all bets were off!”

“You’d just died! People say things they don’t mean when they’re under duress,” the Wraith moaned.

It’s a Wraith, it’s a Wraith, John told himself. Be stoic. Be a man. Blow off its head. But when the Wraith hissed, “That hurt,” he gave into his guilt.

John dropped to the ground beside him and fished around in his tac vest for bandages. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought your Wraith buddies found you.”

“They did,” the Wraith said, waving the gauze away. Already John could see the wound closing. “I had problems… adjusting.”

John’s gaze was drawn to what the Wraith had dropped, half-hidden in the bushes: a hand-made football.

“You mean because you were in the Genii prison for so long?” John asked slowly, not sure what was going on here.

The Wraith nodded. “That, and I refused to feed.”

A jolt of shock ran through him. For a second, he forgot about the football. “You refused to feed?” he asked. “On humans?”

“I felt bad,” said the Wraith. “I had been in that cell for so long, all I wanted to do was play games and sit out in the sun, and they kept shoving these humans at me. I’ve been feeding off some of the animals on the nearby human homesteads.”

“So you’re the Wraith equivalent of a vegetarian,” John remarked.

The Wraith pushed himself to his feet. John stood too. It was impossible to tell that a few minutes ago John had shot a hole through his chest.

“Are you going to kill me?”

John hesitated. “I should,” he said uncertainly. He’d always had a soft spot for people who saved his life, even if those people were evil vampires bent on human destruction. “My friends are going to be here soon, and they’re not going to be too happy to see you.”

“I thought we had a bond,” the Wraith said.

“We do,” John protested. “And if I was friends with Wraith, we would totally be buddies. But it’s just not gonna happen.”

“I can change,” pleaded the Wraith.

“No, you can’t,” John said. “We’re like oil and water. Citrus and McKay. I’m a Klingon and you’re a Romulan. It’ll never work.”

“You’re a cling-on?” the Wraith asked.

At the Wraith’s blank look, John explained, “Klingons. Big foreheads? Growl a lot?”

The Wraith took his hand. “Just give me a chance. I’ll never eat humans again.”

“What the fuck is going on here?”” Rodney yelped.

John jumped, pulling his hand away hastily as Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon came out of the trees in three different directions. Their guns were aimed at the Wraith.

“No, no, no,” John yelled quickly. He waved his arms, blocking their target between him and the tree. “Nobody’s killing this Wraith. This is a good Wraith. See? He’s not eating anybody. Good Wraith.”

“Good Wraith?” Ronon repeated, face going slack with shock in a way that would’ve been funny under different circumstances.

“There are no good Wraith,” Teyla said darkly.

“Are you out of your mind?” Rodney demanded. He pointed his Baretta over John’s shoulder as he stepped forward and held a fumbling hand against John’s forehead. “Did it do something to you? Are you under Wraith control? Did it do that telepathic thing? Did I just hear it professing its love to you, or am I going crazy?”

John knocked his hand away. “Stop it. I’m not under mind control. If I was, I’d be acting like a zombie.”

“What’s going on here?” Ronon growled.

“This is the Wraith who saved me from Kolya. And he’s not feeding on people, so he’s not a threat.”

Teyla looked at the Wraith with genuine surprise. “Why are you not feeding?”

“I don’t know, it feels wrong now,” said the Wraith.

“A Wraith with a conscience,” Rodney sneered.

Something hit John. The football. The lack of feeding. His hunger. His weird psychic connection to Teyla. His longing for a face tattoo. “Lightbulb!” he said excitedly.

Rodney threw his hands in the air. “Great, Sheppard’s gone insane.”

“Shut up, McKay,” John said. He was onto something. He could feel it. “Hey, uh, Wraith, has anything else been different lately? Have you been feeling kind of… off?”

“Insects have been bothering me lately,” the Wraith said. He almost sounded sheepish. “They were not a problem before.”

“So he shares your bug phobia, so what?” Rodney asked John.

“It’s not a phobia, it’s a discomfort,” John said, scowling.

“You’re afraid of bugs?” Ronon asked.

“Did you miss that little incident a year ago when he turned into one?” Rodney demanded.

“He makes me kill all the moths that fly into his office,” said Teyla. “And once, a cricket.”

“You have an office?” Ronon asked John.

John ignored the three of them. “And this game you’ve been playing, you came up with it yourself?”

“I had a dream,” the Wraith admitted. “There were many cheers and lights, and human men in tight pants.”

John poked Rodney in the chest and smirked triumphantly. “I told you I wasn’t depressed. The Wraith and I must’ve mind melded when he gave me my life back.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Rodney said.

“Okay, then explain how he knew about football. And why he doesn’t like bugs. And why he doesn’t want to feed.”

“Just because football is some huge thing–”

John frowned. “Hey, football isn’t a huge thing. I think about other stuff, like college basketball, and–”

“Baseball?”

“No,” John said vehemently. “Never baseball. Never.”

“I have never heard of an instance when a human and a Wraith have… mind melded,” Teyla said, frowning.

The Wraith’s face screwed up. “I’ve heard stories. About what has happened when we give the gift to those outside our brethren. They say sometimes, the Wraith go mad.”

“See, there,” Rodney said. “Madness. That makes perfect sense. Certainly much more than you two sharing a brain.”

John wasn’t going to let Rodney talk him out of it. He knew this was right. Deep inside, he felt this was right. He and the Wraith — who really needed a name, he’d get on that ASAP — had shared something on that Genii planet, something that bound them together. It explained the way he’d felt ever since he’d come back from being tortured.

The Wraith looked at John warmly. “Brother,” he said happily. John smiled back.

“I don’t care if it’s your best friend,” Ronon said. “I’m killing it.”

Ronon’s gun whined as he powered it up. John took a step closer to Ronon, making sure the Wraith was behind him. “No, you’re not,” he said firmly. “And that’s an order.”

“John is right,” Teyla said reluctantly. “If this Wraith has absorbed some of John’s personality, then we are responsible for his being unable to return to his hive.”

“I can’t believe you’re agreeing to this,” Rodney said to her. He sounded appalled.

John wrenched the gun of out Ronon’s grasp, flipped it from kill to stun, and shot the Wraith. He fell to the ground, twitching violently and kicking up fallen leaves.

“What are you doing?” Teyla demanded.

John tried to rearrange the Wraith in a way that would be best for carrying him back to the stargate. “We can’t leave him here. Like you said, he’s our responsibility. My responsibility.”

“You want to take him back to Atlantis?” Teyla asked, eyes widening.

“Oh, this is a bad idea,” Rodney moaned, “a bad, bad idea.”

Teyla grabbed John’s arm. “Elizabeth is not going to let you bring another Wraith into the city.”

“I’ll deal with Elizabeth,” he said.

*

“Colonel, would you care to explain to me what your plan is?” Elizabeth asked. John had no idea what she was talking about, but her squinty eyes and tight smile were kind of scary. “I just assumed that if you’re bringing a Wraith into Atlantis without first consulting me, you must have a brilliant plan up your sleeve.”

Yes, definitely scary. “Well,” he started. “It’s a little complicated.”

“He thinks he and the Wraith have a bond,” Ronon said helpfully.

John glared in Ronon’s general direction. “I figured we could, you know–” He smiled at Elizabeth charmingly. “–retrovirus him.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Retrovirus him.”

His smile faded. “I know it didn’t go so well the last two times we tried it, but I think this time it could work.”

Elizabeth stared at him for a long moment, then down the table at his team. He didn’t want to see the looks on their faces right now. “First of all, Colonel, ‘retrovirus’ is not a verb. Much like ‘crappy, but still pretty awesome’ is not necessarily an adequate description of an uninhabited planet with a stargate for our network. Second, you know very well the danger this poses.”

“This is the Wraith who saved me from Kolya.”

“The Colonel believes he and the Wraith… exchanged certain personality traits when he was given his life back,” Teyla said, stepping up to bat.

This time Elizabeth’s eyes went wide, which was how he found himself, not ten minutes later, in the infirmary giving samples of too many bodily functions to name. Then he was whisked away for an MRI, X-Ray, and EKG. Ronon was sent to go make sure the Wraith didn’t wake up before Elizabeth decided what to do with him.

“You’re not going to find anything,” John said petulantly, swinging his legs off the side of the stiff infirmary bed. “There’s nothing wrong with me. We just… exchanged some feelings. It was more like a soul thing.”

“You should have come to me the instant you realized something was wrong,” Elizabeth admonished.

“I went to Rodney,” he said.

“Gee, thanks,” Rodney muttered, as Elizabeth said, “Rodney! I can’t believe the two of you kept this a secret. You may have seriously compromised our position.”

“I told you, he’s a good Wraith,” John said.

“And you know this because of your ‘bond’?” Elizabeth asked.

He didn’t like the way he sounded when she said it. “That, and he hasn’t been feeding off of humans,” John explained cheekily. “He’s been eating the cows.”

Elizabeth cocked a brow at him. At that moment, Carson chose to walk in. He pinned a colourful print-out of John’s brain to the light box on one of the walls, and immediately Elizabeth, Rodney, and Teyla crowded around it. John stayed where he was.

“According to these scans, you’re perfectly normal, Colonel,” Carson said, flipping through some pages on his clipboard. “There is no sign of head trauma, which is often linked to personality change. Last time, when you were affected by the Iratus bug, there were significant changes in your brain chemistry, but none of those changes are present here. As far as I can tell, your brain isn’t any different today than it was before the, um, feeding.”

Before John could casually mention how he was so right and they were so wrong, Rodney asked, “Then how do you explain what happened to the Wraith?”

Carson shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. We know what happens when a Wraith feeds, but we’ve never had the opportunity to study what happens with the process is reversed. Honestly, I didn’t know such a thing was possible until it happened to Colonel Sheppard.”

“Which is exactly why we cannot turn the Wraith,” Elizabeth said.

Teyla said, “This Wraith did save John’s life.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, and so did Michael.”

“We betrayed his trust.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing to this one?”

“No,” John insisted, “we’re helping him. He’d either starve out there in the wild, or he’d get so hungry he’d start picking off the locals.”

“He’s not a pet, Sheppard,” said Rodney.

Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re sure he was playing football? And not some kind of Wraith sport?”

“Like what, Wraithball?” Rodney asked sarcastically.

“We don’t have a shield anymore,” she said, but he could tell she was cracking. “If the Wraith come–”

John put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, meeting her eyes. “If the Wraith come, it’ll be because Michael and his buddies got off the planet before we could blow them to kingdom come, not because we stunned this one and brought him back unconscious.”

When Elizabeth exhaled slowly, John knew he’s gotten through to her. She fisted her hands at her sides. “I’m allowing this on one condition: you take full responsibility for his actions. We are not having a repeat of the Michael fiasco. You make sure this Wraith does not have access to anything — or anyone — that might give a clue to what he is. He’ll be closely watched at all times.” She leveled him with a steady gaze. “And you need to be able to terminate him if this fails.”

“Absolutely,” John said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

*

“What’re you going to name this one?” Rodney asked.

John looked at the Wraith’s unmoving body, one clawed hand clutching the homemade football like a security blanket. “Mark,” he said thoughtfully.

“You’re naming him after Major Lorne?”

John glared. “That’s his middle name, and no. After my brother.”

Rodney gave him a funny look, and Carson said, “Ah, alright, Mark it is. It sounds a lot like Michael, though, are you sure Teyla won’t be–?”

“Nah, Mark is fine,” John said.

“I have an idea for a last name,” Rodney offered.

“We’re not naming him Mark Wahlberg,” John said.

“I was thinking Mark Messier,” Rodney said, scowling. “Famous hockey player? Of course, we could just name him Mark Sheppard, and you can have all your issues in one convenient, Wraith-shaped package.”

The Wraith hugged his football to his chest and rolled onto his side. “Messier might work,” John mused. Hockey was nothing like baseball.

“It looks like he’s finally asleep,” Carson said, sighing like watching Mark struggle deliriously had been hard for him.

“I’m still waiting for the brother explanation,” Rodney said. He made a beckoning gesture. “Any day now.”

“Not talking about it,” John said pleasantly.

“Does this have something to do with why you can’t watch baseball?” Rodney asked.

“Maybe I just prefer golf,” John said, knowing Rodney heard the “I don’t want to talk about it” in his tone, and Rodney muttered something under his breath that sounded like “gay” and “Republicans.”

“The Wraith’s not going to remember anything, right?” Ronon asked.

“We should hope not,” Carson said. “Michael didn’t remember anything concrete until he stopped taking his injections.”

John nodded solemnly. “So all I need to do is make sure Mark here doesn’t get too suspicious, and we should be okay.”

“Mm,” Carson said, sounding unconvinced.

“Should I go find it a hat?” Ronon asked seriously.

John blinked. “No, I’ll go find him something of mine.”

Rodney snorted. “We all know the cowboy hat was yours, Colonel.”

John nudged Rodney with his elbow. Rodney looked affronted. “What would you tell me about myself if I had amnesia?” John asked, ignoring the raised eyebrow Ronon sent him.

“I’d tell you that you like to give Caldwell blowjobs,” Rodney said. “And you’ve only ever liked British punk rock and The Who.”

“I’d be really confused when I found all the alt-country on my iPod,” John drawled.

“Please, like I don’t know your iPod’s full of Paula Abdul and Michael Jackson.”

“I can moonwalk like a pro,” John said.

Carson tutted. “Rodney, it is very inappropriate for you to be making jokes about the Colonel giving blowjobs!”

“It’s okay,” John said jokingly, “at least he isn’t grabbing my ass this time.”

With a repulsed look, Carson turned away. John’s stomach knotted, but when he glanced at Rodney, Rodney was smirking to himself, staring out the glass window at Mark.

As soon Carson went down to check on his patient, taking Ronon with him as protection, John took a chance. He grinned at Rodney and poked him the side with his elbow. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’d tell you if you had amnesia?”

“Okay?” Rodney asked suspiciously.

“I’d say you know me like no one else does,” John told him, feeling ridiculous. His heart was beating so fast he could feel it in his throat.

Rodney gazed at him for a long moment, and just as John was thinking what it’d be like to grab him and kiss him right there in front of Carson and Ronon and an unconscious Wraith, he snickered. “Good one, Colonel.” He patted John on the shoulder as he left, shaking his head.

John leaned over the railing. “Only the Wraith understands me,” he muttered dejectedly.

*

Part Two: Wraith Meets World

Mark the ex-Wraith had blond hair, blue eyes, and a wide, toothy smile that was more than a little creepy, considering what he’d been just a few days ago. That stupid tattoo was still on his face. Even with that, he was appallingly good-looking, in a kind of blond, pretty boy way. Rodney hated himself.

“Hi. Do we know each other?” Mark asked, as Rodney stood there holding his tray.

“Uh, no, not really,” Rodney said, glancing at Sheppard. “We met in passing, once or, um, twice.” He held out one hand, awkwardly balancing his tray with the other. “Dr Rodney McKay.”

Mark looked at Rodney’s hand.

“You’re supposed to shake it,” Sheppard said.

“Ah,” Mark said, and pumped Rodney’s hand. “Sorry. I have amnesia. Head injury.” He lowered his eyes and grinned at Sheppard slyly. “Or so they tell me.”

“Ha, ha,” Rodney said a little too loudly. Sheppard glared at him.

He wasn’t sure if it was okay with Sheppard if he joined them at their table, but he did anyway. Sheppard gave him a sideways glance, munching on what looked like a baby carrot but probably wasn’t. “How’s it going, Rodney? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“And whose fault has that been?” Rodney asked.

“We were just talking about sports,” Mark said, propping his elbows on the table. “John said I like this one called football, and he’s going to show me some other ones later. Maybe there will be something we can play with the Marines, eh? I’m dying to get some fresh air after being cooped up in the infirmary for so long. Do you like to play anything, Dr McKay?”

“‘John‘?” Rodney repeated flatly. Sheppard studied the table. “Actually, the Colonel and I have very different opinions on what constitutes a good sport. I prefer hockey to football. And besides, it’s hard to get out to play games when you’re busy keeping the city from falling apart.”

“How do you keep the city from falling apart?”

“With the astonishing power of my brain,” Rodney said, puffing his chest out a little.

“Wow,” Mark said, looking a little dazed. “That’s really cool.”

Sheppard raised his head and narrowed his eyes at Mark.

“Yes, it is remarkable,” Rodney agreed.

“Don’t you have things to do?” Sheppard asked snidely.

“Why, am I butting in on best friend time?” Rodney sneered back. They hadn’t seen each other for days; Sheppard had been spending all his free time making sure Mark was “comfortable.” Ronon and Teyla told him they hadn’t seen much of Sheppard either. It wasn’t like Rodney needed to see Sheppard every day, but a “I missed you, bestest buddy” would’ve been nice.

“Maybe we were in the middle of a conversation,” Sheppard said instead. He leaned back in his chair.

Rodney stood, picking up his tray. “Fine. I’ll go do some actual work, since it looks like no one else is bothering to.”

“Nice to meet you, Dr McKay,” Mark said brightly.

“See you,” Sheppard said, but his attention was focused completely on Mark.

As Rodney made his way out of the commissary, he couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder. Mark was leaning over and whispering something in Sheppard’s ear. They looked good together. Sheppard threw back his head and laughed, clapping Mark on the shoulder, and Rodney’s chest felt tight. It had taken him months to get even a chuckle out of Sheppard, and this man — this Wraith — had done it in a matter of days.

When Sheppard continued laughing, Mark recoiled, looking disturbed. Rodney seethed. That was his laugh.

“Stupid, hot Wraith,” he grumbled.

*

In Rodney’s very humble opinion, the worst part about having a former Wraith living in Atlantis wasn’t the security risk. It wasn’t that the guy would go back to being a killing machine if he forgot his shots. It wasn’t even the discomfort of knowing the person you were talking to wasn’t really a person at all.

It was the fact the Wraith — excuse him, Mark, named after Sheppard’s secret brother, and what the hell was up with that, anyway? — took up entirely too much of Sheppard’s time.

It was even worse than when Sheppard had adopted Ronon. Instead of being taciturn and judgmental like He-Man, Mark was eager and open-minded. Every time Rodney ran into the two of them together, Mark would say, “Hey, Dr McKay, tell me something interesting that happened in the lab today,” or he’d ask Rodney to join them for a rousing game of golf (like Rodney played golf), or worse, he’d try to get Rodney to go jogging with them. Apparently, Rodney’s blank stare of horror after the first prompting hadn’t been enough to stop him from asking on a daily basis.

Basically, Mark was a less intelligent, more obnoxious Canadian surfer version of Sheppard, and Sheppard was pretty damn annoying as it was. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t for that incredibly disturbing mind melding thing; not that Rodney was considering that a possibility, because it was ludicrous.

A few days after what Rodney thought of as the Lunchtime Incident, or That Time Sheppard had Laughed for Mark Messier, and Oh, How Rodney Regretted Giving him the Name of a Hero and Fellow Countryman, he came into his lab to find Sheppard and Mark digging through a supply closet. They were whispering and giggling like twelve year-old girls. It was just a step down from Sheppard’s normal mental age of fourteen.

“What,” Rodney said loudly, “are you two doing?”

They startled. “Nothing,” Sheppard replied with his typical wide-eyed, innocent expression, slipping something into the pocket of his BDUs. Mark — who’d been gazing at Sheppard adoringly — covered his laughter with a cough.

“Colonel, may I speak to you alone?” Rodney gritted out.

Sheppard raised his eyebrows. “Sure.” He looked at Mark fondly. Rodney’s left eye twitched. “Mark, you go ahead, I’ll see you at the pier in a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” Mark said, edging towards the exit. He gave Rodney a little wave as he passed. “Bye, Dr McKay.”

As soon as the door whispered shut, Rodney said, “Have you lost your mind? You’re– you’re cavorting around with that Wraith! Why don’t you two just hold hands and skip around the city? And then maybe later he’ll take you back to his hive and make you an honourary member.”

“I’m doing my job,” Sheppard said stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t feel alienated.”

“And you’re so dedicated, spending all your time with him, sneaking him into labs where we work on very dangerous experiments. That mind control must still be working. My God, it’s like a train wreck happening before my very eyes. Come on, we’re going straight to Carson so he can deprogramme you or wave a gourd in your face or one of his other magic tricks.”

When Sheppard just stood there, Rodney impatiently snapped his fingers. Sheppard glared fiercely. “I am dedicated to keeping Mark from figuring out what’s going on. I know what I’m doing.” His glare lessened. “Sort of. I think. Anyway, you’re over-reacting. There’s nothing to worry about. He’s not going to hurt you.”

It wasn’t really himself he was worried about being hurt.

Sheppard having a new best friend did, however, leave Rodney with plenty of free time, which Rodney supposed could be best spent working on their more immediate concerns, like how they were all going to die if they didn’t get a new power source, and soon. It was just as well he didn’t have anyone distracting him from his very important work.

“You have been anti-social lately,” Zelenka remarked with mock-casualness. He rifled through the toolbox on Rodney’s bench. Obviously it was a ruse to look over Rodney’s shoulder at his data.

“Maybe I’m trying to keep the rest of you monkey-brained cretins from squandering the last fraction of our ZPM on trivial bullshit like blowdryers and laser shows,” Rodney sneered.

“Or maybe,” Zelenka said, peeking over the rim of his glasses to inspect the head of a screwdriver, “you have been replaced by a Wraith.”

Rodney stiffened. “Why you think I’d want to waste my time with that– that–”

“That?” Zelenka asked.

“What does it matter to you anyway?”

Zelenka raised an eyebrow. “You are especially unpleasant when sulking. And we are not used to you being here so much; I think the others fear for their lives.”

“If they couldn’t handle public humiliation, they never should’ve joined the SGC,” Rodney sniffed. “I’m pretty sure it was a prerequisite.”

The doors swooshed open, and Sheppard stumbled into the lab. He had a big, purple bruise on his forehead. His pants were ripped at the knees. His hair may or may not have been in disarray; it was hard to tell.

“What the hell happened to you?” Rodney demanded, rising to his feet.

“Fell down a flight of stairs trying to keep Mark away from Ronon,” Sheppard said.

“Did it work?” Zelenka asked.

“Yeah, but only because Ronon ran off to get Carson while Mark stayed to make sure I was conscious. Which I was. Unfortunately.” Sheppard sighed and collapsed on the nearest empty stool, asking, “What’re you up to? Learned how to build us a new ZPM yet?” and Rodney smirked at Zelenka. It looked like he wasn’t so easy to replace after all.

*

Some people wouldn’t have been able to deal with their mind being melded with a Wraith. John figured it was a sign of his professionalism when it really didn’t bother him. In fact, it made things better, now that he knew something was wrong for sure and he wasn’t going to turn blue and scale the walls. Again.

That wasn’t to say he was cool with what had happened. He still had nightmares, almost nightly; when he woke up starving and panicked, he thought bitterly, oh yeah, having your brain sucked by a Wraith blew. But the days weren’t so bad. He was easily distracted by spending most of his time trying to keep Mark from remembering he was an evil vampiric alien. There were days when all he did was show Mark the coolest places in the city to hang out. There were days when when he’d hit one stroke under par. There were days when he’d get a few minutes to himself to go bug Rodney, even if Rodney liked to pretend he was doing John a huge favour by letting him hang out.

Then there were the days he would walk down the hall and get hit in the face with a football.

He was on his way to finish some paperwork he’d been avoiding for weeks when Major Lorne, a good twenty yards away and wearing a jersey for Arizona State University that totally wasn’t his because if John couldn’t play college ball, Lorne sure as hell couldn’t have, shouted, “Hey, Colonel, catch!”

John’s face exploded in pain as the football smacked him square in the chin, knocking him off-balance and onto his ass. He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to keep from screaming in agony.

“Fuck,” someone said. “Lorne, you broke the colonel’s jaw.”

“They’re gonna send you back to that mine planet,” said someone else.

Hands were touching his jaw, and when he opened his watering eyes, Lorne was in his face, looking pretty terrified. “Shit, shit, I’m so sorry, sir, please don’t reassign me, I can’t go back to the mines. Daniel Jackson spends his vacations there.”

“If you break your jaw, don’t they wire it shut?”

“Yeah, it happened to my sister in junior high. She had to wear a head brace and everything.”

“Oh my God, a head brace,” Lorne said.

“My jaw’s not broken,” John managed, batting Lorne away. It hurt to talk, but none of his teeth felt loose. Gingerly, he brought a hand to his throbbing chin. “Ow. Major, I know you wanted a promotion, but I never thought you’d try to kill me to get it.”

“It’s nice to know there’s no lasting emotional trauma from what happened to the guy before you, sir.” John glared a little. Lorne offered John a hand up, but John felt there’d already been enough touching for the day. He climbed to his feet on his own.

“Sir, you want to join us?” one of the Marines asked.

John looked down at the football in Lorne’s hands, and, unsurprisingly, didn’t feel the urge to play. “No thanks. I think I’ll go work on my swing.” Lorne looked at him, uncomprehending, and he added, “My golf swing.”

Lorne blinked slowly. “Golf, sir? Isn’t that kind of boring?”

“It’s not boring,” John said, offended. “Would I play it if it was boring?”

“You like Sudoku puzzles,” Lorne said.

John narrowed his eyes. “You know, I’m re-thinking that whole mine planet thing.”

“You’re the coolest dude on the base, sir,” Lorne replied.

“See, that’s what I like to hear,” John said cheerfully. “Okay, guys, as fun as it’s been to ruin years of painful dental work, I need to–”

“Sir, can I talk to you for a minute?” Lorne interrupted. “Privately?”

John frowned. “Alright,” he replied, and let himself be dragged away to an alcove.

“Sir, the Wraith came on to me,” Lorne said.

“He what?” John asked, voice cracking embarrassingly.

Lorne glanced over his shoulder at the Marines he’d been playing with. “I thought I should warn you, sir. In case he got those… feelings from you during the brain fusion.” John stared at him. Lorne cleared his throat. “You know, my middle name is Mark.”

“Go back to your game, Major,” John said flatly.

Lorne backed up slowly — like John would check out his ass, Lorne was barely taller than Teyla — until John rolled his eyes and headed in the direction of the pier. He definitely heard Lorne tell the men: “Golf is gay.”

*

“Hello, you must be Mr Messier,” Teyla said.

Mark beamed. His pale cheeks went bright pink. “I, uh, yes. Hi. What’s your name?”

“I am Teyla Emmagen of Athos.” She touched her chest, and then Ronon’s. “This is Ronon Dex of Sateda. We are pleased to meet your acquaintance.”

“Hmm,” Ronon said.

“Oh crap,” John said, running up the otherwise-empty corridor to separate them. The last thing he needed was for a repeat of the Michael catastrophe. Things had been going so well, too.

John pointed at Mark. “You, over there.” Then at Ronon. “You, go back to– I don’t really know what you do, but do it away from him.”

“We were just talking,” Teyla protested. “I merely wished to introduce myself to the man you’ve been spending your days with.”

She smiled at Mark. Mark smiled back. Ronon’s lip curled.

“Perhaps you would like to spar with me in the near future,” she said in a way that was strangely suggestive. John met the impassive gazes of Mark’s two-man company and raised an eyebrow.

Mark gave her an intense look. “I’d like that very much.”

With a flirty glance from under her lashes, Teyla left, with the swing to her hips she usually reserved for hot, twenty year-old Marines. John’s eyebrow was so high by now it was hurting.

Ronon and Mark watched her leave, with equal slack-jawed, glazed expressions; John watched them watch her, and smirked. His smirk faded when Ronon slowly, slowly turned to glare at Mark.

“I’d tap that,” Mark said dreamily, still staring in the direction in which Teyla had left.

“Okay,” Ronon said, “that’s it.”

Before John knew what was happening, Ronon had shoved Mark against the wall. “Stay away from her,” he hissed.

“Ronon,” John warned.

Mark pushed back, saying, “Make me,” and slammed his hand against Ronon’s chest. John flinched.

Sergeants Edison and Billick, who shouldn’t have even let Mark and Ronon get this close to begin with, pulled them apart. Ronon was bearing his teeth like a wolf; Mark was struggling against the powerful arms Billick had wrapped around his rib cage, reaching out to Ronon, hands curled into claws. John stood there with his mouth open. He felt like he should say something. He didn’t though, and Mark clutched his right hand — His feeding hand, John thought — to his chest and yelled, “Okay, stop it, I’m done, I’m done.”

“Sorry about that, sir,” Edison said to John, flushing.

“Yeah, uh,” John said. He looked at Ronon and Mark, gazing into Mark’s eyes a little too long. “Don’t do that again.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed just slightly. He said, “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

*

Rodney was sitting on his bed in his t-shirt and boxers and trying to decide what tv show to fall asleep to when Sheppard burst through the door. One side of his face was red and slightly puffy. He looked like an idiot. A ridiculously attractive idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

“There’s something wrong with Mark,” Sheppard said.

Rodney snapped his laptop closed, glaring. “Couldn’t you have knocked? What if I was asleep? Or naked?”

Sheppard’s face went blank for a second, then he glanced at his watch pointedly. “It’s fourteen hundred hours.”

“I was just about to take a nap. There’s no immediate crises that I’m aware of. I’m perfectly in my right.”

“Well, now there is. Something’s wrong with Mark.”

“One, you said that already, and two, of course there’s something wrong with him, he’s a Wraith,” Rodney said. There were huge circles under Sheppard’s eyes. “Three, when was the last time you slept?”

Sheppard scrubbed his face. “A while ago. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Mark back with us. We can never have a normal friendship. I’ll always know he used to be a Wraith, and he’ll never be a scientist or an officer.” He looked up with a pitiful pout. “Rodney, am I a bad person?”

“Jesus Christ,” Rodney said, “are you seriously debating the ethics of being in a relationship with an alien vampire who sucked your love of football from your head?”

Sheppard sat heavily on the end of Rodney’s bed, narrowly missing his feet. “He got in a fight with Ronon, and he put his hand on Ronon’s chest like he was going to feed.”

A chill went down Rodney’s spine, despite his cocoon of warm, fluffy blankets. “You don’t think it was a reflex?”

“It didn’t seem like it,” Sheppard remarked tensely, biting his lip.

“He’s still taking the retrovirus, right?”

“Hasn’t missed a shot.”

“Why did you come here? Are you trying to get us all killed? You need to tell Elizabeth right away.”

“I guess,” Sheppard said. He didn’t move. Rodney cleared his throat pointedly, and Sheppard sighed. “She’s going to yell at me.”

“Well, you reap what you sow, or however it goes,” Rodney said, delighted that Mark the Leech would soon be out of his hair — or rather Sheppard’s thick, luxurious hair — and on his way to Wraith Heaven.

Sheppard made a face. “It could’ve been a ref–”

“Colonel Sheppard,” Rodney snapped.

“Fine,” Sheppard huffed.

“If she makes you cry, don’t come back here,” Rodney called to his retreating back. Sheppard flipped him off, and when the doors shut, Rodney settled down to victoriously watch an episode of MacGyver.

*

John tapped on the window to Elizabeth’s office. She looked up from her work and waved him in.

“Hey, you busy?” he asked casually.

She set her tablet aside. “No, just finishing up some thing. Pull up a chair.”

“We need to have a discussion about Mark Messier,” he said, sitting.

“Yes, we do,” Elizabeth agreed. She smiled at him in such a trusting way. It made him uncomfortable. He smiled back as best he could. “How are you coping, John?”

“Uh, I’m good,” he said. “That’s not really–”

“To be honest,” she continued in an apologetic tone, “I was afraid your insistance about taking in Mr Messier was the result of the feeding, but you’ve been handling things very well. I know you said you had a mental connection, so it must’ve been hard for you to be objective, especially with all of us suggesting you do away with him.”

John slouched lower in his seat. “Yeah, objective.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were bright. “Carson’s very pleased his experiment worked this time around. And frankly, so am I. This brings us one step closer to stopping the Wraith.” She folded her hands together. “Now, did you have something specific you wanted to talk about?”

“Sometimes Mark kinda creeps me out,” John said, feeling like a jerk.

“John,” Elizabeth exclaimed, “I’m surprised. I didn’t expect you, of all people, to be xenophobic. Besides, Mr Messier is very nice. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t put my finger on who.”

“Me?” John asked.

“No, that’s not right.” She shook her head. “I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually.”

*

Mark kept his word. John caught him limping out of the gym not a day later. He had a huge grin on his face, and he was covered in sweat. His damp, blond hair was flopping over his forehead in a way John’s hair would never be able to imitate. Sergeant Edison and Sergeant Billick were exchanging amused grins.

“John, you seriously do this every day?” Mark asked. “I may have amnesia, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never been beaten that badly in my entire life.”

“Well, I don’t do it every day,” John admitted, smirking. He rolled his shoulders. “But once you learn how to handle a stick, it’s a piece of cake.”

After Teyla finished beating the crap out of him, John hobbled over to the bench under the windows and flopped down.

“So what do you think of him?” he asked, stretching a hand towards the towel in his bag, in an attempt to clean off without moving his bruised body. When he couldn’t reach it, he gave up. Teyla didn’t mind if he was sweaty and gross. She’d seen him worse off. She’d seen him with a beard.

Teyla coolly raised an eyebrow. “Think of whom?”

“Mark.”

She cocked her head thoughtfully. “He is a lot like you, only more…” She paused, setting her sticks down on the bench, and tossed him his towel. “More open. He is very easy to like.”

John wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. Was Teyla saying he wasn’t easy to like? Although he was definitely feeling the first twinges of guilt. “Sorry I haven’t been spending more time with you. I’ve been busy.”

Her mouth curved into a smile. “I know. You feel responsible for Mark’s well-being. But I must admit, it has been very quiet around here lately.”

John’s stomach grumbled embarrassingly loudly. He was so tired of being hungry all the time. He’d kill for something disgusting and greasy that would fill him up and make him never want to eat again. If only there was a Pegasus version of Del Taco.

“I suddenly have the desire for a grilled cheese sandwich,” Teyla said with a puzzled expression.

“It’s like you read my mind,” said John, smirking at his own hilarity.

“And also,” Teyla continued as they headed for the commissary, “I would like a magazine with pictures of women in various stages of undress. Or perhaps Rodney working with long, cylindrical tools.”

*

The denizens of Atlantis were lucky Rodney was around when transporter five broke. Typically, he’d be offworld at that part of the week, being shot at or fed weird things or mocked, sometimes all at the same time.

Unfortunately, repairing the transporters involved holding up a very large, heavy panel which covered the crystal casing. Rodney had always assumed the Ancients had created some sort of device that would keep the panels up, but he’d never been able to find it. Knowing this, he enlisted the help of Ronon, who was a giant, and Lieutenant Miller, who’d been there to help with the satellites in the Wraith siege and was not completely incompetent. He would’ve asked Teyla, but he’d caught her braiding Lieutenant Cadman’s hair in one of the lounges, and he’d been in no mood to put up with Cadman’s Wraith jokes.

“Here, hold this,” he said as he ducked into the shaft, letting go of the screwdriver he’d used to pry the panel open. He didn’t bother to check if Miller had caught it, but he didn’t hear a clatter, so he assumed everything was okay. Two of the crystals were definitely cracked. He’d have to switch some around to get the transporter working again.

“This is kind of heavy,” Ronon said breathlessly.

“As long as you don’t drop it on my head, it’ll be fine,” Rodney said.

“Here comes the Wraith,” muttered Miller.

Rodney banged his forehead on the panel scurrying out to discreetly get a glimpse. Sure enough, both Mark and Sheppard were strutting down the corridor. Well, Sheppard was strutting; Mark was bouncing. They stopped at one of the long windows, and Sheppard pointed at something outside, talking too quietly for Rodney to hear.

Mark looked over his shoulder, directly at Rodney and then — much to Rodney’s horror — curved his big, pale Wraith hand over Sheppard’s narrow but disturbingly muscular shoulder.

“Do you see that?” Rodney hissed. He clenched his fingers painfully around the crystal. He wondered if the pointed end was sharp to stab someone. “He’s touching Colonel Sheppard inappropriately!”

Ronon glanced over. “You mean on the shoulder?”

Rodney gestured frantically. “And Sheppard’s just letting him.”

“Maybe he likes it,” Ronon said, smirking. Rodney got the distinct impression Ronon was fucking with him. “Maybe he likes the shoulder touching.”

“Everyone thinks it’s weird Colonel Sheppard spends so much time with it,” Miller said. “Bobby Edison and Jeff Billick said the Colonel barely lets it out of his sight.”

“Sheppard’s trying to keep the Wraith from realizing he’s not supposed to be here,” Rodney said defensively. “Which, by the way, geniuses, is not going to work if everyone continues to treats the Wraith like– like he’s a Wraith.”

Ronon looked perturbed. “You think it might figure out what’s going on just from that?”

“Lieutenant Kenmore told Dr Heightmeyer he’d realized something was wrong by the way people were treating him.”

“Shut up, they’re coming this way,” Miller said under his breath.

Rodney knelt and started digging through his toolbox when Sheppard and Mark headed in their direction. Sheppard was talking about something involving planes and G’s and manoeuvres, and he didn’t even look at Rodney as he walked past.

*

John spent a lot of time trying to keep Mark and Ronon from interacting again, until one day he walked into the central spire common room and found them sitting on a couch together, talking about food.

“Hey, guys,” he said slowly.

“Hey, John,” Mark said brightly.

Ronon shuffled his feet. “Hey.”

John tried to glare menacingly, but it probably failed. “Didn’t I tell you two to stay apart?”

“No, you told us not to fight,” Mark said. “We made up.”

“He’s not so bad,” Ronon replied, shrugging.

John’s head pounded. “I need someone to knock me unconscious,” he said murmured.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t sleep well that night, or the next few. Fortunately, he and Elizabeth — well, more like Elizabeth — had decided to put the team on stand-down for the next few weeks, until they could be sure Mark wasn’t going to try to kill them all. John nursed his insomnia, Ronon beat up the Marines, Teyla did… Teyla things, and Rodney locked himself in his lab.

On one of those nights, he found himself wandering the corridors, trying to tire himself enough so he’d just pass out. He wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going until he heard a familiar voice ask, “Yes, Colonel?”

John blinked a few times, pushing through his mental fog. Rodney was looking at him expectantly as John realized he had unconsciously walked to the labs.

“You know,” he said, “all this late-night work points to some very disturbing vampire tendencies.”

Rodney waved a hand. He looked as tired as John felt. “I’m working on something very complicated and important right now. I’ll sleep later.”

John pulled an empty stool up to the bench.

Rodney glanced up at him. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks, McKay,” John growled. He rubbed his dry, stinging eyes. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. You know, with my personality being swapped with a Wraith’s?”

Rodney raised his chin. “Well, excuse me for caring. What if something goes wrong and you’re out of commission? This is my life we’re talking about here.”

“I’ll try not to let my nightmares get in the way of your Nobel Prize.”

Rodney studied him for a long moment. “Are you still having the same dream you were weeks ago? The one that was freaking you out and yet you felt no need to share?”

“Yeah,” John said quietly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go into it.

“Oh.” Rodney shifted. “I’ve been told — by psychiatrists, of course, so take this with a grain of salt — dreams are the mind’s way of working out a problem. So it’s, ah, probably related to the trauma of being tortured.”

“No, really?” John said sarcastically. He slouched against the bench. The click-clack of Rodney’s typing was soothing. “You know, before this whole Wraith brain sucking thing, I hardly ever had nightmares.”

“You don’t have nightmares,” Rodney repeated, like he didn’t believe it. “What the hell are you dreaming about then?”

A good portion of John’s dreams involved Rodney. There was this recurring one where all Rodney did was order him around. It was the hottest, filthiest dream he’d had since his late teens, and in it, Rodney didn’t even touch him.

“Planes,” John said.

Rodney narrowed his eyes at him. “I see. Well, as the apparently most well-adjusted person in Atlantis, I congratulate you.”

They both fell quiet as Rodney took the time to briskly enter something on his keyboard, sneaking glances at John when he thought John wasn’t looking. He paused every so often to huff. John waited for it.

Finally: “You probably shouldn’t be spending so much time with the Wraith,” Rodney said, not looking him in the eye.

John bristled. “Mark’s not the problem.”

It wasn’t Mark’s fault John’s side of the mind meld hadn’t gone as smoothly as his. Mark was having fun jumping off piers and trying to convince some of the extremely apprehensive Marines to start a football team; John was still tired, hungry, and moody. And someone — John strongly suspected it was Ronon, who had the worst taste in music next to Elizabeth — had introduced Mark to pop music. If he had to hear that 98 Degrees song about being invisible one more time, he was going to hurt someone.

Mark had never been to Earth, but he’d never been on any missions, either. In some ways, they couldn’t relate at all. Just like John’s real brother.

John hadn’t gotten any more hints something was wrong since that day in the corridor, and he was starting to believe it had all been in his head. Teyla didn’t think anything was wrong with Mark. Ronon didn’t think anything was wrong with Mark. Neither Edison nor Billick had reported any funny business. Maybe paranoia was just one more Wraith trait he’d taken on.

*

The Ancient archives were held in one of the outer towers, with high, vaulted ceilings and serene blue walls. John had only been there once, with Elizabeth, who had promptly dug herself deep into a journal and had forgotten all about him. Evidently, while working in the SGC, Rodney had heard the Ancients were known to leave behind hard copies of texts; he told John this repeatedly, but John had found everything in Atlantis was kept in an electronic database. One could access this database from anywhere in the city — if one knew how to read Ancient, of course. The only thing John could read were numbers and the words “Atlantis,” which sucked on multiple levels; Rodney swore there was erotic literature floating around in there.

The archives were, essentially, a rounded room with line of computer terminals running down the middle. Everything was in that colourful, clunky Ancient style. It wasn’t like a library at all. It lacked that musty book smell or that heavy feeling of silence. It also didn’t have much privacy.

“Hello, hello,” a gaunt woman with heavy glasses greeted John the second he stepped through the doors. She had a thick European accent. “I am Dr Bohl. Do you require assistance?”

John blinked. Last time he’d been here it had been in their first year, and they hadn’t had any linguists working solely in the archives. “Uh, yeah. I’m looking for some information on the Wraith.”

Bohl smiled thinly. “You and everyone else.” She crooked her finger, and John followed her to the computers. “We have only translated a small percentage of the material, so you will not be in much luck.”

John took the nearest seat. The keyboard was in Ancient, which was kind of cool. “Is there anything in here about Wraith giving back someone’s life?” he asked, cringing at the way his voice echoed in the room.

She studied him for a long second. He got the impression she had no idea who he was. Then, unexpectedly, she leaned right over him and began typing. She smelled like mothballs. John had horrible flashbacks of his grandmother. He tried not to make any sudden moves.

“I’m doing a search for ‘Wraith’ and ‘reversal,’ and any similar words,” she said, typing away. “Ah, yes. There is one document.”

It popped up on the screen. It was short and completely in Ancient.

“How soon can you translate this?” John asked.

“It may take a few hours,” she said uncertainly.

“It’s really important,” he said, using the pout that had always worked on Grandma Sheppard.

That evening, right as he was getting ready for bed, his email dinged. “I could not translate the whole file, but I have done my best,” the email read. It was signed, “Dr M Bohl, PhD.”

He wiped his palms on his pants and hit the scroll button.

#7539 P2 076 Project Summary

Subjects H2213 and H2214 were both [literal translation: absorbed] by Subject W106. Subject H2213 was [fed off of] during a course of two weeks. H2214 was emptied within two days. See Documents #7539 P2 067 through #7539 P2 072.

Both Subjects H2213 and H2214 had their [life force] restored to them via W106’s feeding gland. H2213’s [life force] was restored during a period of twenty-four hours. H2214’s [life force] was restored to full capacity immediately. See Document #7539 P2 073; Document #6201 P2 998 for previous experiments with life regeneration.

Subjects H2214 and W106 in experiment began exhibiting similar behaviour patterns after forty-eight hours. Subject H2214 complained of hunger [unknown]. He became irritable and prone to fits of anger and irrationality. Subject W106 became calm and [unknown]. After fifty-six hours, W106 requested drawing materials. Note H2214 had been an architect prior to the experiment. Subject H2213 showed no change. After sixty hours, W106 began attempting the communicate with others. H2213 became more withdrawn. See Document #7539 P2 074.

Subject H2214 suffered from no significant brain [unknown] changes after the [life force] was restored. His vital statistics returned to what they were before the [feeding]. However, during dissection

“Whoa,” John said out loud. Apparently, the Ancients had Mengelian ethics. He had a terrifying mental image of himself on an operating table, Carson standing over him with a rib spreader in one hand and an electric saw in the other. John had seen plenty of CSI in his time.

the tissue of the [amygdala] showed abnormalities in both subjects. See Document #7539 P2 075.

It is the conclusion of [those performing the experiment] Subjects W106 and H2213 exchanged [unknown] during the [life force] restoration. Since it was previously concluded [unknown] is the [unknown] which allows those of the W class to form telepathic [unknown] with those they [absorb], it is probable [unknown] goes both ways during the [life force] restoration. The physical changes in the [amygdala], as well as the changes in behaviour support this theory. See Documents #7131 P2 024, #7131 P2 026, #7277 P2 010, #7481 P2 053 for previous experiments with [unknown].

End document.

“Well, crap,” he said to himself. He had definitive proof something had happened to him, but it left him with more questions than answers. The test subjects had exchanged what? DNA? Phone numbers? Beauty tips? John slammed his laptop case closed in frustration.

*

Michael’s quarters had been more of an observation room than a real living space. Dr Heightmeyer suggested this time around, it would probably be a better idea to keep Mark from wondering why he was being kept separate from everyone else. John had been fine with this; he’d had a hard enough time convincing Mark the guards were for his own safety. He’d had to make up a story about everyone being worried Mark would hit his head again.

“Why don’t you have an escort?” Mark had asked with a scowl. “You fall all the time.”

“Because I’m a lieutenant colonel,” John had said, crossing his arms over his chest, “and lieutenant colonels don’t need people to keep them from falling.”

He would’ve liked to tell someone Mark had sucked out his cool with his evil Wraith hands, but he had a feeling no one would believe him.

Then Mark had asked, “Do I have a rank? Am I in the army on my planet– what’d you say it was called? Melmac?” and John had to get out of that conversation as quickly as possible.

When John thought their friendship had advanced to the point where John could introduce him to Star Wars — original trilogy only, of course — he was disappointed to find Mark not answering his door chime. He was worried, however, when he realized Mark’s guards weren’t anywhere in the immediate vicinity either.

“Edison, Billick, this is Sheppard,” he said into his radio. “Why aren’t you at your post?”

It was a solid fifteen seconds before he received an answer. “Mr Messier needed some privacy, sir,” Billick said.

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, maybe you should ask him, sir.”

“I would, but he’s not answering his door,” John hissed.

Just then, Mark’s door whispered open, and Teyla walked out in a very obvious attempt to look casual. Her hair was wet. She was wearing that low-cut black top he and Rodney had agreed was their favourite.

“Nevermind,” he said. He turned his radio off. “Teyla?”

She plastered a very fake smile on her face. “Hello, John. What are you doing here?”

He held up his DVDs. “I wanted to see if Mark wanted to watch a movie. What are you doing here?”

“Mark and I were also watching a movie.”

“Which one?” John asked suspiciously.

“I have forgotten the name,” she said. “You know I do not pay attention to these things. It was about sports and overcoming hardships.”

For a second, he had the crazy idea she’d murdered Mark in cold blood and had taken a shower to wash away all the evidence, but then he saw the hickey on her neck. He gaped.

“You know he used to be a–” He glanced at Mark’s door; the last thing they needed was for Mark to wander out right about now. He lowered his voice. “Used to be a Wraith, right?”

“I know what he is, yes,” she said, beginning to sound irritated.

He stared. “Did you sleep with Michael too?”

Her gaze wandered over his shoulder. “No,” she said.

She was totally lying. “Before or after he became a Wraith again?”

“I am an adult, I may take companionship in whomever I please,” she said stiffly.

“Eww,” John said in revulsion. His mind flashed to Teyla and a half-turned Michael sucking each other’s faces off. It was worse than all those times he’d walked in on his parents having sex, or that time he’d caught his dad and the babysitter on the kitchen table.

Teyla glared. “You have had relations with non-humans before. I did not say ‘ew’ when you slept with Chaya.” She bit her lip. “No, that is untrue. I did say that, but not to your face.”

He would’ve found that more insulting if he hadn’t said that to himself, later. The sharing had been cool, but there had been glowing tentacles involved, in places he’d tried hard not to think about. “I can’t believe you slept with my brother,” he said.

“What?” Teyla asked, looking startled.

“I’m kidding– Mark said after he gave me back my– you know what, nevermind.” He put his hands on his hips in an attempt to regain his dignity. “It’s still gross. Why can’t you find a nice human boyfriend? Maybe Lorne. Or Zelenka. Ronon likes you.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “What about Rodney?”

“You can sleep with Rodney,” he said, in a tone he hoped didn’t convey what he really wanted to say: “Sleep with Rodney and I’ll beat you with your beating sticks.”

“It is difficult for me to relate to many of the people in Atlantis,” Teyla said slowly. It was the same voice she had used when she’d told him she’d always felt like an outsider.

“But you relate to people who used to be Wraiths,” John stated.

She raised her chin. “I am aware that may seem unusual.”

“No, no– okay, yeah,” John said.

*

Rodney didn’t look up from his laptop when the doors slid open. He could tell by the sound of large, slow-moving boots it was Sheppard coming to distract him, but he was right in the middle of a rather fascinating article recently translated from the Ancient database on subspace energy waves, and he was not in the mood to–

“My two best friends are sleeping together,” Sheppard announced, coming to a stop in front of Rodney’s lab bench.

Rodney looked up in surprise. “I’m not sleeping with anyone.”

Sheppard squinted. “I meant Mark and Teyla.”

That stung. “Hello, I’m sitting right here,” he snapped. “Wait, she’s sleeping with the Wraith?”

“Yeah.” Sheppard’s nose wrinkled. “Is it just me, or is that kind of disgusting?”

“It really is,” Rodney agreed. “I’d been hoping she was a lesbian, you know, like a whole Xena-and-Gabrielle thing? Gabrielle was a blonde, wasn’t she? With short hair later on,” he added thoughtfully. What a nice mental image. “Maybe next time Colonel Carter comes to Atlantis we can–”

“Rodney,” Sheppard said. He sounded annoyed. “This really isn’t the time to talk about your fantasies.”

“Well, I was going to invite you to the group sex, but you can forget about it now,” Rodney sniffed.

*

Part Three: Saved By the Wraith

The day everything went to hell, Mark managed to convince Corporal Sherman to hand over his foosball table. John wasn’t entirely sure if Sherman had let them borrow it because he, like many of the other officers, was terrified of Mark, or if it was because Mark had made a convincing argument. Either way, John hadn’t played foosball in years, and Mark’s bright enthusiasm was kind of funny. John ordered Edison and Billick stand outside so they wouldn’t hear his manly ribbing. It would be embarrassing when he made Mark cry like a little bitch.

He hit the ball into the goal for the fifth time in a row. “He shoots, he scores!”

“You’ll pay for that,” Mark warned with a determined expression.

John lined the soccer ball in the centre of the table, then grasped the rods on his side tightly. His palms were sweating. Mark’s eyes narrowed in concentration. There was no way John was losing.

Miss it, John thought as he twisted the bar.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. As John thought, Miss, again, as hard as he could, Mark’s hand slipped on the rod. The ball sailed right past his players and into the goal.

Mark’s head snapped up, eyes angry. “You jerk, taunting the other player has to be against the rules!”

John froze. Mark’s expression went blank. The soccer ball loudly rolled from the goal into the gutter.

“Did you read my mind?” John asked in disbelief.

“What a ridiculous question,” Mark said, eyes widening exaggeratingly.

“Yes, you did,” John said with a growing horror.

About a dozen emotions crossed Mark’s face before settling on defeat. His shoulders slumped. “I guess it’s time to come clean.”

John stabbed a finger at him. “I knew there was something going on.” He’d been right to be suspicious. That meant Mark’s transition wasn’t completely perfect, that John wasn’t the only one with lingering side-effects. Maybe Mark was having nightmares. Maybe Mark was longingly remembering all the things he used to like and slowly starving to death.

Of course, it also meant John had probably doomed the entire city. Which was bad. Very bad.

“I tried to hide it from you,” Mark said. He took a step back from the table with a miserable look on his face.

“So all this time you’ve been faking it?” John felt a deep, resounding disappointment. This was just as bad as when Rodney had taken Lucius’s potion and used it to make John clean his room. He’d never forget the bowl of moulded-over Kraft Dinner hiding under the bed; another week, and it would’ve been able to talk to him. “The amnesia? Wanting to be my friend? Not being evil?”

Mark looked stricken. “No! I like it here. I like you, and Teyla, and Ronon, and– okay, everyone else treats me like crap, but you guys are great. I’ve been so alone these past few years. You don’t know what it was like in there, all those years of just myself, the stone walls, and the velts.”

“Velts?” John asked.

“Rodents with claws and glowing red eyes. They like to nibble.”

John was vaguely disturbed. “I must’ve missed those. What with the whole you feeding off me thing.”

“John,” Mark said, sounding frustrated, “I thought we’d moved past that.”

“Just out of curiosity, how much of my mind have you read?” John asked, wincing to himself.

“Not that much; usually it’s just feelings, unless you’re projecting a thought really loudly. I know you have nightmares, because at night, you get really scared. Most of the time it’s like you’re barely there.” He scratched his chin. “Oh, and you have some pretty filthy thoughts about Dr McKay.”

Next time, Rodney got to be the one with the alien brain link. The Wraith would probably kill itself just to get away.

Mark threw a look over his shoulder at the door. He lowered his voice a fraction. “Listen, it’s actually a good thing this happened. We need to talk. I need your help.”

“I don’t think so,” John said.

Mark looked shocked. “You don’t understand,” he pleaded, “there’s a hive ship about three weeks from here,” and John’s stomach dropped.

“You are so dead,” John said roughly. “You were supposed to be my friend. You said I was your brother. God, I’m such an idiot! Don’t trust the Wraith, they said. He’s going to turn out just like Michael, they said.”

“Michael?” Mark demanded. “How many other Wraith have you– have you had?”

“About a hundred,” John replied. “Maybe two? There were a lot of Wraiths on that hive ship.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed.

“Anyway, you don’t have the right to be upset,” said John, waving a finger at him. “Since your friends are coming to kill us.”

Shaking his head frantically, Mark protested, “No, no, that’s what I’m trying to say. Right now all they know is a Wraith’s in the general area. But if they get close enough, they’ll be able to connect with me, and they’ll come straight for the city. I know you guys don’t have a shield right now. I’ve heard the scientists talking.”

John stared. “You want–”

“You need to get me out of Atlantis,” Mark said grimly.

*

“Rodney, what are you doing?”

Rodney barely managed to not jump at the sound of the familiar voice. The last thing the city needed right now was for him to get a head injury. “I like sticking my face in consoles in my free time. It reminds me of the womb. What does it look like I’m doing, Colonel?”

Sheppard’s knees appeared in Rodney’s field of vision as he crouched down. “It looks like you’re avoiding the labs.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I love the labs. They’re very sterile and full of things I enjoy, like computers. And there is a distinct lack of Wraith in them. Oh wait.”

Sheppard muttered something nasty he couldn’t hear. It was just as well. Rodney would never admit it, but he was bored. He could only stand to be around the idiots in the lab for so long, and while he had a million and a half projects to research, reconstruct, or relegate to people less intelligent than himself, it wasn’t the same as going offworld. Zelenka, he had found, was actually very condescending, and Elizabeth called entirely too many meetings. Rodney had been ruined for life, no thanks to Sheppard and his touchy-feely team dynamics.

When Rodney crawled out from under the console — his back was going to kill him in the morning — Sheppard said, “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?” he asked, his gut clenching. Sheppard seemed shifty. “What is it?”

Sheppard rubbed the back of his neck. “I sort of… fucked up.”

Rodney sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “How badly?”

“Pretty badly.” Sheppard grimaced. “It’s about Mark.”

“Oh,” Rodney replied flatly. “Mark. Of course. What did your precious Mark do?” A horrible thought occurred to him. “Or what did you do with him?”

Sheppard glared for a moment, then dropped his gaze. “He doesn’t really have amnesia. He remembers everything from being a Wraith.”

Stunned, Rodney sputtered, “He– but Carson said–” Somewhere beneath the panic was smug arrogance, and somewhere beneath that was outrage. “Yes, Colonel, I would call that a fuck up. Did I not tell you it was a train wreck? No, you said you had everything under control.”

Sheppard had the gall to look offended. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Any brilliant ideas?”

He had to be joking. “You could try, I don’t know, killing him?”

“But I don’t want to kill him,” Sheppard whined.

“Oh, I’m sorry, let me think of some other way to get rid of the Wraith without it resulting in our deaths,” he snapped. Carson had been wrong about the Wraith not affecting Sheppard’s brain chemistry; clearly the man was a lunatic. Or maybe this was the result of the combination of nightmares and insomnia. “Am I the only one you’ve told about this? While you’re down here talking to me, where is he?”

“With his security guards, how stupid do you think I am?” Sheppard retorted.

Rodney began, “Aren’t you going to–?”

“I’m not telling Elizabeth yet,” Sheppard said, anticipating what Rodney was going to say with disturbing accuracy. He put his hands on his hips, but his eyebrows were doing that funny thing they did when he was upset. “If I tell Elizabeth, she’ll try to be the good guy, and I’ll be the one enforcing the hard decisions. I’d really rather not have to end things that way.”

“How is it going to end then?” Rodney asked.

Sheppard bit his lip. “Mark wants me to get him off the city. He says he can go back to eating animals in the wild.”

Much to Rodney’s own surprise, he was shocked at Sheppard’s stupidity. “Or he can go back to his hive with information on Atlantis.”

“He said he won’t.”

“And you believe him?”

Sheppard squared his shoulders. “Yeah, I do. He doesn’t really seem the evil type. I don’t think he has it in him.”

“You mean you don’t think you have it in you,” Rodney said wisely. Then he realized how obscene that sounded. “And by ‘it,’ I mean the conscience exchanged by that terrible, awful mind melding, because I know you’re not really putting ‘it’ in you. You’re not, right? Tell me you’re not.”

Sheppard’s head went back a little. “I’m going to ignore that and pretend I understood most of the words coming out of your mouth. Come on, aren’t you always telling me I need your vastly superior knowledge? Well, this time I do. I’m asking you as a friend.”

Rodney hated himself for the warm glow that went through him. This was so going to end badly, but Sheppard was pouting and looking all handsome, and in the end, Rodney was only human. Besides, if he said no, Sheppard would only keep whining. “Fine,” he said angrily, “I’ll come up with something to get Marky Mark out of the city without giving away his secret.”

“You’re a pal, McKay,” Sheppard said, slapping Rodney on the back. He gave Rodney the goofy, sincere smile Rodney usually only saw when they were talking about spaceships or super weapons.

“Yes, yes, I’m a saint,” Rodney agreed. He felt disappointed for no discernable reason. “You do realize Teyla’s going to be mad you’ve gotten rid of yet another one of her boyfriends.”

“Maybe if she stopped sleeping with Wraith, we wouldn’t have this problem,” Sheppard said.

*

“Okay,” Rodney said, “here’s the plan. We — by which I mean I — cause a diversion in the gateroom — by which I mean explosion — and dial the stargate, sending Mark to a random planet halfway across the galaxy. We then inform Elizabeth and the others he died trying to save the city.”

Sheppard’s eyes narrowed. “What are the chances Mark will ‘accidentally’ get killed in this explosion?”

Rodney hesitated. “Slim. Unlikely. Not entirely implausible. Two to one?”

“Well, think of something else,” Sheppard said sternly.

Rodney didn’t exacxtly understand what Sheppard’s deal about refusing to kill Mark. So they’d been friends. The man was also a liar, and his very existence was endangering their lives. It didn’t take someone of Rodney’s stellar intelligence to figure out what to do with him. Of course, Sheppard hadn’t wanted to kill Michael Kenmore either, until it had been a last resort. Kenmore had saved their lives too, now that he thought about it. As often as Rodney didn’t understand Sheppard, he didn’t get Wraith at all.

There was one thing Rodney accepted, at least, and that was that Sheppard was moping around like his puppy had been hit by a car. While Rodney plotted, Sheppard lounged around and sighed. When Mark came anywhere near the two of them, Sheppard acted like a broken-hearted teenager. It was disgusting.

Rodney snapped two days after Sheppard had asked for help.

Ronon, Sheppard, and Rodney were in the commissary eating lunch. Teyla was across the room pretending not to flirt with Lorne and a table full of Marines. Rodney was in the middle of a great story about how he had showed up both Zelenka and Kavanagh when he realized he might as well be talking to himself. He was used to Ronon pretending he didn’t exist — although he was waiting for the day Ronon would learn Rodney was his best chance of survival — but Sheppard was picking at his food morosely and not paying attention at all, and Rodney knew Sheppard was thinking about Mark. He was filled with hate.

“So then I said– Hey, are you listening to me?” He snapped his fingers in front of Sheppard’s nose.

Sheppard raised his head, looking irritated. “What? Stop that.”

“You know,” Rodney said brilliantly, “Mark was probably born without a penis.”

Ronon made a choking noise. Sheppard’s eyes went wide. “Huh?”

“I’m just saying. Have you ever seen a Wraith naked? Their reproductive systems are probably completely different from ours. We don’t even know how they reproduce.”

“Jesus, Rodney, I’m sure he has a penis,” Sheppard said, scrunching up his face thoughtfully.

“But you don’t know for sure,” Rodney said triumphantly.

Sheppard threw down his napkin. He stood and picked up his tray. “We are not talking about this,” he huffed, stomping away.

“Great, he’s probably going to go look at Mark’s dick, just to make sure he has one.” Rodney stabbed his potatoes with his fork. “I hate Mark’s stupid Wraith face.”

“Sheppard still likes you more,” Ronon said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t believe you just said that to me,” Rodney said incredulously. “Don’t you have any tact at all? Besides, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I know Sheppard likes me best; in addition to my many fine qualities, I happen to be human, unlike the Wraith. Who is a Wraith.”

Ronon chewed slowly. “Okay.”

He found Sheppard in the jumper bay, brutally punching commands into the console with his pointer fingers. His expression was stormy. Rodney almost turned around and left, but he remembered what Jeannie had said about being an asshole and cleared his throat. “Hi, um. Are you– are you okay?”

Sheppard gave him a sideways glance. “I’m cool.”

Rodney sat in the co-pilot’s seat. “Sorry for what I said. About the Wraith penis, or lack thereof, rather. You haven’t seen him naked, have you? No, no, I don’t know want to know. Forget I asked. Look, if you’re so worried about him betraying us, why don’t you–?”

“He can read my mind,” Sheppard said abruptly. Rodney’s mouth closed with a snap. “I don’t like it.”

“Is it because of your–?” Rodney gestured towards Sheppard’s pointy head. There was no way he was going to say “psychic connection” out loud.

Sheppard nodded. “Teyla can read my mind too, but not like Mark can.”

Rodney stared. “Teyla can read your mind?”

He grimaced. “Yeah, but don’t tell her. She doesn’t know.”

“How can she not know she’s linked to you telepathically?” Rodney asked quizzically. “Hey, is that why she crimped her hair? I thought that was a little odd.”

“I haven’t been hanging out with her a lot lately,” Sheppard said, studying the console intently. “The Wraith fetish freaks me out.”

Something occurred to Rodney. “Wasn’t she flirting with Major Lorne in the commissary just a moment ago?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sheppard said flatly.

*

That night, John dreamed Mark ate the entire Athosian village during a football game, while John was saying, “We can’t go now, we’re only up fourteen points.” Rodney had to fly the jumper back to Atlantis because John was injured and covered in blood. The Elizabeth in his dream asked him, “You didn’t come home on time and your new friend ate a village, because you were playing football?”

John woke up in a sweat. His clock said it was too early to get up and work, so he threw on his track pants to see if he could catch Ronon before he started his workout. What he needed was a nice, long run. Only when he arrived at the catwalk where Ronon usually began his trek, Mark was there too. John could hear their voices as he got closer.

“I can teach you how to play football,” Mark was saying.

“Really?” Ronon said. “Sheppard’s never offered to teach me.”

“John’s a wonderful person burdened with the many, many responsibilities of being commander, I’m sure he was just busy,” Mark said.

Ronon snorted. “Yeah, if his responsibilities include goofing off with McKay. They go ‘gate hunting.’” John didn’t like that he could hear the quotation marks around “gate hunting”; obviously Ronon was the one spending too much time with Rodney. So what if sometimes they told everyone they were going gate hunting when they were actually going surfing on planets with great waves? Or, in Rodney’s case, reading under umbrellas.

“McKay,” Mark said in a weird voice.

John remembered with a start that Mark had been inside his head, and he took off running in the opposite direction. He ran until his mind was blank and all he could hear was his own breathing ringing in his ears. When he got back to his room, knees shaking with exhaustion, he took a look in the mirror, thought his pale, damp skin made him look hot, considered bleaching his hair and growing it long, and then freaked out and jogged directly to Rodney’s room.

“Colonel, I was just working on our little plan,” Rodney said as he entered, not looking at him.

“What’s up?” he asked.

He sat on Rodney’s bed, peering over Rodney’s shoulder to see what he was doing. Much to his disappointment, Rodney was looking through schematics of the city on his laptop; part of John had been hoping Rodney was building something, so he’d have something to jerk off to during his shower. At least schematics meant Rodney was working on a plan. John had every faith he’d come up with something. After all, Rodney worked best when his own life was at stake.

John laid back on the bed, trying to cool off. The vents hummed as chilled air was pumped into the room. At least Atlantis loved him. “You’re getting your sweat all over my covers,” Rodney said, sounding disgusted.

“I’ll wash your sheets for you later,” John said.

When he sat back up, Rodney was giving him the fish eye.

Awkwardly, John asked, “Hey, uh, can I ask you something? Saving Mark… it’s something I would’ve done before, right? Before the mind-melding?”

Rodney’s mouth thinned. “Oh yeah, this is just like you, doing something reckless to save people who don’t deserve it.”

“I guess I’m just worried about how much of this is me and how much is him.”

Rodney wheeled his chair over and got right up in his face. “Do you have the urges to suck the life out of anyone? Are you pissed off all the time? Is he making you do his evil bidding? Do you want to dress like you’re in The Matrix? Feel like screaming high pitched into the sky at random?”

“No,” John said, making himself lean back. He was being honest, except for the part about dressing like Neo. He always wanted to dress like Neo.

“Then you’re fine,” Rodney said dismissively.

John watched him silently for a few minutes, waiting for McKay’s typical under-handed sympathy, or at least another lecture, but Rodney moved his laptop closer to his face and started muttering to himself about ventilation shafts. John gave up and left.

When he hunted Mark down, he was sitting on the pier where they usually played golf, watching the sunset.

“I’m really going to miss it here,” Mark said sadly.

“Maybe we can find you a planet with some nice beaches,” John said. He plunked down next to Mark, but avoided soaking his feet in the ocean. “I need to ask you some questions.”

Mark gave him a half-smile. “I was wondering how long it’d take before you start.”

“Do you know why the retrovirus didn’t work the way it was supposed to?” John asked.

Mark ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been thinking about that too. Maybe because I– I was already changing when I’d been given the retrovirus. Because I gave your life back to you. When I woke up, Dr Beckett and Dr Weir told me my name was Mark and I’d been in an accident. If I hadn’t gone along with it, who knows what would have happened to me.”

“Yeah,” John said seriously, “we would’ve probably had to kill you.”

Mark cupped the back of John’s neck, smiling sweetly. “And then we never would’ve gotten to know each other.”

When Mark didn’t remove his hand after a beat, John said, “I’m pretty sure we talked about personal space a while back.”

“John,” Mark said without moving away, his voice soft and full of something John couldn’t make out, “Between your eating disorder and your compulsion to act macho all the time, I know you have some self-esteem issues, and that’s probably why you’re into guys less attractive than you –”

“What?” John cut in. Rodney was totally hot. He knew he shouldn’t have let Mark talk to Heightmeyer.

“–But you’re very special to me, and I know you feel what I feel.”

“Right now I mostly feel uncomfortable,” John said.

Mark tugged him forward. Their lips brushed gently and it was kind of nice, if John completely forgot who the hell it was he was kissing. John exclaimed, “Whoa, whoa, what’s going on here?”

Mark pulled back with a frustrated expression on his face. “I love you, John Sheppard. I did all this to get closer you. Why do you think I’ve spent so much time getting to know your friends?”

“Even sleeping with Teyla?” John asked, not impressed the way his voice squeaked on the last syllable.

“No, that was because she’s hot,” Mark replied.

“She thinks you guys have a thing,” John said, offended on her behalf.

He took John’s hands in his. “My bond with Teyla could never be as strong as my bond with you.”

“You’re a Wraith,” John said.

“Why does it keep coming back to that?” Mark protested. “I keep thinking we’re moving forward, and then there we are, two steps back. You’re so focused on me being a Wraith, you’re skipping the part where I told you I loved you. We need to be open about these things if we’re going to have a future together.”

John snatched his hands back, suddenly really, amazingly angry. He didn’t need this. Mark had been deceiving him about having amnesia, about being his friend, from the very start, and now he was supposed to believe the guy was in love with him? Wasn’t it enough John was risking his neck to get Mark to safety? “You don’t love me,” he said. “You’re just saying this because I’m helping you. The minute my back’s turned, you’ll go back to stealing my friends and being the prom king and running away to baseball camp. Dad always loved you the best, Mark, but I’ve always seen right through you. Hey, I’m the CO of my own alien city in another galaxy! In your face, Mr All-Star! You can take that four year contract and–”

“I think you have me confused with someone else, ” Mark said slowly, brows knitting. He held up his hands in a defensive position.

The violence emptied out of John. Mark was staring at him with wide, pale eyes, and John said numbly, “I– uh.” He jerked his thumb towards the door, shoving himself to his feet. “I think we need some time apart.”

“Sounds like it,” Mark replied with a nervous smile.

John walked back into the building, the doors sliding shut behind him. “Not your brother,” he whispered to himself. “Not your brother.” When he glanced over his shoulder, both Billick and Edison were watching him. Their eyes quickly snapped back up to the wall.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until it hurt. What did one do when a Wraith confessed their love?

“So apparently,” he said as he walked back into Rodney’s room without knocking, “I’m irresistible to Wraith.”

Rodney was sitting at his desk eating a can of sliced peaches. “Say what?”

“Mark. Has a thing for me.”

“Of course he does,” Rodney muttered.

“What was that?” John asked, just to be an asshole. He sat on the end of Rodney’s bed, which had new sheets on it. Rodney must’ve changed them the second he’d left.

Rodney swiveled the chair around to look John straight in the eye. “I said, of course he does. Why wouldn’t he? Everyone has a thing for you. You’re so–” He waved his hand up and down John’s body, like that explained it.

John was really fucking sick of Rodney’s Kirk jokes. “I don’t know where the hell you get this idea that I’m some sex-crazed egomaniac. I don’t hit on everything that moves, and I sure as hell never hit on your sister, so if that’s what’s crawled up your ass and died, you can forget about it.”

Rodney said, “I just meant… you’re really good-looking.”

“You can stop with the sarcasm,” John growled.

“I’m not being sarcastic,” Rodney snapped. “Excuse me if I don’t think it’s ridiculous that some guy you’ve been spending time with and baring your soul to happens to have feelings for you. Some people actually get crushes on people who pay attention to them, especially when that person is some big hero-type who they can’t possibly understand.”

John was taken aback. “Are you saying Ronon and Teyla have crushes on me?”

Rodney threw his hands in the air. “No, you simpleton, I’m saying I have a crush on you! God, you’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met in my life. Some days I swear the Ancients let you make that chair orgasm so you’d have to come here and make me lose my mind.”

John opened his mouth, but he didn’t have any words. He’d fantasized about what Rodney would be like in bed often enough to admit to himself he had a thing; a couple of times, late at night, feeling like the universe’s biggest idiot, he’d thought about what it’d be like if there was more to it than that. That connection Mark had been talking about, he’d felt it with Rodney, and sometimes, he thought Rodney did too. But he’d never expected it to happen.

“I–” he started, then stopped. Rodney’s expression went from mortified to hopeful. “I–”

Elizabeth’s voice broke in, startling him. “Colonel Sheppard, may I see you in my office?”

“I need to go,” John told Rodney numbly.

Rodney nodded miserably. “Yes, I’ll be, um. Probably in the lab. If you need me. Or not.”

Elizabeth looked up at John as he stumbled into her office a lot less gracefully than he’d intended. He collapsed into one of the chairs in front of her desk and very carefully didn’t think about how his life sucked. His teammate and his Wraith both had feelings for him. One scared the crap out of him, and the other he was conspiring to smuggle out of Atlantis.

“What’s going on?” he drawled.

“Major Lorne’s team just returned from M4X-111,” Elizabeth said. She looked delighted. “Guess which planet had some interesting rumours about a power device left behind by the Ancients?”

It was the easiest plan John had ever had. He wondered why it had taken him so long to think of it.

He smirked, slowly and smugly, crossing his arms behind his head. “My team will head out first thing in the morning.”

*

It was time to tell Ronon and Teyla exactly what was going on. Truthfully, John wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d never been good at being the bearer of bad news. He tended to trip over his words and make people feel worse. Like Ford’s cousin. Or every person he’d ever dated.

“Remember that time you had that friend who was a Wraith, and we lied to him about it, and then it backfired and he went bananas on us?”

Teyla’s left eyebrow twitched upwards.”You mean Michael?”

“Yeah,” he said brightly, “Michael. Do you have a minute?”

She looked pointedly around the empty gym.

“You should probably sit down for this,” John said, because this was the kind of conversation that was better sitting down. He just hoped when he told her, she didn’t do something horrible. Hitting he could deal with; crying, not so much.

“What is going on?” Teyla asked slowly, sounding slightly alarmed.

He took a seat on the bench, and Teyla gingerly sat beside him, her brows drawing together. “This is hard for me to say.” He opened his mouth to tell her everything when he spotted a series of purple hickies barely hidden under the high collar of her new shirt. Suddenly he had a much more important thing to ask. “Does Mark have… you know…?”

Teyla frowned. “Does he have…?”

John shrugged, trying to look casual. Stupid Rodney and his stupid ideas. “Boy parts?”

“Oh,” she said. “No.”

“Did Michael?”

Teyla chuckled. “No, John, of course not. Wraith do not have the same genitals as humans.”

It wasn’t like John had been considering hooking up with Mark before, but this sealed it. There was no way in hell John was sleeping with a man without a dick. Not that John had ever been with a man; sure, over the years he’d had some crushes, and there’d been that really inappropriate thing he had for one of the mechanics during the first Gulf War that had gotten him a few raised eyebrows. But if he was going to risk his neck for some guy-on-guy action, he was going to go all the way.

“There is more than one way to have sex,” Teyla added.

“Oh,” John said knowingly, waggling his eyebrows, “so he’s good at–”

“I am very skilled in the ways of fisting.”

John’s mind went blissfully white. Teyla looked at him serenely.

“It gives me a feeling of empowerment like nothing else. I like to be the one who pene–”

“Okay,” John interrupted loudly. “I think we’re done with this discussion.”

A smirk had been forming on her lips, but now her face went blank again. He recognized apprehension when he saw it. “Is that what you came to discuss with me?” she asked carefully.

It was better to just spit it out, like ripping off a bandaid. There’d be other guys. This was Teyla. She was hot. “What would you say if we had to sneak Mark out of Atlantis so he wouldn’t alert the Wraith to our location?”

Teyla stared at him for a long moment. John wondered if it would make him less of a man if he threw up his hands to protect his face.

“All men are alike,” Teyla said finally. “They tell you they love you, when they are just biding their time until they can get back to their hive ships.”

“You’re telling me,” said John.

*

John called a team meeting in his room. He sat at the desk while Rodney and Teyla took up his bed, and Ronon leaned against the wall. Somehow, it was a lot easier to tell Ronon about Mark than it had been to tell Teyla. Possibly because Ronon wasn’t sleeping with Mark. He hoped. Oh God, how he hoped.

“So let me get this straight,” Ronon said, looming. “All this time we’ve been keeping him from remembering he’s a Wraith, he’s known about it?”

“Pretty much,” John replied.

“I never liked him,” Ronon declared.

“You’re such a liar,” Rodney scoffed. If he was suffering from their aborted exchange earlier, he wasn’t showing it. He was in full jackass mode. “You said he was a, and I quote, ‘funner’ version of the Colonel. I don’t even need to point out ‘funner’ isn’t a word.”

Betrayed, John glared at Ronon, who looked away shamefully. “What’re we going to do about him?” Ronon asked the floor.

Teyla stiffened. “If he was among my people, we would hang him, tie his corpse to a cart, and have it dragged through the village.”

She wasn’t taking it well. John guessed once you had your hand up some guy’s ass, it made you feel close.

“Really?” Rodney asked excitedly. “I say we give him to Teyla’s people.”

“McKay, we’ve been over this,” John warned. “Besides, I happen to have a great plan that’ll solve all our problems.”

“Do tell,” Rodney said.

“Wait, why aren’t we killing him?” Ronon asked. He looked at John in surprise.

“Because Sheppard has issues,” Rodney replied shortly. “Tell us your plan, Colonel.”

John leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself. His plan was awesome. “We sneak him onto the jumper we’re taking out for tomorrow’s mission, and we drop him off on the planet when we get there,” he explained proudly.

The room went very quiet for an instant.

Finally, Rodney bent forward, sneering, “What kind of retarded–? Hmm.” His eyes glazed over. “That might just be crazy enough to work.”

“What are you thinking?” John asked.

“I have an– excuse me, ‘lightbulb,’” Rodney said, curling his fingers into air quotes. Out of all the things John had ever said to Rodney, he regretted that one the most.

“I do not believe that plan will work,” Teyla protested. “Elizabeth is going to be very upset when she finds out what we have done. Is there not a way to fake Mark’s death? Surely Rodney can blow up something. Perhaps Ronon can pretend to murder Mark in a fit of rage.”

“We’d have to get Mark through the gate somehow, which means we’d have to get everybody out of the gate room, and I don’t want to risk hurting anybody by accident,” John said, grimacing. He was pretty sure Elizabeth wouldn’t kill him, but he’d never put that theory to the test. “McKay and I have been through this already. I’ll deal with it. I’ll say it was a command decision. She’ll understand after I explain the situation to her. I mean, it’s not like I’m doing this under mind control.”

Ronon and Teyla exchanged glances. “Of course not,” Teyla said.

“I can knock out the security cameras for a few minutes,” Rodney said, snapping his fingers. He reached around John’s shoulder and scooped his tablet off the desk. “Not for long; just enough for it to look like a glitch. Then, while that’s out, you can get Mark into the jumper. Voila, we take off, he’s released back into the wild, we’re done. All you’d need to do is tell me is where to turn the cameras off.”

Mark had developed a schedule in his time in Atlantis, and John knew it pretty well by this point. “I can do that,” he said.

“Teyla and I will watch your backs,” Ronon said seriously.

“Of course you will,” Rodney exclaimed. “Did you think I was going to ask for your help in hacking the security system? Please.”

John sent Rodney a narrow-eyed glance. Sometimes he could be such an asshole. Evidently, Ronon thought so too, because he glared hard enough for Rodney to balk.

“As I was saying,” Rodney continued, clearing his throat, “I’m sure the two of you will, as usual, be valuable assets. The Wild Bunch to our Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. The lab assistants to our Michelson and Morley. The–”

“McKay,” John cut in.

“Sorry,” Rodney said. “You know I can’t help myself when I’m nervous.”

*

When Ronon and Teyla were leaving, John asked, “Hey, McKay, can you stay for a minute?”

Teyla gave John a sympathetic look as the door closed in her face. He wasn’t sure if that was because she could tell what was going on between them or because of the freaky ass telepathy. It wasn’t like Rodney knew the definition of subtle. Being loud and obnoxious was more his style.

Rodney hesitated. “Make it fast. Every second we waste in here is a second I should be working on our plan.”

“Like I don’t know you can hack the system in less than five minutes,” John said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Rodney preened a little; he never could resist a compliment. “Alright, spit it out.”

With some difficulty, John began, “I know that what happened earlier was embarrassing…”

“Yes, I can see how that would be been particularly devastating for you,” Rodney snapped.

“Hey!” John said defensively. “We need to discuss–” Don’t say our relationship, don’t say our relationship. “–Our relationship–” Dammit! “–but not now. It’s going to have to wait until after we’ve dealt with this situation.”

“Yes, of course,” Rodney said prickly. “I know that. What’s going on now is much more important than our– than whatever’s going on. I’m sorry to break it to you, Colonel, but the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

“Look, if you calm down a minute, I’m trying to tell you something. I was going to say, we’re going to talk about it later, but I don’t want you to think I–” He didn’t know how to tell Rodney without saying something embarrassing. He put his hand on Rodney’s arm, and Rodney went very still. “You need to know I–”

“Colonel Sheppard, can you please come to my office?” Elizabeth’s voice buzzed in his ear, shattering the moment. “There’s an error in one of your requisition forms.”

“Uh, yeah, right away,” he said into the mic. In that moment, John hated Elizabeth and paperwork with every fibre of his being.

He and Rodney stared at each other.

“These interruptions are probably a sign,” said John half-jokingly.

Rodney gave him a disgusted look and walked out like he wished he could slam the door behind him.

*

The next morning, John met with his security team, finished reading last week’s mission reports from the teams, and attended his own pre-mission briefing, all without giving away that he was up to something. Granted, Rodney wouldn’t look him in the eye and Ronon kept making guilty faces, but Rodney being a bastard was nothing new and, thankfully, Elizabeth had never understood Ronon anyway. Teyla, at least, had been as cool and composed as ever, even though she had probably been imaging all the different ways she could kill Mark in her head.

For the first phase of the Operation: Wraith No More, John met Mark, Sergeant Edison, and Sergeant Billick in the sky walk connecting the north and east towers. He had Ronon’s gun tucked in his waistband, under his tac jacket, and a couple of Ronon’s rope-like hair ties in his back pocket.

John smiled as the three men headed in his direction. “I’ll take it from here, guys,” he ordered.

As soon as Billick’s and Edison’s backs were turned, John stunned them. They fell to the ground in a loud heap.

“What are you doing?” Mark demanded.

“Getting you out of here,” John said. He started pulling Edison, the smaller of the two, by the armpits. “Help me stuff these guys in the storage closet.”

“Wow,” Mark said, rushing over to grab Edison’s feet, “wow, um, I wish you’d told me you were going to do this, I could’ve packed.”

John narrowed his eyes. “And by ‘packed,’ you mean…?”

“Work on my seduction technique.”

Together, Mark and John tried to lift Edison. He was a lot heavier than he looked; John started to break out in a sweat and Mark’s face went bright red with strain as they tried dragging him towards the closet. “Okay!” John exclaimed, letting the man fall to the ground again. He panted. “This isn’t working.”

Mark brushed sweat of his forehead. “Man, it’s a lot easier to move bodies when they’re dried-up, withered husks.”

John laughed before he could stop himself. He coughed. “That’s not funny,” he said, scowling.

“Come on, that was totally funny,” Mark said, grabbing Edison’s calves. John got a better grip on his shoulders. “Okay, on three.”

They finally managed to stuff Edison in the closet. John tried to catch his breath, feeling like he’d just run a marathon. He wiped his sweaty palms on his BDUs. Maybe in the next databurst he’d ask the SGC for skinnier Marines, although it would be hard to explain that he wanted them because they were easier to carry. Or maybe not; he had the feeling General Landry thought he was kind of nuts.

“There,” Mark said, “that wasn’t so hard.” He beamed at John.

“We still need to move Billick,” John said.

“Dammit,” said Mark.

John pulled the rope out of his pocket and began tying Edison’s hands behind his back. “We have ten minutes before Rodney turns the security cameras back on. We need to get Billick in here, pronto.”

“Everyone’s going to think I did this,” Mark said, leaning over John’s shoulder.

“That’s the plan,” John replied smugly.

*

Rodney was alone in the jumper when John and Mark got there. His laptop was plugged into one of the wall terminals of the jumper bay, and he was sitting on the jumper’s floor, typing furiously.

“How much longer do we have?” John asked.

“Two minutes,” Rodney replied sharply. He met John’s eyes for a split second, then he glanced back down at the screen. “Then all we have to do it wait for Ronon and Teyla. Provided we don’t get caught keeping people out of the corridors, of course.”

John slid on his tac vest. Mark was walking around the jumper, poking at things.

“Can I fly it?” Mark asked.

“No,” John and Rodney snapped simultaneously. “You wouldn’t be able to, anyway,” Rodney added. “You don’t have the gene, unless you shared DNA with the Colonel when you– how about you just keep your hands to yourself, hmm, and leave the flying to Captain Kirk here?” Mark raised his hands in the air and stepped back.

“I’m going to murder you if call me that one more time,” John growled.

“Fine, I have a whole repertoire of Riker jokes I have yet to use.”

Mark bent to gaze at the HUD. “I haven’t flown in years,” he murmured dreamily. “Our ships are different, though. I’ve never been inside a Lantean one before. I mean, while conscious.”

Rodney and John exchanged glances.

“If we screw up the galaxy again, do you want to run away together and become space pirates?” John asked.

“No,” Rodney said. “Are you crazy? I’m not living in the back of a puddlejumper.”

There was a whoosh as the entrance to the jumper bay opened. John braced himself, until Teyla and Ronon walked up the ramp. “I believe no one is suspicious,” Teyla said, zipping into her tac jacket. “However, it is only a matter of time before the guards are found unconscious.”

John handed Ronon’s gun back to him. He watched jealously as Ronon spun it once and stuck it in his holster. “We’re ready to leave as soon as I give the order.”

As Teyla and– well, Teyla finished suiting up, John heard Mark say to Rodney in the cockpit: “Thanks for helping me. I know you don’t like me very much.”

Rodney laughed loudly and nervously. “What? Preposterous! What possibly made you think that?”

“Well, all the glaring kind of gave it away. Also, Ronon told me,” Mark said.

“Stupid barbarian,” Rodney grumbled.

When John took the pilot’s seat, Rodney finished tucking his laptop back into its case. John turned on his radio. Out of the corner of his eye, Ronon and Teyla ushered Mark away from the cockpit window. “Command room, this is Jumper One,” John said. “We’re ready to head out.”

John was expecting Sergeant Campbell on the line, but instead it was Elizabeth. “John, I don’t wish to alarm you, but have you seen Mark Messier?”

“The hockey player?” John asked, smirking.

He could hear her eyes narrowing. “The Wraith.”

“Haven’t seen him,” he lied. “Why?”

“Oh, it’s not important. He asked me to teach him how to play chess today. We had a play date, but he’s late.”

John turned to glare at Mark to find Rodney already giving Mark the evil eye. “Isn’t it funny how everyone who reads your mind suddenly has a hard time keeping it in their pants?” Rodney dryly asked.

“Hey, Teyla’s not whoring herself all over Atlantis,” John said.

“What?” Teyla called from the back.

“Jumper One, this is flight.” It was Sergeant Campbell this time. “The bay doors are open. You’re go for launch.”

John’s fingers flew over the controls, running over the checklist he could do in his sleep. “Thanks. See you at the check in. Sheppard out.”

He glanced over his shoulder; in the back, Mark had a hand on Teyla’s shoulder and was saying, “Baby, you know I’m not like that.” Ronon, in the chair behind McKay, met John’s eyes and pulled a face. Rodney, of course, was staring out the window resolutely.

John took a deep breath and guided the jumper through the hatch.

*

“What’s taking so long? He’s probably sucking the life out of her. I told you this was a bad idea.”

“Stop it, they’re probably making out,” John said, glaring.

Rodney glanced at him in surprise. “I thought he had the hots for you?”

“Him and Teyla have… done things,” John said uncomfortably. “Intimate things that aren’t easily forgotten. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“I always knew Teyla was a dominatrix,” Rodney said. He almost sounded wistful. “All I want is for him to get out of our lives. It’s been bad enough these last few weeks without a ZPM and you being all–” He made a strange gesture that John took to mean “loopy.” “I’ve actually begun fearing for my life more than usual lately. Every time someone calls me I think they’re going to say we’re under siege by the Wraith. I’m going to end up on anti-anxiety medication by the end of the week. Did you know Carson has an entire shelf of Xanax alone?”

“These last couple of weeks have been a real vacation for me too, Rodney,” John said sarcastically.

Rodney dropped his head back to rest against the jumper. The two of them were sitting on the grass, staring up at the now-familiar constellations. Ronon was off spying on Teyla, or something. It probably wasn’t the safest position for them to be in, but the only sign of human civilization for miles was the stargate, and John didn’t feel like they were in any danger. There was a cool breeze in the air. Pegasus crickets chirped. It was, John noticed, kind of romantic.

He pulled his legs closer and started edging towards Rodney. “Now would be a great time to have that conversation,” he said quietly.

“What conversation?” Rodney asked. “Oh. That conversation. The conversation I’d injure myself to avoid.”

John raised an eyebrow. “You’d injure yourself.”

“Well, maybe a papercut,” Rodney said, wiggling his fingers.

But he didn’t move away as John closed the gap between them, until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder. “Remember what you said yesterday?” John asked.

“No, I always forget humiliating conversations regarding my feelings,” Rodney said, rolling his eyes.

He brushed his trembling fingers over Rodney’s palm. “Um, so you know, me too, with the crushing and the feeling crazy.”

Rodney’s mouth dropped, but he quickly regained his composure. “You’re trying to tell me you have feelings for me that are less than platonic?”

Say something meaningful, John told himself.

“I like your hands,” he said.

“Good enough for me,” Rodney said.

But Rodney didn’t lay a hand on him; he looked back up at the stars, smiling crookedly, and then turned to John. John beamed at him with the same kind of dizzying relief he felt after every life-or-death mission. He had the electrifying feeling of being alive.

“I can’t believe my first man-kiss was with a Wraith,” John said. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

“Is that a challenge?” Rodney asked, voice going up a few octaves.

“If you think you can do better than a–”

His words were drowned out by Rodney kissing him. He brought his hands up to cup Rodney’s face; he liked the way Rodney’s bristled cheeks felt against his skin, the way one of Rodney’s hands combed through his hair while the other, big and warm, slid down to his waist. He sucked a sharp breath in through his nose, angling his face as Rodney’s lips parted beneath his, and–

“Hey.” They tore apart. Ronon was standing in front of them.

“Do you mind?” Rodney asked, sounding out of breath.

“Yeah, I do,” Ronon said.

“You do?” Rodney repeated disbelievingly.

Ronon silently shifted on the balls of his feet.

“Are you lonely?” John asked.

“Maybe,” Ronon muttered.

“Oh no,” Rodney said. He wrapped an arm around John’s shoulders. “I’ve worked long and hard for this. I deserve this! You can get your own military hunk. And just so you know, most people from Earth don’t find it hot when you hit them over the head and drag them back to your cave.”

“It’s too bad Teyla’s only into Wraith,” John said sympathetically.

“Give me time,” Ronon said with a scowl, “I already have the hair and the coat.” Then he raised his head and looked at something in the distance. “They’re done.”

The three of them walked across the field to where Mark and Teyla were waiting by the stargate, John and Rodney discreetly bumping shoulders. When they got to the DHD, Mark was kissing Teyla’s cheek. That player, John thought darkly. Ronon looked annoyed; Rodney made his “Captain Kirk again?” face, which meant John had to punch him later.

After Teyla finished with her Athosian hug, Mark turned to John. “Can I say goodbye to you alone?”

“Sure,” John said, ignoring Rodney’s pinched look. Mark took his arm and led him just a few feet away from the group. Behind him, he could hear someone punching in gate coordinates.

“Thanks,” Mark said, “for helping me. Sorry about screwing up your life and making you all–” He made a hand gesture probably stolen from Rodney. “Wraith-y.”

Maybe it was the pressure of concealing their plan from Elizabeth and Lorne and the rest of Atlantis, or maybe it was his agitation over the whole Rodney thing, but John realized he was feeling exactly like himself. He was John Sheppard, the troublemaker with the fucked up blood family who didn’t acknowledge his existence and the family he’d made for himself in a new galaxy and the crazy Ancient city he called home, and he loved ferris wheels, college football, and anything that went more than two hundred miles per hour. He was fan-fucking-tastic.

Laughter bubbled up inside him. “Nah, I’m cool,” he said. “Sorry for making you eat animals and turning you into a human against your will.”

Mark smiled. “I don’t know if this happened because I gave you your life back, or because I was in that cell for so long, or even because this is who I really am. But thanks for showing me what it’s like to be human, and for trusting me.”

“Yeah, well.” John nodded. “Next time I see you, all bets are off. I mean it this time.”

“I guess I’ll have to make sure you don’t see me again.”

“Do you think we’re going to be like this forever?” John asked. “It sucks being hungry all the time. Also, the fish thing? Kind of weird.”

“I don’t know,” Mark said. He scratched his chin. One missing injection and already his eyes were starting to look more yellow. “I don’t think so. I’m already starting to forget things. I’m losing interest in football.”

“Really?” John asked, pleased.

“One of the Marines told me about this other game. Someone throws a ball, and you hit with a stick?”

“No,” John said.

“I bet I’d be good at it,” Mark mused.

“Would you look at that, the gate’s open,” John said.

“You don’t want to play a game of catch before I–?”

“Can’t, no time,” John said with a tight smile. “Sorry.”

Mark leered. “How about a kiss?”

“You don’t have a cock,” John pointed out. Mark deflated.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them. “I guess this is where we part ways,” Mark said.

John felt like he should say something important. It was the last time they’d ever see each other. Mark may have been a Wraith who’d caused John unparalleled emotional and physical pain while stealing aspects of his personality during multiple feeding sessions, but they’d played a lot of golf together. John trusted him more than he would his real brother.

“Take care of yourself,” John said. “And don’t run into any Wraith. And don’t feed off any humans, or else I’ll have to kill you. Oh, and try to stay away from the chickens, they looked kind of diseased.”

Mark backed up towards the stargate. “Goodbye, friends!” he called, waving to them all.

Ronon nodded solemnly. “So long.”

“Goodbye,” Teyla said with feeling. “I will never forget you!”

“Jesus, this is taking forever,” said Rodney.

John went to stand side-by-side with his team as Mark disappeared into the shimmering blue of the event horizon. When it flickered out, Teyla let out a small sigh, Ronon grunted meaningfully, and Rodney pulled his PDA from his vest pocket and immediately started working.

“ZPM or no ZPM, Elizabeth is going to kick our asses,” Rodney announced.

“You can tell her it was my fault,” John said.

“I was planning to,” Rodney remarked.

Ronon snuffled. Rodney said loudly, “You are not crying.”

“I have something in my eye,” Ronon mumbled.

Rodney sighed like the world was a cruel, cold place. “You’re never going to tell me about your brother, are you,” he said to John, sounding so annoyed that John had to look away, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. When they got back to Atlantis, he thought, after Elizabeth finished tearing him a new one and Rodney helped him get rid of those pesky sexual inhibitions, maybe he’d round up Lorne and the guys for a game of touch football.

*

End.

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Thanks to my wonderful betas: Keri, for all her hard work (she knows way more about sports than I ever will), and Madelyn (who also helped come up with the title).

Warning: Rated NC-17 for adult situations.

Summary: Tag for 3×03 Irresistible. Rodney fails at getting his revenge, and Sheppard fails at getting his point across. McKay/Sheppard.

*

They put Lucius Lovin in a holding cell while everyone in Atlantis — except Sheppard, who was being a dick about the whole thing — received the antidote. Rodney had been feeling justifiably humiliated since he’d been innoculated, and being in the labs hadn’t helped much, since everyone there was either embarrassed or furious. Those who were angry were easier to deal with than the ones who were acting like they had something to be ashamed about. It was one thing to be in love with the man, but none of them had tried to give Lucius a jumper.

Carson was loading up his med kit when Rodney wandered into the infirmary. “Hello, Rodney,” he called out absently, not looking up from a pile of bottles of what Rodney assumed was the vaccine. “Everyone in Atlantis should be better now. Let me tell you, I’ve never had that many people crying all at once before.”

Rodney hadn’t cried. Much. “So, ah,” he said, picking up an empty test tube and then setting it back on the table. “Are you doing okay? I mean, it was, uh, quite an interesting experience, what with all those new feelings…”

“What new feelings?” Carson asked, finally looking at him.

“You know, wanting to be–” He waved a hand. “Intimate. With Lucius.”

Carson’s eyes widened. “I didn’t want to be intimate with him. I just wanted him to like me.”

Rodney gaped. “But– you– you did a handstand!”

“Because I was trying to impress him!” Carson countered. “Rodney, are you trying to tell me you had romantic feelings for Lucius?”

“Of course not. I’m one hundred–” In a violent attempt to overthrow him, his brain flashed to an image of Sheppard in his new leather jacket. “–Ninety percent heterosexual. Maybe eighty. Okay, definitely seventy-five percent heterosexual.”

Carson looked worried. “Seventy-five percent heterosexual? What does that even mean?”

“It means I’m less gay than Lance Bass, but more gay than Justin Timberlake.”

Carson’s brow knitted. “Are you being serious?”

“I don’t even know anymore,” Rodney said.

*

Zelenka wasn’t much help either. Rodney tracked him down after everyone else had gone to lunch, and asked, “When Lucius had you under his spell, did you have any feelings that were — how do I put this? Gay.”

He’d been hoping Zelenka would answer, “Yes, of course, it happened to us all.” But when Zelenka didn’t immediately answer, Rodney had all the confirmation he needed. Now the best he could hope for was for Zelenka to think he was kidding around. Not that he ever kidded around, not with Zelenka, at any rate.

“You know what, let’s forget I said anything,” he said quickly. His life was so embarrassing.

“McKay. Rodney.” Zelenka pulled off his glasses and slowly cleaned them with the hem of his shirt. Then he slid them back on. “If this is your way of telling me you are attracted to me, I must turn you down. I like women. Tall, dark-haired women with fiery spirits and cute little shirts.”

“I’m not attracted to you,” Rodney said.

Zelenka patted his hand. “There is no need to lie. It is alright. I am only a little disgusted. In time, you will get over me, and perhaps one day you will learn to love again.”

Rodney tore his hand away. “Zelenka, believe me, I’m not attracted to you. I’m an incredibly shallow person.”

“Calling me ugly is not going to disguise your love for me,” Zelenka said, raising a finger in the air.

“Goddamn it,” Rodney said. He scowled, thinking of Lucius resting comfortably in that prison cell, knowing he’d ruined Rodney’s life. “That idiotic, monkey-brained, uncivilized witch doctor. I bet this was all part of his plan.”

“Yes,” Zelenka said seriously, “first he will turn Rodney McKay gay, and then the galaxy will be his. I have often considered that very plan.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” Rodney said.

Zelenka snorted. “Who would I tell?” Rodney glared until Zelenka lowered his head shamefully. “Yes, fine.”

“McKay?” came a familiar — and annoying — voice at the doorway, and Rodney went cold all over.

“What are you doing here?” Rodney demanded.

“Just making sure you guys were okay. Hanging in there, buddy?” Sheppard asked, eyes wide and full of fake concern. Rodney wished that cold had killed him. He’d been making fun of them for hours; he’d even laughed while Rodney had pitifully cried because they’d taken away the man he thought he’d loved. “You’re not having any urges to see if Lucius’s okay, right? Maybe wanting to sneak down there and longingly press your hand against the glass?”

Rodney said sourly, “No, asshole. Holding cells don’t have glass. Don’t you have better things to do than to harass me?”

“I’m on break,” Sheppard said. He leaned against the doorframe. “Thought I’d stop by and see who was still carving Lucius’s name into their arms.”

Rodney snorted. “What kind of disturbing teenagehood did you have, Colonel? Oh hey, is that why you wear that stupid wristband?”

“May I see your scars?” Zelenka asked.

Sheppard glowered. “I’m going to go make fun of Ronon some more. You should see his face whenever I bring up Teyla wanting to marry Lucius. Although he says he’s not sorry for shooting me, for some reason.”

“I can’t imagine why not,” Rodney said sarcastically.

Sheppard stepped out the door. “See you guys,” he said, leaning into the lab, and then he raised a clenched fist to his heart. “Rodney, be strong.”

“I hate you,” Rodney seethed. When he was sure Sheppard was truly gone, he turned back to Zelenka. “I hate that man.”

“You love him,” Zelenka said carelessly, and Rodney felt a rush of terror and rage so powerful he felt like his head was going to explode, and then he realized he was just biting down on his tongue.

Rodney thought about Sheppard’s cocky swagger and mocking smirk, laughing at them for being under Lucius’s spell, when he had no idea, no idea, what a humiliating experience that had been. Especially since Sheppard seemed to think he was too cool for school now. It was infuriating.

“I still have a sample of the chemical,” Rodney said quietly. “We’ll see what happens when the straightest person in Atlantis gets a whiff of the new and improved Dr Rodney McKay.”

“I thought Ronon had already received the antidote?” Zelenka asked.

“I meant Sheppard,” Rodney said, exasperated.

Zelenka frowned. “I don’t think you have thought this plan through.”

But Rodney was excited now. He chuckled to himself. “Imagine Sheppard on his knees, worshiping me in the manner I deserve. That’ll show him. Oh, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“This conversation is making me uncomfortable,” Zelenka said.

*

When it came down to it, Rodney was a petty, petty man. He had accepted this about himself long ago, much in the same way he accepted most of the science he had learned at university had no practical application in a universe of stargates.

Carson had taken all of Lucius’ magical mystery weed and disposed of it, but the bottle and its contents were still on Rodney’s lab bench, right where he’d left them before he was manhandled by Ronon.

Unfortunately, the lab was full when he went to retrieve it, so he had to make a show of pointing out Opticon’s latest mathematical error while discreetly pocketing the bottle. When the fight broke out between Zelenka, Opticon, and Thorne, he slipped out.

In his quarters, he held the bottle of the clear liquid up to the light, making sure there was enough for him to swallow. There was just enough there to humiliate Sheppard for a couple of hours.

“Bottoms up,” he murmured, raising it to let a few drops fall on his tongue. It was one of the foulest things he’d ever put in his mouth, and that included Teyla’s weird turtle soup thing. He dug around until he found an old, warm bottle of fruit punch on the floor under his desk, and he chugged it down. He didn’t know how old that juice was, but it almost got rid of the burning. This was exactly why didn’t drink.

Once he finished gagging, he stared at the now-empty bottle in his hand.

“Oh,” he said to himself, “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

*

He was casually looking for Sheppard while pretending like he wasn’t when his radio came to life, and Sergeant Campbell said, “Dr McKay, you’re needed in the briefing room.”

Rodney was, it seemed, the last one to know there was a meeting taking place; he’d known they were going to send Lucius back to his homeworld eventually, but no one had bothered to give him any sort of time estimate. Apparently there were some problems convincing Lucius to keep his mouth shut about the location of Atlantis.

When he entered the briefing room, Elizabeth and Teyla were sitting together, glaring fiercely at Lucius, who was at Ronon’s side. Ronon had one massive hand on his shoulder. Lucius was looking a little terrified.

Sheppard, at Ronon’s other side, stopped mid-sentence and stared at Rodney for a long moment. Then he went back to talking to Ronon.

Hmm, Rodney thought, but what he said was, “Colonel,” and grabbed his usual seat next to him. He made sure he was sitting close enough for Sheppard to get a big sniff of pheromones.

Sheppard attractively raised an eyebrow. “Rodney,” he answered in a tone that was more suspicious than usual.

“How’s your cold?”

“Better,” Sheppard said, and Rodney noticed he wasn’t all nasally anymore. “It’s nice to finally be able to breathe again.”

Elizabeth was making motions like she was ready to begin. She said, “Obviously, we need to escort Lucius — Mr Lovin — back to his homeworld.”

“You’re too kind, Elizabeth, sweetness,” Lucius crooned.

One of her eyebrows rose so high it looked painful. “We also need to give the antidote to the people of his village.”

“There’s really no need–” Ronon’s hand visibly tightened on Lucius’s shoulder. He gulped. “Whatever you think is best.”

“John?” Elizabeth asked.

“I’m ready to go whenever the rest of my team is,” Sheppard said. He leaned back in his seat.

“I am ready,” Teyla said quickly.

“Me too, let’s go,” Ronon replied, pulling Lucius up with him.

Sheppard smirked. “Looks like we’re ready to go now.”

“My stuff’s in my room, if you’ll wait a minute,” Rodney said.

Sheppard nodded at Teyla and Ronon, who dragged Lucius off somewhere with them. “We can grab it on the way. I need some extra ammo anyway.”

When they got to Rodney’s quarters, Sheppard followed him right in.

Sheppard grimaced. “Jesus, McKay. It’s normally not this bad in here. I thought you were a hypochrondriac,” he said, and Rodney snapped, “I’m fine with my own germs, it’s everyone else’s germs I’m worried about.”

When Sheppard bent down and started throwing clothes into the hamper, Rodney was taken aback. Sheppard wasn’t the sort of guy who imposed his military corners, leave-no-sock-behind behaviour on other people, so that meant his being nice had to be the potion, even though this was the first real sign of Sheppard behaving strangely. Sheppard was grumbling to himself the entire time, and if the potion was working, he had to be the most disrespectful love slave ever; Rodney specifically remembered lavishing praises upon Lucius.

“Okay, this is pretty nasty,” Sheppard said, unearthing a pile of dirty plates.

“Uh, Colonel,” Rodney said, beginning to feel just a teeny, tiny bit guilty. He’d wanted Sheppard to follow him around with a goofy, smitten expression and tell everyone how wonderful he was, not clean his room. It was too weird to have Sheppard being himself and doing things for Rodney anyway. It wasn’t even funny.

Sheppard blinked at him. “What?”

“It’s nothing. Carry on,” said Rodney, staring stupidly as Sheppard moved to pick up armfuls of trash. He was still staring when his radio clicked on fifteen minutes later.

*

“Hey, honey, could you loosen these restraints for me?” Lucius asked. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

“Do not speak to me,” Teyla said.

There was a rustle and a loud squeal from the back of the cockpit, and when Rodney turned, Lucius was clutching his bound hands to his chest. It was somewhat gratifying to see him with such a wounded expression.

“If you value your life, you will not touch me again,” said Teyla icily.

“If you value your arms, you won’t touch her again,” Ronon added.

Rodney exchanged glances with Sheppard. “Don’t make me come back there,” Sheppard said cheerfully.

“There is no ‘back here,’” Ronon said. “We’re right here.”

“I still think there’s something wrong with Colonel Sheppard,” Lucius said loudly.

“Nevermind,” Sheppard grumbled.

*

On the planet, Rodney tripped over a root. No one helped him up. Sheppard didn’t even pause his story about how his dad had taken him camping when he was eleven, and how his mom had sent the FBI to look for them after they’d been lost for three days. Rodney mentally put another tally into the ‘not completely drugged’ category.

He flexed his biceps a little. Sheppard glanced down at them for a brief second, then back at Rodney’s face, and asked, “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing?” Rodney said. “Why, what did it look like I was doing?”

“Did you sprain something?” Sheppard asked. “Do you need Ronon to give you a back massage?”

“Ronon gives massages?” Rodney asked incredulously. He looked over his shoulder at Ronon, who raised his eyebrows in response. “That’s more than a little disturbing.”

“He gives ‘em to me all the time,” Sheppard said.

“Oh yeah, Ronon’s back massages are great,” Lucius said, beaming at them with one of his stupid, open-mouthed smiles.

“It’s a Satedan bonding thing,” Ronon explained, shrugging.

“Oh please,” Rodney said. “You were trying to get into his pants, weren’t you? I knew it.”

Ronon scowled ferociously. “I’m the only one on this team who likes women,” he said flatly.

“Ronon,” Teyla warned.

Rodney sputtered, “What did you just say? I’ll have you know, I’m practically heterosexual.”

Sheppard looked at him sharply. “Practically?”

“I had a gay experience once,” Lucius said thoughtfully. “But I had to tell him, no, Your Majesty, as much as I’d like to share your kingdom, I have my own people to take care of. Ah, yeah. Good times.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rodney said.

*

It wasn’t like Rodney hadn’t been attracted to Sheppard before Lucius. You had to be blind or stupid to not find Sheppard hot, with his spiky hair and his muscular arms and his skinny body. Even when Rodney thought he was so used to Sheppard’s face he no longer found him good-looking, Sheppard would want to talk about what went wrong with George Lucas, or how he’d be part of the resistance if real life was like Logan’s Run. Really, when he thought about it, Rodney had been fucked the second they’d met.

*

He didn’t know why he was surprised when he was finally caught. They would’ve figured out what was going on sooner if Sheppard had fallen for the potion and declared Rodney his personal god right away, like any normal person.

Sheppard was in his room when he got back from being lectured by Elizabeth, Carson, and his team. Rodney’s bed was made, his books were stacked, and his desk was bare, and Sheppard was down to his t-shirt and slacks, on his hands and knees. He didn’t want to know where Sheppard had found a Swiffer, and he most certainly didn’t want to know why Sheppard thought Rodney cared if the floor under his bed was clean. What he did want to know was what the hell had happened to all his stuff.

“Hey, thanks for cleaning my room, now I can find nothing at all,” Rodney said.

Sheppard rolled his eyes, climbing to his feet. “You’re welcome.” He leaned the Swiffer against the wall and started sorting through the basket of clean clothes Rodney had never gotten around to putting away.

Rodney watched him silently. Eventually, Sheppard noticed. “What’s with you?” Sheppard asked.

“What’s with you?” Rodney said. “You don’t feel weird? Even just a little bit? Is your heart racing? Do you feel the need to be around me at all times? Am I suddenly much hotter than I was before?”

“No, I feel the same as always,” Sheppard said slowly.

“You’re cleaning my room,” Rodney pointed out. He couldn’t deal with this.

Sheppard glanced down at the shirt clenched in his hands, and then screwed up his face thoughtfully. “What are you trying to say?”

The thing was, Sheppard should have been finding him irresistable, but either he was immune to it, or he found Rodney irresistable every day, which was absurd.

“I’m saying I used Lucius’s potion on you,” Rodney said. “Also, I think we should have sex.”

Sheppard dropped the shirt. “You what?” he yelled.

“No, I just– I didn’t mean–” Rodney said weakly, feeling sick. “I misinterpreted some things. Can we pretend I didn’t say any of that?”

“You drugged me?” Sheppard shouted.

“Oh yeah. That. Let’s concentrate on that,” Rodney said.

Rodney had always had a fully-developed sense of self-preservation. He was afraid of dying from anaphylactic shock, he was afraid of the Wraith, he was afraid of Ronon’s huge muscles, he was afraid of finding someone smarter than himself. But he’d never been scared of Sheppard — it was hard to be frightened of someone who used Teyla’s fighting sticks to pretend he was a Jedi — not until that very moment, when Sheppard came at him. Reflexively, he threw his hands up to protect his face, shouting, “I take it back, I take it back!” and Sheppard pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top of him.

“Um,” Rodney said. Without thinking, he grabbed Sheppard’s hips, so Sheppard wouldn’t do something crazy, like get off of him. “This isn’t beating me up.”

“I’m don’t beat up guys I’m fucking,” Sheppard said. “I’m not into that. I mean, unless that’s what you like. I’ll try anything once.”

Rodney’s mind blanked out when Sheppard straddled him and started wiggling around a little. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he protested weakly.

“Sure it does,” Sheppard said. “You took the potion because you wanted to sleep with me.”

“Actually, I took it because you were being an asshole,” he said, and when Sheppard went still, Rodney remembered how much pain he’d been in when he’d thought Lucius had been disappointed in him.

They stared at each other uncomfortably. Sheppard was kind of heavy, and Rodney’s erection was probably poking him.

“A sexy asshole,” Rodney added.

“Well, as long as I’m sexy,” Sheppard said sarcastically.

And that was when Sheppard kissed him.

Their teeth clicked together and Sheppard’s nose was kind of big and Rodney felt sweaty and clammy, with this guy sitting on him, but then suddenly he was sucking on Sheppard’s tongue and sliding his hands up Sheppard’s sides and it was amazing, even though Sheppard was drugged and Rodney was a horrible, horrible person.

“We shouldn’t,” Rodney said passionately, as Sheppard pressed his face against Rodney’s neck. “No,” he exclaimed, as Sheppard kissed his jaw. “Okay, if you insist,” he said, as Sheppard rocked his hips.

Rodney pushed until Sheppard leaned away from him, looking confused, and Rodney nudged him backwards so he was lying flat, his head off the edge of the bed. Sheppard said, “Hey,” and Rodney pulled him towards the metal headboard by his ankles.

“Much better,” Rodney murmured, crawling over Sheppard’s body.

“Yeah, that’s right, push me around,” Sheppard said, arching up and wrapping his arms around Rodney’s shoulders.

“Jesus Christ,” Rodney said. “You’re killing the mood.”

“Maybe you should restrain me,” Sheppard replied huskily.

“Can you not be crazy for fifteen minutes?” Rodney asked. Settling his weight on his calves, he pulled Sheppard’s hands off his shoulders and pressed them against the mattress. Sheppard smirked, and Rodney may not have been able to label that feeling blooming in his chest, but he recognized the heat pooling in his belly. He bent down and kissed the corner of Sheppard’s mouth.

Sheppard wrestled his hands away and started undoing Rodney’s belt. “Take this off.” Rodney kissed his neck instead. “You’re so– God, that’s good. We’re so good together. We’re great together. Why haven’t we done this before?”

“Because apparently you needed a love potion to lower your inhibitions,” Rodney said. “Christ, and I thought I’d be the talkative one.”

He spread his legs, shoving down his pants with one hand. Then he ripped out Sheppard’s Batman utility belt and tossed it on the floor. It was easy to pull Sheppard’s grey slacks down over his hips without unbuttoning them, and then his boxers, and it was just as easy to tug Sheppard’s shirt over his head, running his hands up Sheppard’s arms while Sheppard shivered, pressing himself into them.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, kissing Sheppard’s cheek, the pointed tip of his nose. Rodney needed him to see this wasn’t a one night stand for him, magic potion or no magic potion. He stroked Sheppard’s waist, and Sheppard gazed at him intensely, face softening.

“I want you to come on my face,” Sheppard said.

“What?” Rodney asked, horrified. “No, no. I watched bukkake in university once. It wasn’t that great. Also, have you ever had that shit on your eyelids before? You have to put soap on your eye before they come unstuck! Do you like anything, say, normal and not creepy?”

“Come on my face,” Sheppard repeated in a low tone, slowly sliding his leg over Rodney’s hip. He pressed his heel into the small of Rodney’s back.

“Christ,” Rodney hissed.

“You can fuck me first,” Sheppard said.

“Oh, well, in that case.” Tentatively, he put a hand on the bed next to Sheppard’s head, and the other hand on Sheppard’s cock, which was warm and kind of wet. It was a little strange to be jacking someone else off. Sheppard let out a small moan and his head dropped sideways, his warm breath hitting Rodney’s hand.

“Yeah, yeah, come on, fuck me, come on, do it,” Sheppard said in a rush.

“Stop talking while I’m trying to make love to you,” Rodney snapped. He fished under the mattress to find the nearly-empty bottle of lube; he’d brought it to use with the ladies, yet he’d only used it on himself. “Do you have any condoms?”

“Tac vest, back left pocket,” Sheppard said.

“Of course,” Rodney grumbled. He meant, “Of course you carry condoms with you offworld,” but Sheppard said, “Hey, don’t look at me, it’s not like I put it over there intentionally.”

The vest was sitting on the floor by the door, along with Sheppard’s jacket and his tac holster. He felt stupid crossing the room naked, with his hard on hanging out, and Sheppard cracked up. He was still laughing when Rodney bounced back on the bed, kissing him until Sheppard sighed into his mouth.

“Can we do it like this?” Rodney asked. “I, um. It’s possible I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, “but it’ll be easier like this.” He rolled over, and damn, Sheppard had a nice back. “You’re not going to ask if I’ve ever done before?”

Rodney snorted. “Do you really think I want to talk about the other people you’ve slept with right now?” He licked a long line up Sheppard’s spine. Sheppard’s skin was salty, and Rodney liked the way the bumps of his vertebrae felt against his tongue. He fumbled with the lubricant, popping open the cap with his thumb, and squirted some onto his first two fingers.

He’d never been in this particular situation before, but he had a pretty good idea where to start, especially when Sheppard started moaning, “Jesus,” and moving his hips in time to the stroking of Rodney’s fingers. It was hot. It was so fucking hot. Rodney could have come just from watching that.

“Fuck, oh fuck, McKay, stop messing around and fuck me already,” Sheppard cursed. He flexed around Rodney’s fingers, and a hot flash made Rodney shudder.

“I’m trying to rape you gently, you ungrateful lunatic,” Rodney said.

“Call me a cheap slut,” Sheppard insisted breathily.

He rolled on the condom. “If this wasn’t so hot, it would be terrifying. Where’d you learn all this, a Jenna Jameson movie?”

He pulled Sheppard up a little more, spreading Sheppard’s legs apart with his knee. Rodney pushed into him, carefully at first, and then harder. It was tight and hot, and he panted, open-mouthed, against the back of Sheppard’s neck. With his right hand, he groped until it bumped Sheppard’s cock. He wrapped his palm around it, jerking, and he could feel Sheppard coming from the inside out, the way he shuddered and gasped, and he went at it harder, faster, and then that was it, he was done.

*

When Rodney threw the condom on the floor, Sheppard half-leaned off the bed and said, “Hey, I just cleaned that.”

“Oh my God,” Rodney said, “I just raped you, didn’t I. I can’t believe I did that. What’s wrong with me? I am sick in the head.”

He scrambled into a sitting position, throat closing up. “I’m just as bad as Lucius, with his evil, gay-making potion. I totally date-raped you!”

“Yeah, probably,” Sheppard drawled. “I couldn’t say no. That was so hot.”

He rested his chin on Rodney’s shoulder. His lips were a little puffy and Rodney could feel his heartbeat racing, but he was glowing and languid. Only Sheppard could be this unbearably attractive after having been coerced into sex.

“Are you going to kill me when the drug leaves your system?” Rodney asked. “Or have Ronon kill me, rather. Or– I’ll turn myself in to Elizabeth. Right after I shower. And maybe eat some lunch. You’re not hurt, are you? Did I hurt you?”

“I was a little hurt you wouldn’t come on my face,” Sheppard said.

“I’m trying to have a serious talk about your sexual assult here,” Rodney snapped.

“Look, if it makes you feel better, next time you can do whatever I tell you to do, okay?”

“Next time?” Rodney repeated dumbly. He watched as Sheppard’s expression grew worried. That feeling of terror settled in his chest again, along with something that might have been wonder. “Holy crap. This is you normal. You have a– a thing for me.”

“I do not,” Sheppard said shiftily. “You know, actually, I am feeling a little raped.”

“You thought I was amazing even before I took the potion,” Rodney said, and this time when he thought about it, it didn’t seem crazy.

Sheppard pulled the sheets back and stood. “I’m going to get something to eat.”

Rodney wrestled into his clothes. “You would’ve done this even without the drug, wouldn’t you?”

“I think it’s mac and cheese day,” Sheppard said.

Rodney followed him out into the corridor. “You have a filthy mouth, I like that,” he said to Sheppard as they passed Major Lorne, and Lorne threw him an odd look. Whatever; it wasn’t like he was so desperate as to care what Lorne thought about him.

“So you’re really okay?” he asked when they were in line.

“Rodney, I’m fine,” Sheppard said, sounding irritated.

They took their seats. “When can we do it again?” Rodney asked. He made sure to keep his voice low. “I mean, if you’re sure you’re not traumatized. Except maybe this time you can keep your disgusting fantasies to yourself. You haven’t let other people do those things to you, have you? Wait, on second thought, I don’t want to know.”

Sheppard’s eyes narrowed. “I think the potion’s wearing off. Suddenly I find you a lot more annoying.”

“It’s nice to know you consider it rape when it’s convenient for you,” Rodney said.

Rolling his eyes, Sheppard reached towards Rodney’s tray. Rodney smacked his hand. “Do you mind? Those are my french fries.”

“It was my innocence,” said Sheppard sadly.

“Take the fucking fries,” Rodney said.

*

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The title is a line from Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback.” Don’t be a hater.

Thanks to Keri for being awesome. She did a lot to make this story all come together.

For the SGA Flashfic “exhaustion” challenge.

ex·haus·tion
1. The inability to respond to stimuli; extreme fatigue.
2. The act or an instance of using up a supply of something.

Summary: “It was just his luck to get stranded in a galaxy where he had to live in a wigwam and eat polar bear.” McKay/Sheppard, Alternate Timeline for 1×10 The Storm.

*

It wasn’t so much that Rodney blamed himself for not being able to save Atlantis — okay, that was a lie; he blamed himself, and he blamed Zelenka, and he even blamed Major Sheppard and Elizabeth. Rationally, he knew if he couldn’t think of a way to help the city ride out the storm, they sure as hell couldn’t either, but rationality didn’t take away the despair that had gnawed at him since the day they lost the city.

Most of all, Rodney blamed the Alterans for deciding to populate a planet covered in ninety percent ocean. And for deciding to live in a galaxy comprised of a) worlds populated by people who wanted the Atlantis expedition dead, and b) worlds with uninhabitable environments.

Six months into living on what was formally called P1X-91, and now called New Atlantica (named by Ford, naturally, and this time even Sheppard hadn’t been able to keep the name from catching), Rodney realized there was a third category: c) worlds that were probably uninhabited for a good reason.

“So let me get this straight,” he said to Sheppard, who was looking at him with puppy dog eyes, and who had the fur of some wildcat sewn into the lining of his grey jacket, “you want me to join your hunting party?”

Sheppard fidgeted. “It’s not so much a hunting party as a ’save our asses’ party.”

“What?” Rodney asked, startled. “I thought we had enough MRE’s to last us a while!”

“It has been ‘a while,’” Sheppard said patiently. He’d grown a lot more patient since they’d all become hippies. Rodney didn’t like it one bit. “We’ve almost exhausted our food supply. A couple of the guys and me want to head into the forest and see if we can find anything big enough to eat.”

“Is there going to be a famine? Jesus Christ, are we going to have to start rationing? Do you have any idea what’s in those woods? Do we even have any bullets left?” Rodney asked, waving his arms. He knew he was being a little hysterical, but dammit, someone had to be. They couldn’t all be one with nature like Sheppard and his merry band of ex-Marines.

“We have plenty of bullets,” Sheppard replied, and Rodney felt some of the tension drain from his body. But then Sheppard ruined it by scratched the back of his neck and adding, “Most of the guys though, they want to use the axes they made out of rocks and sticks.”

Rodney stared at Sheppard in horror. Sheppard just smiled back.

“Fuck no, you’re not going out there alone, I’ve seen this episode of Lost,” Rodney said. “But if anyone runs into a polar bear, I’m out of there faster than you can say ‘ JJ Abrams.’”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sheppard said. But when Rodney stretched out his fingers, Sheppard placed a well-used Beretta into his hand.

*

There were things on New Atlantica no one talked about. Once, Sergeant Bates had asked, “Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if the storm had never come?” and he’d been given a collective cold shoulder for a week. It was fine to talk about things they’d had, but no one talked about what might have been. No one talked about getting off New Atlantica. No one mentioned the Athosians, or Teyla, or what might’ve happened to them. (Rodney thought part of it was fear; everyone wanted to pretend Teyla and her people had survived the storm, but no one actually believed it.)

The first two or three days on the planet, no one, not even Rodney, had spoken a word. Later, Elizabeth had said it was just them adjusting to the change, but it was more than that. They had been silent because they had been in mourning: for the secrets left undiscovered, for the city herself, and for the faintest thread of hope — now completely extinguished — they’d ever get back to Earth.

Feeling more helpless than he’d ever felt in his life, Rodney had sat in one the puddlejumpers, silently counting down the minutes until the storm had hit Atlantis. By the time it was all over, Elizabeth had been crying quietly, Ford had gone for a long walk by himself, and Sheppard had been gripping his hand so tightly he’d felt it for days after.

*

The hunting party met up at dawn the next day. Unfortunately, Sheppard was probably still busy fixing his hair with his homemade botanical hair gel, or whatever it was he used to still look ravishingly good despite living like the Amish — and not those fake Genii gun-totting Amish, either — so Rodney had arrived alone.

“Dr McKay, you’re coming?” Ford asked, sounding surprised.

“Great,” Bates said loudly, “now we’ll never find anything. McKay’ll scare away all the animals before we even get a chance to kill them.”

“Yes, I’d forgotten the part where you’re all burly mountain men trained in the art of hunting game,” Rodney scoffed. “Why do I get the feeling none of you have even been so much as camping.”

He looked right at Bates as he said this, who grimaced and looked away, and Rodney smirked knowingly.

Since their arrival on New Atlantica, both Ford and Bates had let their hair grow into short afros. Ford had lost his black cap chopping down trees to build their houses; Bates, like Sheppard and many others, had sewn fur into the lining of his jacket. Among the rest of the hunting expedition were Stackhouse and Markham, both sporting full-length beards, Zelenka, wearing an outfit made entirely out of the hemp material they traded another planet their pomegranate-like fruit for, and Yamato, who had shaved his head last week and reminded Rodney of a Buddhist priest. A mean, knife-wielding Buddhist priest.

“I see, you get bent of of shape for me being here, but you let Zelenka come?” Rodney demanded. Rodney had a hard time taking Zelenka seriously since he’d dreaded his hair. “He’s completely useless!”

“I am much quieter than you,” Zelenka said.

“A herd of stampeding buffalo’s quieter than you,” Yamato added.

“That is entirely untrue,” Rodney said angrily. “I came here out of the goodness of my heart to help our people, and–”

“Hey, Rodney!” Sheppard’s voice broke in, as Sheppard jogged onto their little meeting ground outside the longhouse. He was wearing his furry jacket again. “I was afraid you weren’t going to come.”

“The goodness of your heart?” Ford murmured, which made Markham and Zelenka snicker, and Bates look faintly disgusted. God knew what Bates thought was going on between Sheppard and him, but he’d never heard Sheppard correct anyone’s assumptions. Besides, Rodney would hope the idiots he’d been stranded with had more important things to do than wonder about his sex life, considering they were abandoned in another galaxy and all.

“What’s the plan, Lieutenant?” Sheppard asked, saving Rodney from any further humiliation.

Ford straightened his shoulders. “Sir, our mission is to find a source of food for the settlement. This includes bringing back any large animals we’re able to kill. Two teams of four will head into the forest, one bearing north, another south. We should be on the lookout for any unfamiliar creatures, which may be able to harm us, and any unfamiliar plants, which Dr McKay might be allergic to.”

“And you think no one likes you,” Sheppard said, playfully punching Rodney’s shoulder. Rodney scowled and moved away. “Alright, McKay, Ford, and Stackhouse, you’re on my team. Bates, you’re in charge of Markham, Zelenka, and Yamato. If anyone gets in any kind of trouble, fire your flares, and the other team will be there ASAP. Got it?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” the soldiers answered simultaneously.

“Sure,” Zelenka said.

“I guess,” said Rodney.

“Can we paint our faces, sir?” Ford asked. Everyone looked at him. He shrugged, looking sheepish. “I just thought it’d be cool. You know, like the Indians.”

“Knock yourself out,” Sheppard drawled. “You can even be Sitting Bull, if you want.”

“No way, I’m Black Panther,” Ford said.

“You’ve thought about this before,” Rodney said accusingly.

*

About two weeks into their new Swiss Family Robinson lives, they’d stopped living out of the puddlejumpers and started chopping down trees. Rodney had woken one morning to the sounds of saws and hammers. “What the hell’s going on?” he’d asked Sheppard, who had then conned Rodney into helping him set up his Native American wigwam. Corrigan and the other anthropologists had, naturally, drafted the designs themselves.

“I wish I’d never come to this galaxy,” Rodney had seethed, numb fingers slipping over the five-hundreth pole he’d pounded into the earth.

Sheppard hadn’t answered, but Rodney had known he’d felt the same way. Hours later, when the sun had been slipping down behind the mountains, and Rodney had felt like he could sleep for the next two days straight, Sheppard had announced, “I think we’re done.”

The house had been built out of thick poles, hammered deep into the ground, and bent with perpendicular poles. There had been a hole at the top so a fire could be built inside, and Sheppard had used one of the waterproof tents to cover the skeleton.

It had been tiny and ugly. It had leaned slightly to the left. Both of them had stood staring at it, posed in identical positions, hands on their respective hips.

“I guess it could be worse,” Sheppard had said, gazing up at the sloping wigwam with something like pride in his eyes. “Pretty good for our first try though! Tomorrow, we can help Ford with his.”

Rodney had said, “Wonderful. Did you know I was voted ‘Most Likely to Die in the Wilderness’ by my high school class? I wasn’t made for working outdoors, Major. How can you expect me to help build a hundred more of these?”

“You don’t have to build even one more, if you don’t want to,” Sheppard said, sounding unexpectedly embarrassed. “You want to room with me?”

That had shut Rodney up. He’d stared at Sheppard, who had been pointedly not looking back, and then at the house he’d built with his own two hands, and he had replied, “Sure. What could possibly go wrong?”

On Atlantis, those words would have been followed by something crazy and strange happening, like an alien tribe demanding a fertility ritual, or an Ancient device turning someone into a zombie. But on New Atlantica, the only thing unusual that happened was that a few days later, the entire expedition — township, now — grouped together to build a longhouse. Rodney would never admit it in a million years, but he kind of missed the crazy.

*

An hour into their hunting mission, it began to rain. Of course, Rodney thought, fuming. He hated nature so, so much. It was just his luck to get stranded in a galaxy where he had to live in a wigwam and eat polar bear.

“You know what I miss?” Sheppard asked suddenly.

Shocked, Rodney spun around to gape at Sheppard, who was glaring at something in the distance. Not surprisingly, he was just as hot wet as he was dry. “You– what do you miss?” Rodney asked tentatively. He didn’t know what he’d do if Sheppard said he missed football, or that sweet tea from P4X-778, or Teyla. Sheppard had hardly spoken of Atlantis since they’d set foot on the planet. Of course, Sheppard hadn’t spoken much of Earth when they’d been in Atlantis, either. Maybe it was Sheppard’s way of coping.

Sheppard’s expression darkened. “Umbrellas.”

“That’s a stupid thing to miss,” Rodney said without thinking. Sheppard blinked at him, and it occurred to Rodney that Sheppard was possibly baring his soul, in the only retarded way he knew how. “I, uh, miss jello.”

Sheppard smirked. “That’s a stupid thing to miss, too.”

“Yeah, well,” Rodney said, brushing the raindrops out of his eyes. “I’m a simple man. I have simple needs.”

Sheppard snorted so loudly Ford turned, putting a finger over his closed lips.

“Sir,” Stackhouse hissed, “I think I see something. Five ‘o’ clock.”

Sheppard went still, and he grabbed Rodney’s shoulder, too, as if Rodney would make any sudden movements when they had an edible animal in their mist. Rodney didn’t believe for a second Sheppard actually knew how to hunt, but Sheppard had always had a habit of doing something perfect on the first try. Normally, that sort of natural skill pissed Rodney off, but in the case of fresh meat, he’d gladly overlook it.

Ford said quietly, “There’s two groups of them. One still at five ‘o’ clock, and the other at three ‘o’ clock.”

“I’ve got the one at five,” Sheppard said, and took off running.

“Goddamn it, Sheppard,” Rodney called to his rapidly-disappearing back. “You’re going to get maimed! And who will have to clean you up? Me, that’s who.”

Ford and Stackhouse exchanged glances. “Why don’t you go after the major,” Ford said. “We’ll get the targets bearing north.”

“Of course, send the civilian by himself,” Rodney said, but he left anyway.

Sheppard was a little dot in the distance, and Rodney went off after him. From behind, he heard Stackhouse say, “That guy’s gonna get us killed one of these days.”

“Which one?” Ford asked wearily.

*

They had set up their township in the middle of a valley that had a river running through it. When they had first arrived, Rodney’s calculations had put this area of the planet in the middle of a hot, sweltering summer, around thirty-five degrees Celsius. Several types of fruits and vegetables grew naturally in the valley, and they strongly resembled vegetation on Earth: olives, pomegranates, pears, eggplants, lettuce, and onions. There were also a scattering of small animals throughout the region, namely the cats Sheppard and everyone else kept killing for their fur. As it was, Rodney had a hard time killing helpless kitties, even if they were the size of dogs and had claws as long as his fingers.

The construction of the wigwams and longhouse seemed to shake most people out of their stupor. Beckett went a little nuts and went off-world for two weeks; when he came back from whatever hippie planet he’d gone to, he had begun using holistic means of healing instead of the typical methods. (Rodney had thought what Beckett had done before was voodoo. Oh no, he had been wrong. He had been so wrong.) Much to Rodney’s chagrin, Sheppard had taken three Marines and left Rodney behind while he had gone back to their old trading partners, and he had found some who hadn’t minded trading food for small items such as soap, cloth, candles, and wool. Elizabeth and the anthropologists had started to have lots of meetings behind closed doors, the likes of which Rodney hadn’t even wanted to know about.

While other people had busied themselves with farming, weaving, and other forms of basic survival, Rodney had mapped out what types of technology he could create from what very little they had.

He had decided to begin with an irrigation system. The farms a few of the soldiers had set up were tiny, barely allowing for more than substanence crops. Rodney had thought he could do better. He had managed to drag Zelenka and Miko out to the river with him so he could take some measurements, but neither of them had been up to par lately.

Kneeling on the ground at the river bank, Rodney had looked over his shoulder. “Zelenka, I need you to–”

“You will refer to me as ‘Sunshine,’” Zelenka had said, laying flat on the ground. Miko had giggled. “It is my new Pegasus name.”

Rodney had pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told them we didn’t need to take the fucking biologists along, smoking their weed and listening to their ‘Freebird,’” he had said to himself. “This will set me behind for at least a few hours.”

Needless to say, it had taken Rodney a few weeks longer than usual to get the irrigation pumps working. By that time, Miko and Zelenka had been detoxing hard, violently cursing the biologists. Rodney had asked Elizabeth to outlaw recreational drug use, but she’d said, “Rodney, I can’t tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.” Rodney had figured the biologists had gotten to her, too.

*

John followed the deer — they weren’t really deer; they were red instead of brown, and they had tusks instead of antlers, but his mind couldn’t help but supply ‘deer’ when he looked at them — deeper into the woods. From their calm, graceful gallop, he didn’t think they’d seen him.

When the animals reached a small clearing, they stopped, and a younger, smaller one joined them. John ducked behind a tree, relaxing letting his P-90 hang against his chest in its sling.

As he watched as the two adults — Ricky and Lucy, he decided, and the baby was Little Ricky — nuzzled each other, he felt a strange sense of tranquility. They were strong, beautiful creatures, and if they could survive on this world, in the middle of a deadly galaxy, his people could too. Maybe it was time to let go of Atlantis, and of Earth, and to embrace whatever life came for them on this planet. Life could be good here. He felt his heart swell as–

A series of shots were fired, and all three deer fell over dead.

John gaped, and continued gaping as Rodney came out of the bush. “Ha!” he said. “And they thought I’d be useless on this mission. In your face, Bates.”

“You killed the deer,” John said, taken aback.

Rodney beamed. “I sure did.”

“But I named them,” John said sadly, staring into Little Ricky’s cold, dead eyes.

Rodney lifted Lucy over his shoulders. “Sheppard, stop being such a homo and pick up Bambi before his blood soaks into the moss.”

*

Rodney and Sheppard weren’t the only ones to bring back deer for dinner; Ford and Stackhouse brought two more, and Bates, Yamato, and Markham brought one each. Zelenka didn’t get any himself, but he didn’t seem too upset over it.

“I shot three,” Rodney told him smugly, watching proudly as Stackhouse and Bates spited one and the biologists ran around trying to salt the rest for later. It was nice knowing he’d done something for the community that didn’t involve using his incredibly impressive brain.

“Good for you,” Zelenka said. “You are a master at shooting defenseless woodland creatures.”

Rodney scowled. “Don’t make light of my manliness. You’re impressed by my manly hunting skills, aren’t you, Major?” Rodney asked.

“I’d be more impressed if they hadn’t been standing around waiting to get shot,” Sheppard said.

“Your lips says ‘no,’ but your eyes say ‘yes,’” Rodney said, smirking.

“I have asked you not to talk about your sex life in front of me, please. It is uncomfortable for us all,” Zelenka said, leaving them and ambling over to where Miko and Simpson were passing out the beer they’d made using their own home-grown barley.

“Sex life?” Sheppard repeated.

“For a hippie, he’s unusually uptight,” Rodney said, frowning.

Rodney lost Sheppard to the crowd as Elizabeth dragged Sheppard away, and Rodney was grabbed by several of the scientists, who demanded to know just how he’d killed three deer. He relished the dismayed look on Gall’s and Kavanagh’s faces as they realized he had, indeed, accomplished it on his own. Somewhere along the way, Simpson handed him a large glass of beer, Stackhouse gave him a hefty plate of deer meat, and by the time people started dancing and singing around the fire, he’d found Sheppard again, sitting by himself against a log.

Rodney collapsed beside him. He liked the way the fire softened Sheppard’s features, even if Sheppard was too good-looking for his own good. “This is the perfect evening,” he said. He drowned the rest of his beer.

“Almost perfect,” Sheppard said, bumping Rodney’s knee with his.

“Almost perfect,” Rodney agreed, thinking of Atlantis, and Teyla, and everything they’d left behind.

But Sheppard surprised him: “Yeah. You could get laid.”

Rodney gestured to the rest of their people. “Right. And with whom, Major?”

Sheppard’s eyes narrowed, and it took nearly five solid minutes for what Sheppard said to hit him. His heart fluttered in his chest, and his throat was suddenly very dry. “Yeah?” he asked a little squeakily.

Sheppard smirked. “Well, I was thinking. You did do some manly killing today. And Elizabeth told me just now that maybe it’s time we stopped following Earth’s rules and made our own. My bed’s made of straw and yak skin, but it’s big enough for two.”

Rodney put his hand over Sheppard’s. “You had me at ‘yak,’” he said.

*

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: The scene that was totally missing from the end of X3.

When Magneto enters the grocery store, he ignores the temptation of the candy aisle and marches right up to the counter, where the humans buy their cancerous cigarettes and their worthless batteries. The store is blissfully empty of the vermin known as men, except the man seated at the register, reading Us Weekly.

“Who is in charge of this establishment?” Magneto demands.

The pudgy man behind the counter raises an eyebrow. “That’d be me.”

“Puny human,” Magneto says, wishing his had his cape rather than this infernal trenchcoat¹, “I have come here– nay, I have been forced here by your feeble society’s foolish habit of using money in exchange for services.”

“What?” the man asks.

“I saw your help wanted sign on the door,” Magneto explains.

“You live at the old folks’ home down the street?” the manager asks.

Magneto declares, “Idiot! I have not yet been confined in your prison for elders. I live at the YMCA.”

The guy looks him over. Magneto clenches his fists as this creature’s eyes judge him. He remembers a time when this man would have been begging for mercy. “What’s your name?”

“I am Magneto, Erik the Red, the White King of the Hellfire Club,” he boasts, puffing out his chest. “I am known to some as Erik Magnus Lehnsherr.”

“Okay, Mr Lehnsherr,” says the shop owner. “You been a bag boy before?”

“I have nearly exterminated your kind at least five times. I have led armies across your vile nation. I have survived a Nazi death camp. I have seen things that would have you longing for the escape of death. Surely I can master this thing you call ‘bagging.’”

The man frowns at that. “My Grandpa Max was in a concentration camp. He’d roll over in his grave if he thought I was making a Holocaust survivor live on the street.” His hands move under the counter, and he removes a series of papers. He looks almost sympathetic. Magneto barely catches himself from recoiling in horror.

“You got a social security number?”

“I have a number,” Magneto says. “I do not remember whose it is.”

The manager stares.

“Mine’s probably in my safety deposit box at the bank,” Magneto says, thinking. “I will have to call my ex to see if she remembers which bank it is. It might take several weeks. I put it there quite some time ago.”²

“Okay,” the man says, scratching his head. “Uh, come back tomorrow at noon and we’ll get you started. Try to bring some kind of ID with you. You’re not an illegal, are you?”

“In what way?” Magneto enquires.

“Nevermind.”

Magneto cautiously shakes the human’s disgusting hand — thankfully, his hands are protected by the black mittens the widow across the hall knitted him last week — before he departs. As he stands in the doorway, it hits him: tomorrow he will begin his job bagging groceries for homo sapiens.

“Thank you, human,” he calls over his shoulder. “Perhaps I will not kill you when I regain my powers.”³

And Magneto walks back out onto the cold, harsh streets of New York.

*

¹ Actually, he loves the trenchcoat. It brings out his eyes.

² Last time he talked to Mystique, she told him to go fuck himself and stop calling him. At least he didn’t waste any of his free weekend minutes on her, that bitch.

³ A week into the job, he changes his mind. But first he will kill every single person in the government for taking such large amounts of his paycheques. Magneto only makes six fifty an hour, he is not made of money.

For Madelyn’s Cuff ‘Em, Vamp ‘Em, or Just Make ‘Em Come Already Kink and Cliché Multi-Fandom Challenge, I was given the choice between: a) Undercover Lover/have to pretend to be dating; b) I’m Confused, We Didn’t Have Non-Reproductive Sex On My Home Planet;
c) Magical themes (love spells; magical characters or creatures; magical lands or settings; predictions; curses; possession; fairytales; magical girls; see also Special powers and skills). I decided to do all three.

A diplomatic mission has lasting consequences for Elizabeth and Ronon. Featuring alien wildlife, fake marriages, witch hunts, Elizabeth/Ronon, Sheppard/McKay, and Teyla/Other(s). General spoilers for Seasons One and Two.

Chapter One

I.

The great city of Smelding, on the planet of Smeldinga, in the solar system of Smeldingopia, sat at the fork of two wide canals. From her first step out of the stargate, Elizabeth had seen the white stone towers looming in the distance, and while Smelding was much smaller than any major city on Earth, John’s team had reported it was heavily populated for the Pegasus Galaxy. The walls of the city were also cut from white stone, with pillars every hundred feet or so; on the tops of these rested statues of animals that looked exactly like small, hairless dogs with bat wings. It was more than a little unsettling.

“Those looks like the pet Zelenka’s always showing us pictures of,” Ronon said. “McKay calls it a ‘fugly.’”

“What a beautiful city,” Elizabeth quickly told their guide: a short, tanned man who hadn’t given them his name. She avoided gazing at the stone creatures as they approached the gate. They did look an awful lot like Zelenka’s dog back on Earth, who had the unfortunate name of Félix de Azara.

“Smelding is very special to us,” said their guide. “It was established over a thousand years ago, during a time in which many of our people consider our golden era. Before then, Smelding consisted of several separate farming communities.”

There was a series of lines carved into the stone pillars. Elizabeth recognized the language as a variant of Ancient, but she could only make out a few words, and none of them were positive. “Please, what does it say?” she asked, indicating the writing.

Their guide said, “It’s been there since the founding of the city. ‘No witches or other agents of darkness may pass through these gates, on penalty of death.’.”

“That’s…”

“Creepy,” Ronon cut in.

Elizabeth threw him a look. Ronon quirked an eyebrow at her, not looking sorry in the least. “Do you get many… agents of darkness here?” she asked their guide, who smiled at her thinly.

“Not many, but it does happen. Enough for us to feel it’s necessary to include a warning to those who might wish us harm. They come anyway, usually through the gate of the Ancestors, but this helps us feel safe. We may not suffer from the Wraith, but we have plenty of other problems.”

Elizabeth understood that all too well. She and Ronon exchanged glances as the gate doors slowly began opening. “How do you know if someone’s a witch?” Ronon asked.

“Oh, you know,” the guide said, waving a vague hand, “a woman who is unmarried, who does too much on her own, who is seen with many men, who has unusual luck — those are usually the indicators of dark arts.”

Beside her, Ronon stiffened. Three of the soldiers accompanying them remained blank, but the eyes of one widened. “Because in your culture,” Elizabeth said slowly, more for her benefit than the guide’s, “those things are considered bad.”

“Mostly they’re just an annoyance,” said their guide said. He grinned again, this time sincerely. “But we still kill witches for it.”

The doors finished creaking open. As Ronon passed her, he squeezed her shoulder and whispered, “Stay calm. I promised Sheppard I wouldn’t let them burn you at the stake.”

Elizabeth blinked at Ronon’s huge back as he, their guide, and their military escorts started making their way into the city.

“Well,” she murmured to herself, gazing up at the chihuahuas, “this is going to end badly.”

*

II.

Two months after Smelding.

As time went on, the planets started to get stranger and stranger. That was not to say the world with the bald, blue-painted monks from a mission in October had been more weird than the planet with the giant voles in September, but at least the voles hadn’t tried to eat them. John still had a scary scar on his leg from where one of the monks had slathered him in marinade and bitten him. (“I’m the only one allowed to call you delicious,” Rodney had said while John was on his fifth bath of the day, “and why is the bite mark on your upper thigh?”) Needless to say, no diplomatic negotiations were made on that particular excursion.

Nor were negotiations made on the world that freakishly resembled eighteenth century England, the one where they worshiped seagulls, or the one where they lived underground and were starting to resemble rats.

In the past few months, no team had been successful in establishing diplomatic relations with other civilizations. So John wasn’t very optimistic when he and his team walked through the stargate and onto P2X-181. Especially when there was nothing but rolling hills as far as the eye could see.

“Do you see any signs of civilization?” Rodney asked, gesturing towards something that may or may not have been a miniature bison. “Because all I see is nature. You know how much I hate nature.”

Ronon sniffed the air. “What planet is this?”

John started, “P2X–”

“No, the name,” Ronon interrupted.

“It was once the homeworld of the Grogorians,” Teyla replied.

Ronon grunted. “While we’re here, I need to kill a glaat.”

“A who?” Rodney asked, looking up from his life signs detector.

“A glaat,” Ronon repeated, pointing to the tiny bison. “I need to make a baby blanket.”

“Alright,” John said slowly. He glanced at Teyla.

“Why are you looking at me?” she demanded.

“No reason,” he said promptly. He slipped on his sunglasses, feeling the heat of her glare on the back of his neck.

Rodney nudged him with his elbow. “Well, Colonel,” he said in a voice he probably thought was quiet, “looks like Worf beat you to knocking up some space bimbo.”

John scowled. “Hey! I’ve only slept with two women in this galaxy, and one of them was a giant, glowing squid.”

Teyla wrinkled her nose. Ronon said, “Gross.”

“Don’t judge me,” John said.

*

An hour passed, and they still hadn’t come across any people. Thankfully, they hadn’t come across any other forms of intelligent life either. (John was still having nightmares about voles. And blue monks, but for entirely different reasons.) As they walked north of the stargate, the rolling hills and grass grew into red cliffs and sagebrush that reminded John of New Mexico. Unlike New Mexico, the air here was cool and damp, and there was standing water in a few places. Herds of glaat scattered like scarily large cockroaches as Rodney’s complaints echoed through the canyon. Ronon watched the creatures with narrowed eyes.

“This mission bites,” Ronon said. John couldn’t remember if he’d taught Ronon that word, or if it was the Marines. “Can I go kill a glaat now?”

“No,” John said, and Ronon grumbled under his breath. John missed the good old days when Ronon used to do whatever he told him to.

Rodney sighed miserably. “I’m not picking up any unusual energy readings,” he said, waving the life signs detector around. “I don’t think it’s presumptuous to say this planet’s uninhabited.”

Teyla cocked her head. “According to my people, the entire Gregorian population was culled several generations ago.”

“My people used to say the same thing,” Ronon added.

“If we leave now, we can make it back in time for dinner,” Rodney said eagerly. Ronon grunted in approval.

John glared. “When did you guys get so lazy?”

“When I started noticing a disturbing trend in which planets that appear to be uninhabited usually are indeed inhabited by people who want us dead,” Rodney replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We met Ronon on an uninhabited world,” said John.

“My point,” Rodney said.

“I only wanted you dead for a little bit,” Ronon said gruffly.

Teyla called, “Colonel.”

He walked over to her side. She pointed to the canyon walls. “These appear to be cave paintings.”

She was right; the paintings were faded, and in organic-looking red, white, and dark brown colours, like ones he’d seen in history books. Most were of little stick people riding glaats, along with pictures of spears, clouds, and unidentifiable animals. They looked pretty old, but there was no telling.

John glanced over his shoulder. Rodney and Ronon were arguing over which flavour of powerbar was the best, or something. He asked, “Ronon? How’d you happen to know about these glaat things?”

Ronon broke off in the middle of lecturing Rodney on the superiority of raspberry bars. “It’s a rite of passage among my people. When a man’s having a baby–” Rodney made a choking noise, and Ronon bared his teeth. “–He comes here and kills a glaat.”

“Did your people ever happen to mention if they met any of these Gregorians while glaat hunting?”

Ronon gave him a vacant look. “It’s not a rite of passage if everyone knows how to do it.”

“Right,” John said tiredly.

*

III.

Three months after Smelding.

The day they found out what Ronon’s deal was, Teyla caught her laptop on fire, four Marines got stuck in a lower level chamber, and Rodney and Zelenka had some kind of crazy falling out — something about Zelenka letting it slip to Katie Brown that Rodney and Carson had been referring to her as “Princess Sparklepants” since the infamous dinner date — all before lunch. John just wanted the day to be over already, but his team still had a debriefing with Elizabeth about their upcoming mission.

Amazingly, Rodney was already in the briefing room when John sauntered in. Elizabeth was there as well, playing Solitare on her tablet. John was suspicious; Rodney was never on time for anything. “You still mad at Zelenka?” he asked quietly.

“That diabolical little gnome,” Rodney hissed, clenching his fists where they rested on the table.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Teyla came in next, eyebrows still a little singed. Her hands were bandaged.

“What the hell happened to you?” Rodney demanded.

Teyla’s jaw tightened. “No one informed me you should not have a lamp, a fan, a hot plate, a blowdryer, and a laptop plugged in to the same power bar and running at the same time.”

“So that’s what that power surge was,” Rodney said thoughtfully.

Teyla looked to be on the verge of batting Rodney with her mummified hands when Ronon wandered into the room carrying a lumpy, handwoven sack. He slumped in a chair next to Teyla, slamming the sack — which actually didn’t look much like a sack, now that John looked at it, but rather a bunch of knotted rope — on the table.

“What do you have there?” Rodney asked, peering at it as if he hoped it was filled with food.

“Baby hammock,” Ronon said.

“Ah, yes, I can see it matches the glaat skin blanket,” Rodney said hotly. “Who had to die to procure you this baby item?”

“No one died when I got the glaat,” Ronon said.

“We barely escaped with our lives!”

John rolled his eyes and glanced at Elizabeth, expecting to see a hilariously confused expression on her face, but instead she was staring hard at the table. “Gentlemen,” she said, a little more harshly than usual.

Ronon and Rodney both stopped, blinking at her.

“Teyla,” Elizabeth asked, looking up, “do you want to stand down on this mission?”

Only Teyla could appear completely serious when she said, “I do not need my hands to kill.”

Rodney’s knee nudged John under the table, and John interpreted the look Rodney sent him as a hint they’d continue those private conversations about what he was and wasn’t trained to do. For someone who thought the military was full of idiots, Rodney certainly thought soldiers were hot. Or maybe just Air Force officers. “I’m pretty sure I need my hands to kill people,” he scribbled on Rodney’s tablet, angling it so Rodney could read. A corner of Rodney’s mouth curved downwards in disappointment.

Passing notes to Rodney made him miss Elizabeth getting to her feet, so when she paled and grabbed the edge of the table, he barely caught her as she started to drop. Ronon and Teyla jumped up as Rodney tapped his earpiece and said, “Carson? Carson, we need you in the briefing room right now, Elizabeth’s–”

“I’m fine,” she interrupted. John watched worriedly as she took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

Rodney was frantic. “When did you last eat? Do you need to lie down? A glass of water? Someone get her a glass of water!”

“This isn’t something that can be cured by any of those,” Elizabeth replied.

Something horrible fluttered in John’s stomach. Was she dying? How long had she kept this a secret? He stared at her, wide-eyed, unable to think of any words that would make this okay.

“Oh my god,” Rodney said as they resettled into their seats. He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “What do you have?”

“A baby,” she replied.

“What?” John, Rodney, and Teyla asked simultaneously.

Elizabeth’s mouth formed a tight line. “I’m pregnant.”

Everyone in the room turned to stare at Ronon, who leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms behind his head, and smirked.

“No fucking way,” Rodney said.

*

Chapter Two

I.

Even though John tried his damndest not to think about Elizabeth and Ronon and just how she’d gotten pregnant, it was hard to avoid the elephant in the room. He had assumed Elizabeth and Ronon’s relationship began in exactly the opposite way of his own; he and Rodney had gone from post-suicide run arguments to heavy petting on the Daedalus to stealth sex around Atlantis before they realized there weren’t many people outside themselves they could actually stand to be around. Rodney’s abortive date with Katie Brown did nothing but prove this to both of them, something even John had resigned himself to.

Conversely, Elizabeth was big on learning about new cultures, and John figured Ronon had probably seduced her using some kind of Satedan mating ritual that may or may not have including killing things and flexing his muscles. John saw him do these two things quite regularly, and they were pretty impressive. And by “pretty impressive,” he meant “extremely hot.”

Subconsciously, John had drawn a line between the two relationships. If his first time with Rodney had been toe-curlingly passionate, Ronon and Elizabeth’s first time must’ve been sweet and romantic. It had probably included rose petals and declarations and mood lighting. Even if Ronon wasn’t that kind of guy, Elizabeth was, and John knew the lengths a guy would go to get laid.

*

In actuality, it went like this:

First, John’s team had come running back through the stargate, John shouting, “Close the gate, close the gate!” as soon as all four of them had made it inside. A single arrow had clattered to the floor right as the gate powered down. That in itself had not been unusual; three out of four missions for this team ended in violence or threats of violence or strange alien phenomena that later led to violence. However, during the post-mission debriefing, Elizabeth learned John and Rodney accidentally insulted the king of P1J-45 by laughing in his face, and shortly after that, Teyla had had an “accident” of her own when she kicked one of the king’s guards. The head of his guards, in fact, and she had kicked him in the balls because he’d offended her.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Tell me you didn’t just say what I think you just said.”

She felt a headache coming on when John gave her one of his innocent, wide-eyed smiles. “She slipped.”

“And when you punched the other guard in the face, that was just you ’slipping’?”

“No, that was on purpose,” John said.

She sucked in an exasperated breath. “Need I remind you, Smelding is one of the few civilizations we know of which the Wraith have left completely untouched?” she demanded. “Did you even get around to asking them how they accomplished this before attacking them?”

“I managed to get a few energy readings, but there wasn’t anything significant about them,” Rodney said with a careless wave of his hand. “Although they were pretty open about what they thought kept the Wraith away.”

“Oh, and what was that?” Elizabeth asked.

Rodney huffed. “Just your garden-variety, god-fearing fanaticism. They believe their relationship with their gods keep them safe. Unlike the planet run by Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, M7G-677, there was nothing on P1J-45 to indicate they’re employing a shield or cloaking device of any kind. Truthfully, I think they’re holding out on us.”

“And now we might never find out what’s keeping the Wraith at bay,” she said tightly.

John lowered his head. Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and stared icily at his laptop. Teyla managed to look both ashamed and dignified all at once. Ronon picked his nails with a knife. Not for the first time, she looked at the four of them and saw why Colonel Caldwell hadn’t believed her when she’d first told him this team saved Atlantis on a regular basis (although Caldwell had been quite rude about it; “Major Sheppard’s the guy with the funny hair, right? The one who tried to blow himself up?”). She knew they all took the Wraith very seriously, but sometimes she felt like the only adult in the city.

“Maybe we can go back,” Ronon said. Elizabeth frowned at him. Surely she hadn’t just seen him slip the knife into his dreads.

“If you return, it will be without me,” Teyla said stiffly. “I do not appreciate their views on women. It is demeaning.”

John leaned his elbows on the table. “We don’t like it either, Teyla.” He looked at Elizabeth apologetically. “They’re kind of… old fashioned.”

Rodney snorted. “Like seventeenth century old fashioned.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Ronon said to Teyla. “You and McKay make a good couple.”

John, with a pinched look, said, “No one’s marrying anybody, Ronon,” just as Rodney said, “Ha, I should be so lucky,” and Teyla hissed, “I am not interested in becoming a tool for the patriarchy.” Elizabeth was fairly certain the last part was a repeat of something she’d told Teyla a few weeks ago, after Teyla had made the mistake of referring to Simon as Elizabeth’s “former husband.”

“Enough,” Elizabeth shouted. They fell silent. “I’ll see if I can get the king to re-open negotiations.”

John started, “Elizabeth.”

“No.” She held up a hand. “This is not open for discussion. If Smelding has technology to keep out the Wraith, we need to find out if they’re willing to share it. And we can’t do that by kicking the king’s guards in their– in their private parts.”

Teyla frowned. “I did not kick him in a private part, I kicked him in the testicles. Besides, he deserved it. He said Dr McKay was a poor choice for a husband.”

“That cad,” Rodney agreed. Both John and Ronon rolled their eyes.

Elizabeth wasn’t stupid; she knew there were things — a lot of things — they left out of their mission reports. It had stopped making her angry when she had realized there were just some things she didn’t want to know. She ignored this comment much like she ignored Teyla’s apparent marriage to Rodney. The explanation probably wasn’t worth the pain.

“Okay,” John said finally. He raised his chin stubbornly. “We’ll go back and see what we can do. I think the king was starting to like me; maybe I can convince him kicking someone in the junk is just our way of saying hi.”

Arching a brow, Elizabeth said, “Actually, no, John, I’d rather you not be there. I’d offer suggestions to your diplomatic methods, but frankly, I think you’d end up sleeping with ambassadors, or their brothers, or husbands, and then we’d have an incident on our hands.”

“That would be very unfortunate,” Teyla agreed. Ronon looked almost perplexed.

John’s forehead wrinkled. “Amba–” he cut off, then slowly, slowly turned his head to glare at Rodney.

Rodney scoffed, “P4X-55? I’m just saying.”

“That was over a year ago,” John growled.

Before John and Rodney could start at it, Elizabeth opened the door to her office. She called, “Chuck, please radio Lieutenant Miller and tell him to prep his team for contact.” This would take every skill she’d ever cultivated at the UN. She squared her shoulders. “And bring me my red lipstick.”

*

It wasn’t difficult to get the king of P1J-45 to change his mind. An apology here, a compliment there, the mention of the fight against the Wraith, and Elizabeth (via Corporal Smith, who’d carried a laptop and a webcam all the way to Smelding) was invited to dine with the king.

“I don’t like it,” John said. “There’s something wrong with that planet. We met with over ten different people, and none of them gave us their names.”

She said, “Yes, John, let’s blow them up for not telling us their names. That’s a wonderful idea.”

He lit up for a second before he slumped down in his chair, defeated. “Fine, but I’m going with you.”

“Absolutely not,” she ordered.

His eyes narrowed.

*

A day later, their nameless guide led them through winding, cobblestone streets. The few people out and about about ducked into buildings as they passed; Elizabeth wondered if they were afraid of all strangers, or just them specifically. The witch comments from earlier were making her apprehensive, but Smelding was an impressive city, she had to give them that. Even Miller’s team looked awed at the markets and the fruit trees and the fountains, and they’d seen much more of this galaxy than her.

But the palace… the palace was amazing. It was like every fantasy she’d ever had as a little girl, playing princess. It was hundred-foot ceilings and lavish carpets and gorgeous paintings and winding towers. If there were ponies, Elizabeth might lose her cool.

The guide’s tour of the castle was interrupted by the approach of an eggplant-robed man. “This is the head servant,” said the guide said as an introduction. No names, Elizabeth noted. “He is preparing your meeting with the king.”

The servant bowed his head. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she was supposed to reciprocate the gesture, but she did, just to be safe. “How many rooms will be necessary for tonight?” the servant asked.

There was something in the way both he and the guide were looking at her that made her pause. But she didn’t have to make a decision; Ronon took a step forward and sideways, so he was standing in front of her, and said, “Two soldiers per room, and one room for her and me.”

“This is your husband?” the guide asked her, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” Ronon growled.

Elizabeth did a double-take, but Ronon sent her a pointed look. “Yes,” she said, turning back to the guide, glad her shock wasn’t evident in her voice, “I’m sorry, I should’ve mentioned it from the beginning.”

“You didn’t bring her with you last time,” the guide said to Ronon, frowning.

“My wife’s too important to come on first contact missions,” Ronon said flatly, slowly crossing his bulging biceps over his chest.

Threatened, their guide took a step back. “Ah, yes, I see.”

Elizabeth wasn’t sure what her face looked like, but the expression on Miller’s was almost comical.

The servant bowed again and trotted off. Their guide went back to his lecture, but Elizabeth lingered behind.

“What are you doing?” she whispered to Ronon.

“Remember what they said earlier?” he asked out of the side of his mouth. “When Teyla said she wasn’t married, they thought she was a witch. McKay had to pretend to be her fiance so they wouldn’t kill her.”

Suddenly that part of the conversation from the briefing room made more sense. “I bet that was fun,” she muttered.

Ronon snorted. “Yeah, right. I was the one stuck sharing a room with Sheppard. He spent the whole night complaining about how McKay doesn’t appreciate him. I had to pretend I heard something outside just to get away.”

She had to chuckle at that. When the guide turned to look at her, she covered it with a cough.

*

Not long after, their guide stopped them at a closed door at the end of a long hallway. “This is where I leave you,” he said. He bowed to her, and to her surprise, to Ronon too. “I will return to escort you back to the gate of the Ancestors when it’s time to leave. Unless you’re a witch, in which case, I will see you again at your execution.”

Elizabeth let out a surprised laugh. Ronon muttered something under his breath.

The doors opened to a room that was completely bare except for a grand throne, on which sat a chubby, dark-haired man who may have been in his early fifties. Much to her disappointment, he wasn’t wearing a crown and cape, but instead a wreath and a long, yellow toga. There was a haughtiness in his eyes that reminded her of every UN delegate she’d ever negotiated with, the kind of look that said, “You may be the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, but we have nuclear weapons and we’re not afraid to use them.”

“Hello, Dr Elizabeth Weir and guests,” he said grandly. “I am the king of Smelding.”

She stepped forward. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, King…” She waited for him to give her his name. He just stared at her. “Um, King.”

“Thank you for properly punishing your insubordinate soldiers for insulting me and harming my royal protectorate,” he said.

“Ah, yes,” she fibbed, “I’m very sorry for what transpired here earlier. As I said before, we’ve returned because we believe you may have something to help us in our fight against the Wraith.”

He looked down his nose at her. “Of course. Smelding would be happy to assist in any way we can.”

That was suspiciously easy. Elizabeth smiled tightly. Ronon said, “Hmm.”

Dinner went smoothly. In typical diplomatic fashion, Elizabeth and the Smeldingian king discussed the weather, gossiped about their mutual allies, complimented each other’s wealth, and didn’t mention how John’s team had beaten the royal guard and then had been chased back to the gate, screaming. Graciously, Elizabeth asked the king to give the cook their regards, even though both the food and the water had a strange penny-like aftertaste. Ronon made a face every time he took a bite, and Miller’s team barely touched any of it, but Elizabeth made sure to eat enough so as not to cause offense.

It was over an hour before they came back to the subject of the Wraith. Elizabeth mentioned some of the problems they’d had (sieges, hive queens, turning into bugs); the king brought up cullings he’d read in history books.

Elizabeth said, “Please tell us why the Wraith don’t cull your people.”

“It’s because of the Instrument of Eternal Life,” the king boasted. When he grinned, there was a blueish line along his gums.

She wasn’t familiar with that term. She glanced at Ronon to see if he recognized it, but his face was blank. “The Instrument of Eternal Life?”

The king stood, beckoning them to follow. “Come, I’ll show you.”

*

The Instrument of Eternal Life was not a musical instrument. It wasn’t a computer, or a machine, or a large weapon with which to take down Hive ships. Rather, it appeared to be a small, curved blade with a black handle. It sat on a white stone dais in the centre of an empty room not unlike the king’s audience chamber, a light shining down on it like it was a priceless museum artifact.

Elizabeth found her voice. “How does this, uh, Instrument keep the Wraith away?”

“We stab people with it,” replied the king.

“I stab people all the time, and the Wraith still come,” Ronon said.

Elizabeth winced, but turned it into a smile as the king turned to her. He held a finger in the air. “Ah, yes, but the Instrument of Eternal Life isn’t simply a knife. It’s a gift to our people from the god of Oblivion; in return for our protection, he asks we use the Instrument to keep the city free from the influence of evil.”

“Witches,” Elizabeth stated. She didn’t have a good feeling about that. She had teams who’d been to plenty of misogynistic worlds where women were oppressed; it wasn’t all that uncommon among civilizations less advanced than their own — even though she hated to use the term “less advanced,” because no matter how advanced the society, there were always men who hated women somewhere, in every galaxy. One thing her line of work taught her was that the differences between the beliefs of the majority of the Pegasus Galaxy and the Atlanteans’ own customs weren’t necessarily bad or good — they were just different — but it still made her blood boil, knowing there were people who looked down on women, down on her, for no reason other than gender.

The king nodded sagely. “Thanks to this agreement, we haven’t suffered from the Wraith in eight hundred years.”

“How often do you have to use it?” she asked, eyeing the knife. It looked ordinary to her.

The king’s face darkened. “More often than I’d like, I’m sad to say. Why, just last week, a young woman from the north end of the city was caught using the dark arts.”

“What did she do?” Elizabeth asked, not quite sure she wanted to hear the answer. She wouldn’t judge. She wouldn’t judge. She wouldn’t–

“She learned math,” the king said.

Elizabeth stared, open-mouthed. “How… awful for you,” she said coolly.

The king didn’t seem to notice her anger. “Yes, it was very tragic.”

Thankfully, before she said something she might (or might not) regret later, one of the king’s brightly-dressed aides trotted up and whispered something in his ear. The king bowed his head at her. He said, “Your rooms are ready for the night. I know you’ve had a long walk from the ring of the Ancestors to my palace. My servant will take you to your quarters.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” Elizabeth said, but as soon as they were out of earshot, she muttered to Ronon, “Remind me to never invite these people to Atlantis. What do you think?”

“The king’s an idiot,” Ronon grunted. He looked down at her, face smooth and serious, and she felt some of the tension uncoil from her shoulders. “Everyone knows witches are men.”

*

II.

Two months after Smelding.

Deeper into the canyon, and still nothing. That funny feeling John had started to get in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the paintings didn’t go away, but he couldn’t justify it, either.

No one else seemed to feel the way he did. Usually, when something was wrong, Teyla or Ronon would feel it too, or Rodney would sense he was agitated enough to shut up and be more careful. But Ronon and Teyla seemed to think the mission was already over; Ronon was deciding which glaat to aim for, and Teyla had let her P-90 hang idly against her chest.

“And just how, exactly, do you plan on killing a, ah, glaat?” Rodney asked.

Smoothly, Ronon slipped on a very familiar-looking military standard pair of aviator sunglasses. “With my gun.”

“Hey!” John exclaimed. “Those are my spare sunglasses.”

“You left them in the jumper,” Ronon protested. He took a few steps closer to John and bumped John’s chest with his — he actually bumped John’s face with his chest, and John tensed. He didn’t like feeling small, but it was Ronon, and therefore an inevitably pointless battle.

“Well, you know what they say, finder’s keepers. They look better on you anyway,” John drawled.

Ronon grinned and stepped back. Without warning, he stripped off his long jacket and vest and dipped his fingers in the mud, streaking it across his cheeks like army paint. “Whoa, Sitting Bull,” Rodney said, “is that really necessary?”

“I like hunting,” Ronon said.

“You’d think your seven years as the Wraith’s play thing would’ve made you a card-carrying member of PETA.” John jabbed Rodney in the stomach with his elbow. “Ow! Not play thing play thing. You know what I mean. I’m just saying, if it were me, I’d become a vegetarian.”

“Well, I’m not you,” Ronon said, sounding irritated.

As soon as the first glaat went down, the trembling started. John spread his feet for grip, looking around wildly. If this was an earthquake, it was a damned convenient one. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rodney wobble and fall; Teyla and Ronon braced for a fight.

The ground stilled. John gripped his gun tightly.

Over the edges of the cliffs, a dozen male heads poked out, spears aimed down at them. Before John could even raise his P-90, a second dozen encircled them, pointing spears and arrows directly at his team. They were covered in mud, with red lines on their faces and feathers in their hair, and they were each wearing little leather loincloths.

For several heartbeats, no one moved.

Reluctantly, John lowered his gun. A second later, his teammates did the same.

“How,” John said in greeting. The spears edged a little closer. “Let me guess, you’re the Gregorians.”

“Who is your leader?” one asked. This man had the longest spear of the bunch; John’s informal lessons in alien anthropology suggested this guy was their head honcho.

John smiled winningly at him. “That’d be me. Is there a problem here?”

“Why have you attacked the sacred glaats?” He stepped closer, waving his enormous spear in John’s face. “Hector has not given you permission.”

“Calm down, buddy,” John urged, leaning away from it. “Who’s Hector?”

“The god of the hunt,” another one replied in a tone that was disturbingly close to one Rodney often used.

“Naturally,” Rodney said in the way he usually did when people mentioned gods or religion or any beliefs in general. (One time, just to fuck with him, John had told him he was a practicing Jew. Rodney had refused to speak to him for a week before showing up at John’s door with a menorah. It had been August.) “Maybe Hector did give us permission. Have you asked him yourself? No? Then we’ll just be on our–” The natives directed their aim towards Rodney. He gulped and ducked behind Teyla.

“Look,” John said. He gave them another smile, all friendly-like, “we didn’t know these animals were important. We didn’t even know anyone lived here. We’re just traders.”

He attempted projecting let us go at the nice people with pointy weapons. The tip of a spear brushed his cheek and he held himself very, very still.

“You must repent for what you’ve done,” the leader said.

*

III.

Three months and a day after Smelding.

“So,” John said brightly, “a baby.”

Back on Earth, he’d known a few people who had babies, and the women had all been glowy and smiley. Elizabeth looked more like she wanted to run screaming from the room. Or brain him with her tablet. “Yes, John, a baby. A baby and a man who wants to marry me, no thanks to a bunch of people who eat lead paint.”

“You got pregnant while Ronon was protecting you in Smelding?” John asked incredulously. He gaped at her for a second before, temper rising, demanded, “Weren’t you the one to lecture me on five separate occasions on why having sex offworld is a bad idea? ‘I don’t want to tell you how to lead your life, John, but.’”

Anything could’ve happened while she and Ronon were having sex. He was suddenly absolutely furious at both her and Ronon’s sloppiness.

Elizabeth seemed to find her game of Solitare very fascinating. “I know, but he’s just so– so–”

“Half your age?” he seethed.

“Hot,” she finished. Her eyes narrowed. “John, please. I know getting involved with Ronon was a terrible idea. Believe me, I’m paying for it.”

She put a hand on her stomach, and John’s anger evaporated. He sat down heavily. “Ronon wants to marry you?” he asked uncomfortably.

She grimaced. “He told me he was willing to overlook that my family can’t pay the ‘bride price’ of twenty ‘handgar,’ which I think is a sum of money. Or cattle.”

“He’s been collecting baby stuff for you on missions,” John said as he rubbed his chin. “Rodney and I thought maybe he’d met some girl offworld.”

“If only,” Elizabeth sighed.

“Speaking of girls offworld,” John continued, grinning as Rodney leaned into the room. He knocked on the door as he shoved through it, glaring in John’s general direction.

“Is this a private conversation, Colonel, or are you and Elizabeth busy discussing how you’re going to be sleeping on the couch tonight? I need you to temporarily remove Dr Kusangi from her offworld team while she works on the deep space scanner modifications. Elizabeth, I’m pretty sure Ronon’s trying to score some Cristal. What’s this I hear about you getting married?”

“What’s Cristal?” Elizabeth asked.

“It’s what the rappers drink,” Rodney explained. He sat on the desk next to John. Elizabeth looked surprised, although John wasn’t; one of the first times Rodney had abandoned him for the labs in the middle of the night, he’d found a People magazine tucked between a physics journal and a year-old Astronomy Today. He’d also found Ford’s old iPod in Rodney’s underwear drawer.

“So, a baby,” Rodney said conversationally, and John smirked.

Elizabeth glowered. “Don’t you start.”

“You don’t really plan on marrying him, do you? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with a man who thinks a light year is longer than a par sec?”

“I don’t even know what a par sec is,” Elizabeth said.

“Nevermind. Clearly, it’s a match made in Heaven,” Rodney said meanly. He had that “you got your PhD from a Crackerjack box” look on his face again, and John nudged his shoulder pointedly.

At least Elizabeth seemed to know when she was being insulted. “You know, Rodney, not that it’s any of your business, but maybe I don’t want to be with someone who knows a par sec is longer than a light year. Ronon might not be a genius, but he’s a good boy. Man. Man!” She faltered, clearing her throat. She gazed up at John with big, guilty eyes. “It’s very lonely at the top.”

John nodded. “I know, you have– Hey!” he cried, jerking up from his slouch. “You were sleeping with Stackhouse for months. And Corporal Coughlin. And the diplomat from M4X-1002.”

Rodney made a sound he usually reserved for when John was sucking certain parts of his anatomy. “Wasn’t the diplomat a chick?” he asked shrilly.

John was going to have to do a lot of drinking to get the image of Elizabeth and another woman out of his head. “I’m pretty sure it was the other diplomat, Rodney,” he said flatly.

“Oh, of course,” Rodney said, sounding disappointed. He leaned forward eagerly. “Although if you’d slept with the female diplomat, that would’ve been–”

“Not helping,” John snapped.

“I’m not ready to march in the pride parade just yet,” Elizabeth told Rodney, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

Rodney was still looking a little shell-shocked. “I’m just saying– not that I’ve ever thought of you in that way– not that you’re unattractive or anything, but you’re my boss, and our relationship has never been anything but the utmost professional… but if you slept with another woman, that would be–” He broke off, nodding to himself. “Well, I’d have no objections.”

“Can we change the subject?” John asked, glaring.

Rodney sniffed. “Two vaginas are two too many for the Colonel.”

Now Elizabeth really was grinning. “I understand.”

It was a good thing these walls were soundproof; John would hate to be court martialed because of his homosexual affair and Elizabeth. “None of you understand my plight,” he mumbled.

“I just wish–”

Chuck — John never could remember his last name; he only knew the man’s first one because Chuck and Rodney had once nearly gotten in a fist fight over hockey, something about the Leafs verses the Oilers, or whatever, which was sort of like watching two little girls trying to bitch slap each other — knocked on the glass door.

“Dr Weir,” he said.

She nodded and stood. “Sorry, gentlemen, I have a meeting.”

As the door shut behind them, Rodney hissed, “Isn’t she kind of, you know, old? The kid’s going to be retarded. Oh my God, we’re not just going to have a baby running around Atlantis, we’re going to have a retarded baby! This is disastrous.”

“You better hope Ronon doesn’t catch you calling his baby retarded,” John said.

Rodney waved a careless hand. “Like he knows what that word means anyway. Yesterday I called him a halfwit and he said ‘thank you.’”

*

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that after a while, people stationed in Atlantis started to get a little odd. It happened to all of them eventually; John hadn’t even realized he himself had developed some particular behaviour patterns until the first wave of Daedalus reinforcements had arrived with their strange Earth habits. Habits like studying every insect they came across instead of running away from them, or giving away their deserts for free, or making jokes about a sock monster stealing socks from the dryers (it wasn’t a sock monster, it was a wormhole to another dimension, and two new pilots and one civilian had to learn that the hard way). It had taken a few weeks before the original expedition members and the reinforcement officers had started to mingle successfully.

After Lorne’s strikeforce was released from the Genii prison, three of his teammates went all Malcolm X on John. “You were there for less than a week,” John had pointed out. But Lieutenant French had asked, “Are you questioning my personal relationship with Allah, sir?” John was the last guy to look down on someone for their faith (he wasn’t Rodney, after all), but even he had to roll his eyes at their sudden religious fervor, especially after he had heard one of them asking Elizabeth which direction she thought he should pray in. In the Pegasus Galaxy.

“Sir, I want to officially change my name to Abdullah Fatemi,” Sergeant Estridge had told John later in a private meeting.

“I’m pretty sure that name’s already taken by Corporal Fatemi,” John had said. “And speaking of which, you should probably avoid any of the actual Muslim officers for a while.”

Estridge had frowned. “Why? They’re my brothers now.”

John had clasped him on the shoulder and replied, “You know what? If this works out, I’ll change my name to He Who Runs From Wraith.”

He’d almost forgotten about that. A few days after they’d found out about Elizabeth’s pregnancy — after everyone had found out about Elizabeth’s pregnancy, actually; word traveled fast in a closed community — John and Rodney grabbed their usual table in the mess.

“Are you going to eat that?” Rodney asked as he pointed to John’s half-finished macaroni and cheese.

“No, go ahead.” John pushed the tray towards him.

Stuffing a bite into his mouth, Rodney said, “You know, you need to eat more. Your manorexia’s getting out of control.”

John squinted at him. “Did you just say ‘manorexia’?”

“Hey,” Rodney said, eyes locked on something over John’s shoulder, “I thought you said Lorne’s guys were going to get the shit beaten out of them.”

John twisted around to look. French, Estridge, and Stoker were sitting at a table with Abdul-Majeed and Khadim, neither of whom seemed particularly pissed off. In fact, the five of them looked like they were deep in an intense discussion. “Great, now I’m going to get my ass handed to me by Lieutenant Delancy.”

“Who’s Lieutenant Delancy?” Rodney asked around a mouthful of green beans.

“Canadian Native,” John replied. “I thought all you Canadians knew each other.”

Rodney gave him a sour look. “I guess I must’ve missed him at the last Canadian meeting,” he said sarcastically. “Yes, that’s right, I was too busy telling everyone of my ingenious plan to steal back our water supply from you thieving Americans.”

“Does the water taste more socialist in Canada?” John asked.

“It’s tainted by the flavour of free health care,” Rodney sneered.

Ronon crossed the mess with a loaded tray, making a bee-line for John and Rodney. “Hey, Dex!” French called. Ronon hesitated, then slid in beside Khadim. The hairs on the back of John’s neck stood up.

He managed to tear his gaze away from Ronon’s enthusiastic conversation with three insane and two conservative Marines and back to Rodney, who proceeded to tell him the horrible mistakes everyone in the physics lab made that day, not seeming to care something probably very, very bad was happening on the other side of the mess.

*

When he got to Elizabeth’s office, John found her standing in the middle of the room. She was pinching a beautiful piece of fabric between her fingers, arm stretched away from her body. She was staring at it like it had done something to personally offend her. The cloth was dark red, with beautiful lines of gold etched into it; John recognized it from one of the planets they traded medicine to, but he couldn’t recall which one.

“Not a fan of dry clean only?” he asked.

“Do you know what this is?” she questioned, still holding it away from herself.

He studied it. “Should I?”

“Ronon,” Elizabeth began tightly, eyes narrowing, “has apparently being talking to some of the Marines.”

His stomach sank. “Fantastic,” he said wearily.

“Who, from what I understand, explained the Muslim belief women should cover themselves when in the presence of men who are not their husbands.”

“So that is–?” John gestured.

“A burqa,” she said.

This was the first time John had ever been afraid Elizabeth would literally kill someone. “Why couldn’t they just teach him curse words like normal people?” John murmured.

“No, they taught him those too,” she said dryly.

*

Chapter Three

I.

The rumour mill was working overtime. Stackhouse caught John sneaking out of his office in the middle of the day. “Sir, is it true Dr Weir’s pregnant?”

“Yeah,” John replied, surprised and yet not. “Who told you?”

Stackhouse’s face crumpled. “I guess I’d better go congratulate Coughlin,” he said dejectedly.

John couldn’t bear seeing him so forlorn like that. “Well, Sergeant, between you and me… it’s not Coughlin.”

Stackhouse’s brows knitted. “Zelenka? Everyone knows he has a thing for her, but– if it’s not him, who could it be?”

He couldn’t resist: “It could be me,” he said, rocking back on his heels.

But Stackhouse threw his head back and laughed. “Good one, sir.” He was still chuckling when he turned to leave, and John could hear him mutter, “‘It could be me.’ That’s great.”

*

It wasn’t like John actively thought about it. But if pressed, he’d admit he was sure Ronon had been the one to seduce Elizabeth. Once word got out about them, people began to make their own assumptions. Those who didn’t know Ronon were under the impression Elizabeth had fallen for the charms of his fine alien ass; those who did know him thought he’d been the one to notice her beauty and independent spirit and decided to make her his (or that he was just really into older women; Rodney had said something along the lines of, “Electra complex much?”). Everyone figured Ronon must’ve done something to convince Elizabeth a relationship with him was worth the consequences.

That wasn’t exactly how it happened.

*

Smelding.

The guest quarters contained one large bed draped in sheer gold and red fabric. The fireplace threw soft, romantic shadows throughout the room, and outside the huge window, the city’s white towers glittered in the moonlight. Elizabeth eased off her sneakers and toed the Persian-looking carpet.

From behind her, Ronon said, “I sleep naked.”

Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose. She was entirely too mature to freak out over a naked Ronon Dex. “That’s fine, I’ll sleep in the armchair,” she said.

He started to inspect the window. “No, I’ll take the chair. You take the bed.”

She didn’t appreciate him coddling her because she was a woman, no matter how comfortable the bed seemed. She sat on a corner, testing how bouncy the mattress was. “I think I’ve proven I can handle myself in a difficult situation,” Elizabeth had told John before she’d left. Still, he’d put his hands on his hips and insisted, “Ronon’s going with you. Aren’t you, buddy?”

Ronon shucked his pants. Elizabeth rolled off the bed.

“Are you this way with all your teammates?” she asked as she stood back up shakily, unable to keep a squeak out of her voice. He had huge, muscular brown legs, matching his smooth brown chest and narrow hips, and– She fixed her eyes on the slight curve of his lips, mouth suddenly dry.

He shrugged, completely at ease. “Not Sheppard. I don’t like the way he looks at me; it makes me feel like a piece of meat. And Teyla snores. I sleep next to the fire when I’m offworld with them.”

“What about Rodney?”

He looked at her blankly. “What about him?”

When he turned to check the locks on the door, she caught him smirking. She narrowed her eyes; he was messing with her head again. He’d always liked knocking her off-balance. In the past, it had always left her distressed — heart fluttering, face hot, feeling mortified even though she’d never done anything wrong — but somehow, seeing him in his briefs made her braver.

As soon as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, like she had just been moments before, she removed her shirt, letting it drop to the floor where her jacket and tac vest already lay.

This time, he was the one to fall off the bed.

The cool air on her bare skin made Elizabeth shiver, but the triumph of unnerving Ronon had a warmth all its own. She blinked at him innocently. “It is customary on Earth for everyone to disrobe if one person does,” she lied graciously.

“Huh,” he said, picking himself back up, “that explains Sheppard and McKay. I’d wondered why they slept naked on away missions. It never seemed very practical to me.”

John was the worst secret homosexual in history. “Never follow John’s example,” she said. He started to say something, but she held up her hand. “Just trust me. You’ll embarrass yourself less this way.”

Ronon’s eyes darted across her breasts and stomach briefly, then away. His throat worked. “Okay.”

Satisfied she’d disarmed him sufficiently — and feeling more than a little foolish in just her bra — Elizabeth bent down to pick her shirt back up. She said, “If we ask for more blankets, maybe you can–”

Suddenly he was right in front of her. He clasped his hand over her mouth, and her shirt slipped from her fingers. She sucked in a breath through her nose.

It took a second for her heart to stop pounding in her ears, and she started to notice how warm his big hand was against her mouth, how he smelled like dirt and leather and nothing like Simon, who’d gone to the trouble of wearing Giorgio Armani every day, or even John, who always smelled nice, even from across the room. Ronon’s smell was real. It was different before, with him just looking at her; now with one hand on her mouth and the other just barely touching her waist, a hot wave pulsed down her spine.

“Sorry,” he said, drawing away. She almost stumbled forward. “The king’s guards are marching through the halls. They gave us trouble last time.”

She licked her lips. “That’s who Teyla had the, uh, disagreement with?”

“Yeah.” His brow furrowed.

He was still right against her, but he was shifting anxiously.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t know how to be married,” he confessed. “I should’ve said you were married to Lieutenant Miller. We’re going to get caught faking, and I will have broken my promise to Sheppard.”

“What was marriage like on Sateda?” she asked.

He lowered his head, frowning. She was pretty sure he was staring at her breasts. “Most people on Sateda marry for money or children,” he said quietly. “My mother was the daughter of an industrialist. My father’s father was in the performance arts. He would do silent skits by himself in the town square.”

She gawked. “A mime?”

“Grandpa didn’t talk much,” he continued.

“No, I imagine he wouldn’t,” she said.

They were still standing close in the corner of the room, both of them half-naked. If Elizabeth leaned even slightly to the left, she would’ve fallen onto the bed. She had to get control of herself; she had to tell him thank you for protecting her, but he needed to step away now.

“Are you and Teyla involved?” she asked instead.

“No,” Ronon said, staring at her mouth, “she’s not my type.”

“Shot you down, huh?” Elizabeth asked, arching a brow.

He ducked his head. “She told me she’d have sex with Sheppard before she would with me, and then she laughed really, really hard.”

“So you’re single,” she said.

“I told you, I don’t have the means to protect you,” he said, like that was some sort of answer.

“We could…” Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it pounding in her chest. “We could practice. You know. Being married.”

Ronon looked at her like this was the best idea in the history of the universe, but he said in a low tone, “I can’t protect you the way I should,” he repeated. There was something here she wasn’t getting. “I’m not a man yet.”

Now he was gazing at her unabashed, raking his eyes from her feet to the top of her head, and her whole body felt flushed. This was completely unfitting of a leader. She shouldn’t have been turned on. She should’ve felt angry and outraged. She should’ve crossed her arms over her chest, backing off. She should’ve told him how inappropriate he was being, because she was his superior and the head of Atlantis, and they were on a mission to protect the city, and he was a young, hot, strong, man-child with the ability to tear people apart with his giant hands. But instead, she placed her hand on his large, brown bicep and, using a phrase she knew was worthy of John Sheppard, said, “Believe me, you’re more than man enough.”

*

II.

Two months after Smelding.

“I hate missions that end in nudity,” Rodney said. He looked across the circle at John and leered. “Mmm. Well. I hate missions that end in team nudity.”

“Dr McKay, please be quiet,” Teyla snapped.

“At least they let you keep your bra and panties,” Rodney retorted.

“I never want to hear the words ‘panties’ come out of your mouth again,” John told him.

The four of them were sitting Indian-style in a circle, inside one of the canyon’s caves the Gregorians used as a base. A circle of spear-holding Gregorians surrounded them. If John leaned back even the slightest, a spear dug into his spine. He’d been through worse (it wasn’t like he hadn’t been naked offworld before), but so far, this wasn’t his favourite mission. The naked thing was a little uncomfortable, and his ass was falling asleep from sitting for so long.

There was a movement out of the corner of John’s eye. He glanced over, seeing Ronon fiddling with something in his lap. His very naked lap. “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

Ronon was widdling a piece of wood with one of his hair knives. “Baby toy.”

“That’s it, you’re out of the sacred naked bonding,” Rodney said.

“You ever going to tell us who’s having your baby?” John asked seriously.

Ronon paused, looking up. He looked a little frustrated. “Maybe? It’s a secret right now. I just found out.”

“Is she Athosian?” Rodney asked.

“No,” Ronon said. Teyla looked extremely relieved.

“Was she one of those man-eaters from the planet of the Amazons?”

“No.”

“What about–?”

“Stop asking, I’m not going to tell you,” Ronon said. He studied Rodney thoughtfully, tucking both the knife and the toy into his dreads. It was a lot less impressive when he was naked. Or maybe more impressive. John couldn’t tell anymore. “You should think about having kids, McKay. You’d probably breed a lot of loud, irritating boys.”

Despite the horrifying idea of Rodney finding some blonde-haired, blue-eyed space slut to have his children (even though John was and always had been fully prepared for cockblocking in the Pegasus Galaxy), the aghast expression on Rodney’s face was hilarious. “I’m– Am I flattered? Am I supposed to be flattered? Is that some bizarre Satedan compliment on my virile masculinity?”

“Something like that,” Ronon replied.

“What about me?” John asked.

Ronon patted John’s bare knee. “You’re the best Taskmaster I’ve ever had,” he replied accommodatingly.

“That’s the total opposite of an answer,” John said.

“You know, the Meditation of Hector goes a lot faster if you don’t talk,” came the very exasperated voice of the Gregorian with the large spear.

John met the man’s eyes. “Hey, how much longer do we have to do this? If you’re going to kill us, you might as well do it now. We’re not very patient people.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rodney said. “I am the very epitome of patient.” When John didn’t say any of the jokes that popped into his head about Rodney’s patience in bed, he wondered if he was growing as a person. Maybe there really was something to this meditating.

“You must perform the Meditation until sundown,” the man said.

John looked up; the sun was directly over head. Their second check in was due in three hours.

“Great,” he said.

*

Naturally, John dozed off. He’d had an aversion to long bouts of meditation ever since that time warp cloister. Six months of nothing but meditation and cutting wood would drive a man to do something crazy — like sleep with a psychic woman who’d wanted to Ascend. He was never good at sitting still.

When he shook himself awake, it was dark. The Gregorians were busy lighting fires; one inside the cave, and one outside at the mouth. Rodney was snoring and drooling, and Ronon’s chin was down against his chest, but Teyla looked up as soon as he eyed her.

“Do you see our stuff?” he whispered.

She shook her head. John quickly glanced around the cave thinking: guard here, hearth there, three more guards at the cave’s opening, and if he was able to get his hands on one of those spears– Teyla’s eyes widened, and John twisted around.

The man with the very long spear stood behind him. The spear was conveniently pointed at John’s face. “I am Hektat, speaker for the Elders.”

John tapped his own chest. “Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. My friends are Teyla, Rodney, and Ronon. Are you planning on letting us go any time soon?”

Hektat shook his head. “No, there are still two more rituals which must be completed,” he said. “At sun up, you will be cleansed in the Pools of Hector.”

“Our people are going to be looking for us,” John warned. The Gregorians hadn’t hurt them, and, apart from the weird naked circle, hadn’t asked for anything, but just because they hadn’t yet didn’t mean they weren’t going to in the near future.

Hektat said sadly, “If you leave without completing the rituals, we’d have to find a new place to live. Even though our ancestors have lived in these caves for thousands of years. Because Hector might take his revenge by asking the animals to migrate.” John stared. Hektat added pointedly, “They’re our only source of food.”

“Could you move with the animals?” Teyla suggested.

“That requires entirely too much walking,” Hektat said.

John’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, but I have to warn you, my hair’s not pretty when it frizzes.”

*

While being escorted (by spearpoint) to the Pools of Hector, which were apparently around the next cliff, Rodney grabbed John’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Do those look like cars to you?”

Right off the path, two black, nineteenth century style automobiles were camouflaged behind rocks and leaves. They looked like they were loaded with boxes, sticks, and other goods.

“Ah, yes,” another one of the Gregorians said, “those are our portable storage devices.”

“I don’t think you understand the purpose of a car,” John said, eyes wide.

“But– how– who–” Rodney flailed like he’d been given an impossible math problem. “Where do you get gasoline?”

“Gas-oh-leen?” the man repeated.

“This technology is amazing,” Ronon mused.

John and Rodney stared at him in alarm. Even Teyla frowned.

Shaking himself, John turned to Hektat. “If you’re so worried about Hector making the animals migrate every time someone kills a glaat, why don’t you just follow them with these?”

“What sort of sick world do you come from where you use glaatless carriages as means of transportation?” Hektat asked in horror.

“Atlantis,” John replied slowly.

The Gregorians exchanged glances. “Suddenly, it all becomes clear,” Hektat said.

“Aliens,” John heard one of the men scoff. He totally related.

*

By John’s rough estimation, they’d only been in the pools for around half an hour when the rescue team decided to show. The timing couldn’t have been more unfortunate. The Gregorians had gone down a level in order to allow them privacy, like they hadn’t just walked half a mile completely in the buff. The Pools were exactly that, pools; the water was fizzy and warm, but not hot, and the air smelled faintly of sulphur. They reminded John of the hot springs in Yellowstone, only this time there weren’t any park rangers to yell at him.

He and Rodney had taken one pool, and Ronon and Teyla had taken another. Some time during the commotion, Teyla had relieved herself of her underclothes, but Ronon either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. John suspected it was the latter.

“Oh yeah,” Rodney said with eyes still closed, breaking the silence, “we should get captured like this more often.”

Rodney was right. John liked the way Rodney looked when he was relaxed, and he knew he was hot when he was wet and sweaty. It was kind of sexy: him, Rodney, hot springs, two dozen ornery alien kidnappers with spears possibly wanting to kill them.

John trailed his fingers up Rodney’s firm upper arm, murmuring, “Too bad Ronon and Teyla are here.”

Someone cleared their throat. When he looked up, he was looking directly into the very amused face of Major Lorne. John glanced over his shoulder, and he found five other Marines locked and loaded and ready to go.

“Now you show up,” Rodney grumbled. “You couldn’t've come during, say, the naked sharing time?”

“Major,” John acknowledged, debating whether or not to stand.

“You missed two check ins, sir,” Lorne said. “You know how Dr Weir worries. We’ve come to rescue you.” He carefully kept his eyes above John’s neck. “You do need rescuing, right, sir?”

“No, you interrupted our orgy,” Rodney said sarcastically.

Lorne looked bewildered. “Yes, we need rescuing!” John said, before Lorne could get any ideas.

“Looks like we came just in time then, sir,” Lorne said dryly, his gaze focused on the hot springs.

John stood and uttered the words he’d hoped to never say to his 2IC: “Major, help me find my pants.”

John’s movement must’ve been enough to alert the Gregorians, because suddenly, they were surrounded by spears and angry painted faces. Lorne’s men looked around nervously and raised their weapons; John held up a hand and called to both sides, “Wait, wait, it’s okay. We can do this without violence. Nobody has to get hurt here.”

Hektat stepped forward with his enormous spear. “We don’t wish anyone harm,” he said, gaze flickering between John and Lorne. “We just want you to finish the ceremony. All you have left is the Binding of Hector.”

“Binding,” John said with a relieved smirk, “that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Because you are the leader, you have to become one with the tribe,” Hektat said.

“Okay,” John said. He scratched the back of his neck. “How do I do that?”

“You must marry us.”

John’s eyebrows shot up. “Us?” he repeated.

“The tribe,” Hektat explained.

Rodney was going to murder him.

“Of course,” Rodney muttered darkly.

Oh yeah, he was a dead man. “I’m sorry, I’m already seeing someone,” John said, smiling tightly.

Ronon said, “I’m sure McKay doesn’t mind.”

For a guy who didn’t talk much, Ronon sure had a big mouth. John knew he meant that Rodney wouldn’t be able to make fun of John for marrying into a commune if it meant their lives (although Ronon was wrong; Rodney got angry when anyone — man, woman, child, squirrel — offworld so much as looked at John), but from the shocked looked on his soldiers’ faces, that comment wasn’t going over so well.

John worked his jaw, hoping his face didn’t display the incredible amount of annoyance he felt just then. He purposely didn’t glance at Rodney. “Thank you, Ronon,” he said.

Lorne looked at Rodney in surprise. “I didn’t know you were gay.”

“What about me?” John demanded.

“Well, you’re…” Lorne trailed off, making a twirly gesture John couldn’t decipher. John glowered. “Wow, look at this great ambush we have here.”

John ignored Rodney’s gloating smirk out of the corner of his eye. “Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “the sooner we, uh, Bind, the sooner we get to go home.”

*

John had been to Pegasus weddings before. Last year, two of the Athosians had gotten married, and there’d been a three day celebration and feast. John had personally helped slaughter the boar-like creatures they’d served as a main course. There had been dancing and moonshine and music, and he and Rodney had been wasted enough to sneak off to the woods.

This time, however, was more embarrassing than stumbling across Cadman and Carson doing what he and Rodney had been planning on doing. John had to sit still while women from the tribe rubbed green clay onto his hands and arms, and painted red clay onto his face in diagonal lines. He wondered if he looked like something out of an old western movie. At least they’d let him put his pants back on.

One of the women reached out to touch his hair. “I don’t think so,” he warned. She retreated.

“You’d better enjoy this while you can, Colonel,” Rodney said quietly, kneeling beside him, fully clothed and mud-free, “because it’s the closest you’ll ever come to getting married.”

“Gee, McKay, and I’d already picked out my dress,” John said sarcastically.

“What, you think they’re going to have gay marriage in Atlantis just because they like you so darn much? Although actually, that wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Don’t be mad, Rodney,” he said.

“I’m not mad,” Rodney snapped. “I’m perfectly fine with you marrying an entire tribe.”

Lorne disengaged himself from the circle of tribal elders and ambled over. “Sorry, sir,” he said, “but Teyla and I couldn’t talk them out of it. On the bright side, they said they’ll let us go as soon as the wedding’s over.”

“Major, we are never repeating this to anyone,” John said as a woman snuck up behind him and stuck a feather in his hair.

Lorne looked on the verge of cracking up. “You’re sure you don’t want a picture for posterity, sir? It’s not every day you get to marry into a commune.”

John rolled his eyes. “I think you should go check to make sure Ronon isn’t killing any more of their sacred animals.”

“And miss walking you down the aisle, sir?” Lorne asked.

“He gave you an order, Major,” Rodney said a little viciously, and Lorne’s head jerked back.

“Fine,” he said, and then he looked at John and rolled his eyes.

“You can’t seriously be upset about this,” John said as soon as Lorne headed over to where Ronon had wandered off.

“An entire tribe!” Rodney said, throwing his arms in the air.

*

III.

Three months and a week after Smelding.

John watched Elizabeth crumple the burqa into a ball and throw it in the wastebasket, and then glare at it in stony silence for twenty minutes. Shortly after, she asked him to do her a personal favour.

He begged. He pleaded. He groveled in a way he hadn’t since living with his parents, and in the end Elizabeth still won. That was what he got for not taking Debate in college.

Still a little rattled, he found himself at the main labs, watching Rodney happily type information into a simulation programme on his laptop. He was singing something that sounded like, “you’s a ho,” under his breath. Zelenka was at the next bench, singing something of his own in Czech. The two songs clashed in a horrible cacophony. Still, it was a lot less painful than what he was about to do.

“Hey,” John said as he perched on the edge of Rodney’s bench.

“Hey,” Rodney replied. He glanced at him for a second, looked down at the screen, and then stared back up at John, forehead creasing. “What’s wrong?”

John chewed his lower lip. “Elizabeth asked me to talk to Ronon for her.”

“About?” Rodney asked. At John’s dismayed look, he said, “You’re kidding me. Good luck with telling Ronon Elizabeth was just using him for sex. Remember a million years ago when you tried have that conversation with me, and halfway through we started making out?” He paused. “If your solution to Elizabeth’s Ronon problem ends with you making out with him, I’ll kill you both.”

John was very bad at breakups. He said, “Yeah, well, what exactly am I supposed to say to him? ‘Sorry your boss doesn’t want to bear your love-child and marry you?’ I really think Elizabeth was just looking for a good time. Remember how she was seeing Stackhouse but said he got too clingy?”

“What? No, she doesn’t tell me things like that,” Rodney said, disgusted. “We never talk about anything but work. Is that what you do at meetings? Talk about your love lives?”

John cringed. “I think I’m Elizabeth’s best friend.”

“I thought you were Teyla’s best friend,” Rodney said.

John thought about that. “I don’t think Teyla has friends, I think she has people she tolerates. Most of the time I don’t think she even likes me that much.”

“Some days, I’m surprised you have any friends at all.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe I should date Ronon. He’s nicer to me than you are.”

Rodney snorted. “Right. You’d come crying back to me the second he didn’t get one of your Star Trek jokes.”

That was probably true, but Rodney didn’t deserve to hear it.

He found Ronon and a bunch of the Marines in one of the lounges, watching rap videos on a laptop. There were bodies writhing on the screen, and if the camera hadn’t panned away to some unattractive, husky guy rapping, John would’ve thought it was porn. “So this Jadakiss guy,” Ronon was saying, sounding doubtful, “you admire him?”

“Hell yeah,” one of the guys said. “Look at these chicks.”

“But they’re whores,” Ronon said.

“Exactly.”

John knocked on the doorframe. “Okay, guys, take your circle jerk elsewhere. I’ve got to talk to Ronon.”

As soon as the room emptied, he joined Ronon on the couch. Throwing John a suspicious glance, Ronon silently pulled some beads and string out of his pocket.

“What’s–? No, nevermind, I know, baby necklace,” John said. He straightened his shoulders. He wished he’d had a couple of beers in him; these things always went a lot easier when he was wasted off his face. “Have you really thought about this whole baby thing?” he asked hesitantly.

“I’m a man now,” Ronon said simply. “This is something I have to do.”

“A man? You had sex with your boss!” John said.

Ronon growled, “You had sex with a glowing squid.”

“And no one will let me forget it,” John said, tapping his fingers on the arm of the couch in annoyance. He took a deep breath. He’d flown nukes into Hive ships, he’d faced Wraith queens, he’d killed dozens of people with the push of a button. He could totally break up with Ronon for Elizabeth. “Listen, Elizabeth’s not ready for this whole baby… marriage… shenanigan.”

“I don’t understand,” Ronon said.

John had once dumped a girl on her birthday completely by accident. Explaining he hadn’t known it was her birthday hadn’t saved him from the ass kicking; actually, now that he thought about it, that particular girlfriend reminded him a lot of Teyla. Another time, he’d ran over a boyfriend’s cat. He hadn’t been able to think of a way to tell the guy, so he’d left a note on the dead kitty that said, “I think we should see other people.” There were also several incidences in which he hadn’t exactly broken up with whomever he’d been dating, but instead waited until they realized he was dating someone else before saying something. Seriously, John had always been bad at breakups.

John rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “She doesn’t want to marry you. She’s not even sure she’s going to keep the baby. She didn’t want anything serious when she got involved with you.”

Ronon slowly got to his feet. “Are you saying this because you want her?”

“Whoa, back up there a second, buddy,” John said, as he stood with him. He held up his hands and hoped Ronon wouldn’t attack. “Trust me, I’m not interested in Elizabeth.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with her?” Ronon demanded.

John flinched at this one-eighty turn in the conversation. “Nothing. Elizabeth’s great.”

“But you don’t want to have sex with her,” Ronon said, eyes narrowed.

John frowned. “But– I– you want me to want to have sex with her?”

Ronon shuffled his feet. “I want someone to be jealous of me.”

“Is there any way I can be jealous of your superior, baby-making virility without you kicking the crap out of me?” John asked.

Ronon’s brow knitted. He patted John’s shoulder half-heartedly. “If it was anyone but you, Sheppard, I’d think you were hitting on me.”

“Funny, that,” John said.

Much to John’s dismay, Ronon sat back down and pulled more beads and string from his pocket. “Gotta finish this before the baby’s born,” he said.

“Did you hear a word I said?” John asked. He tried to put his hands on his hips and look authoritarian, but that never worked on Ronon.

“Elizabeth and I need to have a talk,” Ronon said without looking up.

John waited, but Ronon kept stringing beads like his life depended on it. John gave up and turned the rap videos back on.

*

A few days after the horrible, horrible talk with Ronon John never wanted to experience again, ever, Elizabeth surprised John and Rodney by telling them, “I’ve decided to go ahead and marry Ronon.”

“Really?” John asked. He hoped the look on his face conveyed the part he probably shouldn’t say aloud, After putting me through all that?

“Well, I guess you can always get divorced,” Rodney said. “Although seeing as how things have gone so far, they probably don’t have divorce on Sateda. They probably make you play Russian roulette instead. Winner gets to keep the kids.”

John took in the way Elizabeth wouldn’t meet their eyes, and how she had her red long-sleeved shirt zipped up all the way to her chin despite being on the balcony outside the command room. In the summer. “He changed your mind,” John accused.

“He–” She looked embarrassed. “He wrote me poetry. It was sweet.”

“Ronon can read?” Rodney asked.

“I didn’t say it was good poetry,” she said. She frowned. “Hold on, if you two didn’t teach Ronon English, I wonder who did. He said he said he learned our poetry from Homer. I’d assumed one of you had given him the books.”

John had a flashback to their last movie night. Rodney glanced at him in surprise, and then in smug arrogance, and John knew he was remembering too. “Oh, he learned it from Homer, all right,” Rodney said cheekily.

John explained, “Homer Simpson.”

Elizabeth stared at both of them in mute horror.

“He’s a soldier, or a warrior, or whatever,” Rodney said. “You should be impressed he took the time to learn the alphabet. What’d he write? ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, blood is sweet, and if you’re lucky I won’t kill you too’?”

Even John was a little annoyed at that. Elizabeth’s mouth tightened. “He’s not really a warrior,” she said. “Before he joined the military, he was an out-of-work actor.”

Rodney made a strangled noise. “What?” John asked.

“His tattoo is the symbol of his theatre guild,” she replied.

John’s brain refused to process this new information. “How’d you find that out?” he asked.

She raised a brow at him. “I asked.”

“But–” John blinked several times. “When I asked him about it, he said it represented something too horrible for me to fathom.”

“He’s a very private person,” Elizabeth explained.

Rodney wheezed.

“I can’t believe it,” John said. He felt like he needed to sit down, only he was already sitting on the balcony railing.

Elizabeth sighed sadly, suddenly looking very old. “I know. I thought I was getting a barbaric warrior from a civilization that valued masculinity, when instead I got a thespian from a planet of Puritans.”

“This is the best moment of my life,” Rodney said.

*

This was so much worse than the time he found out Rodney’s second PhD was in Music Theory, and John wasn’t even sleeping with Ronon. At least the Music Theory thing meant Rodney could play John’s guitar, which was hot (unfortunately, it also meant Rodney could competently lecture John for hours and hours on why his music sucked. “The Go-Go’s? Did we go back in time to 1980 and no one bothered to tell me? If I look, am I going to find Cyndi Lauper on here too? Oh my God, I can’t believe you have The Bangles’ Greatest Hits. I think I’m going to have to leave you.”).

Rodney slapped John in the stomach to get his attention. “I bet if you asked, Elizabeth would let you read his love poems,” he said. “She probably needs someone to squeal over them with.”

“You’re disgusting,” John said, glaring.

“Come on,” Rodney whined, “think how hilarious it’ll be. We can get Kavanagh to put them on his community blog. We’ll have enough mocking material to last years. Because God knows this’ll never stop being funny. Ronon the actor. Thank you, Jesus, Allah, Ya-weh, whoever. Thank you.”

“What’s a blog?” John asked.

Rodney pulled a repulsed face. “It’s a good thing you’re so good-looking.”

Ronon looked up and seemed to notice them for the first time. “What are you guys talking about?” he asked across the tables, setting down his bowl. The spoon and fork on his tray were untouched, as usual.

“Nothing important,” John replied with an easy grin.

“Just wondering what your level of reading comprehension is,” Rodney lied.

“I can read,” Ronon said, voice pitched low. He tapped his mini cereal box. “See, it says ‘Corn Flakes.’”

“It says ‘Cheerios,’” John corrected.

Ronon frowned at the box like it had tricked him.

“And this man’s child will be the first of the new generation of Atlantians,” Rodney said grimly.

“We’re doomed,” John agreed.

*

Four months after Smelding.

Elizabeth sat across from John in the mess and sighed. Her tray was practically overflowing with food. John couldn’t tell she was pregnant, only that she was starting to look less skeletal, but Ronon had been waxing poetics on her baby bump. Lately, John had been trying to avoid Ronon as much as possible; Ronon the poet-slash-actor freaked him out a little more than he’d like to admit.

“Ronon’s been thinking of names,” she said in greeting, opening one of her chocolate milk cartons. “He said he wanted Earth names. He’s already suggested Christmas, Wrench, and Piper, of all things.”

“The last one you can blame on Lorne,” said John. “Why don’t you ask him for Satedan names?”

“I’m sort of afraid to,” she admitted.

She sighed again, digging into her Athosian wildbeast yoghurt with relish. “How did I get to this point? I was having sex with Stackhouse for three months and my period was never even late. One offworld roll in the hay with Ronon and I get pregnant.”

John glanced at his watch pointedly. “Oh, would you look at the time. I just remembered, I left my laptop in a jumper. On another world.”

He dumped his tray and took off before Elizabeth could even finish asking, “Huh?”

*

“You should think about having kids with one of your many men,” Ronon was telling Teyla when John entered the gym. “You should fulfill your duty to the gods.”

“What is it about married people that makes them want to set up their single friends?” John asked, leaning against the doorway.

Ronon glanced at him cautiously, then turned back to Teyla. “Would you have Sheppard’s babies?” he asked her.

John beamed at Teyla, who slowly lowered her fighting sticks until they touched the mats. “In this scenario,” she said, “you are assuming there are no other men in the galaxy, and the gate to Earth is broken?”

John’s smile faded.

“Of course,” Ronon said.

“Then I would consider it, if my sacrifice meant the survival of the human species,” Teyla said.

“You know what I miss?” John asked glumly. “Self esteem.”

“No matter,” Teyla said, smiling at John pleasantly. “I am infertile anyway.”

Ronon recoiled like she’d said something particularly awful. Together they’d faced Wraith and numerous hostile cultures, but now he looked more taken aback than John had ever seen him. “On Sateda, women who can’t have babies are sent away to work in the mines.”

Both Teyla and John stared. “That’s horrible,” John said, completely floored.

Ronon shrugged. “They were already being punished by the gods, that’s why they can’t have kids. Physical work isn’t a big deal after that.”

“On Athos,” Teyla said coolly, gripping her sticks, “I was the leader of my people, regardless of my ability to bear offspring.”

Ronon gave them another what-can-you-do shrug.

In the past few weeks, John had learned more about Sateda than ever. The more information Ronon gave him, the less sorry he was they were all eaten by Wraiths. It was like–

“Oh my God,” he said, “Sateda is the Texas of the Pegasus Galaxy.”

“Then Texas must be a great place,” Ronon growled.

Later, when they were left alone to spar (John was still too embarrassed to let people watch Teyla kick his ass, which only had a little to do with her being a very tiny person; he was only human.), John asked Teyla, “You know it doesn’t matter to me that you can’t have kids, right? Ronon’s beliefs are his and his alone. And, well, the rest of his planet, but there aren’t a lot of them left.”

She smiled charmingly. “I am aware you and Ronon do not share beliefs. He has always been very traditional in his views. Besides, it would be odd for you to think lowly of me not having children when you cannot have them as well.”

“I can have kids,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, frowning, “I meant you cannot have them by choice, because of the type of relations you prefer. Because Dr McKay and you– it did not occur to me you would want a woman to– There is no good way to say this.” She looked down at the floor. The silence grew uncomfortable.

“Want to go drop things off Pier Two and see how long it takes the scientists to come yell at us?” he asked.

“Yes, okay,” she said, looking relieved.

*

Chapter Four

I.

The Daedalus.

After Colonel Caldwell showed up to save their asses and take them to Earth for a forced vacation, John learned the hard way nearly blowing himself up didn’t impress anyone but Elizabeth. They had set course for Earth three days ago and he’d only seen Rodney once, and Rodney hadn’t looked too happy at the time. It sucked because he didn’t know what the hell he was going to do in Colorado for two weeks, aside from the fantastic time he was planning to set aside to see family members of his fallen troops, and he wondered if Rodney didn’t know what he was doing either. Maybe, he thought, they could be miserable together.

John thought they had shared a moment in Atlantis, right after the siege, when John had come back from his suicide run to find a dispassionate Rodney in the labs, sorting through the mess the Wraith had made. Rodney had raised his eyes to John in the doorway, and he’d said in a raw, bleeding tone, “I thought– God, John,” and for the first time ever, hugged him. It had been completely different from Elizabeth’s ‘thank-you-for-saving-us’ hug. This was a ‘you’re-alive-you’re-alive-you’re-alive‘ hug and John had ignored the looks from the other half-mad scientists to curl his hands around Rodney’s shaking shoulders.

On the Daedalus, John didn’t want to look desperate, so he just made time to walk past the rooms he knew Rodney had commandeered several times a day. Rodney must have secretly learned something on all those missions, because John didn’t see him even once. He was, however, beginning to get strange looks from the crew. In his defense, flying across two galaxies on a spaceship was a lot less exciting than he’d been led to believe.

It wasn’t until their sixth day in space that John managed to catch Rodney, at three twenty-two AM Greenwich Mean Time (one twenty-two PM Atlantis Standard Time).

“Hey, I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said amicably, with a well-practiced surprised look.

“Major,” Rodney sneered, clasping his hands behind his back. “Shouldn’t you be in bed right now? Speeches to plan, generals to disobey, suicides to commit?”

“I was thinking about making a noose with my shoelaces,” he said. “Seriously, McKay, what’s your problem? I thought we were cool?”

Rodney’s expression darkened even more. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get some sleep. I’ve been up for over twenty-four hours studying Asgard technology.”

When Rodney left without telling him how fascinating the tech was, or how stupid the crew of the Daedalus and the Asgard were, John felt a pang of something almost like regret, tinged with boredom and teammate-loneliness. He showed up the same time the next day, freshly-showered and pissed off, and he nearly missed Rodney tip-toeing down the corridor.

“Is it cold up there on that cross?” he asked.

Rodney jumped about a foot in the air. “Jesus Christ on a– Oh, it’s you,” he said disdainfully.

“Of course it’s me,” John said. “Who else would be crazy enough to be trying to get your attention?”

Rodney looked indignant. “You think you’re really funny, don’t you.”

“I do,” John admitted.

“I don’t have time for this,” Rodney seethed, pushing past him.

John wasn’t going to let Rodney get away so easily. He trotted up beside him. “Sure you do, McKay. We’ve got nothing but time. So why don’t you drop the high-and-mighty act and tell me what’s going on here, because I get the feeling you’re pretty pissed off at me, and I’d like to know why.”

Rodney stopped in the middle of the corridor and stared at John like he’d said the Earth was flat, or his cat was ugly, or something. “What’s going on, Sheppard, is while you’ve been planning surfing, or skydiving, or whatever it is you want to do your summer vacation, I’ve been trying to calculate just how badly I’d fucked up so you had to die to save us. But a few days ago it occurred to me: hey, it wasn’t my fault at all. If you’d just waited five minutes, I would’ve fixed the control chair. So I naturally concluded you’re reckless and crazy, and I don’t know why I’m surprised, considering all the stupid–”

“We didn’t have five minutes,” John interrupted.

On the jumper with the nuke, he had panicked and hyperventilated and thought about finding God at the last minute, but he had never once considered altering his course.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said.

Rodney’s face turned a scary shade of purple. “Oh really. Good for you, Major. Make sure to tell me next time you want to kill yourself so I can make arrangements be on the other side of the galaxy.”

“What the hell do you want from me?” John snapped. “I saved your life a few days ago; you think you’d be a little more happy about that.”

“Well, excuse me for not wanting someone I care about to kill himself!”

“You–” He stopped. “You care about me?”

Rodney fidgeted, flustered now on top of angry. “Of course I do, I care about everyone in Atlantis– well, some more than others, certainly, but– we work closely together, after all, and–”

“You care about me,” John said in a sing-song tone. Smirking, he tapped Rodney on the chest with a finger, and Rodney took a step backwards. “You’re not mad at me at all. You love me.”

He meant it as a joke, but Rodney froze.

“Oh,” John said. He dropped his hands to his sides.

He’d thought about this before, late, late at night when he was half asleep. In his head, Rodney had ended his confession by running away. John would go to his door in the middle of the night; he’d answer wide awake because he wouldn’t have been able to sleep knowing John knew, and John would say (fearfully, yet seductively), “Let’s do this,” and Rodney would reply, “I’ve been waiting for you to come to your senses.” Then they’d get on with the mad monkey sex.

But his fantasy hadn’t taken Rodney’s bravado into account. Instead of fleeing from embarrassment, Rodney said haughtily, “Yes, ‘oh.’ I know this comes as a surprise to you, but you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Strangely, that was a lot hotter than Rodney waiting in the dark for him. John was sick in the head.

“No, it’s cool,” John said hurriedly, trying to think of something smooth to say, anything other than, “Take me now, you arrogant bastard!”

“I don’t want to have to ‘deal’ with it,” he added.

Rodney squinted at him for a brief moment. Then he smirked. “I knew it! Zelenka said you have a thing for me, but I thought he was just being a yenta.”

Rodney always knocked John off his feet. He put his hands on his hips, feeling disoriented. “Maybe I meant it the other way. Maybe I meant I was going to kick your ass.”

“Ha! Oh, that’s hilarious, you a gay basher,” Rodney said. He snapped his fingers. “Right. Okay, your room or mine?”

“Uh,” John said.

“Of course, how stupid of me, my room’s much bigger. And I have my prescription mattress.”

“Uh,” John repeated, looking up and down the ship’s dark corridor.

Rodney grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the bunks. “Sex now, common sense later.”

Well, who was he to argue with that?

*

Smelding.

“Mmm, that was better than I expected.”

Ronon ran his fingers through Elizabeth’s hair, and she couldn’t help but smile. She stroked his solid, muscular chest, feeling like she was made out of rubber. In a good way. “You’ve thought about us before?”

“No, I meant sex. That was my first time,” Ronon said.

She pushed herself off him so quickly she fell off the bed. “You were a virgin?”

“We don’t have recreational sex on Sateda,” Ronon said, leaning over the bed to frown at her as she lay on the floor, back smarting. “That’s wrong.”

Heart hammering in her chest so hard she thought she’d pass out — she wouldn’t laugh behind Rodney’s back at his panic attacks anymore after this — she pulled the thin sheet off the floor and wrapped it around her body. She sucked in a few deep breaths, trying to slow down her pulse, searching for something to say other than, “I haven’t slept with a virgin in twenty-five years!” or, “On Earth, we have a custom where when we take someone’s virginity, we never speak to them again. But you can’t ask anyone if that’s true, because we don’t talk about it, either.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. She gripped the sheet and tried to look dignified. “Okay. Obviously, we need to talk about this. How do you feel?”

He wiggled a bit. She firmly kept her eyes on his handsome, chiseled face. “I could use a shower.”

Another breath. “No, Ronon, how do you feel about us?”

Most men would’ve freaked out at the idea of having this conversation. But Ronon smiled at her gently and ran his fingers up the inside of her arm. She shivered. “Great. You?”

She couldn’t fight this; he was entirely too hot. He tugged on the sheet tucked underneath her breasts, drawing her closer. She pushed his hand away, trying to maintain some sense of control; he grinned fiendishly, and pulled until she fell across his lap.

Out of all the men in Atlantis, she’d chosen to sleep with Stackhouse first because he respected her (he’d even gone as far as calling her “ma’am” in bed, which should have bothered her), and more importantly, he was nothing like Simon. After that first step, she’d felt liberated. But Ronon, she decided happily, feeling him harden against her once more, would’ve made Simon cry like a little girl. She liked that idea a lot.

“Fine,” she said, letting the bed sheet slide to the ground, “but this is our little secret.”

Ronon rolled her onto her back. “Everything you people do is a secret.”

*

Even though she was still tingly and sore, Elizabeth forced herself to get up. There were more important things to do on Smelding than have passionate sex with a young, supple man who’d never before known the touch of a woman. At the sight of Ronon’s naked backside it took her a moment to remember what those important things were, but she made herself finish getting dressed. Ronon raised his head from the red satin pillow, eyes fuzzy, and she said quietly, “I’m going to see what that Instrument of Eternal Life’s all about.”

He slid out of bed. “I’m going with you.”

With Ronon’s impossibly good hearing, they kept one step ahead of the palace guards, who marched around the castle in heavy metal-tipped boots. But at the door to the room that held the Instrument, they came across two more guards.

“You stay here,” Elizabeth whispered, “I’ll–”

But Ronon was already moving forward. Before the guards could even cry out, he’d knocked the both of them unconscious.

Elizabeth stared. “That was much easier than my plan,” she confessed. He smiled at her crookedly. “Just don’t– just don’t kill anyone. We don’t want to make enemies of these people.”

Ronon dragged the unconscious bodies into the room with them. From her jacket pockets, Elizabeth removed a digital camera and a life signs detector. She felt like a Star Trek character as she scanned the Instrument of Eternal Life. Oddly enough, there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on. It was just a plain, ordinary knife.

Just as she noticed the little dots on the detector moving, Ronon touched her arm more gently than he would have the day before. “Hurry up, I can hear the guards.”

She tucked the life signs detector into her pocket and snapped a few photos with her camera, while Ronon shifted anxiously.

Then the king’s guards kicked in the door.

Ronon started immediately, whipping out his blaster pistol and stunning the first few guards to come through. She’d never seen him fight before, and watching his huge fists slam into the much smaller — but still larger than her — men made her pause a second too long.

A guard grabbed her by the arms. She cried out, struggling in his tight grasp, but he grinned down at her with blue-lined gums. “We were wrong about the last woman from your planet; you’re the witch, not her,” he said harshly, and she knew this was the head guard with whom Teyla had fought. He wrenched her wrists above her head and called to the others, “Witch! I’ve got the witch!”

Elizabeth saw the dismayed look on Ronon’s face, and the blood-thirsty ones on the few guards still conscious, and for a second, her mind cleared of fear.

Hands still held above her head, she did the one thing she could think of: she kicked the head guard in the balls.

“What are the odds?” he wheezed, and doubled over.

*

II.

Two months after Smelding.

Rodney grumbled and huffed and stomped around the entire time John was preparing to get married. John couldn’t help but roll his eyes; it wasn’t like it was legally binding, and what did Rodney think he was going to do, sleep with the entire tribe? None of them were ridiculously good looking, in his opinion, and he doubted any of them could explain how a black hole worked — both being very important standards one must have met before being considered worthy of dating (or sleeping with) John Sheppard. Other qualifications included being a super hero, owning a plane, and/or knowing how to kill a man seven different ways with just one finger, because John wasn’t as easy as he looked. He always figured Rodney’s genius-level intelligence and problem-solving skills were worthy of being under the super hero category, but he was never telling Rodney that, especially after he called John “Deuce” for the third time in ten minutes.

After being covered in clay, John was wrapped in a white linen sheet. Everyone in the tribe wore feather headdresses, and they all had the same face paint John did. Together, they stood in a circle around John and held hands and sang. It was actually pretty soothing.

Once the song finished, an Elder — Hegal, if John remembered correctly — put his hands on John’s shoulders. “You will now do the Dance of Hector.”

John squirmed. “But I don’t know the–”

“Dance!”

John gulped and looked at his people for support. Rodney covered his face with his hands. Lorne, clearly misunderstanding John wanted help, started to loudly hum the macarena. Ronon and Teyla both looked sort of horrified.

“Uh,” John said, thinking fast, “dancing is forbidden in my culture.”

Hegal looked at him like he knew he was lying. “Whatever,” the old man said, “we’ve already gone this far, we might as well finish the ceremony. Now you will say the Vows of Hector.”

“This Hector guy is really starting to piss me off,” John said.

“What does Hector think about divorce?” Rodney asked loudly.

Hegal ignored them both. “Now repeat after me: ‘Lords of Gregor, we gather today here to join Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard into the tribe of the Gregorians, servants of Hector, the greatest of all the gods in the pantheon. Let the soul and the spirit of the earth give him the strength to protect our people. Let the soul of the fire give him passion. Let the soul of the water give him good health.’“

John echoed the words. Once he finished, Hegal held a giant gourd over John’s head and shook it. Something inside rattled around.

“Okay,” Hegal said. The circle began to break up. “If you wish, you may now partake from the Snack Bar of Hector. Or you can go. Your choice.”

John blinked. “Okay? That’s it? We can go?”

“Yes, but let it be known, for the rest of your life you will be regarded with suspicion,” said Hegal ominously.

“How is that any different than my normal day?” John muttered. He pulled as many feathers out of his hair as he could and adjusted the sheet so it was more like a toga. He walked over to his men, who were not-so-discreetly snickering at him. “Everyone ready to get the hell out of Dodge?”

“I didn’t peg you as a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy, sir,” Lorne said.

“Yes, ha ha, let’s all make fun of the Colonel for prostituting himself to save our lives,” Rodney sneered.

“Okay, I will,” Lorne said snidely.

The Gregorians walked them to the stargate; they said it was an honour, but John figured it was to make sure the Atlantians actually left, especially since some of them were looking at John funny. He didn’t know if it was because he didn’t dance or they just thought he was weird, but as the gate powered up he felt the knot in his stomach start to unclench. They were home free.

He called to the Gregorians, “Bye, Hektat, bye, Hegal, bye, Holan, bye, Hax. It’s been real.”

“Wait,” Ronon said.

John turned just in time to see Ronon pull out his gun and shoot the nearest glaat. It collapsed, stunned.

“Oh crap,” John said.

John, Rodney, Lorne, and Ronon — clutching his glaat to his chest — all fell through the wormhole in a heap. John yelped as he slammed his funny bone on the gateroom floor. Calmly, Teyla and the other soldiers stepped over them.

“Well, John,” Elizabeth said dryly from somewhere above him, “we can’t take you anywhere, can we?”

“Ugh,” he said, resting his forehead on Lorne’s foot.

“I think I broke something,” Rodney complained.

“Like my face?” Lorne asked. John couldn’t see where Lorne’s head was, but his voice was muffled.

“Baa,” said the glaat.

*

III.

Five months after Smelding.

When John’s team returned from the water world of P1X-104, John wanted nothing more than to take a long, hot shower and go to bed for about ten years, preferably with Rodney. Unfortunately, as soon as the debriefing was over, Rodney wandered off to go yell at someone for breaking something. In the locker room, John stripped off his tac vest, pulled a starfish off his wet BDUs, and dug a very unclean towel out of his locker. He squinted at it; he was pretty sure it had been clean yesterday.

John slammed his locker door shut. Ronon was right there, leaning against the lockers. He didn’t look happy.

“What’s up?” John asked tentatively. Ronon had been even more quiet than usual on this mission, replying to John’s orders with just grunts or nods. He hadn’t rolled his eyes at Rodney or shared knowing glances with Teyla even once.

“Just before the mission, Elizabeth and I had a checkup,” Ronon said. He added, “For the baby,” as if John had forgotten or something.

“Everything okay?” John asked.

“My firstborn is a girl,” Ronon said.

“Hey, congratulations,” John said. He smiled genuinely. “That’s great.”

Ronon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “No, it’s not,” he said tightly. “No girl has been born into the Dex family for over ten generations.”

John started peeling off his wet jacket. “I’m not following.”

“It’s my people’s belief only deviants and sinners have girls.”

Sateda sounded like a really great place. “What do you think you did?” John asked. He finally finished wrestling with his jacket and let it fall to the bench in a sloppy mess.

Ronon looked at him pointedly. “I don’t think I did anything.”

“You think– you think the baby’s not yours?” Ronon lowered his head and arched his brows. It hit John like a slap in the face: “You think the baby’s mine?”

“You spend a lot of time with Elizabeth,” Ronon said. “And I know for certain you’d have nothing but girls, because you’re so… you know.”

“I’m guessing the word you’re thinking of isn’t ‘handsome’ or ‘dashing,’” John said.

Ronon bared his teeth, coming forward. John hated to be the guy to step back, but this was Ronon, who was seven feet tall and could tear him apart limb by limb. Without shifting his gaze, which was burning into John’s, Ronon reached up and removed a knife from his dreads. John stilled; was Ronon going to shank him?

“Look,” John said, hearing the annoyance in his voice, “I’d never–”

That was when Ronon lunged at him.

*

It was probably undignified for John to be tearing through the halls of Atlantis to get away from Ronon, but it was for the good of the city: they would be screwed if Ronon killed him.

“You were like a brother to me,” Ronon yelled from behind him.

Well, at least he didn’t say “sister,” John thought.

John ran directly for the command room. He could’ve called the on-duty soldiers to get his back, but he didn’t want Ronon hurt; he just wanted someone to beat some common sense into him. He ignored everyone’s stares as he ran straight through the command room and dove into Elizabeth’s office.

Elizabeth stood quickly, mouth falling open. Teyla was there too, balancing a teacup in her hand, and she jumped up. “John, what–?” Elizabeth started.

“Tell him– Elizabeth, you’ve got to tell him the baby’s not mine,” John yelled.

“What?” Elizabeth asked. Ronon came barreling into the room, and she must’ve realized what was going on, because she snapped, “Ronon, I’ve never slept with John.”

“You wouldn’t remember, he put a spell on you so you wouldn’t,” Ronon growled. “He’s a witch. We had men like him on Sateda. Men who steal other men’s wives.”

“Now I’m a home-wrecker and a witch?” John demanded. Ronon growled, and John did the only thing he could think of to save his life: he hid behind Teyla.

“Ronon,” Teyla was yelling over and over.

Elizabeth shouted, “Everyone– Ronon, put that down this instant! I didn’t sleep with John. Everyone knows John’s gay and with Rodney!”

John peeked over Teyla’s shoulder in time to see Ronon lower the hand holding the knife. He stared at John with a confounded expression. “What’s ‘gay’?” he asked, like it was some sort of disease he was afraid of catching.

“I do not know what this ‘gay’ means,” Teyla said, “but somehow I know it describes Colonel Sheppard.”

John said, “Nevermind, Ronon, go ahead and kill me.”

*

Later, John said, “A girl, huh?”

“Oh yes,” Elizabeth said, “lucky me. I don’t suppose you’d know how to sell a baby on the black market, would you?”

*

His day went from bad to worse when Teyla decided he had to work through the torn ankle ligament he’d gotten on the water world. She tricked him into the gym by telling him she’d found “a movie called ‘The Matrix’” she wanted John to explain to her. Twenty minutes later, he was doing breathing exercises and stretches.

It wasn’t that he minded being taught an Athosian breathing trick to make your enemies think you were dead, but it was so boring and uncomfortable.

“I do not understand how you can fall asleep while focusing on your inner being.”

He startled out of his doze. “What?” he asked, voice scratchy. He’d actually been pondering more along the lines of what was for dinner. His inner being could wait until his outer being ate.

She gave him a painful jab in the leg. “I have something to tell you.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“I have a new– I believe you call them boyfriends.” She almost seemed excited — and he knew that look on Teyla meant she was ecstatic. “It has been many months, but only recently have we decided it is time to tell our friends.”

One day he would figure out why women always told him shit like this. “Like, a serious boyfriend? Who is it?” he questioned.

She smiled broadly. “Enrique.”

John stared at her blankly for a long moment. Enrique? He didn’t know a– “Hold on, Lorne? I thought his name was Eric? What other kind of lies has he been feeding you? You know he’s crazy, right?”

That wiped the smile off her face. Her tone turned icy. “He is not crazy. He is simply over-worked. Doing much of your job, I might add.”

“He has every episode of Gilmore Girls on DVD,” John said. “He can have hour-long conversations about Charmed.”

“That is the television show with the witches, correct?”

He gaped. “He’s already gotten to you!”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you remember the expedition in which I accompanied Enrique–” John felt his eyes grow huge as he resisted the urge to laugh hysterically. “–to visit my old friends the Prethers? It was during their autumn harvest, and they require offworlders to participate in a fertility ceremony.”

“And this fertility ceremony?” he asked.

“Sexual intercourse,” she said frankly.

“That wasn’t in Lorne’s report,” he said, frowning. Or maybe it was; he tended to skim after a while.

She tilted her head. “I thought it was an unspoken agreement teams would leave out details about sexual relations in their mission reports, because of Dr Weir’s disapproval.”

When they were done and he started to uncurl from the Athosian version of the lotus position, she reached out and grasped his arm. “You will promise me you will not do anything to harm him.”

“I won’t,” he said, even though he’d already started compiling a list of the most boring worlds to send Lorne’s team to, over the next eighteen months or so, in his head.

Her grip tightened. “John,” she warned.

Rodney was in the mess wearing the same thing he was wearing yesterday — John could tell from the coffee stains on the right shoulder, of all places — and he hadn’t come to John’s room last night. “Whatcha reading?” John asked, sliding into the bench across from him.

Rodney jumped, nearly spilling his mug of coffee onto his tablet. “What? Oh. Yesterday, some of the linguists finished a programme that translates Ancient into English. There are some errors, of course, but it’s still readable, although it sounds like something my Swedish cousin Bjorn would’ve written. We’ve been trying it on some of the archives we couldn’t read before, and– well. Let’s just say the Ancients were really interested in cloning.”

“Really,” John said.

“Yes, it’s– huh.” Rodney’s eyes were glued back to the screen. He didn’t seem to notice he hadn’t finished his sentence.

John spotted Lorne carrying his tray towards the trash bins. “Major Lorne,” he called.

Lorne paused mid-step, then with a noticeable straightening of his shoulders, walked over. “Yes, sir?” he asked.

John leaned his elbows on the table. “So, Major,” he said, “A little birdie told me something very interesting today.”

Lorne went still. He gripped his tray so hard his knuckles went white. “With all due respect, sir, shut up.”

John smirked. “It’s just, I think it’s great you managed to turn ‘Enrique’ into ‘Eric.’”

“It’s a family name, sir,” Lorne said stiffly.

“Your name’s Enrique?” Rodney asked in surprise. The dark circles under his eyes made them look very blue. “Really? I thought J. Lo ended up with Marc Antony? And Enrique dated that hot tennis player.”

“Do I know you?” John said to Rodney. Rodney made a face and went back to his tablet. John smiled at Lorne. “Just as a warning, Eric,” John said casually, “if you hurt Teyla… well, I guess I won’t have to do much, after she breaks every bone in your body.”

Lorne twitched. “Noted, sir.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but instead he spun on one heel and continued his trek to the garbage.

Rodney looked up blearily. “Wait, wait, Teyla and Lorne?” he said. “That’s way too terrifying for me to handle at six ‘o’ clock in the morning.”

“Rodney,” John said, prying the mug from Rodney’s hands, “it’s six PM.”

*

Chapter Five

I.

Preth, six months before Smelding.

Teyla took a deep, calming breath as the door slammed behind them. She heard the twisting sounds of a lock, and then vents opened in every corner of the room. She knew the Prethers wouldn’t hurt them, but she’d never been through this ceremony before. She knew her parents had, because they had always mentioned it happened nine months before her birthday.

Lorne’s mouth twisted. “What do you know about this fertility ceremony?”

“I am not sure,” she admitted. “I have never been old enough to participate.”

“Hm,” Lorne said. When she sat on the floor, crossing her legs, he did the same. The vents hissed as sweet-smelling smoke began to pour from them.

They sat in silence for several minutes. She tried to keep her breaths shallow, in case there was something in this smoke, but she didn’t think it was doing any good; already she was starting to feel loose-limbed and sleepy.

“You’re the one who has to tell Colonel Sheppard we got high on our mission,” Lorne said.

She chuckled. He reached out and patted her knee, and then, staring at his own hand, started rubbing her leg.

“Ah, Major Lorne,” she started, only she forgot what she was going to say when he started edging closer. He had nice eyes, she noticed for the first time. Nice eyes, and nice… everything else.

“Are you involved with Colonel Sheppard?”

“No, no,” she said. When she shook her head, the room tilted. “We are just friends.”

A crease formed between his brows. “He’s into dudes, isn’t he.”

The incense was making her dizzy. She should get up and leave, but somehow, she didn’t care. “Yes,” she replied, although maybe she wasn’t supposed to say that. She couldn’t think with all this smoke.

There came a warm press against her side, and Lorne was there, one of his steady hands pushing her hair away from her face. He cupped her cheek, and she started tearing at her tac vest. “This might be the alien drugs talking, but, God, you’re so beautiful,” he said quietly, hot breath puffing against her ear. “I’ve never met another woman like you.”

Lorne was funny and brave and honest and calm and strong despite his stature, and she couldn’t think of a reason, any reason, why this shouldn’t happen. He helped her finish stripping off her vest, and then he removed his, too, and she shoved until he fell flat on his back.

“I think there’s something in the smoke,” he whispered.

“I do not care, Major,” she gasped as his fingers slid up her shirt.

“Call me Enrique.” He groaned. “Finally, a mission where I get to have sex.”

*

Smelding.

The first thing Ronon did when all the guards were down was grab her hand and lead her to the stables while signaling Miller on the radio. The king didn’t have any ponies, but he had row after row of red and white striped horses. Miller and his team met them there.

“This isn’t necessary,” she protested as Ronon pulled her up to sit in his lap.

“We still haven’t found out what their secret is for keeping the Wraith away,” she complained as the horse galloped through the empty, moon-lit streets.

“Perhaps I can keep the king distracted while you–”

“No,” Ronon said flatly.

“Witch!” voices shouted behind her. She twisted her neck and saw an army following them through the city gates. “Witch! Witch!”

“On second thought, ride like the wind,” she said.

When they got back to Atlantis, it was her turn to scream, “Close the gate!” It felt oddly freeing.

John jogged down the stairs to meet her. “You’re back early,” he said, almost nervously.

John had a handlebar mustache and heavy sideburns. She glanced up at the control room; all the men had them as well, and all the women had curls pulled into high up-do’s. She was pretty sure the pistol at John’s side was an old-fashioned silver one.

Rodney leaned over the railing and waved. He was wearing a cowboy hat.

“Time travel device,” John explained. “For about ten minutes, the American Civil War never happened.”

“I’ve been gone for two days,” Elizabeth said.

*

“Dr Weir,” Carson said, “there’s an unusually high level of lead in your system.”

She blinked at him, folding her hands in her lap. “There is?”

He glanced at the chart in his hands. “Ah, and there are trace amounts in the bloodwork of the other members of your team, as well. You didn’t take any strange pills or accidentally get injected while you were offworld, did you?”

“No,” she said, trying to remember if anything weird — weirder — had happened on the planet.

“The food tasted funny,” Ronon said from his perch on the other examination table.

Lieutenant Miller added, “The water too.”

“That’s right,” Elizabeth said. “It tasted somewhat metallic.”

Carson opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Oh. Well, here’s a thought. You said the Wraith didn’t bother with Smeldinga, but you didn’t see any signs of cloaking technology? Maybe the Wraith don’t like their food to be chock full of lead.”

“You’re saying you think the Wraith kept away from Smelding because of lead poisoning?” she asked.

“It’s plausible,” Carson said. “We already know the Wraith care what their food tastes like. If their water is laced with lead, it probably means their food is, too. You lot should be fine, since you were only there for two days, but the people of Smelding are probably beyond any help by now. Symptoms of lead poisoning include nausea, irritability, headache, abdominal pain… various neurological problems… a blue line around the gums…” Carson looked bemused. “It can look a lot like the disease porphyria, which is an enzyme disorder that primarily effects the nervous system, causing hallucinations, depression, and paranoia.”

She thought of how both the king and the head guard had blue gums. And the witch thing. There was always the witch thing.

“So the mission was a waste,” she said.

“Not a total waste,” Ronon corrected. When she glanced at him, cheeks hot, he smiled shyly.

*

II.

Two months after Smelding.

“Colonel Sheppard,” Elizabeth asked, “why are you wearing a toga?”

“Baa,” the glaat bleated. It was lying half-conscious on the gateroom floor.

“And what, exactly, is that?”

John scrubbed his face with his hands. When he lowered them, he saw they were smeared with red mud. He didn’t want to know what his face looked like right now.

“Hercules killed their sacred glaat,” Rodney said, stabbing a finger in Ronon’s direction. “This is all his fault.”

“I see,” Elizabeth said. John noticed she only used that tone with his team. “Explain yourself, Ronon.”

Ronon stared at her. “I needed it.”

Elizabeth looked like she was about to say something, but she snapped her mouth shut and glanced away. John would worry about her behaviour later; right now, he just wanted to go curl up somewhere and die. “We thought P2X-181 was uninhabited, but we were wrong,” he said calmly. “They didn’t like that we, uh, disturbed some of their hunting game, so we had to go through a few ceremonies. No big deal.”

“No big deal?” Elizabeth repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Ma’am,” Lorne started from where he was sitting on the floor and nursing his bruised cheek, and John winced, “Colonel Sheppard had to–”

“Excuse me,” Elizabeth interrupted, and then leaned over and puked on John’s sneakers. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

*

III.

Six months after Smelding.

On P2B-236, John and Ronon got stuck in a cave together while Rodney and Teyla had to dig them out. Before Ronon had impregnated Elizabeth, John would’ve been happy to sit in an enclosed space with Ronon for four hours, but now things were just weird. Part of him was paranoid Ronon was telling Elizabeth every little thing he did or said, and another part of him wanted to beg Ronon for blackmail material. It was only fair; after all, she had plenty on him. All he had on her was her upcoming marriage to Ronon and her unnatural obsession with Nutella, none of which trumped secret-gay-love-affair-with-McKay or knows-all-the-words-to-every-Bon-Jovi-song.

They were sitting in comfortable silence together until Ronon abruptly said, “Tonight Elizabeth and I were supposed to perform the ritual of Larmar on our baby. I’m probably going to miss it.”

“That sucks,” John agreed.

Ronon leaned his head back against the wall, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “I remember the colour undergarments Elizabeth was wearing the first night we were together. Red. She likes red.”

“Too much,” John said, burying his face in his hands. “Too much information, Ronon.”

“Do guys not talk about their ladies on Earth?” Ronon asked. “Or, um, their other guys, since you–”

“Some guys,” John broke in, eye twitching. “Not me.” He didn’t add, “Hello, closeted,” because one, Ronon wouldn’t get it, and two, there was no telling what sorts of things he’d heard from Elizabeth.

“Sorry. We don’t have gay people on Sateda,” Ronon said. He was looking at John curiously, like there was a question he wanted to ask but was afraid of the answer.

John raised his eyebrows. “You probably do, but you just didn’t know it,” he said, smirking.

Ronon blinked a few times, then scowled. “No, there were no gays on Sateda. We don’t have sex for any reason but having babies. It’s against the laws of the heavens.”

John didn’t believe that, but he didn’t want to fight over it. He relaxed against the wall, wondering how much longer it’d take for the rest of the team to dig them out, but then:

“I don’t know if I want my baby to be raised here,” Ronon said, “on the mean streets of Atlantis, with your heathen, godless beliefs and your rap videos and your loose women.”

“I thought you liked living here,” John said, stricken. He didn’t know where this was coming from, or why Ronon was telling him and not Elizabeth. She was the one having his baby, after all.

“I do,” Ronon said. “You’re like the older brother I never wanted.”

“Thank– what?” John asked.

Ronon continued, “We could have climbed trees and killed animals in the forests behind our home, until our parents had to drown you.” John must have had a horrified look on his face because Ronon added, “For trying to be gay with one of the men from the theatre.”

John opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. He didn’t even know where to start. “Theatre?” he asked weakly.

Ronon stilled. “I mean, the armoury?”

“Elizabeth told me about your…” John gestured towards Ronon’s tattoo. “Drama thing.”

Ronon stared at him for a second, then, as if deciding John wasn’t worth killing with his hands, nodded. “You would have been Father’s favourite star.” He looked sort of irritated at that. “It’s probably a good thing you would have made a great brother.”

Yeah?” John asked, preening. So what if ninety percent of the population of Sateda was dead; he’d still been born on the wrong planet. Ronon said he would have been a good brother.

“On Sateda, women aren’t allowed in the theatre. You would’ve gotten all the good girl parts,” Ronon explained. John deflated. “You could’ve even played Lara in our annual production of ‘Laetes and Lara.’ I tried out for Laetes not long before the culling.”

“Did you get it?”

“I was in the chorus,” Ronon grumbled. “I waved a flag on a stick.”

“Oh,” John said, struggling for something supportive to say. “Uh, so acting didn’t work out for you?”

Ronon’s face hardened. “My father was a gaffer. I spent my whole life in the theatre before I had to join the military because I didn’t have any money. It was just a two year service; I got out a few months before the Wraith came. I got my breakthrough role a week before the final battle. I was going to play the lead in ‘The Trials of Halfar.’ Damn the Wraith,” he growled, slamming his fists on the floor.

John suddenly felt the way Elizabeth must’ve felt all the time: deeply, deeply disappointed. Ignorance truly was bliss. “Wow,” he said, feeling sucker-punched. “Wow.”

“You can’t tell anybody,” Ronon insisted. “I don’t want anyone to know what a failure I am.”

John said, reeling, “I don’t think they’d believe me anyway.” He totally had to tell Rodney immediately.

Ronon scooted a little closer. John did his best not to crawl away and cry. “I have something else to tell you,” Ronon said, looking unusually earnest.

“Oh God,” John said. “I mean, oh? What is it?”

Ronon looked around the cave like there were other people there or something. “Elizabeth and I made love before our wedding.”

John frowned. “I’d hope so. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a baby. Unless she was the Virgin Mary or something, but… that’s a conversation for another day.”

Ronon seemed kind of upset. “I’m worried about being punished by the gods.”

Christ, John thought. He awkwardly patted Ronon on the shoulder. “I’m sure the gods won’t mind,” he offered lamely. He tried to think of something his Southern Baptist father might have said, besides, “Here’s twenty bucks, leave me alone,” or, “God doesn’t let fags who don’t clean their rooms into Heaven.” “I mean,” he said, stumbling over the words, “you’re marrying her now, right? That has to count for something.”

Ronon brightened. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Much to John’s relief, that was when the rock wall started to crumble. A flash of sunlight peaked through, and Rodney’s voice rang out: “Hello, hello? Colonel? If you’re not dead, say–”

“Get me the hell out of here,” John yelled.

*

John waited until Ronon left for the mess to catch up with Rodney. “You won’t believe what I’m about to tell you.”

Rodney, who had been so happy earlier John was still alive (“And Ronon too, I suppose.”), looked impatient. “And what might that be?”

John glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Ronon was a virgin before Elizabeth.”

“Get out!” Rodney said. “Seriously?”

“I had to channel my father when Ronon told me.” Rodney looked confused. He explained, “Dad used to tell me things like, ‘God doesn’t let fags who get B’s in math stay out late on Fridays.’”

Rodney gave him a reproachful look. “First, how are you not in therapy, and second, I wouldn’t let you go out Fridays to cruise if you only made B’s in math, either.”

John crossed his arms over his chest and glared. “Funny, this is not the first time I’ve realized it’s actually a good thing we can never have kids, McKay.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” said Rodney. “The difference between us, Sheppard, is my father didn’t care who I was sleeping with on Fridays, as long as I left the house.”

John arched a brow. “Did you?”

“Hell no,” Rodney said. “Fridays were great study nights.”

“How many years was it before you finally got laid?” John asked.

“Twenty three,” Rodney said grimly. He stared at the wall as if suddenly remembering something terrible. “Twenty three long, long years.”

*

Seven months after Smelding.

Rodney sat on the bed and untied his shoes. “You won’t believe this: Elizabeth and Ronon asked me to the be the baby’s godfather.”

John bolted upright. That two-timing bitch. “What? I thought I was Elizabeth’s best friend!”

“Rodney doesn’t even like kids,” John said to them at breakfast the next morning.

Elizabeth looked uncomfortable. “It’s not that we think you’d be a bad godfather,” she said, “it’s… let’s face it, John, you probably won’t live long enough to see the baby’s fifth birthday.”

John gaped, stung. Rodney sniffed. “That’s true, they wouldn’t want the kid to get attached and then have you blow yourself up. Again.”

“Plus,” Lorne said seriously, raising a spoonful of Athosian yoghurt, “continued exposure to Sheppard may bring forth your child’s homosexual tendencies.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Elizabeth said.

Ronon frowned at Lorne. “Really?”

“This baby is tearing us apart,” John said passionately.

*

Nine months after Smelding.

Elizabeth was gorgeous in her simple red cocktail dress. She’d told John she’d brought it to Atlantis for a special occasion, and what was more special than her wedding? Even if she didn’t wear white; Ronon, in a hushed tone, had informed them on Sateda, white was the colour of death and mourning, and Elizabeth had said white would’ve looked ridiculous anyway, what with her being obviously pregnant and all. Apparently, the dress had been loose before she’d been pregnant, but now it fit snuggly over her maternal shape.

Teyla was Ronon’s best man. “No gays in the wedding, Sheppard.”

“Fine,” John had said, “I didn’t want to be in your stupid wedding anyway.”

The wedding was held in one of the concert halls in the west tower. Apparently, Satedans were very austere folks; Ronon had requested no flowers, no white, and above all, no celebration, until he’d found out about the reception, and then he’d said food and dancing of this calibre was worth the wrath of the gods. However, he’d been horrified when they’d explained the rice: “You want to throw things at my bride?”

John would’ve thought Elizabeth would put up a little more fuss. He suspected she just liked being called a bride, especially after she told him it had taken her and Teyla four hours to pick out her shoes, which were strappy and black.

In a private room, Elizabeth smoothed down the front of her dress. Put on more eyeliner. Added more hairspray. John watched her fidget like a crazy person, and it occurred to him he was Elizabeth’s bridesmaid.

“You’re going to give yourself a stroke if you keep this up,” he said.

Elizabeth grabbed John’s hands. “Oh my God, I’m getting married. To Ronon. He can’t even read. John, I’m marrying a man who can’t read!”

“Deep breaths,” he said. “Deep breaths, okay? I have to go sit down now, but– don’t take off. If you do, Ronon will kill everyone in the city, and that won’t be cool.”

“I can always get a divorce when the baby’s older,” she said, very serious.

“You sure can,” he said, although he doubted she would. Ronon would probably con her out of it with some Satedan sex thing.

In the concert hall, he sat down in the front row next to Rodney, who smelled like– “Are you drunk?” John hissed.

“I had a m-mickey of gin,” Rodney hiccupped. “I’ve had a hard day, okay? First, I had to comfort Zelenka while he cried about the love of his life marrying some hoodlum, and then, I had to come to Ronon and Elizabeth’s wedding.”

“It’s not even noon!” John said.

“Why are you always so judgmental?” Rodney asked. He leaned against John heavily. “You’d think after all the ass pounding you’ve been getting, you’d be more loose. Lose. Loose?”

Miller, on the other side of Rodney, leaned forward to raise an eyebrow at John. John laughed nervously. “McKay, you joker.” Lowering his voice, he added, “You’re ruining the wedding. And my career.”

Rodney waved a hand a little more wildly than usual. “A ruined wedding for two ruined lives. God, I fucking hate weddings. You don’t want to get married, do you? Tell me you don’t.”

Miller was still staring. “We’ll talk about it later,” John murmured. Rodney’s fingers dug into his arm.

Ronon was already out in front, wearing his every day leather trenchcoat over a tuxedo, and his gun still at his waist. When John and Rodney had seen him earlier, he had feathers in his hair, explaining he’d thought it was an Earth custom after seeing John with them “at his wedding.” But Rodney had sneered, “What a poor example. The Colonel was the bride, Ronon,” and Ronon had said, “That makes much more sense.” Between this and the pre-wedding drinking, John was going to win fights with Rodney for years.

Together, Elizabeth and Ronon had decided to make their wedding a combination of customs from both Earth and Sateda, but at the moment, it was looking more like what John expected an Amish wedding to be. Even Teyla, standing at Ronon’s side, was wearing a high-necked Athosian dress that looked much more conservative than anything John had expected of her.

A disgruntled Zelenka sat down next to John, and Lorne took the empty seat next to him. “Wow, sir,” Lorne said, “I think the whole city showed up for this. Hey, is McKay drunk?”

“How do you say ’shut the fuck up’ in Mexican, Enrique?” Rodney asked.

The chaplain stepped into position. All the guests were there; Ronon straightened and took his place. The room quieted down, and everyone looked to the doors expectedly.

They waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, just when John was worried he’d get a call on the radio saying Elizabeth had stolen a jumper and flown the coop, the doors opened, and Elizabeth walked in, head high, shoulders straight, and made her way down the aisle. She wasn’t looking panicked at all.

The ceremony went mostly without a hitch. Rodney was a little grabby, and Lorne kept making eyes at Teyla, and part of John’s soul wanted to die at the idea of Elizabeth and Ronon being joined for life, but the only real trouble was when the chaplain asked, “Does anyone here have a reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony?” and John and Rodney had to tackle Zelenka before he could finish standing. Rodney might’ve been wasted, but he could still use a taser.

The chaplain said, “You may now kiss the bride, and you may, uh, share blood. Or whatever.”

Smiling, Ronon took a blade out of his hair and quickly sliced both his and Elizabeth’s palms. They pressed them together tightly. Elizabeth didn’t even flinch.

“Oh, now that’s just unsanitary,” Rodney said. “I’m going to laugh when someone gets the space AIDS.”

The ceremony ended with the Satedan tradition of Elizabeth breaking a jar over Ronon’s head. It had something to do with the custom of Ronon showing his strength to his wife’s people, but John was pretty sure he saw Ronon stumble a little.

At the reception, Ronon grudgingly allowed himself one dance. Apparently, upsetting the gods wasn’t as important as making Elizabeth happy. John had to admit Ronon and Elizabeth did look good together, with their private little smiles and touches. After the first dance, Ronon headed over to his Marine buddies while Elizabeth danced with Lorne, Carson, and Caldwell.

Zelenka marched right up to Ronon and declared, “I will devise a machine to kill you, Dex, mark my words!”

“What a kidder,” Rodney said, dragging a spitting mad Zelenka away.

John could still hear Zelenka loudly cursing in Czech — “Zmrde zkurvenej!” — as he said to Ronon, “Great party.”

Ronon grimaced. “This is a night of debauchery. I might as well raise my baby in a brothel.”

John grabbed two flutes of champagne as he crossed the room. “Okay,” Rodney said, still a little wobbly, reaching for one flute, “I admit this isn’t going as badly as I’d thought. By this point I expected to be covered in blood and screaming for my life.”

“Get your own booze,” John said. “These are for me.”

That night, the last thing John remembered before blacking out was Elizabeth going into labour.

*

In the morning, John woke up in Rodney’s bed in nothing but Rodney’s “I’m with Genius” t-shirt that he definitely did not remember putting on. He was on his stomach, with Rodney fast asleep against his back. When Rodney nuzzled his shoulders, he groaned and rolled over.

“Rodney,” he muttered, “not now, I have a headache.”

Rodney cracked open one eye, then hissed, “Jesus Christ.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Unfortunately, I didn’t drink enough to black out the wedding or the reception. How have you not dumped me yet?”

John patted his arm, relaxing into the pillows. “It’s okay, I told Lorne you suck in bed.”

Rodney lowered his hands to glare. “What? Don’t tell that midget anything about our sex life!”

“He’s not a–” Midget. Tiny people. Babies. John shot up, feeling his eyes go wide. “Elizabeth had the baby.”

“Shit,” Rodney said.

When they got down to the infirmary, hastily-dressed and probably looking hung over as hell, the room was full of people. A glowing Elizabeth sat on a bed full of pillows, holding a tiny, wrinkled baby.

She looked over at them and smiled. “John, Rodney, allow me to introduce you to Allah Easter Weir Dex.”

“Can I hold her?” John asked.

“No,” Ronon said at the same time Elizabeth replied, “Of course.”

John poked Allah’s little tummy and shook her little fingers and palmed her little brown cheek. She smelled nice; she was heavier than he’d expected, but also terribly, terribly fragile. He loved her immediately. He was going to be the coolest uncle ever.

He offered her to Rodney, who took a step backwards, shaking his head. “No, no, I’m good.”

“It’s just a baby,” John said.

“Exactly,” Rodney retorted. “Knowing my luck, I’d end up accidentally snapping her neck.”

Ronon snatched Allah out of John’s hands, scowling at Rodney. He cradled her for a moment — with a soft, gentle expression on his face he usually reserved for big knives or buffets — and then he passed her back to Elizabeth.

“I want to hold her,” Teyla protested.

“No, no one gets to hold her,” Ronon said.

“Oh, you’re going to be one of those fathers,” Rodney scoffed.

Ronon just gave Allah another one of his buffet smiles.

As he and Rodney were leaving, he heard Teyla say, “She is beautiful. This makes me wish Enrique and I could have children of our own. Elizabeth, perhaps you could give me your next child.”

“No!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

The whole time they walked down the corridor, Rodney complained: “The scary thing is, the nightmare’s only just beginning. Soon we’ll be roped into babysitting. I can’t believe I agreed to be the godfather. Why’d you let me do that? I don’t know the first thing about kids. I don’t even like kids; they’re loud and demanding and smelly and require entirely too much attention. Attention I could be focusing on more important things.”

John just let him talk. When they go to the transporter, Rodney snuck a glance around and slipped his fingers into John’s belt loops. “We haven’t gotten a chance to celebrate Ronon and Elizabeth ruining their lives,” he leered. “You know how I love a good Schadenfreude.”

“I want a baby,” John said.

“Goddamn it,” said Rodney.

*

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The title comes from a song by Atmosphere.

As usual, many, many lines in this were contributed by Keri. This would suck so hard if it wasn’t for her. She also cleaned the hell out of this story with her mad beta skills, of which i am eternally grateful.

Warning: Rated NC-17 for adult situations.

For the B-Movie Ficathon Challenge: A brilliant geneticist plans to expose a lethal virus to every human being on the planet. Her objective: to destroy humankind in favour of her new strain of prehistoric dinosaurs. Two people stand in the way of her diabolical plan, a cynical night watchman and a lovely idealistic environmentalist. The two must overcome their differences long enough to uncover the scientist’s scheme and fight her carnivorous creations in a desperate battle against the extinction of the human race.

In other words: A slightly different John and Rodney, in a slightly different Atlantis, fight Marines, dinosaurs, and each other. Alternate Universe. McKay/Sheppard, Elizabeth/Zelenka. Spoilers for 1×01/02 Rising, 1×10 The Storm.

When Radek Zelenka was thirty-four, he won some sort of European award for some kind of incredible, astounding mathematical feat. Rodney McKay knew this, but it didn’t make him resent Zelenka any less. When Rodney was thirty-four, he blew up a star and nearly killed Major Carter, which was why, he was told by a smug General Hammond, Zelenka was asked to lead the Atlantis Expedition instead of him.

“Oh, that’s just great,” Rodney said, “absolutely perfect. And what exactly am I supposed to do while someone stupider than me gets to do all the fun stuff and win all the Nobel prizes?”

He should’ve thanked his lucky stars he’d been allowed to go at all, the SGC said. They just wanted him as far away from Earth as possible. In fact, they hoped he died tragically, from hostile aliens, equipment malfunctions, or even accidental lemon ingestion.

But he couldn’t be too outraged because Atlantis was– well. Atlantis. Lost city of the motherfucking Ancients. There were databases and computers and unbelievably advanced technology and spaceships. Sure, they’d fucked up and assumed there’d be an extra ZPM just lying around, and Colonel Sumner was a son-of-a-bitch without a sense of humour who’d probably snap and kill them all, and everyone was terrified out of their minds — but this was the most amazing thing Rodney’d ever been part of.

Rodney was in the majority; most of the scientists spent the first few weeks downright giddy. Some of them, like Vogel, even cried with joy when they found the laboratories intact. It was the Marines who were frightened. Sumner was quick to remind everyone Atlantis was a military base (and Rodney was just as quick to remind him that no, it really wasn’t), and they were far from home without any allies. But Zelenka’s reaction was more along the lines of the soldiers; he was so excited at first — he practically jumped up and down and shrieked like a girl when Rodney and Groden showed him the gatejumpers — but some time between the city rising and Sumner stepping through the wormhole to announce they’d been unwelcomed by the natives of whatever that planet was, Rodney took one look at Zelenka’s ashen face and thought, “This isn’t going to work.” Of course, Rodney was fighting his own hysteria at the time, but Zelenka hastily retreated and left Rodney to do all the work. Just as it should be.

*

Within a week, Rodney was confined to the main laboratories. That’s what they called it: “confined.”

“And by ‘confined to the labs,’” he said, “you mean, ‘having complete access to Atlantis,’ right? Because only an idiot would restrict an astrophysicist with a specialty in alien technology to the only area of the city without anything left to discover.”

Two of the three soldiers looked uncomfortable. The other one, Sergeant Bates, simply narrowed his eyes. The look on his face said, “I hate civilians.”

“Colonel Sumner’s orders,” he said flatly.

The other two men were Lieutenant Ford and Sergeant Markham. It took almost six months for Rodney to find out Ford was the one who named the gatejumpers. He was a nice kid — as nice as anyone who loved blowing the shit out of things and killing people could be — from somewhere in the midwestern United States; he was probably the soldier Rodney spoke to the most, considering Ford’s choice of friends (and the female civilians he was constantly hitting on). When they walked through the stargate for the first time, the city dark until someone with the gene activated the lights, Ford started humming the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ford once asked Rodney if they had any black people in Canada. On his tour, he’d been every where from Japan to Germany, but he’d never been to his neighbour to the north. He never would, either; Ford lived to be an old man with a red-headed wife, six kids, and a farm on one of the Genii planets. His kids called Rodney “Uncle Rod.” Markham, on the other hand, died in a freak accident in the south side of the city within the first five years of their arrival. The only thing Rodney knew about him was that his one personal item was a beat-up basketball.

So Rodney was stuck in the labs. He was sure Zelenka didn’t bother to fight Sumner’s orders; after all, he was the competition, right? He’d been to grad school, he knew how these things worked. Rodney was able to convince a few of the Marines to secretly bring him anything they found that was portable, and, being the eager lemmings they were, they brought him crate after crate of strange, misshapen Ancient artifacts, most of which didn’t even work.

Most of the crates were filled entirely with objects that would only turn on with the gene. Unfortunately, Sumner liked to pair up people with the gene with people with guns, which didn’t leave many ATA-inclined individuals left in the labs. Besides, not many of the physicists had the gene to begin with, although an unusually high proportion of the soldiers did.

Rodney pulled a sleek, silver box out of one of the crates a young Marine had dropped off earlier. It fit in the palm of his hand. Dumais stared at him in her intense, quiet way, until he snapped, “What?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go around touching things,” she said.

“Really?” he asked, rolling his eyes. “And just how many Marines died to bring us this? Oh wait, that’s right, none. I know what I’m doing, Doctor.”

He inspected the box, turning it over in his hands. The surface was completely smooth. It could’ve been anything — a toy, a decoration, a tiny but deadly Ancient weapon.

Dumais nodded at it. “You need the gene if you want it to do something.”

He said, “Gee, why didn’t I think of that,” and Dumais shrugged, turning back to her own bench. He clicked on his radio. “Dr Beckett, could you come down here and–”

“Not now, Rodney,” Carson snapped, voice tight, “I’m in the middle of something.” Which was obviously a lie, because what could be more important than assisting the physicists?

That was another problem with not being in charge. Not only did he get exiled — yes, that was a better word for it, exiled — to the same set of labs all day, he also had to deal with people disrespecting him. Rodney’s new goal in life was to one day have minions who were terrified of him.

“You should get Sheppard to turn it on,” Dumais said.

Rodney frowned. “Please don’t tell me ’sheppard’ is a euphemism for some Ancient device.”

“No, Sheppard’s a person. Tall guy.” She gestured a good foot above her own head. “Dark hair. Looks like a surfer.”

Rodney glanced around the lab to see if anyone fit that description. As far as he could tell, he was the tallest person in the room. “You’re not developing some sort of– of space madness, are you? Because I’m not in the mood to deal with other people’s imaginary friends today.”

“Nevermind,” she sighed, going back to her own work.

Eventually, after he met Sheppard, he asked him to turn on the box. It opened like a flower and a little bell started chiming, and Rodney asked, “It’s a music box?” and Sheppard said, “Wait, I think it’s a metaphor for losing your virginity. Or something.” But on that day, Rodney completely forgot about this Sheppard person who had apparently been bright enough to catch Dumais’s attention. Dumais didn’t fall for things like charm or good looks. It was why Rodney liked her; she was a scientist through and through.

The first two weeks flew by. Rodney, trapped in the labs, heard stories of what was going on around him: The soldiers were having problems off-world, thanks to Sumner’s inability to treat people as anything other than a threat; someone found kitchens and open rooms with tables, so they had a place to eat, which was, in Rodney’s opinion, probably one of the greatest discoveries they’d made thus far; some people found a landmass not too far from the city, which they named Atlantica; three gene-less Marines were killed after accidentally opening a door that triggered a self-defence system.

Carson told him, “I’ve made a gene therapy for the ATA gene. It doesn’t work with everybody, of course, and it’s not quite as strong as it is in people who’ve been born with the gene. I can bring the equipment up here, if you want me to do it to you.”

“How many people have it so far?” Rodney asked. He liked the idea of being able to manipulate Ancient technology without asking anyone for help, but knowing his luck, he’d die horribly. “Any side-effects? You know I’m highly allergic to–”

Carson waved a hand. “Yes, Rodney, I know, you’re allergic to everything. It’s perfectly safe, I promise you. I’ve already given it to several military personnel, and no one’s hand any negative reactions. Although–” He paused. “It doesn’t work for everybody. Colonel Sumner’s none too happy about that, let me tell you. He wants me to find a way for everyone to be able to interact with the city.”

“That sounds more like something I should be working on,” Rodney said, taking a big bite of a powerbar. “Obviously in a different capacity, since I’m a real scientist, and it’s not like I don’t have a million other things to do, but you’d think–”

“For God’s sake, man, swallow before you talk,” Carson said.

*

If Rodney was the kind of guy who looked backed critically, he might’ve said the step through the stargate was the moment his life changed forever. Without Atlantis, he might’ve spent his whole life as that arrogant, selfish loner who thought he was so smart, he nearly killed one of the few people he’d ever respected. He would never’ve known what it was like to love a city, or fly through space (which was something he never grew fond of; in space, no one can hear you scream), or take that first step onto an alien world. Worse, he might never’ve met the man he discovered standing in the centre of his lab, thumbing through Rodney’s notepad. Every now and then, Rodney had strange dreams where he was an old man grading papers, or walking through a Moscow park on a bleak autumn day. They were painfully depressing.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Rodney demanded.

The guy didn’t look guilty, like Rodney expected. Instead, he casually set the notepad back down on the bench, raising an eyebrow at Rodney’s agitated state. Even when standing straight, he still slouched a little. “You shouldn’t leave your stuff out if you don’t want someone to look.”

“That’s why there are Marines with AK-47s guarding the door,” Rodney fumed, gesturing behind him.

The man had gravity-defying hair, a hoop earring in each pointed ear, and a smirk on his face. His uniform looked like something he put together himself, a blatant disregard for regulations: tight blue t-shirt, baggy khakis, black wristband. He was disgustingly hot. Rodney felt something inside him stir, and he sneered, “Let me guess, you’re one of the nurses.”

“Botanist, actually,” the guy said, raising both eyebrows this time. “Dr John Sheppard.”

Rodney stared. “Ah, so the fabled Sheppard does exist.” His gaze travelled from the tips of Sheppard’s Nikes to the top of his spiky head. “You seriously have a doctorate?”

Sheppard looked amused. “My thesis was on tumbleweeds.”

The lab doors swooshed open, and Zelenka entered, pushing up his glasses with the hand that wasn’t clutching his datapad. “Ah, Rodney, Dr Sheppard, I see you’ve met. Good.”

“Zelenka,” Rodney demanded, “why are there botanists in my lab?”

“Dr Sheppard was the one to discover the transporters, completely by accident,” Zelenka said, like that was supposed to mean something. He clasped Sheppard’s shoulder, and Sheppard smirked at Rodney again.

Rodney waited for more of an explanation. When it didn’t come, he asked, “So? Is that supposed to impress me? What the hell are transporters?” Both Zelenka and Sheppard looked at him in surprise. “What? I’m not allowed to leave this floor, except to eat and occasionally sleep. Personally, I think Sumner feels threatened by me. You blow up one star, and suddenly everyone thinks you’re a loose cannon.”

Sheppard seemed a little concerned. “Uh, transporters are those things in the halls that we thought were closets. Turns out they’re a quicker way to get from floor to floor.”

“So I’ve been walking up and down five flights of stairs every day for nothing?” Rodney asked, scowling at Zelenka.

“You have been looking more fit lately,” Zelenka said pleasantly.

“God, I hate you,” Rodney said.

“I’m sure I will cry myself to sleep tonight. For now, Rodney, what I need you to do is take Dr Sheppard to the lower fifth level. There are a series of doors no one can get open. John is…” Zelenka made a vague gesture. “I do not know how to say it.”

Rodney looked at Sheppard, who grinned. “Strongest gene in Atlantis,” he boasted, doing jazz hands.

“Yes, I’m sure it impresses all the ladies.” But even as he said it, Rodney remembered he’d seen Sheppard before, in the command chair in Antarctica. Oh, life was so unfair. Rodney had seen what his own personal hell was like, and its name was McMurdo. He pestered and lectured and casually informed everyone there that he was the foremost expert in Ancient technology (and not to mention the smartest man on Earth), but they stuck him doing catalogue work with an also-wasted Peter Grodin. It was impossible to enjoy poking and prodding Ancient gizmos when the chair was clear on the other side of the base.

“I should be the one working on the command chair,” he told Grodin, “not that scatter-brained Ukranian.”

“Zelenka’s Czech, actually,” Grodin said. He pulled the latex glove off his right hand and stabbed the elongated Ancient device with his bare pointer finger.

Rodney sighed, irritated. “Who cares what he is? I’m just saying that if I was in charge, we’d be in Atlantis by now. And stop poking that! You don’t even know what it is!”

“Doesn’t it look like a sperm to you?” Grodin asked.

“Well, it does now,” Rodney said, squinting.

He was far, far away when Zelenka finally discovered the person who made the command chair work the way it was supposed to. Rodney always thought it was Carson — he figured the man’s bitching and moaning about not being able to work anything was just tragic self-esteem issues — or some nameless, stupid military buffoon Sumner was holding as a secret weapon. But no, it was a fellow scientist, which stung.

“This will be the only time you ever hear this from me, but… why me? Wouldn’t he be better off with some Marines, or at least someone less important?” Rodney asked suspiciously.

“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed, “why him?”

Zelenka smiled smugly. “Because Rodney annoys me with his meddling, and Dr Sheppard annoys me with his jokes and his skateboard, so I think, it is best you annoy each other.”

Rodney glowered at Sheppard. “Skateboard? Aren’t you, like, thirty-five?”

“I asked if I could bring a ferris wheel, but they said it’d be too big to fit through the gate,” Sheppard drawled.

*

“I don’t have time for this,” Rodney grumbled. He was right in the middle of figuring out how to stretch the single ZPM to power the entire city. He had to fix some of the consoles in the control room Grodin hadn’t been able to get working. He had to send some people to check out if they could get the shields back up, because God knew Zelenka wasn’t going to, and Kavanagh and Simpson wanted to take apart one of the gatejumpers. He was a busy, busy man, too busy to babysit some immature botanist who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo he was in his thirties.

Sheppard frowned. “Yeah, I have work of my own, you know. We’re trying to see if we can get one of the Ancient greenhouses working again–”

“Oh, greenhouses,” Rodney said, “we’re not wasting our ZPM on that.”

“–So we won’t starve to death,” Sheppard finished, scowling.

“Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt to expend some energy,” Rodney said grumpily.

The doors no one — supposedly — could get open were keeping them from entering an entire block of the city. Rodney was extremely annoyed Zelenka had decided he, of all people, was best suited for this, especially since Sheppard’s gene was apparently super enough to power the whole damn city, or something.

He was still clenching his teeth when Sheppard gave him a sneaky sideways glance. “Some of the soldiers have these things that look like tri-corders. They call them life signs detectors.”

Rodney choked. “Life si–? What’s the point of bringing along scientists if the military’s keeping everything for themselves? Christ.” He glared at Sheppard — and even though logically he knew none of this was Sheppard’s fault, he hated him anyway — who just shrugged, looking completely at ease walking through the empty corridors. “What’s with you, anyway? Shouldn’t you be talking my ear off about potatoes, or beans, or whatever?”

“The first rule of botany is you don’t talk about botany,” Sheppard said easily.

They walked across a skywalk, which showed a vast expanse of blue sky and green ocean. It took Rodney a few moments to realize Sheppard had paused in front of the window. “I always wanted to be a pilot,” Sheppard said.

“Yeah?” Rodney asked absently, not particularly interesting in hearing Sheppard’s personal life story.

“Yeah,” Sheppard replied. “But I got caught smoking weed too many times in high school. Luckily, that doesn’t affect this job much.”

“Er,” Rodney said. “Should you be telling me this?”

“Why, you gonna tell Zelenka?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney said, “Ha, yeah right. You know, I always wanted to be a pianist, but I was told I have no heart for it.” Rodney glanced over his shoulder. Sheppard was still staring out the window with a strangely serious expression on his face. “How’d you go from tumbleweeds to xenobotany, anyway?”

“My old man’s in the army,” Sheppard said lightly. “I was working in the non-profit sector, but this seemed a lot cooler.”

Rodney knew that for a botanist, “non-profit sector” meant “environmental terrorism.” But Sheppard would never tell Rodney that before the military, he worked for the Rainforest Action Network, for whom he taught a “direct action training camp.” His specialty was teaching anyone, no matter what shape or age, how to climb a tree and throw things at bulldozers. He was known in certain circles for his love of the earth, his ability to make government officials nervous just by smirking, and his quality weed. In the late 90’s, his father the general surprised him by bailing him out after being arrested in a WTO protest.

“Listen, Johnny,” General Sheppard said, “you’re wasting your life doing this environmental shit. I know some people–”

“I’m not working for the enemy,” John said, but his heart wasn’t in it. They’d had this conversation almost as many times as they’d had the “why don’t you just try dating girls?” one.

“You’ll get to go to alien planets.”

“I– what?” Sheppard twisted in his seat to look at his father, who didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Now you’re just making things up.”

General Sheppard gave John a sideways glance. “Son, I shouldn’t be telling you this, because you don’t have clearance, but I have it on good authority this project — the one with the aliens — is looking for outdoorsy people who have degrees in science. And these folks just happen to owe me a lot of favours. I know it’s not as interesting as saving the rainforest, but…”

“Uh,” Sheppard said. He bit his lip. He crossed his arms over his chest, then uncrossed them. “Can I have a few days to think it over?”

A flip of a coin later, he was working for the SGC. Another flip, he was in Atlantis.

In the city, Rodney was mentally calculating the best way to divide power so as to get the lights in the entire city working, because the second they stepped off the skywalk, the tower was dark and drafty. Rodney turned on his flashlight. A layer of dust had settled over everything in the room they were in, which looked somewhat like a lesser control room; in the middle of it was a pedestal, and by the door sat a console with a series of knobs and buttons.

“What’s this do?” Sheppard asked, and immediately touched the console.

“Are you retarded?” Rodney snapped. “Don’t touch anything!”

Sheppard looked annoyed. “I’m here to–”

The little light there was faded to nothing, and for an instant, everything went pitch-black. Rodney froze, heart pounding. Slowly, soft pinks and yellows started shining from a pedestal in the centre of the room. Rodney glanced at Sheppard’s face; he also looked shocked and scared.

“Sheppard,” Rodney said, “if we die, I’m going to spend the rest of eternity kicking your ass.”

A hologram of a middle-aged man in robes appeared in from the top of the pedestal. Rodney felt himself relax slightly — but then the hologram looked directly into his eyes, and he swallowed a wave of panic. The open doors behind them slammed shut, locking them in the room.

“Welcome to the Chamber of Secrets,” the hologram said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rodney said. “JK Rowling is no Ancient.”

“Why do the Ancients speak English?” Sheppard asked after a moment.

“I asked somebody at the SGC once,” Rodney said. “I never got a straight answer.”

The hologram flickered a few times. Its Ancient form had no facial expression. “You have two minutes to answer three riddles. If they are answered correctly, all the doors in the tower will be unlocked.”

“Cool,” Sheppard said.

“If they are answered incorrectly, you will die.”

“Suck,” Sheppard said, biting his lip.

Rodney glared at Sheppard. “I don’t even know you, but already I can tell, this could only happen to us.”

“First riddle. You have two thermoses. The first contains a litre of milk, the second contains a litre of pure chocolate syrup. You pour one cup of milk out from the first thermos to the second one. Then, after mixing that, you take one cup of the mixture from the second thermos, and pour it back into the first thermos. After completing these two operations, which thermos is more pure?”

Rodney stared, slack jawed. “What? Chocolate milk? What?”

“Answer the riddle, McKay,” Sheppard warned.

“I can’t believe– hey, do you think they have chocolate in Pegasus?” he asked hopefully. “Because my supply’s running low already, and I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life without it — not that I think we’ll be here indefinitely, but it’s a good idea to plan ahead. God, what I wouldn’t do for a glass of chocolate milk right now.”

Sheppard growled, “Hurry up, we only have ninety seconds and two more questions left!”

“Whatever,” Rodney said with a wave of his hand. “Clearly both are equally pure. But now I want chocolate milk. Thanks a lot, Atlantis.”

“We’re going to die,” Sheppard said gravely.

“Next riddle,” the hologram cut in. It looked directly at Rodney again. Of course. “A traveller, on his way to a certain village, reaches a road junction, where he can turn left or right. He knows that only one of the two roads leads to the village, but unfortunately, he does not know which one. Fortunately, he sees two twin brothers standing at the road junction, and he decides to ask them for directions. The traveller knows that one of the two brothers always tells the truth and the other one always lies. Unfortunately, he does not know which one always tells the truth and which one always lies. How can the traveller find out the way to the village by asking just one question to one of the two brothers?”

“I’m learning way more about the Ancients that I never wanted to know,” Rodney said. “You’d just ask both of them if they know where the road leads to. The truthful one would say he knows, and the liar would have to make something up.”

The screen flickered. This time the hologram looked at Sheppard. “I can run but not walk. Wherever I go, thought follows close behind. What am I?”

“Easy,” Sheppard said smugly. “A nose.”

“What the hell?” Rodney asked.

The hologram flickered once more and went out.

“We,” Sheppard said as the doors slid open, “are totally awesome.”

*

That was the start of their partnership. Zelenka was delighted they were able to get the doors opened, which led to new and exciting places: more apartments, communal living spaces with something Simpson swore were broken Ancient flat-screen televisions, scientific laboratories with half-finished projects Carson shrieked at everyone not to touch. Rodney, Sheppard, and a few others cleared out some of the labs so people could start moving in. The zoologists were starting to get on Zelenka’s case about physicists and engineers having preference, so Zelenka wanted to give them a handful of the new rooms to work in. Then Rodney told them if they wanted to be treated like equals, they should’ve picked a better science, and, well, some people were overly sensitive.

There were other discoveries, too: Rodney found he and Sheppard worked surprisingly well together. They didn’t seem to have a lot in common (not that he could really tell; Sheppard liked to talk about places he’d been or things he’d seen, but nothing about his personal life either before or on Atlantis, which was perfectly fine with Rodney, because if there was one thing Rodney hated (other than citrus, Lucky beer, and people who couldn’t apply Kepler’s Laws), it was talking about feelings), but Sheppard was easy to talk to, and unlike most of the people in the city, he seemed to actually listen to what Rodney had to say. Most of the time, at least. The rest of the time he was purposely trying to be as annoying as possible.

Best of all, Sheppard never tried to talk to him about plants (unless he was intentionally trying to piss Rodney off, in which case there was no telling what boring fact he’d share with Rodney that day). Early in their friendship, Rodney told him, “I did well in Biology, but I hated it. If I so much as hear the word ‘photosynthesis,’ I become filled with an uncontrollable rage.”

“You and Dr Sheppard do good work together,” Zelenka said to Rodney one day. “I will admit I was worried the combined powers of your abrasiveness would create a black hole and shallow us whole. You are getting along, yes?”

“Mind your own business,” Rodney said.

With Sheppard’s wonder gene and Rodney’s superior intellect, they managed to check out a few more floors without incidence. Rodney hated running. He hated stalking through dark hallways, breathing in air that’d been recycled over and over for a thousand years. He hated the idea that today could be the day he fucked up and got both of them killed. But whenever they opened a door, whenever he had to figure out some new way to make things work better, faster, something in him grew until he wanted to burst. He knew Sheppard loved it too. It was the two of them against the world, and they were winning.

Then Sumner caught on to what was happening.

“Dr Zelenka,” Sumner said, “what’s this I hear about you sending civilians to explore the city without a guard? I made myself very clear when I said the military needs to make sure all areas are clear before you will be allowed to move your people in.”

Zelenka faltered, but he didn’t back down. “Colonel, Dr McKay is one of the few experts on Ancient technology.”

Sumner’s head snapped up. He narrowed his eyes at Rodney, and Rodney was really glad he was on the other side of the briefing room. “Dr McKay, huh? The SGC told me about you. Said you’re a troublemaker. And you–” He frowned at Sheppard. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Dr John Sheppard,” Sheppard said, slouching low in his seat. “Botanist.”

“We’ve discovered more in the past few weeks than you have in months,” Rodney said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You didn’t seem to be in any hurry to check out the rest of the city,” Sheppard added.

“They do have a point, Colonel,” Dr Weir said, arching her brows. “Perhaps it’s a sign we should be less strict with the regulations. Dr Sheppard has shown a remarkable ability to manipulate Ancient technology.”

“We’re cut off from Earth,” Sumner said tightly, “regulations are all we have left.”

Rodney expected to be sent back to the labs — he had a whole speech prepared on how two hundred fifty people living on just a handful of floors in a tiny fraction of the city would probably drive someone (namely him) to mass murder — but Dr Weir and Sumner broke out into a fight that ended with Sumner grudgingly allowing Rodney and Sheppard to continue with their work as long as they took at least one soldier with them. Weir and Zelenka looked victorious, Sumner looked pissed, and Sheppard looked like he was thinking about what to have for lunch.

*

“They say you’re the smartest man in Atlantis.”

“They’re right,” Rodney replied automatically.

He glanced up from his laptop to see Sumner standing in the doorway. This was, to Rodney’s knowledge, the first time Sumner had ever visited. Normally he didn’t drift far from the command room and the second floor armoury; he usually sent Bates to do his dirty work when it involved the scientists, probably because they shared the same disdain for civilians. Sumner didn’t have patience for people who didn’t know how to kill a man five different ways using only his bare hands. Zelenka once said he didn’t think Sumner had patience for anybody, not even those who served under him.

“Can you make a ZPM?” Sumner asked.

It took Rodney a second to realize the man was serious. “Yes, but I’d been trying to keep it a secret. Looks like you’ve figured me out. Now if you’ll just get me a spoon and a rubberband, I’ll have one for you in no time. No, of course I don’t know how to build a ZPM. Christ.”

“Then what use are you?” Sumner asked, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “We have over a hundred scientists here, and all of you are useless.”

“Fuck you,” Rodney said.

Sumner’s nostrils flared. He took a few threatening steps forward. “I’m sick and tired of you civilians not realizing the situation we’re in.”

“You mean the situation where we’re stuck in another galaxy, isolated from Earth?” Rodney asked. “Because that’s been completely lost on me.”

The lab was completely silent. Rodney wasn’t going to let some macho thug come in here like he owned the city and insult Rodney’s people. He wasn’t the one who reported to Sumner; as far as he was concerned, Sumner was just another guy who happened to live in Atlantis. Zelenka appeared behind Sumner in the door, holding his datapad. He looked up, did a double take, and turned right back around and kept walking.

Sumner didn’t notice. “You think this is some sort of joke? First Dr Beckett claims he can’t find a way to make the gene therapy a hundred percent successful, and now Dr Sheppard–” Rodney choked, but he bit his tongue so hard it hurt. “–says he can’t get the weapons to work using the command chair.”

Sumner said it like he didn’t believe it. Rodney didn’t either; he’d been witness to what Sheppard’s gene could do.

“If they say they can’t do, they can’t do it,” Rodney lied.

Sumner took a little more time to gripe about how no one ever listened to him. Rodney ignored him and pretended to go back to work, but the entire time he was wondering why Sheppard wouldn’t use the chair; if it were him, he’d've been working on it from the first week. But even with Carson’s gene therapy, the chair didn’t respond to him very well (he’d already tried more than once). Carson, he knew, made sure to not even take a step near the command chair room — apparently Zelenka had harassed him to sit in it in McMurdo, and it’d scared the shit out of him — but Rodney couldn’t understand why anyone with the ability to manipulate Ancient technology wouldn’t want to use it. Sky was blue, grass was green, force equalled mass times acceleration, the universe was meant to be taken apart and understood.

The second Sumner took a step outside the door, Rodney turned to Dumais, who’d been sitting there quietly the whole time. “Do you remember Sheppard?” he asked. She blinked at him. “Tall guy, dark hair, looks like a– actually, I tend to think of surfers as blond, so I guess it’s more accurate to say he’s a skateboarder, although–”

“Yeah,” she interrupted. “I remember him.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“I think the botany lab is right below ours,” she said. “Dr Zelenka wanted everyone close together.”

“Thanks.” He started heading towards the door, then stopped. “If Zelenka asks for me, I’m double-checking the transporter repairs on the east tower.” The east side was the farthest from the lab; if Zelenka came looking for Rodney, he’d have a few extra minutes.

Her eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. “Right.”

He found Sheppard where she said he would, burying a thin plastic tube under dirt that stood in what Rodney guessed were long, glass planting pots. Parallel to where he was planting, several other rows were sprouting tiny buds. Rodney hoped he none of these would set off his allergies.

“There’s a greenhouse in here,” Rodney said instead of, “Hello.”

“Really?” Sheppard deadpanned, looking around like he’d just realized where he was.

“I thought you were kidding earlier when you said you guys were trying to get the greenhouses working.”

“Why would I lie about something like that?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney said, “I don’t know! I thought it was botany humour.”

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “We have funnier jokes than that. What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?”

“No idea,” Rodney said flatly.

“Pumpkin pi.”

“You’re hilarious. You should really think about giving up the plants and going on tour.” He watched Sheppard pat the dirt flat with his long, thin hands, and he said, “The craziest thing happened just now. Sumner asked me if I could build a ZPM. I told him that if I could, did he really think we’d still be here?”

“We might,” Sheppard said, smiling.

“Well, okay,” Rodney said, “but like I’d keep people here who wanted to go home. I’m not some mad scientist trying to trap everyone in another galaxy. He also said–” Rodney waved his hand vaguely, hoping to convey casualness. “–you won’t work the command chair.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Sheppard said, narrowing his eyes. “I came here to do research. I’ll do it if we get in trouble, but…” He shrugged, and Rodney put the pieces together: Sheppard was an environmentalist. He was a tree hugger, a rainforest saver; he sighed every time they passed a dead, withered tree in the hall. Rodney’d never seen him throw anything away. He wasn’t going to practice shooting up aliens for the hell of it.

Sheppard stood, brushing off his hands. Dirt stained the knees of his loose khakis. “You wanna get something to eat? I think it’s taco night.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rodney said.

And so life went on. Sumner ordered Lieutenant Ford to act as Rodney’s and Sheppard’s bodyguard, and he followed them through the darkened corridors, P-90 held high against their invisible enemies. Together they found a gymnasium, another series of apartments, and even a place that resembled a café. Sheppard sprained his ankle trying to skateboard down a stairwell. Miko single-handedly figured out how to turn all the lights in the city on while using barely any power, much to Ford’s relief (and Rodney’s). Zelenka remained obtuse.

“Did you know we have deep space scanners?” Zelenka asked.

Rodney slowly looked up from his laptop. “Yes.”

The first time Sheppard came by the main lab when everyone was there, Rodney was in the middle of yet another screaming match with Gall. He was telling Gall how he was going to convince the Marines to dial a random location and just leave Gall there to die, when he heard Kavanagh ask:

“Aren’t you one of the botanists?” Rodney turned in time to see Kavanagh wrinkle his nose at Sheppard (who had definitely not been there a minute ago) like he’d just seen something distasteful. “I don’t think you’re allowed to be in here. Why don’t you go back to your plants and leave the real scientists to their work?”

Rodney snapped, “Kavanagh, shouldn’t you be working on getting the archiving programme uplinked? Oh, that’s right, you couldn’t figure it out. Why don’t you go get one of the jarheads to teach you basic math?”

“Rodney,” Sheppard said, but he didn’t sound angry. “I thought you might want to get something in your system besides caffeine. You’ve been here for, like, twelve hours. Ford said it’s meatloaf today, and I know how you love processed breaded meat.”

Rodney didn’t eat in the mess often; he was too busy to take half an hour off, so he typically brought MREs back to the labs. Powerbars were a staple amongst the physics staff. When he did manage to sit down and enjoy himself, he preferred to eat alone or just with Sheppard, unless it was one of those days everything Sheppard said and did annoyed the hell out of him. “Why do potatoes make good detectives?” was one of Sheppard’s jokes. “Because they keep their eyes peeled!” Sometimes in the lab he sat down with Zelenka, but the way Zelenka ate reminded him too much of Russia. Once, not long after they arrived in Atlantis, he made the mistake of sitting with other physicists. By the time the meal was done, he was forcibly trying not to kill them all with his cutlery. In the end, it was best just to stick with what he knew: himself, and occasionally Sheppard.

“Yeah, just–” Rodney looked back at Gall, who was watching him with narrowed eyes. “You’re still here? Go away.”

“I’m going to tell Dr Zelenka you’re skipping work to hang out with your buddy,” Kavanagh sneered, gaze flickering between Rodney and Sheppard.

“What are you, twelve? Whatever.” Rodney waved a hand in dismissal. “As if Zelenka would care.”

Both Gall and Kavanagh stomped off, each muttering something that was probably obscene under their breaths, and God, how Rodney longed to be in charge of these Neanderthals, just so he could punish them. He said to Sheppard, “What an idiot. He doesn’t even know you.” One corner of Sheppard’s mouth curled up, and Rodney looked away, embarrassed. “And Gall’s just… ugh. Don’t get me started on that imbecile. Do you know he had the audacity to suggest he might be smarter than me?”

“What a bastard,” Sheppard agreed easily.

On an intellectual level, Rodney knew every scientist in Atlantis was hand-picked by Zelenka, even Kavanagh. Even Sheppard. They were Earth’s best and brightest. But the emotional part of Rodney was compiling a list of People I’m Trying to Give Cancer to With My Mind, and Kavanagh and Gall had been at the top of that list ever since McMurdo.

Rodney would almost feel bad about that when Gall would get killed during a botched diplomatic incident between Atlantis and the primitive people of Mauron (Rodney would always think it was ironic Gall died on a planet that sounded so close to “moron”). Sergeant Bates’s team stumbled across his body less than a kilometre away from the gate.

“That’s a shame,” said one of Bates’s teammates as they pulled Gall out of the bushes. Nobody liked Gall.

The official cause of his death was “allergic reaction to the mead he ingested at the welcoming ceremony,” Dr Biro informed Rodney and Zelenka, snapping off her gloves.

“It’s a wonder I’m still alive,” Rodney said. He was forty-nine.

Kavanagh’s last words to Rodney would be, “I told you that was lethal.”

One time after a long day of fixing other people’s mistakes, Rodney came into the lab to pick up his laptop, and he found a note taped to it. It was written on formal stationary.

Dr McKay,

In your latest report regarding damaged dampeners on Gatejumper 4, you had several spelling and punctuation errors. Please see that you use spellcheck in your future reports. We do not want the entirety of the physics team to be embarrassed when the SGC rescues us. Also, please stop stealing my pens. I paid for them myself.

Sincerely,
Dr Kavanagh

In Rodney’s next report, he made sure to misspell as many words as possible while still being coherent. Then he stole half of Kavanagh’s pens and passed them out to the senior staff. Zelenka looked at him funny for a few days after that, but all Rodney would do was smirk at him. Kavanagh never said anything; if anything, Kavanagh just grew colder towards him, which suited him just fine. He didn’t need friends — he had Atlantis.

Kavanagh would remain on Atlantis for the rest of his days, eventually giving up on being “rescued” by the SGC. He and Rodney tried to avoid working together as much as humanly possible; the longest conversation they ever had after the third year was saying hello when they passed each other in the hallways.

A few years after they arrived on Atlantis, Kavanagh, Simpson, and Brown were caught trying to repair the bubbling tanks on the walls. They started with one tower everyone considered too far to bother with; Brown had the great idea of turning the tubes into fish tanks, and she smuggled in fish and plants while Simpson worked on the mechanics. No one remembered how Kavanagh got involved, but he was the one who brought in the purple frog-like creature from Atlantica — which turned out to be highly toxic, and was probably the way rebellious Ancient teenagers used to get high. He was found wandering the halls tripped out his mind, mumbling about, “I understand everything now; the universe is inside me.” Simpson said that it was totally worth it, even after Zelenka, Biro, and Weir all yelled at them for sneaking in strange wildlife without clearing it first. Sheppard said the tanks were just a front for the frog-licking, and then he whined for two weeks that he would’ve been invited if Rodney hadn’t ruined his reputation.

When Kavanagh announced Sheppard’s presence in the lab, Rodney didn’t notice he wasn’t the only one observing Sheppard. It took him a few minutes to realize a few — okay, pretty much all — of the women were looking at Sheppard like he was made of every food they ever missed from Earth. Even Dumais was staring, still leaning over her bench, a screwdriver in one hand. He’d never seen that expression on her face before. Simpson and Miko were whispering behind their hands in the corner.

Rodney bristled and put a hand on Sheppard’s back, steering him towards the door. “Come on, let’s go before they start fighting over who gets to bear your love child.”

Sheppard craned his neck. “What? Who? What?”

“I knew I should’ve taken botany,” he heard Simpson say. Miko “mm-hmm”-ed enthusiastically.

“The asshole with the ponytail was playing Bejeweled on his laptop,” Sheppard said.

“Some days it’s just not worth chewing through the restraints,” Rodney murmured.

*

Their fifth month in Pegasus, Sumner and Weir began making deals with other civilizations. Privately, Zelenka told Rodney it was something Weir’d wanted to do from the start, once they’d realized they couldn’t go back to Earth, but Sumner had refused to send his troops on “suicide missions” to trade with “heathens,” even though the six or seven planets they’d been to had various levels of sophistication.

“What an enlightened man,” Rodney said sarcastically. “Next you’ll be telling me he thinks a woman’s place should be in the kitchen.”

It wasn’t so much they were running out of supplies as it was people were starting to worry about running out of supplies. Carson was telling anyone who’d listen he was almost out of this and that antibiotic, and something about clean syringes, and if Sumner wanted him to find a way to make everyone on Atlantis able to carry the gene, they best start seeing which planets carried what he needed. More importantly, people started to talk about how maybe, just maybe, some other worlds just might have ZPMs. Ones they’d be willing to part with.

Zelenka said this time, Weir told Sumner she’d go alone if he didn’t give her a squadron of Marines. “She’s a very brave woman,” he said, with stars in his eyes. Rodney tried to point out Weir usually caved to whatever Sumner wanted, but Zelenka acted as if the comment personally offended him.

Sheppard hopped up on Rodney’s lab bench, looking pleased with himself, which was never a good thing. He sat on top of several print-outs Rodney was reading. “Guess what.”

“Judging by your good mood, I’d guess someone found a surplus supply of hair gel.”

“They’re going to start sending scientists with the offworld teams,” Sheppard answered, ignoring Rodney’s comment. He was practically humming with excitement. “Lieutenant Ford asked me to be on his.”

It took a minute for that to sink in. Rodney demanded, “Are you nuts? Haven’t you ever seen an episode of Star Trek? Scientists always die on away missions.”

“So I won’t wear my red shirt,” Sheppard drawled. “Seriously, McKay, it’ll be cool. It’s some peaceful farming planet.”

“They’re always peaceful farming planets!” Rodney exclaimed, waving his arms. “Do you even know how to shoot a gun?”

Sheppard gave him a look. “My dad was in the army.”

“What does that mean? Yes? No?”

“It means…” Sheppard picked at a string on the hem of his blue t-shirt. “I can shoot cans with a rifle.”

Rodney threw his hands up in the air. “Oh, okay, Rambo, that changes everything.”

Sheppard glared. “Can’t you be happy for me? I get to go exploring alien worlds. Imagine all the species of plants that are probably completely different from anything on Earth. We might be able to find something that can feed us for months.”

“They could bring samples back for you,” Rodney said. “Parrish or what’s-her-face, the redhead– don’t look at me like that, I barely know the names of people I work with. One of them could go instead. Why you?”

“Parrish gets lost going from the greenhouse to the bathroom, and Katie– you’d seriously prefer they sent Katie Brown to a possibly hostile alien world over me?”

“Ha,” Rodney said smugly, “you just admitted it was hostile.”

“Ford said it was perfectly safe,” Sheppard said, stepping off the bench and back onto the floor.

What Ford actually said was, “Hey, man, how do you feel about kicking some alien ass?” and, “Sumner told me to take a scientist, and I thought you’d might like to go. But just to warn you, it’ll probably be dangerous.” Sheppard was all cool and collected when he told Rodney about it, but he was pretty much scared out of his mind. The most danger he’d ever been in were protests that turned violent (and that one time in Greenpeace when he’d chased a whaling boat for six hours off the coast of China) and even then, injuries were something to use against The Man, to demonstrate the barbaric behaviour of the cops or coast guard or whoever was keeping them down this week. The closest he’d ever come to war was listening to his father’s stories, and they weren’t even very good. When Sheppard was a kid, he thought his dad was so brave, but then he grew up and realized his dad was sort of an asshole. An asshole who didn’t recycle.

Of course, Rodney didn’t know any of this. He just thought Sheppard must’ve been missing the part of his brain that handled self-preservation.

For the next two days, Sheppard didn’t show up to bug him. At first Rodney thought maybe Sheppard was actually doing work for once; but after day two rolled around and there was still no sign of the man, he told himself he was just glad Sheppard wasn’t there to annoy him, because Sheppard would’ve just distracted Rodney from fixing the yet-again broken sewage system. But still, he looked over his shoulder every time someone walked past the lab.

There was only so much self-denial he could stand. Around six in the evening, he snapped his laptop closed and said to Zelenka, “I’m going on a break.”

Zelenka’s hair was sticking up straight, and with his wide eyes, he looked kind of insane. His jaw dropped, and he asked suspiciously, “Break? You never take break.”

“I need a cigarette like you wouldn’t believe,” Rodney called over his shoulder.

“You don’t smoke!” Zelenka shouted after him.

That whole conversation would later come back to haunt Rodney, as someone from the labs began spreading rumours he was running an underground black market. In one instance, Vogel would try to con Rodney into trading his bed sheets for cigarettes (Rodney really, really didn’t want to know). Miko would want extra toothpaste for Hershey’s kisses. Ford would try to trade him coffee for spare condoms, and on four separate occasions, chocolate syrup.

“There are no words to describe how TMI that is,” Rodney would say.

Rodney bumped into Sheppard coming off the transporter. He was wearing the black jacket and BDUs of the soldiers. “Hey,” Sheppard said, surprised.

“Hey,” Rodney replied.

“Were you looking for me?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney said, “Oh, were you gone?”

Sheppard grinned like Rodney had made a joke. But he just said, “Ford’s had me doing target practice all day. I think I’ve got the hang of it.”

“You’re going to fucking die,” Rodney said.

“We might find coffee beans,” Sheppard said, rolling his eyes. “Then you’ll tell me this was the best idea Ford ever had.”

Rodney thought he’d probably prefer having Sheppard alive over having an endless supply of alien coffee (even though he’d probably be able to jerk off to the image of a freshly-brewed pot of Columbian by this point), but he wasn’t stupid enough to tell Sheppard that. Especially when Sheppard was wearing all black and looking a little sweaty.

On the morning of Sheppard’s first mission, Rodney woke up early and headed to Ford’s rooms. The day before, he’d bribed Lieutenant Crown, whom he’d seen flirting with Ford, to tell him where Ford lived. It cost him a bag of Twizzlers. Ford was in a section of the city Sheppard and Rodney had cleared out themselves, before Sumner’d found out about their exploits; as he walked down the corridor, Rodney remembered these same light panels on the walls coming to life as Sheppard crossed their paths. He remembered Sheppard gazing out the huge window in the centre of the hall, telling Rodney, “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to learn everything about Atlantis, do you?”

Ford opened his door in pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt. He rubbed his eyes sleepily. “McKay? What’re you doing here?”

“I need to give you some important information about your mission today,” he said.

“Yeah?” Ford asked apprehensively.

“Dr Sheppard’s always cold, so you should take an extra sweater,” Rodney said. He ticked the list off on his fingers. “Uh, he gets lost really easily, so don’t let him wander away. I don’t need to remind you he doesn’t have any combat training, so I’ll assume you won’t let him get shot in the face. He doesn’t follow orders, so you might have to threaten him. He–”

Ford was staring at him like he was in the process of trying to explain quantum mechanics. It was a nervous, flighty look, but he didn’t know if Ford was thinking taking Sheppard along was a mistake, or if Rodney himself made Ford anxious, or what. “McKay, chill, it’s okay. I know what I’m doing. Johnny–” And oh, how that nickname cracked Rodney up every time. “–will be fine. I’ll bring him back to you in one piece.”

“See to it that you do,” Rodney sniffed.

“I have an hour before I have to get up,” Ford said, stepping back.

“Don’t forget–” The door slid shut. “–The sweater!”

When he went back to his rooms to get his laptop, he found Sheppard there, knocking on the door. He was already dressed in black BDUs, looking calm and cool. “Almost time for me to head out,” he said casually.

“Is it?” Rodney asked.

“I’ll be okay,” Sheppard said. “It’s no big deal. Ford’s been off-world a bunch of times already, and nothing really bad’s happened.”

Rodney crossed his arms over his chest. “You realize you’re jinxing yourself, right?”

Sheppard stepped forward until they could almost brush arms, and Rodney swallowed thickly. “I wanted to tell you…” Sheppard licked his lips. “What vegetable can tie your stomach in knots?”

“Oh my God,” Rodney said.

“String beans.” With that, Sheppard spun on one heel and walked away, throwing Rodney a grin over his shoulder.

“I hope you get stabbed by a native,” Rodney shouted at his back.

Rodney stayed in the labs the rest of the day, but he managed to time being in the gateroom when he knew Ford’s team was supposed to return, claiming he was helping Grodin configure the scanners.

“I don’t think they’re broken, McKay,” Grodin said.

“Of course that’s what you’d think, wouldn’t you,” Rodney said, pretending to be looking at something. Thankfully, he typed faster than Grodin could read.

When Sheppard walked through the gate, Rodney let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Sheppard had a smudge on one cheek and a stupid grin on his face. In his arms was a basket of something that looked like corn. Ford slapped him on the back, saying something Rodney couldn’t hear from the balcony, and they laughed together. Something uncurled in Rodney’s chest.

Sheppard looked up, met Rodney’s eyes, and waved. “I shot somebody,” he shouted, sounding excited. “It was pretty awesome!”

“You’re insane,” Rodney yelled back, leaning over the rail. The soldier beside him recoiled a little.

On Sheppard’s third mission, he went from being the shooter to the shootee. Ford, Parker, Stankovich, and Sheppard were negotiating with the farmers of P1X-436 for their grain when the local lord whipped out a gun and fired. Rodney was in the lab telling Gall exactly why he was the stupidest man in the Pegasus Galaxy when his radio sparked to life.

“McKay,” Ford’s voice said, “you might want to head over to the infirmary.”

Rodney went cold all over. “I told you not to let him get shot in the face!”

Gall stood between Rodney and the door. He sneered, “Isn’t it convenient you have an excuse to leave just as I was winning the argument.”

“Get the fuck out of my way,” Rodney snapped.

When he got to the infirmary in record time, only a little out of breath, he found Sheppard lying on one of the beds, Carson “tsk”-ing him. Sheppard’s BDU pants were dripping with blood.

“I got shot, Rodney,” Sheppard told him. “In the leg.”

“Good for you,” Rodney said.

Carson started to cut off John’s pants with a pair of tiny scissors. “Okay, Dr Sheppard, I’m just going to give you a local anaesthetic, and we’re going to get that nasty bullet out.”

Sheppard patted Rodney’s hand. He was either drunk or he’d lost a lot of blood. “Guns are bad. I feel bad now for shooting that guy on P2X-381. It hurts like a bitch.”

“Should you be doing that out here in the open?” Rodney asked Carson. “He’s going to get an infection and his leg’s going to fall off. We can’t have a one-legged botanist. That’s just a whole new level of weird I don’t think anyone’s prepared to deal with.”

Carson let out an exasperated breath. “And where do you purpose I do it then? It’s not like we’ve found an Ancient operating room. I’ve been making due with what’s available.” He said this with surprising vehemence. His face a little more lined than it’d been when they walked through the gate a few months ago.

“Rodney and I will find you a real infirmary,” Sheppard said to Carson.

“You just worry about getting better,” Carson soothed.

It was so like Carson to fall for Sheppard’s charms like that. If Rodney had promised to find him a lab, Carson would’ve “accidentally” stabbed him with those scissors. Rodney glared at Sheppard, taking in his pale face, his open, bleeding wound, and Rodney suddenly felt light-headed.

“I should go,” he said, jerking a thumb to the door behind him. “Important things to do, idiots all around me, and so forth and so on.”

Carson didn’t even look up from the syringe he was filling. “That’s probably a good idea. Wouldn’t want you to get sick on us.”

Rodney spent the rest of the day (silently) fretting over Sheppard being one step away from death, even after he radioed Carson and had to listen to Carson say, “No, Rodney, his leg is still here. Yes, Rodney, the bullet’s removed, and he’s recovering nicely. No, Rodney, I will not stop being a smart ass. Go back to work, you bloody woman.” It was only natural for him to be concerned about his friend. He took out his stress the best way he knew how: by terrorizing everyone around him. It worked up until the point when he found out exactly what happened on the mission.

“The Lieutenant said Dr Sheppard was accused of flirting with the leader’s daughter,” Zelenka said, rolling his eyes. “Then Lieutenant Ford tried to explain Sheppard is like that with everyone, and it seems the people of P1X-436 find such behaviour, um–”

“Slutty?” Rodney asked.

“I was going to say ‘distasteful,’ but that works,” Zelenka replied. “But that is why they shot him. Apparently, that is the standard punishment on their world. I find it interesting these people do not have indoor plumbing, yet they possess the ability to blow off people’s legs.”

Rodney said, “Sheppard, that stupid fuck. I hope he gets space syphilis and his dick rots.”

Zelenka raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn’t say anything. Rodney turned back to his laptop, fuming.

*

If Sheppard noticed Rodney didn’t visit him while he was recovering from the gunshot wound, he didn’t comment on it. He bounced back with resilience; a little more than a week after he was shot, he popped into Rodney’s room, limping, asking if Rodney wanted to watch a dvd of extreme skateboarding he brought from Earth. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt with his tan slacks. Rodney was still pissed Sheppard’d almost died because he was a tease, but Sheppard grinning through his obvious pain made Rodney’s stomach flip-flop.

“I don’t like sports,” Rodney said, but he made room on his couch anyway. “Not that skateboarding’s a sport.”

“Skateboarding’s about style, McKay,” Sheppard insisted, joining him. He propped his injured leg up on the Atlantian version of a coffee table. “It’s about taking risks.”

“It’s about breaking open your skull on the sidewalk,” Rodney said.

“When I was in high school, we used to do that.” Sheppard gestured to the screen, where a lanky man was sliding down a rail — and amazingly, not dying horribly. “And we played a lot of hacky sack.”

“Jesus, Shaggy, you were such a pothead,” Rodney said.

When Rodney was in high school, he was too busy being paid by the other kids to do their homework to do sports. Not that he was particularly athletic; as a kid, his father’d forced him to play hockey and curl, but he was never very good at either of them. One fateful Boxing Day, he broke his leg during a curling game after falling while trying to sweep, and as a result, the other team won. His father never let him forget it.

Rodney was thinking about team sports when he stumbled upon a miserable-looking Zelenka still in the labs at three in the morning. Rodney had an excuse — he was this close to finishing re-wiring the environmental controls so they could turn that café they’d discovered a few weeks ago into a place ideal for hanging out — but Zelenka was just sitting there, staring into space, glasses askew.

“Not that I care or anything,” Rodney said, “but why don’t you go to bed?”

“I’m just thinking about–” Zelenka shrugged, pushing his glasses back up. He pushed a button on his datapad. “What do you think of the team dynamics, Rodney?”

Rodney said, “I think living here is a little like being in high school. You know, if your high school was a floating city in the middle of another galaxy and everyone was either a science nerd or a jock trying to overcompensate for something.”

“Everyone hates each other,” Zelenka said, almost sadly. “I keep having to break up fights. People keep requesting not to work with certain others. And because of this, our work is suffering. We could have so much done if they just stopped behaving like children.”

“That’s because they’re idiots,” Rodney said.

The next day, while Zelenka was at his daily meeting with Dr Weir, Rodney rounded up everyone on the physics team first. He separated the troublemakers — Kavanagh, Gall, Simpson — and switched up the projects. He’d been living long enough with these people to know how they worked; not many people put up much fuss regarding their teammates, but some didn’t want to give up their current project.

“Are you allowed to do this?” Gall asked. He’d made a sour face when Rodney instructed him to work with Abrams.

“Of course I am,” Rodney lied coolly.

Once he hacked the personnel files of everyone else, he rearranged the anthropologists (who tried to engage him in a discussion on the treatment of Natives in Canada), the zoologists (who were playing catch with what looked like a cross between a zebra and a cow, only in miniature), and the chemists (who told him that if he touched something, they’d kill him slowly and painfully by slipping something into his food. He believed them.). His authority was completely undermined in the botany lab: every time he met Sheppard’s eyes, he burst out laughing, which then got Sheppard going. Thanks to Sheppard, the botanists now thought he was approachable, which filled Rodney with an unspeakable horror.

“I don’t see what your problem is,” Sheppard said. “They like you. Katie was asking me about you the other day.”

“If you told the botanists I’m available, I’ll kill you in your sleep,” Rodney said.

Sheppard said, “Trust me, I let them know you’re unavailable,” and he gave Rodney a really intense look.

Rodney frowned, trying to remember that day in the lab. “What, you got a thing for Katie? Which one is she, anyway? The one with the mole, or the one who thinks my name is McBay?”

“I don’t have a thing for Katie Brown,” Sheppard snapped. “And she’s the short one with the red hair.”

If Sheppard was going to date someone, he could do better than a botanist, Rodney figured. He needed someone smart and witty and willing to put up with his skateboarding and his vanity and his stupid jokes. Someone tall and leggy. Brunette, maybe. Not someone who worked with plants. Rodney tried to picture what kind of women Sheppard must’ve dated on Earth, but his mind drew a blank. Then he tried to imagine what Sheppard must’ve been like when he was out saving the rainforest (he assumed there was a lot of tie-dye involved), and not here, in the city of the Ancients, going back and forth across the galaxy to take samples of plants for the benefit of their two-hundred-something population.

“You should wear black all the time,” Rodney said, gesturing to Sheppard’s BDUs.

Sheppard cocked his head. “You like the way I look in black?”

“I didn’t say that,” Rodney said.

“It shows the dirt too much,” Sheppard said regrettably.

After that, Sheppard starting wearing a lot more black t-shirts. Rodney figured he must’ve scavenged them from the packs he obviously bought at Wal-Mart before they left, because even after days of wearing black, the shirts were definitely clean. Every time Sheppard leaned, sat, or walked too close, he smelled nice in a way Rodney hadn’t noticed before. Some of the other scientists — mostly the female ones, and Parrish — and even Ford started giving Rodney funny looks whenever they saw him and Sheppard together, which was pretty often, because it wasn’t like Rodney could stand anyone else.

“What the hell happened to the science team uniform?” Rodney asked after a week of black shirts.

Sheppard stiffened. “Nothing. I felt like a change. I wasn’t wearing reg shirts before, anyway. They itch.”

His wardrobe changed again. Along with the black shirts, he started wearing green, dark blue, and the regulation civilian light blue. On the days he wore white, Rodney found himself seeking out Sheppard even more often. (Although he tried not to do it too much; that was sort of gay.)

One day, while he was still in off-duty thanks to his wound (“And psychological trauma,” Sheppard said, gazing at Zelenka with wide, sincere eyes), Sheppard surprised Rodney by showing up at his apartment with a covered plate and a smirk. The last time Sheppard’d looked at him like that, the two of them ended up spending the afternoon in the brig after re-wiring Sumner’s room’s environmental controls from “yes, I am a robot and need to be in a constant state of chill” to “Sahara Desert on a bad day.”

“Tada,” Sheppard said, doing his best Vanna White impression.

“What’s this?” Rodney asked, immediately suspicious.

Sheppard beamed at him. “Cookies made from the very first batch of our very own flour. We made it from that corn-like stuff I brought back from P2X-381.”

Rodney snatched a few before Sheppard could change his mind. “God, I needed these. I’ve had such a shit day. I can’t believe these were the best people Zelenka could find. If I was in charge…”

Twenty minutes and four cookies later, he told Sheppard, “You can tell Sergeant Wallace his flour’s a success. These seem to be safe.”

“Huh?” Sheppard asked, swallowing the last of his single cookie.

“If I can eat these, anyone can, because I’m allergic to everything.”

“I wouldn’t give you cookies that could kill you, asshole,” Sheppard said.

Rodney frowned. “Then why’d you bring them to me?”

“I don’t know why I even bother,” Sheppard grumbled.

Rodney didn’t know what to make of Sheppard’s behaviour. On the one hand, it was strange, with the clothes and the cookies and the constant leaning on everything, but on the other, it was Sheppard, and “normal” for him was “eccentric” (at best) for everyone else — not that Rodney was a good judge of what was considered “normal” behaviour. Either way, they spent too much time together for Rodney to really put his finger on what was bothering him. When they weren’t eating their meals together, they were constantly in each other’s labs, helping each other out (Simpson told Sheppard he was an honourary physicist); when they weren’t exploring the city, they were watching movies or playing cards, and there was that one humiliating time when Sheppard tried to get Rodney to try his skateboard. So Rodney, despite not being a very forgiving guy, easily overlooked a few eccentricities.

Sheppard ate tabasco sauce on literally everything, a little bottle of which he smuggled from Earth in his backpack. He rode his skateboard through the halls, and refused to stop even after both Sumner and Zelenka bitched at him. Zelenka said Sheppard actually did very little work, but what he accomplished was amazing. Sheppard taught some of the Marines how to play hacky sack. He redecorated some of the lounges with the help of Dr Weir. He read novels by dead Russians and drew stick figures with little speech bubbles on Rodney’s notes and let Miko give him highlights (and let Simpson dye it back to black the next day) and kept bringing people potted plants.

“I brought you this,” Sheppard said, presenting Rodney with a strange blue fern. “It was really hard to find.”

“Are you serious?” Rodney asked. “Do I need to give you the five page print-out of my allergies again?”

And then Rodney overheard a conversation while trying to enter the botany lab one afternoon, and everything went to hell.

“–You, me, a starlit picnic,” Sheppard was saying.

“Sheppard, seriously, fucking you isn’t worth my life,” Parrish said slowly. Parrish always sounded like he was high. “McKay would have me murdered, and no one would ever find the body. He’s worked with the military for years, he knows these things.”

Well, that was mostly true. Rodney really couldn’t fault the man for cowering before him.

“McKay and I aren’t like that,” Sheppard said. “He’s socially retarded or something.”

“Uh-huh,” Parrish said. “You’re hot and all, but I like my head still connected to my neck. Why don’t you try someone a little more suicidal, like a Marine?”

“Yeah, I’ll go do that,” Sheppard said sarcastically. “Maybe I’ll go ask Ford.”

Ew, Ford, Rodney thought, followed by: Where would one hide a body in Atlantis, anyway? as he listened to Parrish and Sheppard change the subject to the life cycle of a type of tree found only on Manaria.

*

Naturally, because everything in Atlantis was trying to kill them, the next disaster struck in the form of Mother Nature. “See,” Rodney told Sheppard, watching the hurricane gain momentum on the scanners, “this is why we should pollute as much as possible. To show Nature who’s boss.”

“Maybe Nature’s thinking the same thing about us,” Sheppard said dryly.

By the time the rain starting pouring down, it was too late to evacuate. Besides, there weren’t many places to evacuate to; Sumner and Weir had made trading partnerships with many other peoples, but they didn’t have anyone they could really call an ally. Rodney figured it was because Sumner was an ass. Everyone in the physics lab ran around trying to come up with an idea to save the city — “Maybe it can fly,” Abrams said. “Get the hell out of my lab,” Rodney replied. — until Rodney and Zelenka came up with the brilliant plan of using lightening to power up the shields. It was unfortunate that this idea came to them while Rodney was telling Zelenka how he was once almost killed during a freak thunderstorm.

The entire population of Atlantis squeezed into the control room. Even with the military’s stiff upper lip, it was complete chaos.

“Okay,” Zelenka said, “I will go to station one, because I need to be close by to work on the subroutines. Peter, you go to station two, Rodney, to stations three and–”

“I can go,” Sheppard interrupted.

Zelenka frowned. “But–”

“You don’t need someone with a physics degree to turn on a machine,” Sheppard insisted.

“He’s right,” Rodney said.

Zelenka sighed. “Alright. Dr Sheppard, you go to station three, Rodney will go to station four.”

Rodney said, “But four’s the one farthest from–”

“We do not have time for this,” Zelenka said sharply.

“Fine, whatever. Station four it is. But if I have a heart attack before I can turn on the generator, it’ll be on your head.”

“Be careful,” Dr Weir called as they filed out.

As fast as he could move, Rodney made his way to the fourth station. He could hear the wind even from inside the halls. Rain pounded against the windows, and the sky was almost black. Rodney hadn’t lived anywhere near an ocean in a really long time, and he’d forgotten how dangerous it could be.

“We never had these problems in Ontario,” he muttered to himself.

“Rodney, how close are you to finishing?” Zelenka asked over the radio.

“What? I’m still getting there!” He panted. “Goddamn motherfucking stairs. Who designed this place?”

His radio clicked on again. “Maybe you should give up smoking,” Dr Weir said.

“Oh, very funny,” Rodney said.

When he finally made it to station four, a huge, black, angry cloud was barrelling towards them. He staggered against the wind, and staring up at the sky, he felt himself pause a little too long. “Oh God, oh God,” he muttered, desperately clutching the console. He needed to act now or everyone in the city was dead.

Sheppard’s voice broke in over the wind. “Rodney, you need to hurry up!”

Hands trembling, Rodney punched in the code, and the rod separated, coming to life.

“Done,” he shouted, letting out a shaky breath. Over the radio, he could hear everyone cheering and screaming and even a few relieved sobs.

“Now get the hell down here!” Sheppard said.

That night, they broke out the emergency rations of wine. Sheppard didn’t stay long, because he said he and Parrish had to fix the greenhouses, which were shorted out during the storm. Rodney watched them leave together, a funny feeling gripping him. Then he got piss drunk and ended up fucking Dumais on a couch in the lounge on the third floor. She wasn’t a blonde, but she was pretty and she almost liked him. Afterwards, she shoved him off her and told him he’d been “efficient.”

“We shouldn’t do that again,” she said, slipping on her boots. “It’ll make us less productive. Forty-five percent of workplace relationships are short-lived.”

“Did I just sleep with a Cylon?” Rodney asked.

He went back to his rooms — alone — feeling relieved, but strangely dirty, and not at all satisfied.

*

As soon as Sheppard’s thigh healed completely, they were cleared to go back to exploring. Rodney found he’d actually missed this: the excitement of walking through halls no one had been through in a millennia, the thrill of finding abandoned labs with half-finished projects that had been worked on by the Ancients. Sheppard, back to his blue tee and khakis, patted the wall and said, “Hey, girl, long time no see.”

“You’re the kind of guy who names his car, aren’t you,” Rodney said.

Sheppard looked scandalized. “You’re kidding. Do you know how much cars pollute?”

“My Toyota gets pretty good gas to the mile,” Ford said.

Rodney drowned out Sheppard lecturing Ford on the horrors of fossil fuels, choosing instead to concentrate on their surroundings, because somebody had to. It was why they were there, after all. This floor was below sea level, which made Rodney’s chest tight with barely-controlled panic, but even he could tell the view outside the windows was beautiful. He swore he saw fish beyond the shield. Maybe he should suggest Zelenka give this floor to the zoologists.

As some sort of weird proof to the universe Sumner was a colonel for a reason, Ford ended up being a great addition to their twosome. He got along much better with Sheppard than Rodney, but everyone except those Sheppard worked for got along with Sheppard. But he wasn’t someone Rodney disliked being around; on the contrary, their one common ground was women (although much later Rodney would realize Ford never took him seriously on this subject), and it was something they talked about in great, great detail. Whenever Ford joined Sheppard and Rodney at meals, they’d rate every woman in the mess, while Sheppard rolled his eyes. Rodney once tried to fix up Ford with Miko.

“Miko?” Ford said, glancing over at her at a table with some other women scientists and soldiers. Miko, not noticing, giggled over something a Marine said. She really was cute. “Cool, I’ve never been with an asian woman.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Rodney said, smirking.

Ford narrowed his eyes. “What do they say?”

Rodney cleared his throat. “Uh. Once you go black you… never… not go black again.”

Ford stared at him for a second, then tossed his head back and laughed. “You’re such a dork, man.”

Unfortunately, Ford became distracted and started dating one of the zoologists instead, a tall, voluptuous woman from Argentina. Ford was a good man and a good soldier, but he was every bit his twenty-five years. “Dating” was a considerably loose term on Atlantis. They adapted it by using it to refer to eating meals together, or going on long walks along the piers, or sometimes, common among the military portion of the population, beating the crap out of each other in the gym. Although by those standards, most of the people in the city were dating. It was more common for people to just sleep together. How no one got pregnant until after two years of being in the city — and then people started popping out babies like it was going out of style — was a loss to Rodney.

Back in the underwater level, Sheppard snapped at Ford and huffily stomped ahead of them.

“Hey, McKay,” Ford said quietly, “whatever you did, you need to apologize.”

“What?” Rodney asked.

“John’s been such a bitch to everyone lately. Just say you’re sorry.”

Rodney glanced at the taut line of Sheppard’s shoulders. “I didn’t– hang on, did you just call him a bitch?”

Ford shrugged. “My cousin Liam’s gay. I’m hip. I know how to talk to white people.”

“Aren’t you from, like, Iowa or something?” Rodney asked.

Glaring menacingly and hefting his gun on one shoulder — which might’ve been frightening if Rodney didn’t know Ford slept with his bathroom light on every night and still had nightmares about the Gozer the Gozerian — Ford retorted, “Hey, I’m ghetto, motherfucker. I’ll pop a cap in your ass.”

“There’s Wilco and Bright Eyes on your iPod,” Rodney pointed out. “How are you in the army again?”

“Johnny has show tunes on his,” Ford said, loud enough for Sheppard to turn around and scowl. “Show tunes and songs by old dead guys. I don’t think he listens to anything made after 1985.”

“That reminds me,” Sheppard said, waiting for them to catch up, “Bates still has my Music Man cd. And I wouldn’t laugh if I were you, McKay. Just how many mp3s of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest do you need?”

“Rob Halford’s gay,” Rodney said.

Sheppard snorted. “No way.”

The doors to the labs were all open down here, but they looked empty and, strangely enough, clean. Rodney and Sheppard poked their heads inside long enough to determine nothing was salvageable, while Ford stood in the hallway, looking grim. Sheppard didn’t say a word while they did this, and he barely looked at Rodney as Rodney talked about how creepy this floor was and how they were all probably going to die. Something about the way the empty labs looked like they were waiting for someone to come back freaked Rodney out.

“You’ve been tense lately,” Rodney said finally to Sheppard.

“Nice of you to notice,” Sheppard sneered.

Rodney demanded, “What’s the matter with you? Can’t get laid?” Not wanting Sheppard to know he’d been eavesdropping on him and Parrish, he added quickly: “No time to jerk off?”

“What?” Sheppard asked, eyes widening.

“Uh,” Ford said, “I’m gonna let you two talk this out. I’ll be over… there… somewhere.”

Rodney said, “I don’t know about you, but I have to jerk off every day, or else I can’t concentrate at all.”

Sheppard’s face reddened.

“Don’t get me wrong, I prefer actual sex over my hand, but it happens– well, not as often as you’d expect, what with my intelligence and charm. Besides, sometimes it’s more satisfactory to just do it quick in the bathroom before a meeting.”

Sheppard’s face turned even redder, and he kept darting glances at Rodney. “You jerk off in the bathroom before meetings?”

Rodney nodded, relieved Sheppard had apparently decided to stop being angry with him. “Yeah, sometimes. The bathroom over by the west staircase is great.”

“The one– the one with the big bay windows?” Sheppard’s steps slowed down considerably. Then he stiffened and asked, “Why the fuck are you telling me this?”

“What?” Rodney asked. “Isn’t this what guys talk about? We’re bonding like men here.”

“We’re not fifteen anymore, God,” Sheppard said.

“Anyway,” Rodney said, mouth moving before he could stop it, “I know you’re, you know, not opposed to hearing about jerking off methods or anything.”

“Excuse me?” Sheppard asked.

“I’m just saying–”

“Ford,” Sheppard shouted, “get back here.”

“What’s wrong?” Ford asked, jogging up to them. He put his P-90 up onto one shoulder, looking around anxiously.

“I need you to shoot me.”

Ford looked at Rodney curiously.

“What?” Rodney asked the both of them.

They walked in silence for a little longer, and abruptly Sheppard snidely said to Rodney, “So how’s Dr Dumais?”

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Ford said, disappearing down the hall in the direction they came from.

“How the hell should I know how she is?” Rodney asked.

“You shouldn’t get involved with people you work with every day,” Sheppard said. “What if you broke up and things got weird?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Rodney sneered as they turned the corner. “I heard you with–”

He broke off. In the middle of the hall stood a scaly creature around two feet tall, with a long, straight tail and many, many rows of sharp teeth.

“Just to make sure,” Rodney said to Sheppard, “you see the giant lizard too, right?”

“I think it’s a dinosaur,” Sheppard said slowly.

“Oh, well, in that case–”

Sheppard grabbed his shoulder. “Run now, talk later.”

They took off for the transporter, Sheppard muttering, “Run away, run away, run away,” under his breath the entire time. Behind them, the dinosaur shrieked. Blank, white panic filled Rodney’s mind, drowning out any other conscious thought.

“What’s going on?” Ford called as they reached him.

“Dinosaur– type– thing,” Rodney gasped, pressing a hand against the stitch in his side. “Shoot it!”

“Holy shit!” Ford yelled, raising his gun. He let out what had to be an entire clip into the thing, while Sheppard and Rodney threw themselves around the corner. Rodney peeked out to watch the creature stumble, take a few more steps towards them, and collapse to the floor in a bloody mess.

The three of them stood over its still body.

“Huh,” Sheppard said. “I can tell you, I never expected to move to a different galaxy and see dinosaurs.”

“Bates told me his team once had to fight a T-rex,” Ford said. He poked the creature’s head with the tip of his P-90. “I guess I should apologize for not believing him.”

“Why is everything in this galaxy trying to kill us?” Rodney asked.

Ford poked it again. “You ever get the feeling the Ancients were kinda fucked up?”

Much like when Bates had stepped through the gate yelling they’d had to use their C-4 on “an honest-to-God T-rex,” no one believed Rodney, Sheppard, and Ford about their prehistoric foe until Sumner himself went down to check it out. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked, looking at Sheppard and Rodney like he expected them to have an answer — or to be the ones to blame. The delighted zoologists loaded the bloody carcass onto a spare infirmary stretcher and carted it off to their labs.

“It’s nice to see somebody getting something out of this,” Rodney grumbled, watching them practically skip off.

Sheppard stood staring in the direction the dinosaur had come from, hands on his hips. “We should investigate.”

“No,” Sumner said from behind them. Both of them turned towards him. “As of now, this area’s quarantined. Military personnel only. Lieutenant Ford,” he called, without looking away from Rodney and Sheppard, “assemble a team to go through this corridor and destroy anything that looks even remotely like it could be used in an experiment.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Ford said.

“You can’t do this!” Rodney protested. “You could be destroying extremely valuable scientific data.”

“Ask me if I care,” Sumner said.

And that was the end of that. Later, when Rodney asked, Ford told him they’d taken everything and buried it in the earth of an uninhabited planet. (Sheppard was aghast.) A few days after that, Sheppard dragged Rodney off to one of the huge balconies.

“Remember that dinosaur?” Sheppard asked.

“No,” Rodney said flatly.

“Word on the street is it was wearing dogtags,” Sheppard said.

“But its arms were so tiny,” Rodney said. “How did it put the tags on?”

Sheppard just looked at him.

Rodney cleared his throat. “So the dinosaur had been a human before. Right. Who was it?”

“Someone named Kate Heightmeyer. Parrish said she was the company shrink. You know her?”

“I knew of her,” Rodney admitted, remembering seeing her in the mess, “but I didn’t know her personally.”

Rodney had never spoken to Heightmeyer — he didn’t see any reason to go to a shrink at this point, although he was sorely tempted after nearly being killed in the hurricane — but he had concocted several scenarios in his head where he’d asked her out and she responded with, “Why yes, Dr McKay, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me.” In his mind, they’d skipped straight from there to the sex. Kate Heightmeyer was one of those doctors who went into psychology to find out what was wrong with herself. Her mother abandoned her family when Kate was just a kid, and her older brother killed himself after the Vietnam War. On Earth, she’d been a perfect candidate for the Atlantis project for one reason: no one really knew what to do with her. She was tough in a crisis, she wasn’t surprised by anything, but too many of her patients had a habit committing suicide. When she told her department head at USUHS she wanted him to recommend her for a secret project that would take her very far away, he wrote her a glowing review. The SGC never even saw it coming.

“Sumner and Weir are saying the person must’ve found some Ancient technology that turned her into a velociraptor,” Sheppard said.

Rodney asked, “Velociraptor? Like from ‘Jurassic Park’? That’s ridiculous. Even if the Ancients turned people into animals — which we have no evidence of — why would they turn them into dinosaurs from Earth?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Sheppard said. He licked his lips, looking thoughtful. “Do you think we have any palaeontologists in the city?”

“God, I hope not,” Rodney said. “I can barely stand the archaeologists.”

They actually had one paleontologist in the city. Well, Corrigan wasn’t exactly a paleontologist, just a cultural anthropologist with a minor in geophysics and a dinosaur obsession, but he was as close as they got. “Looks like a velociraptor to me,” Corrigan said after convincing one of the zoologists to let him check out the carcass. “This is amazing. Who figured it out?”

“Dr Weir,” Sheppard replied.

“Huh,” Rodney said, “that’s– huh. Seriously?”

“I think she has some weird hobbies,” Sheppard said. “Uh, no offense, Corrigan.”

Word spread like wildfire. The official explanation was Heightmeyer must’ve accidentally gotten into something in a lab that turned her into that creature. The whole thing left Rodney flabbergasted. Nothing about this made any sense at all.

“Why make something that could turn people into dinosaurs?” he asked Carson, pacing the infirmary. “How’d the virus still work after a thousand years? What was Heightmeyer doing down there?”

“Ah,” Carson said, “everyone who knows the answer to those questions is long dead.”

*

Whatever problem Sheppard had with Rodney and Dumais, they never got a chance to deal with it. Rodney wanted to think he wasn’t acting any different since he’d overheard Sheppard and Parrish, but now it was Sheppard who was behaving strangely. Not the same weird as a few weeks before; this was quieter and more subtle, almost like Sheppard didn’t want Rodney to think anything was going on. But Rodney wasn’t an idiot, and he could read Sheppard’s funny expressions — or lack thereof — like the back of his hand. Maybe, he figured, Sheppard just didn’t like Dumais. Maybe he thought she was too cold and robotic, or she was too young, or she wasn’t good-looking enough, or something. Now, when Sheppard stopped by the labs and Dumais was there, she became uncharacteristically flustered and wouldn’t look Sheppard in the eye, when before they seemed to get along fine.

The dinosaur situation was a good distraction, though. Nothing said teamwork better than ancient (or was it Ancient?) creatures possibly stalking the lower levels of the city. Their team expanded with the addition of two more soldiers — Sergeants Stackhouse and Smith — thanks to Sumner and his gift for turning any situation into a military one. Not that Rodney wasn’t horribly, embarrassingly grateful for the firepower.

About two weeks after the dinosaur attack, Rodney headed downstairs to see if Sheppard would help him activate a device found earlier that day, because his gene didn’t seem to do anything to it. But Sheppard was nowhere to be found. He had to make small talk with Parrish (who he hated just on principle, and who was totally stoned out of his mind), and predictably, Brown kept glancing at him and giggling behind her hands. Rodney didn’t like the botany labs very much; they made him nervous, what with their alien plants and glass walls and extremely humid temperatures. It was an allergy attack waiting to happen.

He eventually made an excuse and left, but he came back about half an hour later. When he was about to enter, he heard Parrish say: “Your scary boyfriend came down here earlier.”

“I told you, he’s not my boyfriend,” Sheppard snapped.

“That’s not what the rest of the city is saying,” Parrish said. “Everyone thinks he slept with Dumais because you guys were fighting.”

“He slept with Dumais ’cause he’s an asshole,” Sheppard said. “It had nothing to do with me.”

Of course it had nothing to do with Sheppard, Rodney thought. Then he remembered how strange he’d felt when he found Sheppard coming onto Parrish, and how equally strange he felt sleeping with Dumais, and he connected point A to point B, and he thought, Oh hell.

Sheppard’s voice came closer. “I’ve got to give Zelenka the–” He stopped suddenly, eyes widening when he saw Rodney. “Oh. Hey.”

“Hey,” Rodney managed.

Sheppard glanced back over his shoulder at the lab, then he asked Rodney, “I’m heading upstairs, want to walk with me?”

They fell into step together. “I heard a new joke,” Sheppard said. “What do you call a mushroom who’s the life of the party? A fungi.”

“That’s retarded,” Rodney said. “You’re so– Are you gay?”

That wasn’t what he meant to say. For one thing, he already knew Sheppard was gay. What he meant to say was, “It’s not a big deal if you’re, you know,” and, “How does being with Dumais make me an asshole?” and even, “You could do better than Parrish,” but his brain worked at lightening speed, and his mouth couldn’t catch up.

“Of course, it is obvious,” Rodney stated, before Sheppard could say anything. “The hair, the wristband, the Rent album on your iPod.”

“My hair’s completely natural,” Sheppard said, reaching up to touch it protectively.

“Lies,” Rodney said. “Vicious lies.”

Sheppard shifted uncomfortably. “I thought you knew. About the gay thing, I mean, not the– if you don’t stop looking at my hair I’ll kick your ass. Stop it.”

“Does Ford know his best friend is a homo?”

The second he said it, he wished he could take it back. Sheppard flinched. “Oh, real nice, McKay. Let’s be grown up about this. And I didn’t have to tell Ford anything; he figured it out on his own.”

Rodney sneered, “Well, how very modern and open-minded of him. Are you two going to walk off into the sunset together?”

Sheppard gave him a narrow-eyed look. “What… exactly are we fighting about here?”

“I don’t know,” Rodney said, and it was true; he didn’t know anything when it came to Sheppard. “I’m straight,” he added quickly, heart hammering in his chest.

“You– okay,” Sheppard said. “Do you want me to tell everyone there’s nothing going on between us?”

“No,” Rodney answered, because that didn’t really bother him, although it probably should’ve, “just try not to be so–”

“Homosexual?” Sheppard asked, smiling thinly.

Rodney looked away. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked Zelenka later that night, when they were the only two left in the lab. Everyone else had already gone to bed, because they were quitters. Only Rodney and Zelenka had the stamina to stay up for days at a time, never leaving the labs.

Zelenka’s face twitched. “Yes, I suppose. What is it?”

He let out a deep breath through his nose. “Hypothetically speaking, how do you know if a gay guy hits on you?”

“Who else here is gay besides you and Dr Sheppard?” Zelenka asked.

Rodney scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not gay.”

Zelenka’s forehead wrinkled. “I do not understand.”

“You know what, forget I said anything,” Rodney said.

*

When Rodney, Sheppard, and Ford presented Carson with his new, shiny Ancient infirmary, he hugged all three of them, teary-eyed.

“You okay?” Sheppard asked slowly.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Carson said, blinking rapidly. He touched the beds, the strange machines, the cupboards, all unused for a thousand years. “It’s just that… sometimes I really hate this place. Don’t get me wrong, I know I signed up for this, but I didn’t expect to be so… alone. Sometimes I feel like I’m the alien here.”

“You are, technically,” Rodney said. Sheppard elbowed him in the gut.

Sheppard behaved normally on the outside, but Rodney felt like he was suffocating whenever they were in the same room together. Carson seemed to have a better grasp of what was going on with Rodney and Sheppard than Rodney did; he’d asked bluntly, “Are you two having problems?” after Rodney spent a few evenings in a row in the makeshift infirmary office, and when Rodney said he and Sheppard never have been and never would be a couple, Carson made him tea (Manarian purple tea leaves) and said they’d come to a solution soon enough. The dilemma with that was: Rodney didn’t know what sort of a solution there could be, because he couldn’t figure out the problem. It was the problem that was eluding him. Sheppard was his closest friend; Sheppard understood him like no one else; Sheppard was a constant presence in the back of Rodney’s mind, always, like a bad song he couldn’t stop thinking about. When he found something new, he thought, Sheppard would like this. When he walked through the halls, he thought, Sheppard made these floors light up. But he didn’t know what that said about him, and he definitely didn’t know what it said of their relationship.

It was starting to get to him. One slow evening he was sitting on the balcony off the control room, watching the sun disappear into the horizon, and Grodin plunked down beside him.

Grodin bumped his shoulder. “Hey. Fag?”

Rodney jumped. “You motherfucker!” he hissed.

“Whoa, I just want a smoke,” Grodin said, putting his hands up. Rodney’s anger deflated, but his face felt hot. “I heard you have some.”

“Go to hell,” Rodney said, getting up and storming away.

If Rodney was the kind of guy who could distance himself from a situation, he would’ve realized something important was happening here. But he wasn’t, and the moment passed him by unnoticed.

Ever since their horribly awkward conversation about Sheppard’s homosexuality, Rodney’d been spending more time either alone or with Carson. In the last few weeks, he’d learned: Carson missed his mum “terribly,” as he’d put it, Sumner was still harassing Carson to find a way to make the ATA gene work in the entire population, and Carson couldn’t stand watching people die due to alien drugs, Ancient experiments gone wrong, and equipment malfunctions. In other words, while Rodney’d been learning to love Atlantis, Carson had been learning to simply tolerate it.

They all should’ve seen Carson’s breakdown coming — Rodney especially; there weren’t many people he called his friends in those days, but Carson was one of them. Of course, Rodney didn’t understand people very well. Years later, he’d ask Sheppard, “Am I still as oblivious as I was when we first met?” and Sheppard would reply, “No, but Simpson switched everyone’s coffee to decaf last week, and you forgot my birthday again.” Carson’s emotional state was just one of those things that failed to register on Rodney’s radar, like the names of ninety-nine point nine percent of the Marines, or Miko’s stupid, ultimately embarrassing crush that ended in tears and weeks of avoidance. It took three years before Rodney stopped reminding the kitchen staff weekly of his allergies.

“What do you remember about our first year here?” Rodney asked John once. Sheppard went really still and quiet beside him, pretending to be asleep, but the next day a torn piece of paper found its way to Rodney’s lab bench:

1) The floors and walls lighting up when I walked.
2) Being shot!!!!
3) Getting caught selling the you-know-what to you-know-who.
4) Carson freaking out.
5) You saving everyone.

“Number five,” Rodney said, waving the paper in his face, “which time?”

Sheppard grinned toothily. “Every time. I remember more — I mean, I could’ve written about breeding Lens culinaris with–”

“But you know I don’t care, I see,” Rodney said.

So maybe Rodney shouldn’t've watched Carson more closely, but that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty later. Even if he had his own problems at the time. That was another thing, number three — “Getting caught selling the you-know-what to you-know-who.” Zelenka called Rodney into his office one morning when he was getting ready for another day of exploration; they were on their sixth level in the main area around the control room, downwards; the control room was established as ground zero from the start. Go up, and you found offices and meeting rooms and wide, open spaces. Everything else was below. They just didn’t know how much else, yet.

“What’s going on?” Rodney asked, the doors whispering shut behind him.

Zelenka raised his head from his desk. His hair was sticking up more than usual. “Sheppard’s been taken into custody by the soldiers. They are questioning him.”

A cold knot fisted itself in Rodney’s stomach. “What? About what?”

“I do not know. They say I don’t have clearance.”

“Clearance?” Rodney repeated. “We’re on a floating city millions of kilometres away from Earth, and they say you don’t have clearance for one of your own men?”

He didn’t feel too surprised by that, actually. That was the typical, pea-brained ape Sumner was: he didn’t care what the circumstances happened to be, if he couldn’t solve it by being a big man and pushing people around, then it wasn’t a real problem. And it was just like Zelenka not to fight it.

Rodney found Ford slinking around the only authorized pier, tossing bread into the water and watching as the possibly man-eating fish gobbled it up.

“I need to see Sheppard,” Rodney insisted, deciding to save the “stop wasting our food, you ignoramus,” speech for day when he didn’t need a favour.

Ford looked guilty. “No can do, man. I’ve got my orders. Besides, I don’t think you want to be mixed up with the doctor — you just don’t seem the type for this, okay?”

Rodney felt his face grow hot. There was only one thing Sheppard could’ve done to get the military this upset with him. God, Sheppard was his own worst enemy. “You don’t know,” he started, stumbling over his own words. “I don’t– I might, Lieutenant, for all you know.”

Ford’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, well, I guess you did go to college, huh? But I still can’t take you to him.”

But in the end, he did, because Ford was a good kid who liked Sheppard a little more than he probably should. Sheppard had that effect on people. It didn’t hurt that Rodney promised Ford he owed him one. “I can bend time and space,” he said, “I’m the guy you want on your side.”

When the brig doors slid open, Sheppard jumped to his feet. “McKay!” He didn’t look too worse for wear, but he sounded relieved. “They letting me out of here?”

Rodney touched Sheppard’s arm. “Jesus fuck, Sheppard,” he said, unbelievably angry. “Fucking Christ. You’re — and I really hate to use this expression, so it goes to show how angry I am — up shit creek without a paddle.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard replied grimly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I can’t believe you did something this moronic,” Rodney hissed.

“What can I say, old habits die hard,” Sheppard snapped.

“You do this a lot?” Rodney asked.

Sheppard had the grace to look embarrassed. “I guess. It’s a good way to supplement your income.”

“Oh my God,” Rodney shouted, “you wanted money for it? I just thought you came onto him!”

Sheppard’s mouth fell open. “What?” he gasped. “Who?”

“The Marine you hit on!” Rodney replied, waving his arms.

“Rodney,” Sheppard said, eyes wide, “I’m in here for selling the Marines drugs. Alien drugs I cooked up in my lab and traded for chocolate and trips to Atlantica.”

“Oh,” Rodney said, strangely relieved. Then: “Wait, you’ve been using millennia-old Ancient technology to make drugs? Are you high? No, you know what, don’t answer that. Are you insane?”

Sheppard crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, it’s the after-effects of the alien acid I’m tripping on.”

Rodney took a step backwards. “Really?”

“No! I’ve been– it just relaxes you, okay? That’s all.”

“Okay, okay,” Rodney said. “I’ll take care of everything, okay? I won’t let them abandon you on some planet or make you a slave or whatever it is they’re going to do.”

Sheppard blanched, but he nodded silently.

It hit Rodney that this was a lot worse than Sheppard being a slut. He didn’t know what Sumner’s policy on recreational drug use was, but considering he hadn’t seen the colonel in bellbottoms recently, and not to mention, oh, everything about the way the man behaved, he doubted Sumner was cool with it. Sumner ran Atlantis with an iron fist; Elizabeth and Zelenka constantly complained about him when they didn’t think anyone was listening in, but short of death, there wasn’t a lot they could do about him. Although by the next summer, Sumner would be killed by a group of farmers after trying to forcibly take their ZPM. Elizabeth would assign Bates to take command, and he’d run things surprisingly well — and that included turning a blind eye to some of what his soldiers and civilians did in their spare time.

At the age of forty-two, Bates was injured on a routine mission on the planet Athos, which held a painfully primitive people that wore a lot of animal skins. The Atlantians were there to mediate a trade agreement between the Athosians and the Genii, which was, in Rodney’s opinion, like telling a cat and a dog to play nicely.

Halfway through the meeting, the leader of the Athosians said, “You are just wasting our time. You ask for more than we are willing to part with.”

“Perhaps we can persuade you another way,” said the Genii representative, a short, twitchy man named Ladon Radim.

When the guns came out, Bates struggled to keep control of the situation. The Genii escaped, and no one was killed — but Bates was shot in the shoulder, taking a bullet intended for the Athosian leader.

“Guess the Amish have learned to fight back,” Lieutenant Yamato muttered. Bates bit his lip as Yamato tightly pressed his hand against the wound, trying to stop the blood flow.

The Athosian leader — a beautiful woman named Teyla Emmagan — nudged Yamato out of the way. She ripped the hem of her long coat into shreds in an efficient way Bates had only seen on the field and began wrapping his shoulder. “You were very brave,” she told him quietly.

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” he said.

Five months later, they were married. Normally, when people married aliens, they did one of two things: the couple moved to a different world, which actually helped Atlantis, because it established a network; or the alien spouse moved to Atlantis and took up a job similar to whatever they’d been doing before, except, of course, things like farming. (That was slightly problematic in some cases, because from time to time, people married alien prostitutes and concubines, who often didn’t understand why there weren’t any ladies of the night lurking through Atlantis’s halls.) Possibly due to Bates’s job as military commander, Teyla chose to take up residence on Atlantis, although everyone knew not to enter the gym when the boss and his wife were both in there.

It was Bates who Rodney appealed to when Sheppard wound up in the brig.

“You have to let Sheppard go,” Rodney said, walking straight into Bates’s office without bothering to ask permission.

Bates didn’t get up from his desk. He looked at Rodney like Rodney was a piece of dog shit stuck on the bottom of his shoe. “I don’t have to do anything, Doctor. And you know just as well as I do that Dr Sheppard’s being held for a valid reason. We can’t give the impression it’s okay to deal drugs out of labs.”

“Okay, good point,” Rodney said, “but you still have to let him go. He’s very important. To the science team, I mean.”

“Maybe we can make a deal.” Bates leaned forward in his chair. “I heard you have cigarettes.”

Half an hour later, Sergeant Markham and Lieutenant Miller were dismissed, and Rodney was left alone with a terrified and suspicious Sheppard.

“You’re free to go,” Rodney said, waving in the general direction of the door.

Sheppard’s face tightened. “Just like that? What’re they going to do with me?”

“You’re off Ford’s team,” Rodney said frankly. Sheppard winced, but nodded. “For the next three months, you have to be with either me or Zelenka at all times, except when you sleep, when you shower, that kind of thing. I have to report back to Bates exactly what you’ve been doing.”

“Great,” Sheppard sighed. “Like I didn’t have enough privacy already.”

“So I think you should thank me now, for keeping you from becoming Atlantis’s first indentured servant. They were probably going to give you to Carson to experiment on. And I think–” He took a deep breath. Sheppard’s face had gone horribly blank. “I think we should be done being weird. Because these last few weeks have completely sucked.”

“So I have to say friends with you because you helped me?” Sheppard asked, voice pitched low.

“No,” Rodney said, “because I’ve spent the last hour running around for a botanist drug dealer who’s too lazy to take precautions not to get caught.”

It was the best way Rodney could think of to tell Sheppard he cared, but for a long moment, he thought it flew right over Sheppard’s head. But then Sheppard’s expression softened. “You really know the right things to say to a guy, McKay.”

*

Much to Sheppard’s chagrin, Rodney turned him into his lab assistant. He cleared off a bench in the back of the lab and dumped on it a few crates with Ancient devices no one could decipher. “So what am I doing, exactly?” Sheppard asked. He picked up one — a weird metal tube with a pointed end — and the control panel on the side lit up.

“Keep doing that,” Rodney said. “Just don’t get anyone killed.”

“I’ll try not to set off any nuclear bombs,” Sheppard said.

Rodney watched Sheppard out of the corner of his eye all day. For all his sighing and pouting, Sheppard seemed to be having a good time with the equipment. He was diligently typing his observations into his laptop, a little bit of tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.

Zelenka appeared at Rodney’s elbow. “I need to talk to you,” he said quietly.

“In case you can’t tell, I’m a little busy right now,” Rodney grunted, looking back at his work. “Can’t it wait?”

Zelenka gave him a dark look. “No, it cannot. I spent this morning being reminded by Colonel Sumner of the promise I made to ‘take care of’ the ‘Dr Sheppard problem.’ Imagine how stupid I must’ve felt when I had no idea what he was talking about.”

Rodney sighed. “If it helps, you can tell Sumner it was all me. Bates must’ve told him–”

“I do not care what was told to whom,” Zelenka snapped. “Of course I will make sure Sheppard does not get punished by Sumner’s people for something so ridiculous. What I care about is you going over my head. And it is not just once or twice; it’s constant.”

Zelenka’s anger wasn’t entirely without cause. Earlier that week, Rodney had been approached by Vogel and Simpson after hours.

“We need your help,” Simpson said. She handed him her data pad, which had contained a page of notes and equations. Rodney read over them quickly, then asked:

“Shouldn’t you be showing this to Zelenka? It’s his job, after all.”

Simpson and Vogel exchanged glances. “We’d rather you looked at it,” Simpson said.

“Zelenka’s smart,” Vogel added, “but you’re smarter.”

“Well, yes,” Rodney said, inexplicably touched. He could hardly turn them down after that.

*

For two months, Sheppard and Rodney worked side-by-side in the main physics lab. Sheppard picked up on things surprisingly quickly for someone who worked exclusively with plants; he was amazingly good at math, which Rodney didn’t expect at all, and pretty soon nearly everyone was asking him to double-check their formulas. Even Kavanagh, who had at first acted like Sheppard being Rodney’s assistant was a great crime against humanity. “Why does McKay’s boyfriend get his own bench while I have to share with Simpson?” he whined. Zelenka just seemed pleased Sheppard was actually working. Rodney was pretty certain no one knew the true reason Sheppard was there, rather than in his greenhouse, and he could only imagine what they thought, but he shook off their questions with a, “He’s more use to us here, sniffing out what still works and what doesn’t, than sitting in the botany lab knitting a hemp sweater, or whatever it is they do there.”

“Hey, Rodney?” Sheppard would ask seriously, leaning over Rodney’s work station. “What did the thermometer say to the graduated cylinder? ‘You may have graduated, but I’ve got many degrees.’“

“I should’ve left you in the brig,” Rodney would mutter.

For two months, they avoided any serious injuries or life-threatening situations. There were no more run-ins with dinosaurs, no one went mysteriously missing, and Atlantis didn’t try to kill them even once. Things were quiet, but nice. Rodney waited for the other shoe to drop.

There were two German doctors who Rodney never once heard speak English; one was tall and blonde and had a constant pinched look about her, and the other was short and squat with big, round glasses. Sheppard named them Fräulein Creme and Fräulein Kaffee, respectively, because of their colouring, and because that was pretty much the only German Sheppard remembered outside of “Sprechen sie Englisch” and “Dan shwince ist soo cline” — the latter of which Rodney later found out meant, “Your dick is very small,” and there was probably a story behind that he didn’t want to know. Rodney forgot the two scientists’ names almost as soon as he learned them, so when he needed them, he’d just say, “Someone get me Coffee and Cream.” They were almost always together; Sheppard called their corner of the lab the “Kaffeehaus.” (Sheppard mistakenly thought he was pretty funny.) Despite her name, Kaffee was anything but robust; even through the German, Rodney could recognize stuttering, and she tended to turn pink when ever she saw Sheppard. Once, thinking she couldn’t understand, Kavanagh called her a Nazi, and she burst into tears. Fräulein Creme, on the other hand, was someone who Rodney wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. She and Zelenka had big, screaming matches in German (or Czech, or both; Rodney was pretty shitty at languages), while the rest of the physicists watched them wave arms and pace and get each other’s faces.

“Neser me!” Zelenka would yell.

“Du scheißt’ mich an!” Creme would shout back.

“Krava,” Zelenka would growl, storming out of his office, and Creme would hiss behind him, “Oberarsch.”

“I bet this is what the UN is like,” said Sheppard the first time he witnessed it.

“It’s like almost like watching Animal Planet, isn’t it?” Rodney said. “Although somebody should warn Zelenka she probably kills the male after mating.”

So it wasn’t Rodney’s fault that when he walked in on Zelenka kissing Dr Weir, his first words were, “Jesus Christ, I think I’m blind.” They’d all been misled. It looked like what was between Zelenka and Creme was, indeed, seething hatred, and not sexual tension.

“Dr McKay–” Weir started.

“In the labs, Zelenka?” Rodney demanded. “That’s like begging to be caught. Is this a cry for help? Is that what this is?”

“Dr McKay,” Weir repeated, this time in a completely different tone.

“Elizabeth,” Zelenka said quietly, “I will handle this. I will see you later for dinner.”

Dr Weir nodded at Zelenka, smoothed down the front of her red shirt, and with one final narrowed look in Rodney’s direction, left.

“Oh,” Rodney said, “now that’s just wrong. She’s at least a foot taller than you.”

Zelenka’s face reddened, but he raised his chin. “I would not be so quick to judge, if I were you. Everyone knows–”

“I didn’t take you for a man who listened to gossip,” Rodney sneered. “Although it’s not surprising, considering–”

“–Everyone knows,” Zelenka shouted, “about you and a certain botanist.” He calmed down, and added in a steady voice, “I cannot date people who work for me. Neither can Elizabeth. Together we have found– you know what it’s like, surely, to have limited options but still find someone to love. It is extraordinary.”

“For God’s sake,” Rodney said, “I’m not gay. I can’t believe I have to keep reminding people that.”

“Of course you are not,” Zelenka said, face softening with understanding, “you just like to have the sex with the men, is all.”

“You know, this never happened to me in the Milky Way.”

Zelenka patted his shoulder. “You should be more discreet, perhaps, if it bothers you.”

It seemed everyone in the city was hooking up. Zelenka and Weir. Ford and his many, many lady friends. Rodney was pretty sure Grodin was seeing Parrish — he kept finding Grodin parading around the botany lab in progressively tighter t-shirts — and one day he went down to the greenhouse and saw Kavanagh giving Katie Brown a bouquet of pink flowers he’d picked on Atlantica. Dumais started dating one of the engineers from the control room — a quiet, thoughtful man not unlike herself. On what would’ve been Valentine’s Day, Biro, Simpson, Miko, and a few of the female soldiers formed a support group for bitter single ladies (and Rodney only knew what day it was because Simpson attempted to remind Rodney to do something special for Sheppard, and like everyone else in this god forsaken city, she didn’t believe him when he said they weren’t dating). If Rodney was the kind of person interested in psychology, he might’ve said everyone’s sudden pairing up was the result of people settling down and turning Atlantis into their home, rather than waiting for the day they’d go back to Earth.

The day Rodney would kiss Sheppard for the first time started out almost like any other. They were set to explore one of the floors in a nearby tower, but Sergeant Smith fell ill with what was probably the alien space flu (“Or, you know, a cold,” Sheppard said, rolling his eyes at Rodney), and no one could find Carson anywhere. This wasn’t unusual; Carson had a tendency to disappear for hours at a time, but no one ever considered it a big deal because it was never during an emergency. Rodney always figured he was off somewhere crying over his mum or his sheep or something.

Since he and Sheppard made up, Rodney had gone back to spending little time with Carson. They were friends, sure, but something about the thought of Carson, Sheppard, and him all sitting around shooting the breeze made Rodney uneasy. They never hung out much with Ford, either. Sheppard was his friend, and he didn’t really want to expand their tiny circle from two to three (and especially not four). Ford seemed to pick this up instinctively — probably in the same manner in which he knew about Sheppard’s sexuality before Rodney did — and Mr Popular had his own army buddies anyway, some of whom weren’t entirely comfortable around Sheppard. That’s not to say they ever messed with him, but clearly the gay thing wasn’t cool with them, no matter how often Ford said Sheppard was a good guy. As for Rodney… well, he didn’t make a habit of hanging out with soldiers barely out of high school anyway.

“It must be rough to be gay and around the US military all the time,” Rodney said once.

Sheppard cocked a brow. “Trust me, there are plenty of gay guys in the army. Plenty in the SGC, even.”

“For real?” Rodney’s mind flashed to everyone he’d ever met at the SGC.

“Oh yeah, It was like cruising without leaving the house,” Sheppard drawled, leaning back in his chair smugly. He glanced around the mess, then lowered his voice. “This guy before we left for Atlantis, Cameron–”

“You seriously dated a guy named Cameron?”

“It wasn’t so much dated as it was a sex-on-the-base thing,” Sheppard said. “He was– He kept calling me Jack in bed, and sometimes Daniel. It was pretty weird. Oh, and one time he called me something that sounded like ‘talc’? I don’t know.”

“Teal’c?” Rodney asked, horrified.

Sheppard brightened. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

Rodney stared. “How have you never been the recipient of a hate crime?”

Minus the missing member of their team, Rodney, Sheppard, Ford, and Stackhouse marched through their designated sector. Weeks without running for their lives made them less cautious than they should’ve been; Sheppard and Rodney argued over whether or not the lights in this area were dimmer than usual, while Ford and Stackhouse lingered far behind, discussing baseball.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, slowing down, “some of these labs look used. Like, recently used.”

Rodney snorted. “Don’t be stupid, why would someone be–?”

That was when they stumbled into a lab — and into Carson. He was leaning over an overstocked bench, peering into a microscope. The lab was filled with used equipment, diagrams on the walls, and shelf after shelf of chemicals and medical supplies.

“Carson?” Rodney asked incredulously. “What’s going on here?”

“Oh my,” Carson said, sounding sheepish. “I was really hoping to get through this without using physical violence.”

Suddenly Carson had a gun in his hand, and he was slamming a button that was lowering the doors. Outside, Rodney heard Ford call, “McKay? John?”

“This is bad,” Sheppard said slowly, raising his hands.

“No, this is fantastic,” Rodney hissed, raising his as well. “Of course it’s bad!”

“Where’d you get that gun?” Sheppard asked Carson, who shrugged and said, “Oh, you know, Colonel Sumner thought everyone should have a means of defending themselves.”

“I didn’t get a gun. Did you get a gun?” Rodney asked Sheppard. Sheppard shook his head. “That bastard.”

“What exactly’s going on here?” Sheppard asked, sounding awfully demanding for someone completely defenseless.

Either Carson was going to kill them brutally, or he had the common sense of a brick, because he explained his plan like a character in a bad movie. “I’ve been working on a retrovirus to turn humans into dinosaurs,” Carson replied, gesturing behind him to a series of silver cylinders Rodney’d seen before — in one of the labs on the floor where they’d found Heightmeyer. “I’m going to release the retrovirus as a gas through the ventilation system. Within a matter of hours, everyone in Atlantis will be ripping each other to shreds, while I’ll be safely on Atlantica with a gatejumper.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Rodney asked. Before Atlantis, he’d've argued it wasn’t possible to create such a retrovirus, but. Besides, if anyone knew how to screw up the human genome, it was Carson. “Do you hear yourself when you speak? Why would you do that?”

“I’ve been under a lot of pressure,” Carson snapped.

They were completely, utterly fucked, but Rodney couldn’t help himself: “I can’t believe you turned Dr Heightmeyer into a dinosaur,” he said, appalled.

“I hated talking about my feelings with that– that scarlet woman,” Carson said passionately. “She made me talk about my mum! She didn’t understand it just made me miss my mum more. I had to put an end to it.”

“Why didn’t you just stop seeing her?” Sheppard asked.

Carson stared at him blankly for a long moment. “Oh,” he said finally, “I suppose I could’ve done that… Frankly, turning her into a dinosaur was the first thing that popped into my head.”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” Rodney said. “You know that’s weird, right?”

Carson waved the gun. “Rodney, it’s not a good idea to make fun of the man aiming a weapon at your face. Now pipe down and go sit in the corner.

“Did you know,” Carson said, carefully filling a syringe with something from a small vial with one hand, still holding the pistol with the other, “that velociraptors have a five inch hooked claw on each foot? Normally, it’s upright when the creature’s walking or running, but when it attacks, the claw snaps down and slices apart whatever it’s hunting. It’s quite fascinating.”

“I don’t care,” Rodney said. He met Sheppard’s eyes and whispered, “I think he’s gone crazy.”

“What gave you that idea?” Sheppard hissed. “The part where he turned Heightmeyer into a dinosaur, or the part where he wants to kill everyone in the city?”

“It’s really too bad. You were such a lovely couple,” Carson was saying, and Sheppard whispered, barely audible, “We can’t let him do this.” Sheppard’s eyes flickered around the room quickly, his expression determined, and he was so completely out of his league, and yet so insanely courageous, that Rodney thought, Screw it. Enough with the self-denial; if they got out of there still human, Rodney was totally going to have the big gay sex with Sheppard. He was still pondering this when Sheppard leapt to his feet and launched himself at Carson. Carson raised the gun and fired — and for a heart-stopping moment, Rodney thought Sheppard had been hit, but Sheppard dove behind another bench, unharmed.

Before he knew what he was doing, Rodney found himself on his feet, tackling Carson from the other side. Rodney punched him in the face, and Carson stumbled back, one hand covering his now bloody nose. “Ow!” they both cried at the same time. “Dammit,” Rodney added, shaking his throbbing hand.

Carson punched Rodney in the stomach, and Rodney doubled over, unable to breath, pain lighting up his abdomen. Who knew Carson was strong under that shaggy beard and lab coat? “I’ve been working on this for months,” Carson growled.

Rodney hit back blindly. Sometime in the chaos, Carson dropped his gun, and it went clattering across the floor. Rodney started to stagger after it, but Carson grabbed his shoulder tightly — and then he jabbed a needle in Rodney’s arm.

Everything happened in a matter of seconds, but to Rodney, those seconds felt like hours. Thoughts flashed through his head faster then he could process: He hadn’t won a Nobel prize yet. Hadn’t gotten them back to Earth. Hadn’t solved all the mysteries to life, the universe, and everything. Hadn’t kissed Samantha Carter. Hadn’t climbed a mountain. Hadn’t told Sheppard– told Sheppard–

Carson’s thumb started to press down, and–

A shot went off. Gingerly, Carson reached up touched the bloody wound on his shoulder, eyes huge. “Oh dear,” he said, and then he crumpled to the floor. Sheppard stood behind him, taking in deep, open-mouthed breaths, Carson’s gun in his hands.

“Great aim,” Rodney managed, cringing as he pulled the syringe out of his bicep. “One more second and I would’ve been a Rodneysaurus.”

“You’re welcome,” Sheppard said weakly.

And that was when Ford and Stackhouse managed to open the door.

*

It didn’t take long for Rodney to disable the canisters while Sheppard ripped up Carson’s labcoat and bound his shoulder. By the time Sumner, Zelenka, and Weir made it to the tower, Carson was awake again, propped up against the wall. Both Ford and Stackhouse had their P-90s trained on him. Zelenka walked around the room slowly and looked at Carson’s stolen equipment, adjusting his glasses. He looked vaguely horrified.

Sumner took one look at his bloody head doctor, his bruised civilians, and his city’s obviously secret laboratory, and he bellowed, “Someone needs to tell me what’s going on here. Now.”

Ford started, “Sir, Dr Beckett pulled a gun–” as Sheppard began, “Godzilla–” and Rodney said, “Somehow Carson had the great idea of turning everyone into prehistoric lizard killing machines,” and Stackhouse finished off with, “Sir, have you ever seen Jurassic Park?”

Dr Weir held up a hand. “One at a time, please.”

“Beckett created a retrovirus to turn everyone in the city into dinosaurs,” Sheppard said. He sounded apologetic. “His plan was to set it off today and flee in a jumper.”

Weir looked like this explanation physically hurt her. “I see.”

“Dinosaurs?” Sumner asked flatly. He glowered at Carson. “You were going to turn the entire human race into dinosaurs, but you can’t figure out how to give everyone the ATA gene?”

“I’m not a miracle worker, Colonel,” Carson said.

Ford and Stackhouse escorted Carson to the brig, with Weir at their heels. Sheppard gave Sumner the details on how they stopped Carson — noticeably leaving out the part where Rodney hurt his hand — while Rodney tried to figure out if he was having a panic attack or not. He felt okay; he felt more than okay, actually, which was strange in itself. He knew he was staring at Sheppard, but he was unable to stop it, especially once Sheppard started throwing him glances too. His stomach hurt like a motherfucker, and it was just his luck the doctor was evil, because he probably had broken ribs and broken fingers, but he was alive. Both of them were alive.

“I can’t decide if what you did was really idiotic or really brave,” Rodney said finally, leaving Sumner and Zelenka alone in the lab.

Sheppard smiled at him gently. “I thought you were pretty brave in there. I didn’t even think you knew how to fight.”

“Oh, you know,” Rodney said airily, waggling the fingers on his good hand. “We almost died,” he added.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “I guess.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. Rodney fisted a hand in Sheppard’s t-shirt and yanked Sheppard towards him, pressing their lips together in a fumbling, opened-mouthed kiss. When he let go, Sheppard stumbled backwards, looking shocked.

“I’m sorry,” Rodney said, “that was uncalled for.”

“You’re– I thought you were straight,” Sheppard said. He slowly licked his lips, studying Rodney with an unreadable expression on his face.

Rodney clenched his hands into fists. “Yeah, uh, not so much.”

“Well, just so we’re clear,” Sheppard said, and they were kissing again, one of Rodney’s palms on Sheppard’s back, the other on his waist, and Sheppard’s hands cradling Rodney’s face. They kissed slowly, with just a touch of tongue, and it was the hottest kiss of Rodney’s life.

“Oh,” he heard Zelenka’s disgusted voice behind them say, “not gay, McKay? You lie like a dog.”

Sheppard laughed against Rodney’s mouth.

They were just pulling away when Sumner walked past, giving them a disapproving look. Rodney said, “Whatever, he’s just jealous of me.” Sheppard made a face.

“My place isn’t too far,” Sheppard said between kisses.

“We’re the only ones down here,” Rodney pointed out, running a finger along the waistline of Sheppard’s slacks.

Sheppard smacked Rodney’s roaming hand. “I’m not having sex with you in the hallway.”

“You’re such a woman,” Rodney scoffed.

It should’ve been scary — it was scary, and at the same time, it wasn’t, because this was Sheppard. Skinny, dorky, gorgeous Sheppard with his crazy hair and his weird habits and his stupid plants, who genuinely liked Rodney; maybe even loved him, too. He stripped off Sheppard’s t-shirt, pants, boxers, and Nike runners almost before the apartment door even slid closed behind them, running his hands over Sheppard’s surprisingly tan skin, feeling Sheppard shivering beneath them. “Have you been sunbathing?” Rodney accused. When Sheppard opened his mouth to answer, Rodney kissed him, pushing his tongue inside. Sucking on Rodney’s tongue, Sheppard started frantically tugging on Rodney’s belt until Rodney pushed him away long enough to get all his clothes off, and then they fell onto the bed in a big, naked heap.

“God, Rodney,” Sheppard groaned, “I’ve wanted– you don’t even know–”

They rolled until Rodney was on top, and Rodney rocked back on his heels and just looked. He knew Sheppard was thin with long, lean muscles (hello, vanity), but looking at him now, spread out on white sheets like his own personal, dirty fantasy, Rodney couldn’t believe it took him this long to realize he wanted this. Wanted Sheppard. They could’ve been doing this for months. Rodney blamed society for his heterosexual preconceptions.

“What’s wrong?” Sheppard asked, cupping the back of Rodney’s neck with one hand.

Rodney shook his head. “It’s just… You are so hot I can’t even put it into words.”

“I bet you say that to all the botanists,” Sheppard said.

Rodney grimaced. “Are you trying to make me lose my boner?” Sheppard chuckled and pulled Rodney back down, rolling his hips. “Jesus,” Rodney gasped. This was going to end really fast.

He took Sheppard’s cock in his hand. He’d never held another guy’s cock before, and it felt weird, but familiar. Rodney didn’t like being out of his element, and if it was anyone but Sheppard he didn’t think he could do this without freaking out, but he knew how to do this, sort of. He told himself, Just do to him what you like having done to you, and he pulled long, firm strokes while Sheppard writhed underneath him. That definitely made him more confident.

“Rodney.” Sheppard moaned and came, Rodney’s hand still moving, and it was just so hot.

Sheppard was still panting when Rodney climbed on top of him and just started rubbing off against Sheppard’s hip. Sheppard flattened his big, hot palms on Rodney’s back and hooked one ankle behind Rodney’s knee, and Rodney pressed his forehead against Sheppard’s hard shoulder and babbled nonsense and came and came and came.

“You called me John,” Sheppard said lazily.

Rodney rolled off of him. “I didn’t even know your first name. I thought it was Jack.”

“Now you sound like my ex,” Sheppard said.

“I thought you said you didn’t date him,” Rodney said, narrowing his eyes.

They manoeuvred until they were on their sides, face to face, legs tangled. He knew in the morning, his abdomen and hand would hurt so bad he’d want to die, but right now he didn’t feel a thing. Sheppard was all glowy and rumpled, and nothing about this was bad. That was barely gay all, Rodney thought. There were still dozens of really gay things they could do later, and he was looking forward to doing them all. And later they could have sex in his apartment, too.

“Your hair looks like a rooster,” Rodney murmured, running a hand through it.

“Mmm,” Sheppard said, eyes drifting shut. “You gonna freak out in the morning?”

“Probably,” Rodney said. “But just give me a few hours. I’ll be fine after the panic attack. You have any paper bags handy?”

Sheppard opened his eyes and nodded gravely. “I’d probably freak out too if I was changing my sexual preference at this age.”

Rodney frowned. “What? I was talking about the dinosaurs. That was some messed up shit back there. Besides,” he added, patting Sheppard’s arm, “you’re gay enough for the both of us.”

Sheppard scowled.

The next day, he and Sheppard were utter professionals in public. They ate together, argued, threw things at each other across the lab — completely normal behaviour. But then Gall — clearly influenced by Sheppard — called across the room: “Hey, McKay, what do you call Tyrannosaurus rex when it wears a cowboy hat and boots? A Tyrannosaurus tex!”

“That’s awesome,” Sheppard said, laughing so hard he had to lean against the wall. He was the only one.

“I cannot believe I have sex with you,” Rodney said, and then he realized what he said and snapped his mouth shut. But it was too late, the damage was done. He caught several of the physicists smiling at him. Miko sighed dejectedly. Dumais patted his shoulder when she walked past. When Sheppard told Parrish (and Grodin), a few days later over a pot of tea spiked with mushrooms, Parrish said, “The whole city knows by now. The general consensus seems to be McKay’s decided to stop hiding your love from the public.”

“I can’t believe McKay went gay for you,” Grodin said.

“I should be getting my free toaster in the mail any day now,” Sheppard said.

A week later, Rodney pulled the blankets over a still-sleeping Sheppard’s bare shoulders and went down to the control room. Zelenka and Dr Weir were already there. Zelenka waggled his eyebrows at Rodney knowingly — which, under any other circumstance, would have been either hilarious or infuriating — but Rodney refused to feel embarrassed for balling the hottest guy in Atlantis.

Weir looked grim. “I’m still having a hard time accepting Dr Beckett wanting to kill us.”

“He said something about being really stressed,” Rodney said. “Which reminds me, you might want to have a word with Colonel Sumner on how his anal retentiveness is driving other people to madness.”

He stared down at Carson standing before the gate, which was dialing out. Carson looked sad, circles under his eyes, shoulders slumped, and a wave of melancholy washed over Rodney. Carson was sensitive, friendly, and genuinely a nice guy — the idea of an Atlantis without him was hard to imagine. It was almost enough for Rodney to forget Carson trying to inject him with the retrovirus. After all, they’d been friends since the frozen wasteland of McMurdo, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Good friends.

“I’ll get you for this, Rodney McKay,” Carson shouted up at him, raising his fist.

“What, are you a cartoon villain now?” Rodney called back. “Go through the goddamn stargate already, Doctor Claw.”

The Marines started pushing Carson with the backs of their P-90s. He held up his hands. “No need to get pushy, lads. I’m going, I’m going.”

Carson and the Marines stepped through the gate, and that was the last Rodney would ever see of him.

“So where’re they sending him?” Rodney asked as the gate shut down.

“We traded him to the Genii for twenty tons of beans,” Weir said.

“Huh,” Rodney said.

He stood on the balcony for a few more minutes, thinking about that. While he was standing there, tiny things all over the city were breaking. Power was being depleted. Marines were touching things they weren’t supposed to. One of the scientists somewhere was fucking with something that could possibly kill them all. Carson was gone forever, but Atlantis was still going strong. When Rodney turned to leave, Zelenka stopped him.

“Hey, Rodney,” Zelenka started.

“No, I don’t have any cigarettes,” Rodney said.

“You lie about everything,” Zelenka said resentfully, and Weir lowered her head and smiled.

Sheppard’s apartment was on the lower fourth floor of the central tower, with a wide balcony that overlooked an even wider ocean. Rodney hummed Dvořk’s New World Symphony while he passed through the halls. Elsewhere, Zelenka and Dr Weir bumped knees under the briefing table as Sumner told them which world he wanted to visit next. Bates finished reading the last of Bridget Jones’s Diary; Ford fell asleep to Atmosphere and Talib Kweli. Down in the labs, Miko and Dumais helped Fräulein Kaffee search the Ancient databases for information on telescopes, and Kavanagh quietly snatched one of his pens from Simpson’s cluttered bench. (Simpson would steal it back in the morning.) Waiting for Rodney to arrive, Sheppard planted flower bulbs Brown brought him back from M2X-91 and left the pot on the moon-lit balcony. And on the Genii homeworld, Carson reconsidered the direction of his life.

*

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The title is a line from a Calexico song.

Super huge thanks to Keri, who is an endless source of inspiration. By which I mean some of the jokes in here are totally hers. And she was also my beta. Also, thanks to minervacat for helping me make sure my smut didn’t suck.

Summary: Elizabeth makes mistakes, Halling runs for president of Atlantica, and Sheppard accidentally learns something about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. McKay/Sheppard. General spoilers for Seasons One and Two.

“My people are used to destruction,” Halling said to him, “but this is a bit much.”

John leaned against the shovel he was using to toss dirt onto the burning pile that was once a hut. “Hey now,” he said, “you know Elizabeth didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Halling’s gaze traveled over the wreckage. “Is that so? This is not the first time Dr Weir has ‘accidentally’ burned down our village.”

The former Athosian settlement was a smouldering black mess. The cooked grass beneath their feet fanned out into a large circle, and the handful of trees that dotted the hamlet were brown and withered. Halling was staring at the elaborate fountain Elizabeth had installed as a peace offering for that one time with the Wraith virus-infected lab rabbit and the really big rocks that everyone had agreed never to mention again. The fountain was the only thing that didn’t look ruined. That was probably a metaphor for something, but the look on Halling’s face kept John from bringing it up.

Instead, he said, “Actually, last time was my fault, since I was the one who turned the doohicky on with my brain,” and boy, had that been a mess.

Halling gave an unconvinced “hmm.” When he didn’t say anything else, John blew out an irritated breath and went back to shoveling. He understood that Halling was angry, but Elizabeth didn’t mean to do it. No one could have predicted this would happen. Well, okay, that was a lie; Rodney had repeatedly said it was a bad idea, and so had Zelenka and Simpson and Kavanagh and that scary blonde German, and actually, John had told her it wouldn’t work, too. But the point was, Elizabeth hadn’t had any bad intentions, and no one had died, except for that one guy, and nobody had liked him anyway.

“I do not mean to ask you to say anything disrespectful about Dr Weir, but I must know, with whom did she duel to win her position?”

John carefully lowered the shovel. “Huh?” he asked cleverly.

“I ask because, if you will forgive me, sometimes I wonder if the previous leader of your people was very weak, allowing Dr Weir to win a match she–”

“Duel?” John cut in.

Halling gave him the same look he had when they’d first met and John had asked what the hell a Wraith was. “When one our people wants to take command, he must fight the current leader to the death.”

“I thought your people were peaceful?” John gaped. Then a horrible realization struck him. “Does that mean Teyla’s your leader because she killed someone?”

“Of course not,” Halling said calmly, “we would not make someone our leader just for that. She had to kill his second as well.”

That actually explained a lot about Teyla. John had always respected the fact she’d totally kill him if she had to. Of course, now that he knew she would for sure, that sort of creeped him out. He glanced over to where she and Ronon were cutting down some of the burned trees. She noticed and sent him a friendly grin. He waved back nervously, tightening the grip on his shovel.

“Our people don’t pick our governments this way,” John told Halling. Then he thought about it and shrugged. “Not where I’m from, at least.”

Halling rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Then how did Dr Weir come to be your ruler?”

John didn’t know what was going on here, but it was really starting to pissing him off. Elizabeth was different from every other superior he’d ever had; when she asked him to do something, he didn’t immediately want to do just the opposite. Usually. Halling didn’t know anything about how they did things in Atlantis.

“A bunch of people from different governments came together and decided she was the best person to handle this,” John said, maybe a little too defensively.

At least, that’s how he figured things had gone. He hadn’t really been around when all that had been going down. For all he knew, maybe Elizabeth really had killed someone to be there. And maybe one day he’d actually read all those personnel files was supposed to.

“Where exactly are you going with this?” John asked.

Two hours and several misunderstandings later, Halling was declaring a coup. And possibly offering a hefty amount of Athosian marijuana cookies for Elizabeth’s head on a pike.

*

When John made it back to the city, he tried to take the long, scenic route to the briefing room — which was actually only about ten minutes longer, because Atlantis was weirdly interconnected like that — but Halling knew the city almost as well as John did, and he had to jog to beat Halling there. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Halling move this quickly, and he’d seen Halling in plenty of near-death situations by this point.

“You idiot,” he heard Rodney shouting by the time they made it within fifty feet of the room, “they’re not pacifists, they’re hippies! Don’t you remember the 70’s? They know how make bombs from things found in nature!”

Elizabeth started to yell back, “Rodney–”

Then they noticed John standing in the doorway. He must’ve had a weird expression on his face, because Rodney paled slightly, took a step forward, and asked, “Colonel, what–?”

“I did something bad,” he said.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “What’s going on?” she asked, glancing over John’s shoulder at Halling. “Halling, I’ve already told you how sorry I am for what happened.”

“Dr Weir,” Halling said with a stubborn straightening of his spine, “we must speak of many things. Important things, such as congress and infrastructure.”

Both Rodney’s and Elizabeth’s eyes flitted to John.

“I, uh, sort of told him how the American electoral system works?” John said.

Elizabeth blinked rapidly. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Halling cleared his throat. “It has come to my attention that among your people you had a philosopher who believed in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This philosopher also, I believe, said that if your government fails you, you have the right to make a new, better one.”

“Actually, Locke’s philosophy was ‘life, liberty, and property,’” Rodney said airily, and John heard the unspoken sneer of, “Americans.”

“Exactly how much did you tell him?” Elizabeth demanded, turning to John. She was clearly catching onto what was going on much faster than John had back on the mainland.

“Just the basics,” John said, which he thought sounded a hell of a lot better than, “He manipulated me!”

She did that thing again where she widened and narrowed her eyes several times, before smiling thinly at Halling and saying, “Unfortunately, while Atlantis is a self-sustaining city, we don’t have our own government. We’re a research and military outpost, not a colony of Earth.”

“Well,” Rodney started, but he snapped his mouth shut when both Elizabeth and John glared at him.

Halling placed his palms flat on the table. “Dr Weir, in the past, my people have always been grateful for the way you have protected us against the Wraith. But in the years since we first arrived on the world of the Ancients, we have faced much destruction that has been caused by your poor decisions. Something has to change. Either we do this in the tradition of your people, or we do it in mine.”

John crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. I’m Elizabeth’s second.”

“Teyla is mine,” Halling replied.

“Fuck,” John said.

Elizabeth touched John’s shoulder. “No, it’s alright. Actually, Halling might be onto something.” She cocked an eyebrow. “We’ll have elections.”

Halling smiled triumphantly.

“What?” Rodney exclaimed. “Am I hearing things? You want a bunch of scientists, marines, and alien refugees to vote on a governor of Atlantis? First of all, this is a horrible, horrible idea, and second, did you even stop to think you might lose?”

“McKay’s right,” John said.

But Elizabeth said, “It’ll be just like high school,” and her eyes were wide and dreamy, and– dear God, she looked happy. She turned to him, brightening, and he knew this was going to end badly. “Would you help me make campaign posters?”

*

“High school sucks,” John grumbled, rubbing that weird Athosian berry paint between his fingers. He knew from previous experiences that this stuff wouldn’t come off for days.

Rodney looked up from where he was filling in bubble letters. Pink bubble letters. “This is so your fault.”

John held up his stained hands. “Hey now, how was I supposed to know this would happen? One minute he was saying Elizabeth had destroyed the village on purpose, and the next he was asking about the electoral college.”

“No one understands how the electoral college works,” Rodney said hotly, “not even Americans. Did you know I’d never even heard the words ‘electoral’ and ‘college’ used in the same sentence together before I went to university in the States? It’s because the whole system is a dirty little secret.” He dotted the “I” almost angrily.

John smiled. “Yes, Rodney, we’re oppressing you with our funny elections.”

Rodney gave a long-suffering sigh and began filling in the letter “Z.” They were sitting on the floor in John’s tiny apartment, papers and jars of paint spread out around them like a rainbow, and a forgotten half-eaten bag of chips under the bed. They’d been through a lot together, but John had never thought he’d see the day when Rodney McKay would be wearing a ratty Roots hooded sweatshirt and jeans, painting a big pink ‘Vote For Dr Elizabeth Weir’ campaign poster while complaining that holding a paintbrush for more than half an hour was giving him arthritis.

They’d already finished a huge stack of sixteen-by-sixteen size posters, which were drying on John’s bed. Rodney’s posters were meticulously done, every brush stroke perfect and straight, but John, on the other hand, was having a really, really hard time staying in the lines. It was just his carefree spirit, he figured.

“And anyway,” Rodney continued, “this whole thing is ridiculous. Elizabeth should’ve told Halling that if he doesn’t like how she runs things, he should just find a new planet. Granted, they had to come here after you woke the Wraith and doomed us all, and Jesus Christ, is ‘Weir will never steer you wrong’ the best you can do? Why don’t you just write ‘vote for Weir, I’m a queer’ and get it over with.”

“At least mine aren’t boring,” John said, rolling his eyes.

“Because lame is so much better than boring,” Rodney shot back.

“All work and no play makes McKay something something,” John said cheerfully.

Then John’s paintbrush slipped out from under him and left a blue smudge across the page. “Goddamn it,” he growled, and he jerked his arm back, smacking Rodney in the face. Rodney flailed – “Ow! What the fuck? Ow!” — and knocked over the glass they’d been using to clean their brushes.

“Goddamn it,” he repeated, watching as both their posters soaked up the brown water.

In revenge, Rodney reached over and painted a long pink stripe on John’s cheek. It was the first day of the campaign trail, and things were already starting to look bad.

*

John made the newest wave of marines from the SGC tack the posters to the walls in the lived-in areas of the city. They all eyed him funny, although he wasn’t sure if that was because of the ridiculousness of the situation, or if it was because he still had that pink line on his face that wouldn’t wash off. Sometimes he hated Rodney so much.

On his way to grab some lunch, he found Rodney, Ronon, and Lorne standing in the corridor, judging his artwork. Not that Rodney hadn’t already seen the pictures the day before, but from the way he was squinting almost comically at the wall, John knew he hadn’t been able to scream at his geeky minions as much as he’d wanted, and that meant John was going to suffer for the rest of the day.

“Your posters are horrible,” Rodney said snottily as John approached. “Is that supposed to be Elizabeth? It looks like a lion.”

“That’s her hair,” John said defensively.

Rodney snorted. “I once had a professor that said people good at math are supposed to be artistic. Now I know that’s a total lie.”

“Art’s for fags,” Lorne said.

Everyone turned to stare at him.

“What’s a fag?” Ronon asked.

Lorne started, “It’s a–”

“I’m plenty artistic,” John said quickly. He’d already had several chats with Lorne about watching his language in public, especially around someone as impressionable as Ronon, who’d been taught by the marines that it was perfectly acceptable to go around calling people “hos” and “niggas.” Which had led to a really awkward conversation when Teyla had asked, “Ronon said I was his ‘bitch,’ should I be insulted?” Which had then led to Elizabeth passing out feminist pamphlets on how everyday English oppresses women. There’d been mutterings of sensitivity training, too, and it hadn’t been until John had threatened to throw himself off the balcony that Elizabeth had relented.

“I can play guitar,” he added.

Rodney looked at him sourly. “No, you can’t.”

“I used to play the drums when I was in high school,” Lorne offered.

“I played the loobaloo on Sateda,” Ronon said. When they looked at him blankly, he shrugged and explained, “You blow into it, and it makes music. You know?”

“You played the flute?” Rodney asked, sounding horrified.

“We should start a band,” Lorne said brightly.

“Or how about we don’t,” John said.

Teyla appeared at John’s shoulder, looking concerned. “Colonel, can someone please explain to me what is going on? Halling is saying he is going to run the city of the Ancients, and what are these horrible pictures doing on the walls? I believe they are frightening the children.”

*

John had never understood why his father the general committed suicide that cold October night, but once he became military head and had to face paperwork, he started to have an idea.

“Sheppard,” a little voice in his ear asked, “what are you doing right now?”

“Longing for death’s sweet embrace,” he replied.

“Oh.” Rodney paused. “Well, when you’re done with that, we may have found something that — shut up, Zelenka, it’s not a blender, but if you want to put your hand in it, by all means go ahead. Like I was saying, if you don’t have anything to do later, we might be able to use you in the labs.”

“And we will make smoothies, perhaps,” Zelenka’s voice broke in.

“In other words, you’re bored and want me to come hang out,” John drawled.

“Yes, I discovered a way to create unlimited power, destroy the Wraith, and end world hunger, all before my lunch break,” Rodney said, which John knew was code for, “Yes, I’m bored enough to ask you to come down here and annoy me.”

Rodney and Zelenka were still arguing via radio when the door to John’s office opened and Lorne strolled in.

He froze when he saw John at his desk. “Oh. Sir. I didn’t even know you knew you had an office.”

John smiled thinly and closed his laptop. He could hear Rodney calling Zelenka an idiot, so he turned off his radio too, leaving behind blissful silence. “I found it by accident,” he said easily. “What can I do you for, Major?”

Lorne sank into the chair across from the desk. He squirmed like a kid in the principal’s office. “I can just fill out a form, sir, that’s actually what I–”

John waved a vague hand. “Nah, I hate paperwork. Just tell me.”

“Sir, I need to request time off,” Lorne said.

“Okay,” John replied, drawing the word out. This was the first time anyone had asked him this. He wondered if maybe Lorne should fill out a form or something. “Can I ask why?”

Lorne squared his shoulders. “Sir, the full moon is coming up. I need to be on the mainland to converse with the trees, sir.”

John stared. He opened and closed his mouth a few times.

“It’s a religious holiday for me, sir,” Lorne added sharply, defensively. He looked completely serious. “Normally, I’d just do a small ceremony with a potted plant, but since Dr Weir’s… project did so much damage to the land, I think I need to be there. So they understand we didn’t mean to do it.”

“The Athosians?” John asked hopefully.

Lorne frowned at him. “The trees.”

John exited his office the same time Sergeant Reid was walking past. John pointed at the man, who was big enough to crush John’s skull with his hands, and shouted, “You! Go ahead and tell me what ever messed up thing you do in your spare time, so I don’t have to find out later when you want time off for one of your sick games.”

Reid stammered, “I-I play Dungeons and Dragons w-with the anthropologists on Thursdays, s-sir! I’m a halfling named R-randy who likes to fuck uni– unicorns.”

“Well, I’ve learned my lesson,” John said, backing away carefully.

But Lorne was still in his office filling out paperwork on how he needed to have next weekend off because he was a warlock, so John ran away to the labs, where, for the first time in history, saner people were fiddling with Ancient blenders.

*

The biggest problem with having elections between people from two different galaxies wasn’t in the campaign itself. The problem wasn’t in the way Halling spread rumours about Elizabeth being a lesbian after John accidentally told him about dirty politics. It wasn’t in the way Elizabeth tried to frighten everyone into submission by saying Halling didn’t know what to do in case of a Wraith attack on Atlantis. There was nothing wrong with Halling promising slack regulations, or Elizabeth promising tighter regs but casual Fridays, or both of them promising new uniforms. John suspected there were a lot of private deals being made, too, considering how the botanists made cow eyes at Halling. The botanists and Lorne, actually.

The problem was actually that people had already made up their minds before the whole thing even truly started.

Atlantis was John’s city, so he wasn’t restricted to the same social boundaries as everyone else. He was the military commander, so in the locker rooms, gyms, and mess, he heard marines talking about voting for Halling because Elizabeth had been in charge too long and made too many mistakes, or because Halling had once trained with them, so he knew which regs to use and which ones to ignore. (John figured they probably thought the same about him. Assholes.) He was friends — or whatever — with Rodney, so he was in the labs when the scientists talked about how either Halling was a nature lover and therefore one of them, or Halling was a primitive fool who would let them do whatever the hell they wanted.

John found the whole thing personally offensive.

A month into the campaign — just a week before the actual voting would take place — John was starting to actually get worried. Elizabeth had no idea any of this was happening. She thought that since everyone liked her, they’d vote for her, because that had gone so well for her in high school. But the truth of the matter was Elizabeth wasn’t one of the people; she had everyone’s respect, but she wasn’t one of them, not in the way Halling was.

Ronon was the only person John felt comfortable telling who to vote for. John justified it by telling himself that Sateda was probably a military dictatorship, and since this was Ronon’s first real election, he might not want to screw it up by voting for the wrong person.

“You’re voting for Elizabeth,” John said, making it an order.

“There’s no point in voting,” Ronon said grimly, not looking up from his tray when John sat across from him in the mess. All of John’s noble intentions were disappearing faster that Ronon’s dinner. “All elections are fixed by the establishment.”

“Ronon,” John said patiently, “we are the establishment.”

Ronon paused mid-bite. He looked down at his hands. “What have I become?”

*

John steathfully managed to avoid Lorne after their talk, except for during events like meetings, where John was, for once, completely professional. His old man would’ve been proud. Well, actually, no, he wouldn’t have; the general would have had the pagan beaten out of Lorne, and then he would’ve told John to cut his hair and stop being such a pansy. Not that John was bitter or anything.

On the day of the Atlantian elections, a squad of marines had to rescue John, Teyla, Ronon, and Rodney from the forest planet of MX-132, where they’d accidentally walked right into the middle of a civil war. The mission ended with a victory for the rebels, a handful of very smug marines, and a disturbingly chatty Ronon escorting the busty, and very thankful, princess he’d rescued single-handedly. John would’ve teased him about it, but Teyla had always been a better friend to him than he was to her, and anyway, the scowl on her face had already scared the marines into silence.

“How come I never get any princesses?” Rodney whined to him. “The only person I ever rescue is you.”

John swore he heard Ronon snicker. “Rodney,” he threatened.

When they got back to the jumper, John was surprised to see Dr Parrish already there, loading several crates of plastic baggies and test tubes onto the ship. They were all filled with green, red and blue things that must’ve been plant samples.

“Hello, Colonel,” Parrish said with his usual slow, goofy grin. “Fascinating world you got stuck on.”

“Parrish thinks some of these plants might be edible,” one of Lorne’s teammates said.

John sank into the pilot’s seat. “Cool.”

“I’m going to look around the perimeter,” Lorne called from outside.

Ten minutes later, he still hadn’t returned. Parrish had finished bringing all his samples back onto the jumper, Teyla was eagerly giving the princess directions on how to get to a world really, really far away, and Lorne’s team was standing outside telling Ronon why rap was the greatest music ever made. (Once John had tried to introduce Ronon to the Stones, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop, but, well, Ronon still didn’t use cutlery at the table, so John shouldn’t have expected him to recognize genius when he heard it.)

“Problems, Major?” John asked into his radio.

“No, sir,” Lorne replied, sounding tiny and far away, “just checking things out.”

“And by ‘things’ you mean ‘trees,’” John said. No answer. He glanced at Parrish, who was humming ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and writing something on his pad. “So, uh, you know about Lorne’s… religious… thing?”

Parrish smiled dreamily. “Yes, I do. It’s so wonderful to work with someone in the military who loves nature as much as I do.”

“What’s going on?” Rodney asked.

“Lorne’s a pagan,” John said.

“This explains so much,” Rodney said seriously.

John kicked Rodney in the shins, then he glanced back to the open hatch. Lorne was still nowhere in sight. “Major,” he shouted, “we need to go.”

“One more minute!” came the reply, this time from somewhere in the distance instead of the radio.

John scowled, even though Lorne couldn’t see him. “Get into the puddlejumper and away from the trees right now, young man.”

“But–”

“If you’re not here by the time I count to ten, you’ll have to walk home!”

Lorne came stomping up the ramp. “This is discrimination,” he muttered, just loud enough for John to hear. “I thought you people were supposed to be open-minded.”

“What?” Rodney demanded shrilly. “What did you say?”

Lorne was a fine officer; that was what Colonel Caldwell was always telling John. “I see things are the same as when I left… you’re lucky to have Major Lorne here, Colonel.” Lorne knew he’d be hard to replace, which is why he felt comfortable making fun of John and Rodney and Beckett and the Athosians and pretty much everyone but Elizabeth and Caldwell, and John suspected that was probably only because he was afraid of them. For the most part, John could respect that, but if he got court martialed because of one of Lorne’s little comments, John would kill him in his sleep.

When they made it back to Atlantis, John went immediately to the control room to find out who won the election. He smirked as he passed the clean up crew taking Halling’s posters off the walls (“Halling or DEATH,” they proclaimed rather harshly), taking that as a good sign. But when he arrived, with Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla in tow, the mood was grim. Elizabeth stood on the balcony overlooking the stargate, her shoulders drawn in a tight line, one eye twitching.

“So who won?” John asked.

Elizabeth burst into tears and fled the room.

“Halling won,” answered Chuck the tech guy, “about three hundred to two.”

Horrified, John whirled on his teammates. “Did you guys vote?”

“No,” Ronon said, as Rodney and Teyla looked everywhere but John.

Teyla began, “I had a conflict of loyalty…”

“Halling promised me free reign to do whatever I want,” Rodney said quickly. “I mean, not that I’ll, say, start experimenting on people, but there are just some things Elizabeth wouldn’t let me do, such as try out that–”

“Rodney,” John said tiredly, “shut up.”

*

He found Elizabeth in her quarters, nursing a large mug of what might’ve been coffee but clearly wasn’t, judging from the half-empty open bottle of alien liquor on the table. John would have liked to say they got the moonshine from the Athosians, but in actuality, they traded for it with a small band of people on a world that worshiped empty tin cans. It was John’s favourite planet.

“Yes, John?” she asked when he walked through the door.

“Oh my God,” he said without thinking, “your apartment is huge.”

She frowned. “Well, I am the head of Atlantis. Or at least I was.” She sniffed loudly, touching one of the weird fertility statues of MX-17, which was a little too clown-like for John’s comfort. She probably didn’t even realize John would’ve killed several innocent people to get an apartment like this. Were those real wood floors?

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” he asked, pulling up a chair to the table and resisting the urge to ask to see her closet space. “We can say the whole thing was just a joke.”

“No, I couldn’t do that,” she said, widening her slightly glazed eyes. “It goes against my moral principles. It’s… un-American.”

John said, “Morals, schmorals.”

Elizabeth reached for the liquor bottle and sloshed some into her mug. “I can’t believe this is happening. I was the homecoming queen,” she said wistfully.

“So was I,” John deadpanned. She stared. He cleared his throat and added, “If it helps, I voted for you.”

She patted his hand while giving him a wide, drunken smile. “Oh John, I know you did. It’s times like this I think to myself, ‘If only John wasn’t gay.’”

“Um,” he said.

*

As it turned out, Halling asked Elizabeth to remain as both a diplomat and a liaison between Atlantis and the SGC, which she accepted with a lot more grace and dignity than John would have, if he’d been in her situation. She did a scarily excellent job at hiding her all-consuming rage. John, on the other hand, made a point of not going to Halling’s swearing in ceremony, but later he cornered Rodney and demanded all the details.

“Caldwell was silent and intimidating, Teyla sang an Athosian song that strangely reminded me of Lord of the Rings, only with more crushed velvet, Ronon drank too much punch and had a sugar rush like the twelve year-old he really is, and everyone else looked really bored.”

“That’s it?” he asked, disappointed.

Rodney glanced up from his laptop and squinted. “What did you want to happen, a revolution? Why didn’t you just go? Zelenka was the only one who got to hear my hilarious commentary.”

“Yes, lucky me,” Zelenka said. He was standing at another lab bench, poking at something that may or may not have been an Ancient joystick.

John shifted uncomfortably from his spot on the edge of Rodney’s table. “I was trying to support Elizabeth.”

“Poor Dr Weir,” Zelenka sighed. “She is so brave and strong to remain after everyone betray her. This is why I vote for her.”

“See, this is why I like Zelenka more than you,” John told Rodney.

The next thing Halling accomplished was earning the love and devotion of everyone by somehow improving the food in the mess. It was a crafty, evil plan, and it sure as hell worked.

“Holy shit,” Rodney said, mouth full, “this is real steak. I always knew the Athosians were holding out on us!”

However, John refused to be swayed by cheap tactics like good food and new titles (Elizabeth wasn’t the only one to get a new job; Ronon was insisting everyone refer to him as Lord Dex, Grand Poo-ba of Military Training and Fitness) and secure peace treaties (damn that new Genii government!). The only reason John had listened to Elizabeth was because he believed in her, and even then he disobeyed her. A lot. So much, in fact, that when Halling called him for a conference, John was seriously worried about being demoted. If that hippy Lorne got his job, John was going to blow up the mainland.

But instead, Halling said, “I have always been proud of you, Colonel Sheppard. I would like you to create more teams to explore the city of the Ancients so it might one day be one hundred percent functional,” and even better, “I have spoken to your SGC about bringing in more weapons.”

All John could do was blink and say, “Yes, Halling, um, sir.”

Halling gave John that fatherly smile of his and patted him on the head. “Now off you go. Try to finish your paperwork before dinner.”

Even Elizabeth seemed to be enjoying herself. After she came back from the world of the Chion, hair singed, face dirty, head held high, and declared she’d ended a century-long war and gotten Atlantis a techno-savvy ally, she ended her speech with a round of high-fives to the marines who’d accompanied her. Chuck gossiped to anyone who’d listen that he’d seen Sergeant Stackhouse pinch her bum. The next day, Stackhouse had a nasty shiner, and Colonel Caldwell’s hand knuckles were bandaged.

*

Then came the time for Lorne’s requested vacation. If anyone asked, John had completely forgotten about it, but that was a total lie. Worshiping nature goddesses was just one of those things that one never forgot about a person they worked with every day, like music taste, or cannibalism.

He had a sinking feeling about the whole thing as soon as Teyla mentioned it off-world. They were headed back to the stargate on an uninhabited world when Teyla said, “Major Lorne has extended an open invitation to participate in his rituals.”

“Have fun,” John said cheerfully.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Since neither you nor Dr McKay are religious people, I believe it would benefit you to attend.”

Rodney said, “It’s not that I’m irreligious, so to speak, it’s just that I think it’s complete bullshit.”

“Ronon’s going,” Teyla said.

Both Rodney and John looked over at Ronon, who ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck.

“Well, if Ronon’s going,” Rodney said sarcastically.

“I can’t,” John said, a feeling of dread knotting in the pit of his stomach. “I have important things to do.”

Rodney puffed up. “And do you think I can just leave the city any time I want to go frolicking with Major Harry Potter? No, of course not. I have to make sure the lab monkeys posing as scientists don’t accidentally kill us all. It’s a heavy responsibility, but someone has to do it.”

“Halling has given his permission,” Teyla said pointedly. “He said it would be a good learning opportunity for you both. I believe he said he would make it an order if it came down to it.”

“Fine,” Rodney said. He stabbed a finger in Teyla’s face. “But there will be absolutely no talking of feelings.”

Teyla smiled. “Then I will inform Major Lorne you both are attending. Thank you.”

John protested, “Hey, I didn’t agree to anything.” He didn’t like how Teyla’d assumed he’d just follow Rodney anywhere, as if they were joined at the hip. But at the same time, he was sort of used to that, so it was hard to be really offended anymore.

“You can’t leave me alone with the hippies,” Rodney hissed in his ear.

“You’re the one who agreed to go,” John whispered back, “I was going to find us a way to get out of it.”

Which is how they ended up in the jumper bay a few days later, helping Lorne prep two (two!) jumpers for a trip to the mainland. There were several locked metal crates waiting to be loaded that John didn’t want to think about.

“Please let those be full of drugs,” he muttered.

Worse, there were twenty people or so waiting to board. John very carefully didn’t make eye contact with anyone he knew.

Lorne came out of the back of the nearest jumper, yelling, “We need to get all the boxes on board, guys.”

“Let’s get this farce over with,” Rodney said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ronon, Rodney, and John each heaved a sigh and marched up to Lorne, who was leaning off the ramp and yelling something to Parrish that sounded like, “Don’t forget the fucking sandalwood this time.” He seemed pleased to see them, and called, “Sir! Dex! I’m glad you– Oh,” he said dejectedly, “you’re coming too, McKay?”

“You don’t want me to come?” Rodney asked excitedly.

John grabbed his arm before he could walk off. “My whole team’s coming, Major.”

Lorne beamed. “Rock. We’re just about ready to leave.”

Rodney asked, “Will there will be any hallucinogenic drugs involved in this ritual?”

Lorne’s glanced at John sheepishly. “Uh, yeah, there might be, but–”

“Thank the heavens,” Ronon said, sounding relieved. He marched up the ramp.

“Looks like Ronon’s enthusiastic,” John said. He grinned and slapped a very unimpressed Lorne on the back.

*

The first thing John did when they hit the mainland was walk right into Laura Cadman.

“Oh God,” John said, covering his face with his hands. “You never saw me here, Lieutenant. Got that?”

She smirked. “Sure thing, Colonel. Hey, McKay! Ready to get down with nature?”

“This is going to suck,” Rodney moaned, stomping off. Ronon threw John a sympathetic look and followed, obviously looking for Teyla, who’d boarded the other jumper.

“Why are you here?” John asked Cadman.

“Are you kidding? It’s better than a movie. I hope Lorne goes all Carrie on us and tries to kill us all.”

John laughed nervously and tried to edge away from her, which put him right in Lorne’s path. Much to his surprise, Lorne put an arm around his shoulders — which wasn’t an easy feat, considering their height difference — and began, “John…”

“John?” he repeated, recoiling. Shep was one thing, he was used to Shep, but John?

“There aren’t any secrets in the circle, John,” Lorne said. He seemed to think about it for a moment, then he looked back at Rodney and twitched. “Well, I mean, except. Yeah.”

The only military personnel attending the ceremony were John, Cadman, and a beefy blonde woman named Pat. (“That’s Parrish’s girlfriend,” Cadman pointed out. “Parrish has a girlfriend?” John asked.) Both John and Rodney had practically begged Halling to allow Zelenka to come too, but he’d said that since Rodney would be on the mainland, they desperately needed Zelenka on Atlantis. Everyone else in the clearing was either a frazzled-looking male scientist or a moony-eyed female one, and the latter were looking at Lorne in a certain way. John knew what those looks meant; he’d invented that look. Most of the men might have been actual nature lovers, or Dungeons and Dragons weirdos, but the women were there as Lorne’s personal fanclub. When Lorne walked out of the jumper in an obviously homemade black cloak, there was a lot of sighing and giggling.

John squeezed his eyes shut. “This is so embarrassing.”

Cadman punched him in the arm, hard. He scowled. “Come on, Colonel, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Pegasus galaxy,” he reminded her.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Hey, do you think maybe there will be some sort of freak accident and Lorne will really cast a spell on somebody?”

“No?” John said uncertainly.

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I’m gonna go sit with the ladies.” She jerked her thumb towards Dr Brown, Pat, Dr Heightmeyer, Dr Simpson, and a handful of other women scientists he didn’t recognize but should, considering all the time he spent in the labs. They were probably social scientists, which meant Rodney was too much of a snob to allow them into his precious main labs with the “real” scientists.

John found Rodney sitting on the ground next to Ronon and Teyla, looking glum. John flopped down next to him. “Cheer up, Charlie Brown.”

“I can’t believe so many people I once respected are here,” Rodney sighed. John snorted. “Okay, fine, people I almost, could have possibly one day respected.”

“I used to like Lorne,” John mused.

Teyla glared at them both. “I cannot believe you two. How does Major Lorne’s religion change who he is as a person?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rodney said.

“What McKay means–” John shot him a pointed look. “–is that Major Lorne’s… religion is kind of… unusual.”

“That, and he’s really weird,” Rodney said.

“I don’t care if he eats babies, as long as this is quick,” Ronon said.

“I believe I will sit with Lieutenant Cadman,” Teyla sniffed, climbing to her feet.

“Thanks a lot,” Ronon said dryly to John and Rodney, watching Teyla’s retreating back.

Conversation died down as Lorne and Parrish dragged a large plastic box into the centre of the clearing. Lorne looked completely ridiculous; this was — in John’s humble opinion as manly man who cared nothing about clothing choices, especially not those of the men who worked for him, even though, hey, John was the one who had to look at them all day, so the least they could do is be considerate — worse than that time Lorne had to pretend to be a Genii.

“Everyone ready?” Lorne called.

“I hate my life,” Rodney muttered.

“Commence with the free love,” John drawled loudly with a wave of his hand.

Lorne turned to him, horrified. “I’m not that kind of warlock, sir.”

“So there’s not going to be any sex?” Ronon sounded irritated. He slowly crossed his arms over his chest. John had been on the receiving end of that glare before, and it usually resulted in a lot of bruising and occasionally some internal bleeding. Some of the women giggled.

Lorne slowly laid out a white cloth over the metal box, not looking at John. “I was asked to leave three different covens. I couldn’t get behind some of the fertility rituals. You’d think witches would want to be ‘fertilized’ by warlocks–” And John twitched as Lorne made the air quotes and everything. “–But apparently… some warlocks aren’t down with witches? I don’t know, it was… difficult, to say the least.”

The circle got very quiet.

“Didn’t you promise us peyote?” John asked finally.

*

No one else seemed to have a problem when Lorne took out the coloured candles, bowls, bags of herbs, and long, pointy sword, so when Rodney muttered, “This must be what having a brain tumour feels like,” John, shoulders sagging with relief, whispered back, “We have to get out of here ASAP. I’ll think of something.”

He stood and stretched. “I have to pee. Rodney, want to come with?”

“Er,” Rodney said, and John walked out of the clearing and away from Lorne’s bewildered face, Rodney at his heels.

“You couldn’t have come up with a better excuse?” Rodney demanded once they were out of earshot. “I think you’ve forgotten we’re not girls.”

John shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but God knows what Lorne thinks we’re doing out here. Probably having sex. He’s always thinking about gay sex, have you noticed that?”

They didn’t go very far, since John had a bad habit of getting lost in unfamiliar places. It wasn’t too long before John couldn’t see Lorne or anyone else anymore, but when the wind picked up, he could hear snatches of conversation and something that sounded like bells. The mainland forest was old and filled with ancient, enormous trees, which made sense, considering no one had been around to cut them down in over a millennia. John had been always more of a beach guy, but these woods were cool and calming. There were worse places to spend an afternoon.

“Here,” he said, lifting himself up onto the lowest branch of the nearest tree, “we can sit up here until they’re done.”

After a bit of huffing and puffing, Rodney managed to make it beside him. The huge branch didn’t even sag beneath their combined weight. “Have I mentioned lately how much I hate nature? I think I have a splinter. Why couldn’t Lorne have been a Born Again Christian? He’d be just as easy to make fun of, and we’d never even have to leave Atlantis.”

“This is nice,” John said. He smiled at Rodney until Rodney’s scowl melted away.

A breeze blew, and John heard Lorne’s voice: “This is the boundary of the circle. Only love shall enter and leave.”

Rodney said, “By which he means only manly, heterosexual love, of course.”

The sky opened up, and rain starting furiously pouring down. Rodney and John stared at each other, open mouthed. Then, just as quickly as it started, it stopped.

“You don’t think–?” John nodded in the direction they’d come from.

“There’s no such thing as magick, Lorne’s just fucked in the head,” Rodney insisted. He brushed a hand across his forehead, pushing away big droplets of water.

“I call upon you, Elemental Earth, to attend this rite and guard this circle, for as I have body and strength, we are kith and kin.”

“Does any of this bother you?” John asked.

“Of course it does,” Rodney snapped. “I’m an astrophysicist. It goes against the very core of my being.”

John slumped, looking down at the massive tree they were sitting on. “I was raised Catholic,” he said.

Rodney sputtered. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Have you noticed you, oh, kill people for a living?”

“Really? I must’ve missed that while converting aliens and flushing condoms down the toilets.”

“You–” Rodney broke off, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “They send condoms on the Daedelus?”

“Sure.” Actually, John had no idea. But there had yet to be any babies born on Atlantis, so it was safe to assume Carson was storing some. Or else he was performing abortions in a back alley somewhere.

“My parents were Buddhist,” Rodney said. At John’s raised an eyebrow, he snapped, “I’ll have you know Canada’s an extremely diverse country. We met with our Buddhist chapter weekly to perform chants. I was very into it when I was a child, but when I got older I realized how stupid it was to chant to a wooden box on the wall. My parents were crushed.”

“I thought your parents were cold, distant, and unloving,” John said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What,” Rodney replied, snorting, “you don’t think Buddhists screw up their kids too? It’s a religious philosophy revolving around a prince who gave up his worldly possessions, sat under a tree for a few years, and then didn’t have sex with a prostitute.”

“Funny, I under the impression Buddhism was about how your attachment to this world only leads to suffering.”

Rodney glared. “Who’s the Buddhist here? Also, you look like a drowned rat.” He reached out and carefully ran a hand through John’s hair; John winced as Rodney’s hand got stuck, then glided through, which actually left John blinded by his own bangs.

A wind rose. “I call upon you, Elemental Air, to attend this rite and guard this circle for as I breathe and think, we are kith and kin.”

They weren’t on a mission; they weren’t about to die. They were just two guys standing soaking wet in a forest while their co-worker performed magick rituals on trees. It was as close to normal as John had felt since sitting in that chair in Antarctica.

“You wanna make out?” John asked.

Rodney slowly turned and looked at him. “In the middle of the woods?” he asked, sounding disgusted.

John stared. “You know what? Forget I asked.”

“Hail to the elementals at the four quarters! Welcome Lady and Lord to this rite! I stand between the worlds with love and power all around!”

“I can’t believe this is taking so long,” Rodney said. “How long can it take to throw a few herbs around?”

John glanced at his watch. “Apparently half an hour.”

There was the sound of bells again, and then, “Behold the Great Lady, who travels the sky; the stars shine around her and light up the night,” and then Ronon very distinctly said, “For the love of all that is sacred, is it over already?”

Rodney slid off the branch. “Come on, someone just said there’s cake.”

John frowned. “What? Just now? I didn’t hear anything.”

“Nope, I definitely heard cake,” he said, offering John a hand.

When they got back to the clearing, soaked to the bone, John’s casual hairstyle ruined, John could feel all twenty-something pairs of eyes turn to watch them. Rodney, cheeks a little flushed, walked directly over to the silver crate serving as a table and cut two pieces of cake (one noticeably smaller than the other). Ronon, standing beside a very irritated-looking Teyla, had a piece in each hand.

“You missed the whole thing,” Lorne said to them. “Where’d you go?”

John started to tell him, but Ronon beat him to it, with a, “We’ve learned not to ask.”

Rodney handed John the largest piece of cake. John felt he’d missed something terribly important here, but all he knew was that he was cold, he was embarrassed for no reason, he was maybe possibly outed by Ronon, which he should have seen coming, come to think of it, and Rodney didn’t want to make out with him but would give him his cake.

*

Once they were back in the city, Halling had several (very good) suggestions regarding security that John passed over to Lorne, and Simpson and Kavanagh found a tucked-away laboratory that infected their entire team with an Ancient virus that made you very smart but very, very itchy, so it was easy to fall back into routine. For everyone else, having Halling as a president (or whatever; everyone just called him “Halling,” without a title) wasn’t so bad, but John couldn’t get the man to bend to his will as easily as Elizabeth had, no matter how much he pouted.

When he’d disobeyed Elizabeth, which was quite often, she’d lectured him, or made him feel bad, or even told him he had done the right thing, but Halling had a different strategy. In fact, after John had disobeyed Halling’s orders and went in to save Simpson and Kavanagh before they’d scratched themselves to death, Halling grounded him for two weeks. And sent him to bed without supper.

“Serves you right,” Rodney said jovially that evening, sneaking him a bologna sandwich — okay, half a sandwich — and a cup of blue jello.

John glared. “I’ve never met anyone more disloyal than you.”

“The first thing I did when I turned eighteen was defect to the States,” Rodney admitted. “Granted, they said no, but the point is I tried.”

“I’m going to laugh the day you guys create something smarter than you and doom us all, all because Halling let you have free reign,” John said menacingly, stabbing his jello with his spoon.

Rodney actually looked somewhat worried, which made John wonder just what the hell they were doing in the labs these days.

*

John could still remember the first conversation he’d ever had with Lorne:

“What happened to your last second?”

“Oh, you know, developed some bad–” Rodney had coughed. John had scowled in his general direction. “Okay, developed a drug habit, ran off with a jumper. That sort of thing.”

After the Full Moon Rite, as John had later found out it was called, things with Lorne were– strange. It seemed on the one hand, Lorne had figured John and Rodney had left to have dirty homosexual intercourse because it would ruin Lorne’s life, but on the other hand, John had been there to share in Lorne’s very personal religious ceremony. So it was like any other day, really, with Lorne being angry at himself for respecting John, but still taking it out on John at every opportunity. They really needed to have a talk about the gay jokes, because now some of the other marines were starting to get in on the “joke” too.

Lorne passed by John’s office several times before John gave up and shouted, “Lorne, I can see you, for God’s sake.”

“Blessed be,” Lorne said, poking his head in the door.

“What’d you just call me?” John asked.

“No,” Lorne said, “it’s a greeting that we–” Was Lorne trying to bond with him? John could only stare in mute horror as Lorne stepped inside and continued: “I was thinking, John, maybe at the next Rite–”

He had to put a stop to this madness right now. “Look, Major,” he interrupted, “I like you. I respect you. You’re a good officer and you make a mean quesadilla, and– everyone in this galaxy is weird. I’m weird, you’re weird, hell, Dr Weir and Colonel Caldwell are weird. But I’m not entirely comfortable with this whole witchcraft thing.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Lorne’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw twitched. “Well, sir, maybe I’m not comfortable with you being a faggot, but I let it go anyway.”

“You do not!” John protested. “You make gay jokes every time I walk into a room! Just this morning you said I must be in a bad mood because I’m on the rag!”

Lorne looked around nervously. “Did– did you just come out to me? Fuck, Shep.”

John grit his teeth. “Lorne,” he said with exaggerated patience, “I need our relationship to be purely professional. We need to be able to trust each other, but also know when the other’s being a dick. You know this. So you’re going to leave, and we’re never, ever going to talk about pagans or my sex life ever again. In fact, after you go, I’m going to hit my head against the wall a few times to make sure this whole thing’s forgotten.”

Lorne’s face smoothed over with clarity. “Sir, yes, sir!” he said. “No more pagans or gayness, sir.”

He turned on one heal and left. John pressed his forehead against the cold desk, wondering why life on Atlantis had to be so hard.

That evening, someone chimed on his door right as he was settling down to re-watch ‘Back to the Future’ for the tenth millionth time. (He’d abandoned War and Peace a while ago, because he’d been too lazy to keep up with all the characters. He figured that was a metaphor for his life, somehow.)

“Colonel,” Rodney said stiffly when John answered the door, in a tone that suggested John dare not say no, “may I come in?”

Rodney had never asked to be allowed to enter a room in his life. Startled into silence, John just stepped aside, and Rodney walked in, closing the door behind him. He clasped his hands behind his back, standing tall. It was a horribly endearing look, although John was sure Rodney thought it was intimidating. “Colonel. John. It occurred to me that you propositioned me while we were at Hogwarts.”

“Oh, that,” John said, smirking despite the nauseating knot in his stomach. “I just thought it’d really piss off Lorne.”

Rodney stared blankly for a moment before breaking out into a bright grin. “It would’ve, wouldn’t it.”

“So we’re cool?” John asked casually.

He was such an idiot; he never should’ve said anything in the first place. But he’d thought Rodney was a sure thing, that they were on the same wavelength, which meant he really didn’t understand Rodney at all. He’d been misinterpreting him from day one. This was turning out to be the worst Full Moon Rite ever.

Rodney said, “I’m cool if you’re cool.”

John said, “My whole life is a lie. I mean, I’m cool. Totally cool.”

And Rodney said, “I like you too. Wait, what?” and John said, “What?” and Rodney said, “Jesus, why is this taking so long? I’d thought we’d be making out by now. Your seduction skills really suck, you know that? I brought you my blue jello and everything, and all you can say is, ‘Are we cool?’” Then Rodney shut up long enough to kiss him again and again, and somewhere between the door and the bed they lost their clothes, and Rodney ran his big hands all over John’s body and pulled John’s legs over his shoulders, and then John woke up in the middle of the night freezing to death because Rodney had stolen all the blankets. He snored, too. John poked him until he rolled over on one side, cracked open an eye, and muttered something was either “Pass the ketchup,” or “Go back to sleep, doofus.”

“Maybe I was a little hard on Lorne,” John told Rodney’s shoulder sleepily, tugging the blankets back over himself.

“Best Full Moon Rite ever,” Rodney murmured, patting John’s head like a puppy.

John grinned to himself. He’d been totally right about Rodney.

*

“See, this is what I want our apartment to look like,” John said.

Rodney scoffed. “I can’t believe they let you into the military. And are you asking me to move in with you? Isn’t it a little soon? Okay, I know what you’re going to say, we’ve known each other for years, but–”

“This is nice and all,” Lorne cut in, “but can you guys maybe wait until after we’re rescued?”

It was almost pathetic how easily they’d been captured by the Kathosians — who were apparently the evil cousins of the Athosians, if Teyla’s reaction was anything to do by. John had never heard words like that come out of her mouth before. The evil lair of the Kathosian overlord was all black leather and dark wood, classy yet modern, just the kind of place to awe prisoners and alien delegates alike. As it was, John was wondering how Halling would react if he walked through the stargate with that armchair.

“I don’t think a rescue team’s coming,” Ronon said, struggling with the rope around his wrists.

“It has been three days,” Dr Parrish agreed.

Those were the first words Parrish had uttered since they’d been captured, outside of “Don’t kill me, kill McKay instead!” Trying to kill his boyfriend aside, John felt sorry for the guy; Parrish obviously wasn’t cut out for this lifestyle. The other two soldiers on Lorne’s team, whose names John could never remember, spent the last three days calming him down. For all his bitching and attitude problems, Rodney had always been pretty handy in situations like this, even from the start. Parrish was practically paralyzed.

“They’re probably too busy enjoying how nice things are without McKay there,” Lorne grumbled. The nameless marine on John’s left snickered.

“Why don’t you just ask Mother Nature to save us, Major Napoleon Complex?” Rodney retorted.

“Listen here, I’m perfectly average height for–”

“For what, a pygmy?”

“Guys,” John said loudly.

“I hate this planet,” Teyla hissed. Everyone went quiet. Her eyes looked a little bloodthirsty. Not for the first time, John wondered if there was an evil Teyla somewhere on Kathos right now.

“We’ve been in here for hours,” Rodney whispered to John. “Not that I’m in any hurry to be tortured, but shouldn’t something be happening?”

“Maybe they have a lot of interrogations to get through today,” John said. Rodney was right, there was something fishy going on here, but the longer they had to wait meant the closer they were to an escape plan. If only John could think of one.

Just then, the binds around Ronon’s wrists snapped. He waggled his eyebrows at their surprised faces. “What? It took me all this time to get the knife out of my hair without using my hands.”

*

John walked out of the stargate and smack into Ronon’s back, who was standing perfectly still, as if he’d taken a few steps out of the wormhole and just froze. Rubbing his stinging cheek, John started to say, “What the hell?” but only got out a syllable before noticing exactly why Ronon and everyone else had just stopped moving.

The nearly-silent gateroom was filled with armed marines and stoic faces, and Elizabeth was standing a safe distance away, hands clasped behind her back.

“Welcome back, everyone,” she said. She was wearing her old red shirt and jacket, both of which were a bit wrinkled, as if they’d been shoved in a drawer somewhere for some time — which they had been; it’d been at least three months since John had seen her in red and not black. The smirk on her face was triumphant.

“What’s going on?” John asked suspiciously.

“Atlantis is back in the hands of the SGC,” Elizabeth said, although her tone suggested she wanted to add, “By which I mean me.”

“Really?” Rodney asked. He sounded disappointed.

Teyla took a step forward, tossing John a quick, worried glance. “Halling is unharmed?”

Elizabeth frowned. “Yes, he’s fine. You can see for yourself.” She nodded to the balcony, where, Halling and several other Athosians were sitting, bound and gagged. Thankfully, they looked more angry than hurt — the cloudy rage in Halling’s eyes was really, really creepy, actually — although John knew it would be a cold day in hell before Elizabeth would have someone killed for having the gall to be her competition.

Rodney rapidly snapped his fingers. “You had the Kathosians hold us while you re-took the city,” he stated in that “we’re so going to die” voice.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you,” Elizabeth said, but to John, who felt shocked and betrayed and more than a little impressed, “but we couldn’t take the chance you’d alert Halling.”

She nodded to Sergeant Stackhouse, and he gestured for the marines to lower their guns.

“John?” she asked, almost worriedly, as if he was debating his options right now.

He glanced at his livid former president on the balcony and back at his awed teammates, who were quietly waiting for his reaction. Then he snapped a lazy salute and smirked. “Good to have you back, Doctor.”

*

“Seriously,” he said to Stackhouse, “military coup? You didn’t think that was something I needed to know about?”

“And me,” Lorne said, “you should’ve at least told me.”

Stackhouse shifted uncomfortably. “There was no way we could’ve been sure both of you’d be behind Dr Weir a hundred percent, Colonel, Major.”

“I’m the one who voted for her,” John exclaimed. “The only one!”

“Would you believe me if I said that was a clever ruse?”

John narrowed his eyes. “Was it?”

Stackhouse lowered his head. “No.”

“I can’t believe I had to sit through days of listening to Sheppard talk about decorating while you got to be a coup,” Lorne complained. Stackhouse’s eyebrows shot up.

“Lorne, shut the hell up,” John said. He’d really wanted those armchairs, too. Maybe the Kathosians would just give them to him if he promised not to blow up their city in revenge for kidnaping his people.

After John pulled Rodney out of the infirmary, where he was still complaining of the rope burns he didn’t have, the two of them tracked down Elizabeth. They found her sitting in her new old office, and she seemed to just be breathing it all in. It was almost jarring to see her there, even though the rational part of John’s mind knew she belonged in that office more than Halling ever did.

“So how’d you do it?” John asked, perching on the edge of her desk.

A smile curved her lips. “Well, it was pretty easy to make friends with the marines after I was put on an off-world team.”

“It was?” Rodney asked, sounding bewildered.

“After that, it didn’t take much to convince the Kathosians to hold your team for a few days while we infiltrated the control room and took back the city.”

“You evil genius, you,” John said. He raised his eyebrows at Rodney and thought: “Remind me to never double-cross her.” Rodney raised his right back.

Within a matter of days, everything went back to the way it was before, as if leadership had never changed hands. Halling’s new security measures were replaced by the older, shoddier ones. The food in the mess went back to its usual standards, much to everyone’s chagrin. The scientists were given a series of long lectures, something about robots and clones and playing god that Rodney would never fully explain to John, not even in bed, where he tended to babble on and on as if someone had hit a switch. The botanists were instructed to burn their new “special project,” which John had definitely not known about. And one or two of the disgruntled anthropologists moved to the settlement on the mainland.

Not long after, they had another crisis. John and Rodney were held prisoner (again) by a group of seemingly peaceful farmers (surprise) to be traded for weapons (the usual), and Ronon and Teyla kicked ass and took names (typical).

When all four of them stumbled into the briefing room, exhausted and covered in dirt, Elizabeth took one look at them and smiled like it was her birthday.

“I’m glad things are back to normal,” she said.

In the brief time with Halling as head of Atlantis, John had been taken hostage, humiliated, forced to take part in pagan rituals by his own people, treated like a child, and best of all, begun an illicit gay affair to end all gay affairs. When he thought about it like that, it was almost like Elizabeth hadn’t been gone at all.

Under the table, Rodney’s hand started creeping up John’s thigh. “Yup,” John said, “totally back to normal.”

*

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

More than a few knee-slapping lines in this are by Keri. This fic wouldn’t have been possible without her.

Summary: Harry doesn’t kill Voldemort, doesn’t get the girl, and doesn’t get peace of mind. But somehow everything turns out okay. Spoilers up to and including HBP.

One: After

After the medals and the parades and the parties and the funerals, when the streets of London are once again filled with people behaving as if there wasn’t a time when they feared for their lives, Harry comes to an understanding that he’s homeless, jobless, and his parent’s funds won’t last him forever. And more importantly, in all the chaotic years of defeating evil and saving the wizarding world, he understands that he forgot one very, very crucial thing: he forgot to plan his life.

“You want to move in with us?” Ron asks.

“We’d love to have you,” Hermione says.

Harry glances down at Ron’s hand, which is resting on Hermione’s thigh. “No, uh, that’s really alright. I’ll manage.”

It’s easy enough to secure the interview; after all, there are so many dead now, what with the war and all. Harry feels somewhat like a git for taking advantage of that. But he knows he can do this job. He’s seen and done more than anyone in the Ministry. Well, anyone still living, anyways. He’s fought wizards more powerful than him. He’s faced monsters. He’s stood face-to-face with pure evil and walked away unscathed.

Halfway through the interview, Harry realises he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.

“And why do you wish to be an Auror, Mr Potter?” the man asks.

First he almost answers, “Because I’m Harry Potter,” but the last thing he wants is preferential treatment. Maybe.

Then he almost says, “Because I can’t do anything else. I took Potions, you see.”

A lone drop of sweat runs down the back of his neck. He clamps his sweaty hands together. He can’t remember ever being so nervous; honestly, he’d probably been less nervous fighting Voldemort. At least then his future had been in his own hands. Maybe he should’ve done better in school.

The chap is still staring at him, and Harry figures he should probably answer.

“I want to rid the world of the remaining supporters of Voldemort,” he says finally.

This seems to be the right thing to say. It’s a bold statement — fitting of a hero, which is what they’re calling him in the papers — and besides, it’s true. The interviewer nods slightly, scribbling something quickly on his notepad. Harry wills himself to breathe.

When it’s over, he finds himself hurried out of the office and back into the lounge. He thinks he recognises the secretary; maybe she went to Hogwarts either a few years above or below him. She looks at him like she knows him, certainly. “I’m surprised you even needed an interview,” she murmurs as he walks past.

“Maybe it’s a formality.” He means to be sarcastic, but it doesn’t come out that way, and he gets embarrassed when she blinks at him.

The walk back to his place from the Ministry is too short, so he just keeps walking until he stops recognising street names. Eventually, he passes an old second-hand bookshop. There’s a ‘Now Hiring’ sign in the window, and for a long moment he just stands there, tempted to go in. Of course, he won’t; Hermione would tell him he’s wasting his life, and Ron would be disappointed Harry wouldn’t be working with him, and who knows what Mr and Mrs Weasley would say (although he likes to think they’d support him no matter what, just like his parents, only less dead). Remus would have loved to live to see Harry working at a bookstore.

He frowns at the reflection of himself in the mirror, pushing his fringe to the side. He still can’t get used to his scar being gone, but it looks… alright. While he’s trying to flatten his fringe with his palm, a familiar figure casually strolls down the reflected road:

Lucius Malfoy.

Harry spins round, breath catching in his throat. But it’s not Lucius — who Harry actually saw die in the end — walking into an alley; it’s Draco. Draco Malfoy, assumed long dead, marching across a London street like it hasn’t been a year since anyone’s seen him.

Before he can fully process what’s going on, Harry’s taking off after him, pulling out his wand. He dives into the same back alley, but on the other side, it’s a new bustling, crowded street, even fuller than Diagon Alley. Harry ducks in time to avoid being hit by movers carrying a large painting of a woman eating grapes.

“Malfoy,” he shouts, scanning the crowd. He can barely hear his own voice. “Malfoy!”

He’s walked right into an open market. Fruit stands, vegetables stands, jewelry kiosks, and robe racks from one end of the narrow court to the other. He bumps right into a man playing a flute. A flock of girls in Hogwarts robes look at him and giggle. He pushes past them, trying to look through the crowd. He sees a flash of white-blond hair, and–

Gone.

*

“Here’s to having a real job,” Ron cheers, clinking their pints together. In the dim light of the pub, he looks eerily like his father. Harry tries to think of Hermione ginger-haired and plump, and he covers his laugh with a cough.

“I don’t even know if I got it,” Harry reminds him.

Ron drowns half his glass in a single gulp. “What d’you mean? Of course you got it! You’re Harry Potter. You were born for this job.”

Harry winces as Ron’s faux-pas, but Ron doesn’t seem to notice. He fixes his eyes on a set of blokes playing arrows in the corner. They look like they don’t have a care in the world. “I saw Malfoy earlier today,” he says.

He risks a glance back at Ron, who’s squinting at him. “Isn’t he dead?”

“No, not Lucius,” Harry explains. He feels ridiculous saying it out loud. “Draco. I saw Draco while I was taking a walk.”

“You’re sure it was him?” Ron asks.

“Dead sure,” Harry snaps.

“Oh,” Ron says. He plays with his pint, tipping it one way, and then the other. “He’s going to be really bloody mad at us if he’s been alive this whole time.”

That’s what Harry’s been thinking, only he feels Draco Malfoy will be less “mad” and more “homicidal.” Especially since the last time they saw him–

“Do you ever feel bad about it?” Harry blurts.

Harry doesn’t have to explain what he means. Ron looks up from his glass. “No,” he replies, and Harry expects him to say something along the lines of, “I’d forgotten all about it,” but Ron surprises him: “We couldn’t do anything. If we’d tried, we’d've been dead. Even if Malfoy wasn’t, you know, Malfoy, his life wasn’t worth the lives of everyone else.”

Ron’s right, of course, and Harry hasn’t thought about this in ages. There’s no reason for him to feel guilty. He saved the world, didn’t he?

“Listen to me,” Ron says, rolling his eyes. But Harry thinks he sounds chuffed. “All grown up. I sound like Hermione.”

Harry has to grin at that. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Not that there were many people left to tell.

That night, when Harry stumbles into the tiny, one-room flat he’s hired, an owl’s waiting for him.

*

Two: Before

Before Harry can set off for Godric’s Hollow to start on his genius plan to rid the world of Voldemort — he isn’t sure what it is yet, but he knows that if he puts his mind to it, he can maybe possibly sort of come up with something brilliant — he heads back to the Dursleys’ to wait until his seventeenth birthday. For the first time in a while, Harry feels completely, utterly calm; he knows he has to get rid of Voldemort, and he knows he might die trying, and that, for some reason, doesn’t bother him in the least.

“I’m back,” Harry calls, dragging his trunk behind him.

The Dursleys barely looked up from watching the telly. “I hadn’t even noticed you’d left,” Uncle Vernon says, throwing him a beady-eyed glance before turning back to his programme.

“I was gone for the whole bloody summer,” Harry grumbles under his breath, loudly dragging his stuff upstairs, much to the chagrin of his uncle, aunt, and cousin. He makes sure his luggage hits every single stair. He isn’t sure which is worse: them gloating when he left, or them not noticing he left at all.

When Harry opens the door, a tall, dark-haired boy with plastic glasses jumps to his feet.

Polyjuice, Harry thinks immediately, whipping out his wand. “Stupefy!”

The other boy falls over onto the floor, knocking off– his black wig? Come to think of it, the other boy looks nothing like Harry. His nose pokes through the empty eyepieces. He’s thinner and blond–

“Malfoy!” Harry exclaims. Then he groans: “Malfoy.”

Moaning, Malfoy starts to prop himself up with his elbows, but Harry steps over his body and grabs the front of his shirt. His shirt that belongs to Harry. “You have thirty seconds to tell me what you’re doing here.”

“Er,” Malfoy says, eyes growing wide.

“Twenty-five seconds,” he threatens. “I’m not up for games, Malfoy.”

“Alright, alright,” Malfoy chokes. “At least let me get off the floor, will you?”

Keeping a careful eye on him, Harry lets go of Malfoy’s — his — shirt, roughly dropping the other boy to the floor. Malfoy shakily climbs to his feet. He fixes the wig and puts his fake glasses back straight.

“Get on with it,” Harry says.

“Not much for reunions, are you, Potter?” Malfoy sneers, but his thin lips are trembling. Harry doesn’t have any sympathy for him. “Alright then. I’m on a mission. I’ve been sent to kill you.”

“You couldn’t possibly kill me,” Harry says. Not just because he’d easily win against Malfoy in a duel (“Unless it was a duel on who could be the biggest ponce,” Ron once said spitefully.), but because Harry knows of Malfoy’s struggle to kill Dumbledore. Fleetingly, he wonders if Malfoy cried over him the way he cried over their fallen headmaster.

Draco starts to wring his hands. In the six, almost seven, years they’ve known each other, Harry’s never seen him do that. He starts to feel a little bad. But not too bad. “No, I know. I know. I think–” Malfoy’s voice drops. “I think that was the idea.”

Harry frowns. “You think Voldemort — come on now, you work for him, you can handle hearing his name — sent you here so I’d kill you?”

“Listen, Potter, you don’t know what happened after we left Hogwarts,” Malfoy retorts, and Harry’s filled with a sudden, blinding rage at the image of Snape and Malfoy landing safely at the Death Eater’s hideout, Voldemort waiting eagerly for the news of Dumbledore’s demise. But if it shows on his face, Malfoy doesn’t comment on it. “The Dark Lord was surprised to see me. He, er, it didn’t seem like he knew what to do, with me surviving. So he sent me here.”

“And that’s proof you’re supposed to fail?” Harry asks, swallowing his rage.

Malfoy gives him a very familiar contemptuous look. “I believe his exact words were, ‘Oh. Draco. You made it. How… lovely.’”

Thinking of those words coming out of Voldemort’s mouth makes Harry’s head hurt. “So you decided to dress up as me? How long have you been here?”

“Not long.” At Harry’s scowl, he adds, “Three or four days.”

“And no one happened to notice you look nothing like me?” Harry asks, irritated. He really hates the Dursleys.

“I–” Malfoy starts, but the door opens, and in walks Petunia with a single cheese sandwich (cheese and bread, no spread or meat) and a cup of tea (no milk or sugar).

Petunia takes one look at them and drops the tray with a loud clash. “Vernon,” she screams out the door, “Harry’s multiplied himself!”

*

Three: After

“I have bad news, and I have worse news,” Harry announces.

Hermione and Ron look up from bickering about — furniture, or some sort. Harry hasn’t been listening. He doesn’t have anything to do with their normal, every day problems. Instead, he’s been stirring sugar into his tea, pressing his fingers against the cup until it burns. It’s been eight hours since he received the message. He thinks he might be in shock.

“What is it?” Hermione asks.

“It’s sort of hard to explain,” he adds. “I’m not even sure I understand what’s happening.”

“Out with it,” Ron pushes, taking on a determined expression.

Harry brushes his hair out of his eyes. He reckons the best way to do this is to say it quickly, like pulling off a plaster. “Turns out there were eight horcruxes. And the remaining one is suing me for offing the real Voldemort.”

They both stare at him like he’s grown a second head and it’s started speaking in tongues.

“Is that… is that even possible?” Ron asks.

“Apparently, since it’s happening,” Harry says harshly, pulling the owl from his robes.

Hermione snatches it, eyes running furiously over the script. He hopes she understands it better than he does. It’s ridiculous, he tells himself, ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous. Her shoulders slump.

“Oh, Harry,” she says.

Ron gulps. “You mean it’s real then?”

“How could we’ve missed an eighth one?” she asks Harry. “You were so sure there were only seven!”

Harry winces. “That’s because Dumbledore told me there were seven.”

None of them want to say “Dumbledore was wrong,” so Ron just says, “Bloody hell!”

“What’re you going to do?” Hermione asks.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know wizards could sue each other. I guess…” He straightens his shoulders, trying to look determined, instead of confused and sick. “I guess I have to defeat him a second time.”

*

Harry doesn’t sleep for three nights, and then he passes out while practicing defensive spells on his wardrobe. When he wakes up, there’s a crease on his cheek from the shoebox he used as a pillow, and there’s an owl in his hands. It says he’s to report for the next Auror training session the Monday after next, at seven AM sharp.

He’s not sure how feels about this. When he tries to imagine himself as an Auror, he can’t see that far ahead.

*

Harry expects it to take months before his case actually goes to court, but it actually takes less than a week. He figures the wizarding world is just much more efficient than the Muggle world. Maybe it won’t take long for the judge to see how ridiculous this whole mess is, and Harry can be out in time to catch dinner at Ron and Hermione’s. He’s looking forward to getting this over with.

He changes his mind when Percy Weasley sits beside him.

“What’re you doing here?” Harry asks.

Percy takes several scrolls and books out of a large leather bag he brought in. “Ron owled me. He said you planned on defending yourself. I know I’m not a barrister, but I thought — we all thought — you might need someone with, ah, experience in law.”

“You’re my barrister?” Harry says. “I’m going to lose, aren’t I.”

“Yes, yes,” Percy says distractedly, opening a bottle of ink.

Harry shakes the chains round his wrists, frowning. “So what’s with these? I thought this was a civil trial.”

“Procedure,” Percy replies, without looking up from his scrolls.

“Right.”

At least it’s not the cage; Harry always thought that seemed like some sort of human right’s violation.

Harry wasn’t there when the Ministry was rounding up the most recent batch of Death Eaters. He could’ve been; they wanted him there, of course, but he was still recovering from the final battle, and he hadn’t felt up to looking into the faces of those who had just tried to kill him. He hadn’t been in this room since he fell into Dumbledore’s Pensieve. It’s not as dark as he remembers, but the air smells damp and musty, like old books. Across the way, he spots another bar like his, and a man bending down to talk to–

“What’s that?” Harry asks, straightening up.

Percy actually glances up. “That’s what’s — er, who, rather, is suing you.”

“Is that a piece of paper?” Harry asks in disbelief.

Percy adjusts his glasses, looking rather uncomfortable. “Ah, actually, it’s a receipt for Chinese food. From 1978.”

“You mean to tell me Voldemort–” Percy winces slightly. “–put the very last piece of his soul in a receipt for take away?”

“Well,” Percy sniffs, “you didn’t find it, did you? Seems to me his evil plan worked.”

Things go downhill from there. Harry gets thrown out of court for screaming, “But it’s Voldemort!” over and over, and they’re told to come back the next day, “But check your anger at the door, Mr Potter.” Percy follows the guards who are dragging Harry out, covering his reddening face with his bag.

Harry sits in Percy’s office, stewing, while Percy just glares at him from across the desk.

“You should settle,” Percy says after some time.

“I want a new attorney,” Harry says flatly.

“Frankly, Harry, there’s no one else who wants to work your case, because of who’s involved,” Percy replies, peering up over the rim of his glasses. “Hermione and Ron have been trying to get some high-profile types to help you, without success, I’m afraid.”

“It’s Voldemort,” says Harry. “You’d think I’d have a heap of barristers banging on my door.”

Percy leans forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial level. Resentment causes Harry to bristle. Percy’s trying to make up for all those years of being against him by playing the big brother, but it’s not working. “That’s just it. It’s not You-Know-Who, not really. It’s something that represents him, and that frightens people.”

Harry frowns. “But– it is him. It’s a piece of his soul. Except in a take away receipt. Okay, now I’m beginning to understand why no one wants to help me.”

Naturally, he decides not to settle. Percy lectures him about being stubborn and pig-headed (ironic, coming from Percy), but Harry stops listening. Percy doesn’t understand that he just can’t let Voldemort win, not after everything’s that’s happened. But he doesn’t know how to fix this; it’s not a problem he can solve by magic and skill. He’s out of his league in a way he’s never been before.

Maybe then, he thinks, growing cold, he’s already lost.

When Percy finally lets him leave, he spots Ginny Weasley sitting on a chair in the corridor. He slows his pace until he’s right in front of her, and she looks up from her magazine and smiles.

“Hermione told me about the eighth horcrux,” is the first thing she says.

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says, “I would’ve told you, but…”

They haven’t seen each other since the first week after Voldemort died. Or almost died. Or whatever. He danced with her once, when he was really pissed, and he’s sure he told her some things, but he can’t remember what. He still cares about her, but he doesn’t want to be with her. He likes what they had; he likes looking back fondly. He doesn’t want to ruin that.

“Percy wants me to pay whatever Voldemort wants,” he says, shrugging.

She snorts. “Percy’s a git. He’s probably still mad you made Fudge look like a clot.”

Harry smiles. “Yeah, but unfortunately, he’s the only one here who knows what he’s doing.”

Ginny puts her hand on his arm. He almost has to look up to look into her eyes now. Weasleys are too tall for their own good. “Harry,” she says softly, “I want you to know, I’m here if you need me.”

“It was good to see you again,” he says, pulling away. She looks disappointed.

Rather than returning to the emptiness of his flat, he sits at a cafe in front of the second-hand bookstore and waits until Malfoy walks by. It takes nearly four hours, but eventually he catches Malfoy, who still struts as if every eye should be on him, walking in the same direction as a week ago.

*

This time Malfoy’s surprisingly easy to follow. Harry, keeping a respectable distance and wishing for his Invisibility Cloak, trails Malfoy down narrow, shadowed alleyways of broken cobblestone. They cross the square Harry remembers being lost in, and eventually Malfoy stops at a cluster of lopsided houses. Harry waits in the shadows while Malfoy walks up to one of the doors.

He waits until he heard the creak of a door opening before he steps out. “Hey, Malfoy.”

Malfoy yelps and spins round, eyes wide. “What the bloody–? Potter?”

There’s a moment where neither of them know what to say to each other.

“So I guess you found me,” Malfoy says arrogantly.

“You have been walking round London,” Harry points out.

“Are you going to stand here and mouth off, or are you coming inside for tea?”

Harry’s too startled to be properly offended. Malfoy goes inside, but he doesn’t completely shut the door. For about ten seconds, Harry seriously debates whether or not he’s going to follow, but in the end, curiosity gets the better of him. He pulls his wand out of his pocket and enters.

Malfoy’s home is actually the bottom level. Harry has to pass another doorway beside the stairwell. The flat’s small and shoddy, with white plaster walls that are beginning to crumble. From his spot in the entrance, Harry can see the kitchen and the lounge, which also might be the bedroom. There are newspaper clippings stuck to the wall, probably with magic, and even from a distance Harry can tell they’re about Malfoy’s parents. There’s one of Snape, too, but Harry can’t bring himself to get a good look at it.

Malfoy fills the kettle and turns on the cooker. He looks exactly the same as he did a year ago. Harry feels weird about that, and then he feels weird for feeling weird.

“I saw you a few weeks ago,” Harry says without thinking. “I called your name, but you didn’t stop.”

Malfoy eyes him warily. “Did you?” He looks down at the two cups he’s pulled out, then back up. “So I hear you killed the Dark Lord.”

“Yeah, well, you know,” Harry says, “most of him, anyway.”

Malfoy’s white eyebrows knit into a frown. He looks at Harry like there might be something wrong with him, but then the kettle goes off, and Harry’s pulling up a chair to the wobbly table while Malfoy pours them tea.

“I’d offer milk and sugar,” Malfoy says snidely, “but I’m sort of starving to death from being on the run and having my family’s fortune confiscated by the Ministry.”

Harry ignores the jab. “You’ve been in London this whole time then?”

Malfoy snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous. First I was in France, but not speaking French kept getting in the way. Then I was in the Highlands, but that’s such a miserable place, I don’t understand how anyone could possibly live there. After that I was in Manchester, but that was full of Welshmen.”

Harry’s beginning to remember why he hated Malfoy. “So you came back here, where anyone could spot you? Real good work there, Malfoy.”

He waves a vague hand. “Everyone thought I was dead anyway. I thought London was big enough for me to get by without running into people I know. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

“Seems that way,” Harry agrees. He takes a sip of his tea, which is still hot enough to burn.

“They left me to die,” Malfoy says, answering the question Harry hasn’t asked. “They left me naked in a forest somewhere on the continent. They said I’d never survive on my own. But I did, as you can see.” His chin tilts haughtily. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Harry asks.

“Aren’t you going to tell me how brave and strong I am?”

Harry resists the urge to laugh in his face. “I’m sorry,” he says instead.

Malfoy goes utterly still, expression unreadable. This is all very uncomfortable, and it’s not like Harry had a plan, but this isn’t going the way he wants. He reaches out to touch Malfoy’s shoulder, but then he decides that might be a bad idea. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you when I was supposed to,” Harry rambles on. “I’m just really sorry, okay?”

He suddenly knows what he wants more than anything is for Malfoy to forgive him. He needs Malfoy to forgive him, to give him hope that maybe everything isn’t all screwed up.

But then Malfoy leans back in his chair, pale eyes cold, and Harry’s heart sinks. “Excellent,” he says, drawing each word out slowly, “I’m glad you’re sorry. You should be.”

*

Four: Before

Harry and Malfoy sit on the curb of the entrance to Privet Drive, their trunks resting on the grass behind them. Malfoy’s gotten rid of that ridiculous wig, but Harry didn’t see whether or not he threw away the glasses. Uncle Vernon kicked Harry out as soon as he thought Harry was performing magic. “I won’t have two bloody wizards in my home!” he screamed, to which Harry replied, “Fine by me.”

Now they’re waiting for Arthur Weasley to arrive. Harry sent an owl explaining he didn’t have access to a fireplace, and that his trunk and Hedwig would make it difficult to Apparate. They’ve been sitting there in complete silence for hours. Harry’s been seriously considering just hopping onto his broom and leaving.

“I don’t suppose you can drive,” Harry says finally.

Malfoy merely looks at him. “I don’t even know what that means.”

The silence continues.

Malfoy lets out a long, painful sigh, and leans back so far he’s almost laying on the road. “I can’t believe I’m going to the Weasley’s. My father would die if he knew I set foot into that cramped, disgusting hovel.”

Harry can’t believe he was ever intimidated this prat. “Listen,” he says, turning to Malfoy, “from here on out, if you say a single bad thing about the Weasleys, you’re on your own. I’m not helping you because I like you, or even because I think you’re a good person.” Malfoy starts to say something, but Harry silences him. “And if I hear the words ‘my father’ come out of your mouth, I’ll kill you.”

Malfoy audibly clenches his teeth and looks away.

Arthur Weasley arrives with a pop. He rushes towards Harry, looking frantic. “What now, Harry?” he asks, putting a steady hand on Harry’s shoulder as Harry climbs to his feet. “They kicked you out? They can’t do that, Dumbledore would–”

Then he notices Malfoy.

Arthur looks at Harry sharply. “What’s going on here?”

This is the most humiliating moment of Harry’s life. Worse than the whole Cho fiasco. Worse than when he kissed Ginny in front of the entire House. “Er, he asked me to protect him from Voldemort.”

“And you believed him?”

“He seemed rather, uh, desperate,” Harry says.

“Is this the truth?” Arthur asks Malfoy. “Don’t think I won’t personally hand you over to the Ministry myself. We have ways of making you talk.”

Malfoy starts to sneer, then seems to think better of it. “Yes, sir.”

Arthur stares at Malfoy for a long beat, and for a second, Harry thinks maybe Arthur’s going to tell Malfoy to get lost. But he’s Arthur Weasley; he’d never do that to anyone, no matter how horrible they are. Instead, he pulls an old rubix cube out of his pocket.

“Now, both of you grab your trunks with one hand, and put the other on the portkey,” Arthur says.

Malfoy puts his hand on it quickly, but it takes Harry a second to bite down his anxiety. He hates portkeys.

A spin and a headache later, they’re in the Weasley’s yard. Harry breathes in the cool air, but when he glances at Malfoy, Malfoy’s gazing at the Burrow like he’s just seen something obscene.

Inside, it’s a flurry of activity, as usual, and no one even notices that Arthur brought home more than one boy. Mrs Weasley is furiously directing objects to clean themselves for their unexpected (“But very welcomed, of course.”) guest. And then Ron and Hermione come clambering down the stairs.

“Harry, love, how are you?” Mrs Weasley asks, folding a tea towel.

“Alright,” Harry says. He feels a million times better just walking into the Burrow.

“Harry–” Hermione starts, as Ron clasps his shoulder and begins, “Great to–”

Ron’s the one to notice Draco first. His face turns the same colour as his hair. “What the bloody hell is he doing here?”

Harry really doesn’t want to explain this. “Potter’s protecting me from the Death Eaters,” Malfoy sneers, before Harry can say anything.

“I’m not,” Harry mouths to Ron, who’s looking slightly ill, and Hermione, who just appears furious.

“Arthur,” Mrs Weasley calls hotly, “can I have a word with you in the kitchen?”

Arthur looks panicked for a second, but he follows her, leaving Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco to stand there and stare at each other.

“Potter,” Malfoy says, crossing his arms over his chest, “I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather the Dark Lord killed me.”

*

Five: After

Harry goes for his first day of Auror training, and he has a complete, utter freak-out.

*

On his way home, he buys a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. He makes it back to Malfoy’s place (after getting lost twice) and knocks on the door.

Malfoy pokes his head out a second later. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re not making a social call, are you?”

“I brought you some food,” Harry says, holding out the goods. He starts to step inside.

“I don’t want your pity,” Malfoy snarls, shoving Harry out the front door, but he snatches the bread and milk anyway.

Harry tries to block him. For someone so thin and pointy, Malfoy puts up a good fight. “Then what do you want?”

“I want you to get a life!”

The door slams behind him.

*

Just like when they were kids, Harry constantly seems to find himself at Ron’s place. Except it’s Ron’s and Hermione’s now. They’re all proper and grown up; he lies awake every night in a room above a pub while his parents’ galleons dwindle. When he gets to his friends’ flat, they serve him tea and biscuits, a habit he knows they picked up from Ron’s mother. There’s an overstuffed bookshelf in between two of Ron’s Quidditch posters. Their home is the complete opposite of Malfoy’s, and for some reason, that bothers him.

“I saw Zacharias Smith at the Ministry today,” Ron says, talking with his mouth full. “He’s working in Records now. You should’ve seen the look on his face when I told him we were Aurors.”

“I’m not an Auror anymore,” Harry says.

“What?” Hermione and Ron ask simultaneously. Or rather, Ron tries to ask, but he starts choking instead.

“Er, I botched it.”

“How could you botch it?” demands Ron, taking a big swill of his tea to wash down his biscuit. “You defeated Voldemort!”

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to keep your job when everything you see and do reminds you of the final duel between you and the man who killed your family,” Harry snaps.

Both Ron and Hermione seem taken aback. “Oh, Harry,” Hermione says. “What happened?”

He runs a hand over his smooth, unfamiliar forehead. “They were giving me a run-down in the Dark Arts. I just didn’t want to have to deal with that again.”

What he doesn’t mention is he made it as far as Avada Kedavra before remembering every single time that particular curse was used against him, his friends, and his family, in vivid, glorifying detail. He walked right out of the Ministry offices and just stood on the sidewalk, sucking in deep breaths until the urge to scream or vomit or who-knows-what subsided. In the seven years he struggled with Voldemort, in the seven years he watched people he cared about die, he’s never once had a reaction like that. That worries him a lot more than what he’s going to do without employment.

“I think I need a quiet job,” Harry says, rubbing his forehead again. “Something where nobody dies.”

“Listen, Harry, I think you might have a condition known as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder,” says Hermione. “It’s the result of having experienced something life-threatening. Do you feel detached? Have you been having flashbacks?”

Horrified, Harry can’t even formulate a response. He turns from her to Ron, who looks like he’d rather be doing anything other than having this conversation.

“You think I’m traumatised?” Harry manages.

“Well, mate,” Ron says hesitantly, “you did sorta kill someone.”

“For the good of humanity!” Harry sputters. “And– and you killed someone too!”

“And that is why Ron cries himself to sleep every night,” Hermione says. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter why. The point is that you did. And you can’t just walk away from that unaffected.”

Sudden, irrational fury pulses through him, and he clenches his fists. He knows Hermione just wants to help, but he wishes for once she’d just listen to him. He’s not insane; he just needs time to get used to this new world where Voldemort’s (mostly) gone and Harry’s expected to be a hero.

“Have you thought of what you’re going to do now?” Hermione asks.

He snaps, “You know, between the not sleeping and the nervous breakdown, I hadn’t really given it much thought.”

She brightens at “not sleeping.” “I was right, you do have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

*

“You alright?” Ron asks.

Harry’s sitting in the entrance to their building. It’s chilly out, and he wishes he’d worn a thicker jumper. He glances over his shoulder at Ron; Hermione’s frizzy-haired silhouette is pacing back and forth on the other side of the window.

Ron clunks down beside him. “Sorry about all that up there,” he says, bumping Harry’s shoulder with his. “You know how she is when she’s worried.”

Harry studies him. “Do you really cry yourself to sleep every night?”

Ron pauses. “Not… every night.”

Harry presses his palms against his eyes. He wants a drink. No, actually he wants to be back at Hogwarts. “You ever think about the future?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ron says, voice lifting in surprise.

“Yeah? What sort of things do you think about?”

Ron’s still looking at him strangely, but answers, “You know, the usual. Good job, nice home, maybe a family. I used to think about making a name for myself, but, well, I don’t really have to worry about that anymore. Order of Merlin, Second Class,” he reminds Harry, beaming.

“I’ve never thought about any of that,” Harry admits. “Ever since I found out about Voldemort and my parents, all I’ve thought about is doing my homework, playing Quidditch, maybe defeating an evil or two.” Ron chuckles at that. “Last summer, before Malfoy showed up, I’d been trying to think of a plan on how to kill Voldemort. But I couldn’t think of a single thing.”

Ron frowns. “But you did, eventually.”

“Yeah, thanks to you and Hermione. Not on my own. I can’t think that far ahead on my own. Now it’s like I can’t even think what I’m doing tomorrow.”

“Maybe Hermione’s onto something,” Ron says carefully.

“You think I’m nutters,” Harry accuses. He doesn’t need this from his supposed best chum.

“No,” Ron says, “I think you’re stressed. Come on, Harry, mate, you were raised in a cupboard. You were bound to come out maladjusted no matter what.”

Harry wants to ask where Ron learned the word “maladjusted,” but he knows the answer.

“We’re just worried,” Ron adds. “You haven’t been the same since…”

Harry closes his eyes. “So you’ve got me all figured out then, haven’t you? Well, I’m sorry I’m not adjusting as well as you and Hermione. I’m sorry that my whole life was leading up to one moment, and now that it’s over, I can’t–” He shakes his head. “It’s not even really over. I mucked it up. I thought there were seven, and there were eight.”

“Man,” Ron says, gazing up at the stars, “I don’t think anyone saw the receipt thing coming. That was really clever, wasn’t it? Sort of makes you appreciate his evil genius. It’s a wonder any of us lived.”

*

Six: Before

Ottery St Catchpole is a lot smaller than Harry expected. It’s not more than a few narrow streets, a patch or two of bright green parks, and a handful of buildings that lean suspiciously to the left. The weather’s boiling hot, and Harry can smell the Otter River from where they are. Harry loves being at the Burrow.

“This place reeks,” Malfoy grumbles, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

Mr and Mrs Weasley sent the younger ones — minus Ginny, since Arthur seemed to be having a hard time adjusting to the fact his little girl was seriously dating, even if the bloke was someone he knew for years, and even if they already broke up — to town, because Malfoy was grating everyone’s nerves. Ron whinged Malfoy was annoying them, but his parents ordered them to take Malfoy out or else.

“Hey,” Ron murmurs, bumping Harry with his shoulder, “let’s chuck him in the river.”

“If you’re willing to listen to him complain about it for the next week,” Harry whispers.

“I’m right here,” Malfoy says loudly. “I can hear you. You’d better not throw me in. These robes alone are worth more than your miserable life, Weasley.”

“Shut up,” reply Ron and Harry, as Hermione snorts.

“There’s not really much to see here,” Ron says as they walk onto the high street. “They have a wicked sweets shop, but it’s, you know, Muggle candy, and Mum doesn’t like us to eat it. Something about not knowing what’s in it.”

They walk up and down the road a few times, peering into the shops. Ron’s right, there isn’t much; they see the sweets shop, as well as a single coffee bar, a travel agency, and a post office. Harry notices Hermione smile to herself when they pass the public library. Ron starts telling them a story from when he was a kid and the twins made him eat sand out of the park sandbox, and how ever since then he’s had a hard time stomaching porridge, when Harry notices something’s off.

“Malfoy, you’ve been awfully–” He turns and find he’s been talking to empty space. Malfoy’s gone. “–Quiet.”

“Uh-oh,” Ron mutters.

All three of them take out their wands. The streets are eerily still, but there’s something dangerous in the air. The hair rises on the back of Harry’s neck.

“Maybe he just ran away?” Ron says hopefully, but his voice is low.

“Help!” they hear, and it’s definitely Malfoy’s whiny voice.

“Harry,” Hermione says, grabbing his sleeve and pointing.

Harry braces himself for the Dark Mark floating above the village, but there’s nothing. So he takes off running in the direction of Malfoy’s scream, hoping maybe Malfoy’s just thick and got lost. He’s not prepared for when Ron knocks both him and Hermione to the ground. The wind rushes out of him, and he gasps, “What’re you doing?” and braces himself against the wall of the most definitely left-leaning building on their side. Hermione also has a pale, shocked look about her.

Without sound, Ron nods to indicate Harry should peek round the corner.

“Death Eaters,” Hermione hisses.

Indeed, roughly a dozen men in Death Eater masks and robes are carrying Malfoy down a path that leads out of Ottery St Catchpole. Malfoy’s struggling to get out of their grasps, but he’s no match for twelve large, hulking adults. He’s also shrieking very loudly and hysterically.

Harry leans back against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut. They should do something. They should definitely do something. “Anyone have a plan?”

“You want to save him?” Ron asks incredulously. “I’m not putting my neck out for Malfoy!”

“Ron!” Hermione snaps. She turns to Harry. “You think we can get all of them before they either kill us or kill him?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replies honestly, trying to remember what happened at Hogwarts, or the year before at the Ministry. How many Death Eaters did they fight then, and how did they win?

They all watch until the Death Eaters disappear into the distance. Eventually, Malfoy’s screams die off.

“We should go after them,” Hermione says to Harry, but he voice is hesitant. “Malfoy’s a horrible, terrible, despicable person, but they’re probably going to kill him.”

“Yeah, that’d be a shame,” Ron says, studying his trainers.

Guilt tightens Harry’s chest. On the one hand, he doesn’t want Malfoy to die, but on the other hand, he does.

When they make it back to the Burrow, none of them speaking, Arthur, Molly, and Ginny are all in the lounge. There must’ve been something on their faces, because Arthur goes slightly grey and climbs to his feet. “Where’s Draco?” he asks.

“We’re assuming he’s dead,” Ron explains for them all. “We’re rather optimistic.”

*

Seven: After

“It’s not that I’m stalking you,” Harry starts when Malfoy leans out the doorway.

“It’s just that you have this compulsive need to be around me?” Malfoy raises a cool brow.

They do that whole shuffle again where Harry tries to get inside and Malfoy struggles to keep him out. This time Harry wins, and Malfoy’s left following him.

“I’m beginning to think you might be in love with me,” Malfoy drawls at Harry’s back.

“Yeah,” Harry says sarcastically, “I love you so much, I let Death Eaters carry you off to your death.”

“Supposed death, Potter. Supposed.”

There’s a new — and very sinister-looking — clock leaning against the wall in the lounge. Harry’s somewhat ashamed he’s been here often enough to notice things like that. He really needs Malfoy to forgive him now so he can get over it. He wonders if maybe they should go somewhere else for once. Although it’s hardly like he can ask Malfoy to play Quidditch or go for a drink, him being on the run and all, even if Malfoy seems to think he can walk round this part of London without worry.

“Ron and Hermione think I’m losing it,” he says, eyeing the clock.

“I don’t care, Potter.” Malfoy gets up, starts to pace, and then sits down again.

“They think I feel guilty because of stress.”

Malfoy sighs. “Is that so?” he says, in a tone that clearly means it doesn’t matter to him what Harry’s answer is.

“So I came here to apologise again,” Harry continues.

“Yes, that’s very compelling evidence of your sanity.”

“Why won’t you accept my apology?” Harry yells, clenching his fists. “Do you know what my life’s been like?”

“No,” Malfoy shouts back, “I’ve been too busy being nearly murdered by Death Eaters and running away from Aurors.”

The rage seeps right out of Harry. He presses a hand against his forehead, saying quietly, “I wasn’t supposed to be the person who leaves people behind.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t supposed to be the person to get left behind,” Malfoy says angrily. “I was supposed to be the one who helped You-Know-Who rise to power, and then I was supposed to be the one to kill him and take over the Death Eaters. Instead I’m here pouring tea for everyone’s hero, Harry-bleeding-Potter, who’s having a complete mental breakdown in my kitchen.”

“I don’t think it’s a complete breakdown until I start sobbing uncontrollably,” Harry points out.

Malfoy’s face turns slightly purple. “What is it that you want from me? What’s the reason you’re wasting my time now and every other day this past week?”

Harry frowns. “I told you, I just wanted to say–”

“Right, right, you’re sorry. You’re always sorry now. It’s pathetic, really. You’ve gone from being someone I hated, to someone I could have possibly one day not minded your being alive, to someone I truly pity.”

“Is a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder rage blackouts?” Harry asks coolly. “Because I think I’m about to have one right now.”

“Are you sorry about what you did to my parents?” Malfoy asks suddenly.

Harry’s startled. “No,” he says firmly. “I didn’t turn them into Death Eaters. They got what they deserved.”

Malfoy’s mouth curls into a tight sneer. “Are you sorry for killing Voldemort?”

“Technically, I only killed seven eighths of him, but no, I’m not sorry.” He pauses and thinks about that. “I mean, I am sorry, but only sorry I didn’t kill him entirely.”

“What would happen if I said I forgave you? Would this huge weight suddenly be lifted off your chest, and suddenly the birds will sing and the sun will shine and you’ll walk into the sunset with that Weasley of yours?”

“Ginny?” Harry asks.

“Sure,” Malfoy says.

In all honesty, he’s not sure what would happen if Malfoy accepts his apology. He hasn’t really given much thought about it, about anything, really, in what feels like months. Somehow he doesn’t think he’d feel any better.

“I think,” he says slowly, “your forgiveness would make me feel as if I’m the hero everyone claims me to be.”

But by the time Malfoy kicks him out, Harry’s realised that’s a complete, total lie. He doesn’t need Malfoy’s forgiveness; he needs Malfoy’s fury to keep his mind off the people he really failed.

“I’m coming back tomorrow,” he shouts at the door.

He hears something like sputtered curses rising on the other side.

*

Actually, he doesn’t return the next day. Rather, just as he’s about to walk out the door, Ron asks him to referee a Quidditch game between him and some other blokes from the Ministry. Harry’s a little hurt Ron didn’t even bother to ask him to play, but he says yes anyway.

Because of all the equipment and the unusually nice weather, they decide it’ll be more fun to walk than Apparate. Ron’s in quite a good mood, humming to himself as they move, which Harry kills by saying:

“I want to tell you something important.”

For a second, Ron looks positively terrified. “Alright,” he squeaks.

Harry adjusts the pack on his shoulder, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I’ve been seeing Malfoy.”

Ron falters. “You what?”

“Not, like, seeing-seeing. Just seeing. We’ve been talking.”

“Talking?” Ron repeats shrilly. He goggles. Then shakes his head. Then goggles again. “About what? How you’re going to turn him in to the Ministry?”

“I’m not turning him in, Ron. I just… wanted to make sure he was okay. Look, I shouldn’t have left him last year. I wouldn’t've done it to anyone but him.”

Ron stops abruptly and grabs his arm, face darkening in anger. A few people behind them mutter curses as they bump into the six-foot-plus redhead. “Is that what all this is about, your guilt?” Ron demands. “Listen, Harry, it was war. It was a war we barely survived. People do daft things when their necks are on the line, and you know what? I think we did the right thing. Yeah, we hated him, and he hated us, but I’d do it all over again. Because if you’d gone after that pack of Death Eaters, then we might not be here. My family, Hermione, our friends — they might all be dead. So stop bloody thinking about the one bad thing out of all the good you did.”

“I did plenty of bad,” Harry almost says, turning away.

Ron lets go of him, and they walk the rest of the way without speaking.

Harry’s afraid that if he stops thinking about Malfoy, then he’s going to have to think about Sirius and Remus and Tonks and Luna and Snape and Dumbledore and everyone else he couldn’t save. At least Malfoy is here now, where he can fix his mistake.

*

Harry doesn’t sleep that night. He tosses and turns for about three hours, but eventually he gets fed up and puts on his robes.

Under his bed, Harry keeps a box filled with all the owls Sirius and Remus ever sent him, a worn-out copy of The Quibbler, and even a few of his old Potions scrolls with failing marks on them (including one that suggested he drop out of Hogwarts and become “something more suited to your intelligence, perhaps a bin man”). He never considered himself particularly sentimental until he kept losing people he cared about (and in Snape’s case, someone he just feels very awful for not trusting). He has another box full of things from Ron and Hermione, just in case.

He opens the box and reads Sirius’s letters until he can’t take it anymore.

After pulling on his trainers, he practically runs to Ron and Hermione’s flat. Being London, there are still plenty out of people out and about, but he doesn’t look at any of them.

He bangs and bangs until Ron finally opens his door, hair mussed, eyes wide. “Blimey, Harry, what–?”

“It’s not about Malfoy,” Harry rushes.

Ron frowns. “Okay?”

“When Sirius died, that’s all I could think about for months,” Harry says, words falling out of mouth. He doesn’t understand them, but he needs to say them. “I never stopped feeling bad about it. And now it’s more than just Sirius. A bunch of people died because of me, Ron. They died so I can live, only now I’m not really living. I can’t wake up every day and feel happy that I survived the war, knowing that they didn’t.”

Ron’s expression softens. He puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder and leads him inside. “Hermione’s usually right about these things.”

*

A fortnight later, Harry comes to after a long twelve-hour sleep. It’s been four months, one week, and two days after his final duel with Voldemort. For the first time since he left Hogwarts for the final time, he wakes up and feels… not terrible.

His case is still in court (Percy told him not to show his face). Ron and Hermione are still worried about him. His friends and family are still dead. Malfoy’s still a prat.

During breakfast, he reads the Daily Prophet, takes a walk to feel the sun on his face, and thinks about what he needs to do. The first thing, he decides, is to get a bloody job already. Eventually, he Apparates to a familiar little neighbourhood in a different part of London.

He knocks on Malfoy’s door for about ten minutes (it’s a good thing Malfoy doesn’t seem to have neighbours, because otherwise they’d probably not be very happy with him) before it opens a crack. Malfoy peers at him with narrowed eyes. “Why do you look so happy? You know, I keep telling you I don’t forgive you, yet you keep coming back.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He tries not to smile, but fails. “I won’t bother you any more after I say this.”

“Oh,” Malfoy says, blinking. He leans against the doorway. “I wasn’t serious. I, er, don’t mind being bothered every now and then. Especially if you keep bringing me food.”

Harry pretends he doesn’t hear that. “I’m sorry for–”

Scowling, Malfoy waves his hands. “Yes, yes! I know! Leaving me to die. You’ve said it a thousand times by now.”

“No, this time I’m sorry for using you as a substitute for all my guilt,” Harry says. “Which has actually caused me more guilt in the process. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

Malfoy squints. “Are you even speaking English anymore?”

“I’ve, er, been talking to Hermione.”

“So you don’t feel bad anymore for breaking your promise to keep me safe?” Malfoy asks, sounding dubious. He keeps narrowing his eyes, as if trying to look angry, in between bouts of seeming surprised.

Harry rubs the back of his neck. “I do,” he says honestly, “but I think I can live with it.”

He turns to leave, but Malfoy’s voice stops him: “Hey, Potter, I’m sorry too — for ruining your life.”

When the door shuts, all Harry can do is laugh at Malfoy’s sense of self-importance.

That night, Harry sneaks into the Ministry of Magic and rips up the receipt. The next day, the Ministry launches a formal investigation, but Harry receives an owl from the new Minister of Magic, congratulating him on saving everyone. Again. Harry puts the owl in his desk drawer next to his medals, and then he leaves to meet Ron for a game of Quidditch.

*

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Special thanks to Lulinda and Aja for beta reading.