Goonus Americanus

Followup to Wraith Killer, Scientist, Space Pilot; Double O Geek, Geek Protocol and a direct sequel to Geeks and Goons.

Pre-Brotherhood.

Spoilers for Before I Sleep and the ever-despised Sanctuary.

Rated PG-13 for naughty language/Gen

I don’t speak Czechoslovakian and I could not find a good dictionary. Instead substituted is very, very poor Russian. I know Dr. Z. would strongly disapprove…mea culpa.

When I was ten, I lived next to this kid named Charlie. Charlie…Charlie Something. I can’t remember his last name; it’s lost in the mists of time and the beer-damaged brain cells of frat parties past. Still, I remembered most things about Charlie. He was the same age as me with flaming red hair, freckles like copper pennies, and a smile spawned by Satan himself. I could get in my share of trouble…hard to believe my diplomacy skills are no better now than when I was throwing baseballs through the window of the resident scary Cat Lady’s house, but it’s true. Yeah, I could get into trouble, but for Charlie it was an art form. And it was never ordinary trouble. Charlie was smart as a whip, and the trouble he conjured up was elaborate as hell. If it was exploding crappy lawn-art, had to be Charlie. Dry ice in your swimming pool, it was Charlie. Model rockets that set neighborhood trees on fire, it was Charlie. Building wings out of coat-hangers and old sheets and jumping off the roof, definitely Charlie. He made me look like the good kid and let me tell you, that was an accomplishment.

But Charlie was about other things, too. He had the best comics and the fastest bike that he’d lend to you in a heartbeat. He told the stupidest jokes, the kind only a ten-year old truly appreciates. And he talked…nonstop. Seriously. Sleepovers, he’d fall asleep mid sentence…mid word even. And he’d wake up talking. I think it was fate’s way of training me early, because only fate, in all its gleefully dark ingenuity, could’ve known there was a McKay out there somewhere. Charlie had been my McKay training wheels.

Charlie was also epileptic. The bad kind. Grand mal seizures. They didn’t happen that often, his medication kept it mostly under control. I actually only saw one. That it happened after Charlie and I had snuck down to the basement to watch the expressly forbidden Exorcist was only my bad luck. When you’re ten…hell, a Grand mal seizure is not something you see every day. He gave Linda Blair a run for her money and if I’d had a crucifix at that moment, I probably would’ve whacked him over the head and given him the good old, ‘The power of Christ compels thee.’ Luckily for us both, I didn’t. Instead I yelled and pretty goddamn loudly as it woke his parents on the second floor. There was some chaos for a while and then it was over. What I remembered most was the sound of Charlie’s feet drumming on the floor, the priest on the TV screen still compelling the hell out of poor damn Linda, and the sharp smell of urine. When you’re that age, damn, pissing your pants is the ultimate in mortification. But Charlie was my buddy, my best friend, and I knew I wouldn’t rat him out. Buddies, pals, Starsky and Hutch. Butch and Sundance. Apollo and Starbuck. And like all those shows told you, you always watched your buddy’s back.

But Charlie died and pissing on himself probably became the least of his concerns.

I missed him a long time. Missed him like hell. The weird thing is, sometimes I still do. Twenty-five years past and counting and I still miss that damn kid.

So maybe it wasn’t too surprising that through the rushing dark, the pain, the desperate struggle for air, and a voice shouting, ‘He’s seizing!’, all I could think was “Jesus, Charlie, don’t let me piss my pants.”

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“You call this sick? You must be joking,” came the scathing remark from my doorway.

I’d locked the door. Trust me…after the shower incident to say that I was hyper-aware of my own personal security would be a hell of an understatement. Unfortunately, McKay was getting better and better all the time at using that ATA gene he’d hijacked from me…from my blood. It was rather disturbing to think there was a little bit of me floating around in there. One tiny speck surrounded by millions, billions of Rodney particles. All of them yapping, scolding, bitching, complaining, bossing…. Picture it, just try…a billion McKays. My God, what the hell had I done?

“I want it back,” I demanded.

He started to step into the room when he spotted a wastebasket overflowing with kleenex. Scowling, he stepped back instantly. “What? Want what back? What are you going on about now?”

“My gene. My defenseless, probably long insane gene. I want it back. Hell, you never thanked me for it anyway.”

“Back? You want it back.” He rocked on the balls of his feet and looked up at the ceiling as if seeking patience from above. “I’ll refrain from listing all the medical reasons that it’s not possible and just say this: That’ll be the day. That will indeed be the day,” he finished smugly, dropping his gaze back to me. “As for this whole…,” he waved at the piled kleenex and grimaced, “I passed Beckett in the hall and he told me you were sick and said I shouldn’t bother you.” McKay hmphed. “As if my brilliance and winning ways are ever a bother.”

I had to give it to Doctor Beckett. Behind that calm, caring demeanor…behind that soft burr and brusquely sympathetic manner, he was evil personified. With that one sentence, he’d managed to get both McKay and me. I was snotting around, chilled, hacking up things a cat would run from and I was in no mood to do anything but lie on my bunk and die. And he knew telling McKay not to do something was the same as painting your ass red and mooning a bull. That Scot was positively Machiavellian. He’d compounded my suffering to no end and from the white eyed and uneasy glances Rodney was shooting around the room he’d just realized he was millimeters from contamination.

I dropped the book onto my stomach. War and Peace. Looked good, didn’t it? A soldier reading a classic like War and Peace. But here’s the thing…the classics, the truly great classics? They’re boring. Mind numbingly boring. It’d be less painful to blow off your goodie bag with your nine mil than to wade through some of them. Which was why I was reading The Shining with a War and Peace cover. Oh yeah, and to pull one over on McKay. A man had to have his priorities. “I’m not sick,” I said calmly, holding back a sneeze with everything I had in me.

The expressive eyebrows rose skeptically. “You’re not sick?” His eyes went from me to Mount Kleenex and back again.

“Nope,” I drawled. “Only the weak get sick.”

The eyebrows swooped back down into a pugnacious furrow. “Is that a fact?”

“Yep, one well known to all us strong, heroic types. Don’t worry if you didn’t know,” I said gravely. “But if I were sick, it’d be your fault.”

“My fault.” His eyes narrowed, but he seemed oddly fascinated by the logic. “And how do you come to that…ah…” He circled his hand rapidly in the air, priming that McKay genius pump. “Idiotic. Yes, idiotic is good. How do you come to that idiotic conclusion?”

“Well, let’s see.” I tapped one finger on the book cover. “I had to jump in a freezing alien ocean to save your ass. And, seriously, do you have to leap into the path of every Wraithbolt that comes along? Jesus, McKay, give the rest of us a chance at a nap, would you?” I ignored his dark scowl at the injustice of the accusation and tapped a second finger. “Then there was the whole vomiting on me thing, thanks so much for that by the way, and the mouth to mouth. I’m probably infested with Geekus Canadicus cooties.” I added smoothly, “That is…if I were sick.”

“Which you’re not.”

“Right.”

He shifted his weight back on his heels and folded his arms. “Just to be clear…you’re not sick, but if you were sick it would be my fault and you would be contaminated with the rapacious Geekus Canadicus cootie.” He did the air quotes around cootie—I knew he couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried.

“Bingo,” I curled up the corner of my mouth. “You’re a smart guy, Rodney. I don’t care what Kavanaugh says.”

His jaw flexed and he muttered under his breath for a moment. I wasn’t sure but it sounded suspiciously like ‘flux capacitor, flux capacitor.’ Squaring his shoulders, he said briskly through clenched teeth, “Yes, fine, I’m glad that’s straightened out then. So are we still on for lunch or not?”

What the hell…I could die in the cafeteria as well as here. “Sure.” I tossed the book aside and stood.

We were in the hall and walking before he asked, “Did I really vomit on you?”

“Damn straight you did,” I growled.

“Ha!”

With his mood remarkably improved after that revelation, Rodney piled his tray high in the cafeteria and sat at the end of one table. When I walked up with whatever crumbs and scraps were left in the wake of a plague of munching locusts masquerading as an arrogant astrophysicist, he waved his fork peremptorily. “Oh no. No. No. You sit down there.” He indicated the far end of the table then reached into his pocket. Pulling out a tiny bottle, he immediately began squirting it in my direction. I took a few hurried steps back as the pungent pine fresh smell of disinfectant filled the air.

Blinking with watering eyes, I waited until the air cleared slightly, moved closer, and let loose a sloppy, wet sneeze eight inches above his tray. Sniffing, I retrieved his napkin, wiped my nose and dropped it back in his lap. “Enjoy,” I said cheerfully.

Holding his arms out from his sides, his appalled gaze went from his lap to his tray and then to me who had happily settled in opposite and was taking a big bite of a mystery meat sandwich. “I hate you. With every fiber of my being, I hate you.”

“Yet I’m filled with nothing but love for you, McKay.” I took another bite. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, mind you, but it wasn’t bad. “Besides I’m just sharing the cooties. Goonus Americanus. We’re not a sophisticated breed, but we’re hardy.” I sneezed again. “Most of the time.”

Shoving his tray away, he stood, did what looked a soft shoe shuffle until the napkin fell from his legs to the floor, and then quickly pushed it away with the toe of his shoe. Sitting back down, he sprayed his tray with disinfectant and kicked me hard under the table. “So,” he exhaled, revenge momentarily completed, and rested his chin in his hand. “When did you…ah…not get sick?”

“Yesterday,” I answered morosely. “While you and Ford and Teyla were flying the clear black skies. And how was it by the way?”

I was grounded…a fate every blessed geek in the city howled with victory over and one I’d fought every step of the way. But Beckett had last say in medical matters and unlike McKay who could be gotten around on occasion, the Doc was steel. And the more I bitched, the more likely I was to receive a ‘vitamin’ shot in what he referred to as my malnourished bum. I still bitched; I just learned to make quick exits when I saw a certain gleam in his eye. I was grounded until things returned to normal and there was no way around it.

What had seemed three weeks ago to be a simple example of me being a raving asshole who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants had actually turned out to be something quite different. Carson still hadn’t quite figured out what Chaya had done. There were no drugs in my system, but my EEG had been altered, and several chemicals in my brain…one of which originated in what Beckett called the happy horny hypothalmus…were seriously out of whack. That combined with some lost time and a fuzzy smear over the time I did remember of those two days had led Beckett, McKay, and Weir to the conclusion that I was the victim of some sort of space sexual assault. When I brought up the fact that I seemed to vaguely remember enjoying the assault rather enthusiastically, they ignored me. Actually, Rodney had snorted and said ‘typical’ and Weir suggested I see the base shrink.

Did this shit ever happen to Kirk, I ask you? Did Bones say, “Well, Jim, that Orion slave girl gave you a dose of the cosmic-clap. Here’s a shot of penicillin and see the shrink”? Hell, no.

That festive little humiliation had been seven days ago. My labs had slowly inched back into normal range, but the EEG was stubborn. Beckett said it might be another three or four days before I could fly again or go through the gate. Three or Four. It didn’t even bear thinking about.

McKay’s lopsided mouth curved in an infuriatingly self-satisfied smile. “PX-8977? Gorgeous place. Beautiful.” He sat up and put his hands behind his head. “Warm, sunny, flowers, but the kind I’m not allergic to. And women…the tribe was all women. It was an Amazon moment, I swear. And they were all nude except for the flowers they wore in their hair. They sang and danced.” He tilted his head slightly to the side. “Oh, and there was bouncing. Lots and lots of bouncing.”

My hand stopped, the sandwich hovering in front of my mouth. “Really?”

He snorted. “No. Of course not. It was cold and miserable, muddy and wet. The only woman we saw was about eighty and the old biddy spit on my shoe. There. Happy now? You’re not missing a thing.”

Curiously enough, I was happier. No less worried that I wasn’t out there with them, but happier…yeah. After all, misery loves company. I finished the sandwich and tossed Rodney the power bar from my tray. It was the only thing hermetically sealed and therefore uncontaminated. He yelped and dodged it. When it landed on the table in front of him, he immediately sprayed it. Waving his hand over the plastic, he waited a few seconds until the disinfectant dried and then opened it up to take a bite.

“Well, you can take off the galoshes for a few days. There won’t be any more missions until I’m back in the saddle.” I stuck a fork in something yellow-brown and soft, considered it for a moment, then decided discretion was the better part of valor. I put the fork down.

“Being in the saddle is what got you in this mess in the first place,” he pointed out, but it was without his usual acerbic bite. Rodney didn’t feel responsible for the whole Chaya fuck up…God knows he’s no martyr…but he did feel he should’ve noticed I was not quite myself. Never mind that he’d worked through the night to show her for the fraud she was. Forget that he’d done his damnedest to dog my every step in Atlantis when I was with her. And the whole being right when everyone refused to listen to him thing…well, it did count in his mind, big time…but to him it didn’t make up for the fact all his suspicious attentions had been focused on herthat he hadn’t once thought to look at me. He’d tried to convince me; I acted like an asshole, and so he decided to go around me. He didn’t stop to ask himself why I was being an asshole.

When we’d had this talk a few days ago over thimblefuls of Zelenka-Stoli,I’d said with disbelief, “Hell, Rodney, I am an asshole. Why would you think there was some big brainwashing conspiracy behind that one particular time?”

“You’re not an asshole,” he’d responded, swallowing the clear liquid and gagging slightly. Coughing, he’d gone on, “Don’t get me wrong. You’re an ass, sure. No argument from me there. But you’re not an asshole. There’s a difference.”

Ah the twisty turny paths of the McKay mind. “Then why do you call me an asshole?”

“Ass is too short a word to fill with all the proper outrage you inspire in me,” he’d responded promptly. “So is asshole for that matter, but it’s more socially acceptable than some of the longer ones I could use.”

When the man was right, he was right. And as he’d tell you, that was one hundred and ten percent of the time. I’d thought the subject over until he added one grim comment. “We should never have let you get in that jumper.”

A concise Rodney is an unnerving thing. In this situation it made me think about things that quite frankly I didn’t want to look at too closely. We all have our touchy areas, control happened to be mine. You didn’t get a reputation like mine for ignoring chain of command without good reason. And thistwo days of someone pulling my strings like I was some sort of hapless, brain-dead puppet with a hard on…fuck…I poured myself another shot, a damn generous one.

“Hey,” I’d said with determined and dismissive cheer, clicking my shotglass against his, “No harm, no foul. A few screwy lab results and a hangover are the only thing that came out of it. I’ve had a helluva lot worse weekends in Tijuana.”

The corners of his mouth had tightened downward minutely, but he’d finished his own drink with only a snarky ‘spreading diplomacy wherever you go’ before hustling me off to the lab to study the effects of alcohol on the functioning of the ATA gene. I wasn’t sure if it were a legitimate experiment, an excuse to drink more, or a combination of the two. Either way, I’d ended up sprawled on the floor, my back to the wall and sound asleep. And McKay…McKay had passed out in the midst of building a fembot…and a pretty anatomically correct one it seemed from Zelenka’s gasps, snorts and mile a minute Czechoslovakian comments the next morning when he opened up the lab. I wasn’t sure from the tone if it were cursing at the use of short supplies or cursing in sheer admiration. Since I’d later caught him trying to barter Teyla out of one of her more…ah…interesting outfits, I guessed the latter.

“And what does Weir think of this no mission until the almighty John Sheppard can flap his wings and fly again?” He finished the last bite of the power bar and frowned at the impressive growl that rumbled from his abdomen.

“I don’t know. I’ll ask her when I give her the news.” Which was unlikely to go too well. We were on a tight schedule now to find a ZPM. Tight enough that the need to take chances and cut corners was very much present. If I were the one cutting corners, that would’ve been fine by me. But I wasn’t and damned if I was going to live with the fact someone died because I was sitting on my ass waiting for my brainwaves to get their shit together. I’d let the one mission to PX-8977 slide because Teyla swore the people were barely above the Stone Age. And I’d still packed the jumper to the gills with every soldier that would fit…including Bates, my own personal Rottweiler. All the other missions were to unknown planets and that…without me….was not happening. Weir could wait the three days or force Beckett to let me fly now.

I was hoping it was the latter.

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Ask and you shall receive.

She was furious, in a completely reasonable, diplomatic sort of way, of course. First she played the ‘don’t you care about your own welfare’ card. Please. I’m military, obviously that bit of sunshiny luxury disappeared a long time ago. You’ve heard the classic fireman credo: the first one into the burning building and the last one out. With the military, we either dropped the bomb on that building or we were in it when it blew. Our job was to die for our country, not live for it. My country now was a bunch of crazy geek scientists and slowly dwindling grunts. That didn’t matter. In many ways…in all ways, I’d rather die for them than for millions of people I didn’t know.

After that failed to sway me, she pointed out if I truly cared about my teammates I wouldn’t endanger them with my as-of-yet unproven bill of health. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I’d countered. “I flip out and jump Teyla’s bones? She’d break my leg. But if that makes you nervous, fine. She can sit out the next mission, and it’ll just be McKay, Ford, and me.”

“I doubt seriously that would do much for Dr. McKay and Lieutenant Ford’s peace of mind,” she’d responded dryly.

In the end, we compromised. Two more days. In two more days, I would fly again and until then we’d hold off on the next mission. Beckett was even less happy than Weir had been, but after two more EEGs, he conceded reluctantly that I was very nearly back into the normal range and signed me off.

Which is how we came to the bank of the stream.

Actually it was halfway between a large stream and a small river. It was swollen from a recent rain and was moving at a decent clip. Branches spun by briskly and from McKay’s handheld Ancient doodad it measured about four to four and a half feet deep. I absently shifted the strap of the P-90 on my shoulder, shifting its weight, and considered the water. I wasn’t the only one doing so, not by a long shot.

“So…rope ourselves together and cross?” Ford suggested, setting the pack at his feet.

Ordinarily, that probably would’ve been my thought as well. But now…I slid an assessing gaze towards Rodney. He was rechecking the measurements, muttering under his breath per usual. “Wet…why is it always wet? Is there some universal plot to grow fungus in my bodily crevices? Is it a scheme by the athlete’s foot powder people? What ? Are we supposed to grow gills, because I’d really like to know.”

Typical McKay background noise. And if it weren’t for the dogged set of his shoulders and the rigid line of his spine, I might have bought it.

Rodney had drowned just over a week ago. Drowned. He hadn’t been breathing, his heart…well, I was still not delving too deeply on whether his heart had actually stopped or not. And, yeah, he’d been hit by a Wraithbolt and was unconscious at the time. It didn’t change the fact that he woke up choking and gasping, coughing water from his lungs…not knowing what had happened. Thinking for the briefest of moments that Weir number two had been right all along. It wasn’t the entire drowning experience, but it was a good chunk of it. I didn’t think I’d be so hot to jump back in the pool after that either.

“Nah,” I countered. Bending down, I picked up a splintered branch and skimmed it into the water. It was gobbled up immediately. “The current looks pretty rough. We’ll go back and get the jumper. Fly over.”

Ford shook his head dubiously. “I think we could do it. I’ve crossed worse.”

I slapped his shoulder. “Splash in puddles on your own time, Ford. Now let’s haul ass back to the jumper and cross this bad boy in heated comfort.”

We were trudging the three miles back when McKay drifted up behind me and murmured snidely, “Afraid to get your hair wet?”

I grinned easily at him. “But it looks so cool. How can I possibly negotiate with the natives if I don’t have cool hair?”

“Vanity is the quicksand of reason, Major,” he quoted with a supercilious lift of his chin. He walked a few more steps before reaching into his pocket to pull out a small rectangular package. What I took for a dry-as-dust power bar materialized into an actual, honest to goodness, sell your soul Snickers. I’d thought the last of those disappeared over a month ago. He bounced it once against his palm, then offered it to me. “You want it?” he said casually. “I’m not hungry. I had one of those rolls before we left. You know, with the red bits that look like cherries and taste like watermelon? It was the last, too. Snatched it right out from under Radek. I think he was going to feed it to the fembot. I’m getting rather worried about that. I mean, I know I was the one to start…er…construction, but now…with the clothes and the hair and all that WD-40 missing from the lab….”

I took the Snickers and rapped the back of his hand with it to cut him off. “You’re welcome, McKay,” I said solemnly.

His lips twitched. “You’re so damn smug.”

“Hey, I learned from the best.” I started to break the candy bar in half. “You want….” Before I could finish the question, I sneezed violently spraying the chocolate with Goonus Americanus.

“Yes, well….” McKay backed up a few feet. “Quite generous I’m sure, but it’s all yours.”

We scored nothing on the planet. Not a goddamn thing. Certainly no ZPM. It was just a bunch of farmers grubbing in the dirt. They’d never heard of the Ancients, didn’t have a single temple we could loot, and possessed hygiene so questionable that McKay wouldn’t even come into the village. He lurked on the outskirts, took readings, and fended off the advances of an amorous alien goat.

Still, I’d gotten off Atlantis, I’d gotten to fly, and I now had in my possession a digital picture of McKay getting his leg humped by a purple goat. All in all, a good mission in my book.

It was on the flight back that it started.

I frowned at the navigational readings. It was the fifth time in an hour and I was giving serious consideration to kicking the console. It wasn’t ATA-worthy maybe, but it would’ve been satisfying all the same. “McKay, we keep drifting off course.”

“You say that as if it should somehow remotely interest me,” a muffled voice came from behind. I looked over my shoulder to see him sprawled in a seat, jacket over his face and legs akimbo. One well-loved pant leg was covered from knee to ankle with mud and purple hair.

“If you’d actually like to get back to Atlantis sometime today, it does,” I drawled. “So throw off that post-goatal sloth you’ve got going on and fix the damn thing.”

There was a series of choking sounds from Ford as McKay’s hand tugged the jacket down to reveal eyes narrowed to slits. “You do realize there are times that my enormous intelligence is going to be all that stands between you and certain death? That the day will come when I’ll be the only one who can save you from a horrific and probably well-deserved fate? What will you say to me then, Major? What could you possibly say to convince me to help your wretched ass then?”

I pondered then lifted an eyebrow. “There’s a goat in it for you if you do?”

I dodged the balled up jacket as it flew by my face. “Come on, McKay,” I grinned. “Don’t take it so seriously. My dating history isn’t much better than yours. A little less pungent, but no better.”

It was a fact that didn’t seem to placate him much. He scowled, gifted me with a gesture the likes of which I was sure Einstein would not have approved, then moved to the back of the jumper. Twenty minutes later, he closed up the access panels and came forward to sit in the co-pilot seat. “There’s nothing wrong with navigation.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, surprised.

“Please.” He rolled his eyes. “I won’t even dignify that with a response.” He pulled in a large breath in preparation and began, “Except to say this— ”

“Here. You fly.” I took my hands off the controls and stood. “A good mechanic never signs off without a test drive.”

“What? What? Oh. Okay.” Distracted quite nicely, he traded places with me. I always got a kick out of watching Rodney fly the jumper. The first time I’d literally had to drag him into the seat. He had a thousand reasons why he couldn’t and wouldn’t fly the jumper. I countered with one. If something happened to me, did he want to fall out of the sky or make it home? After nearly fifteen minutes of presenting the statistical improbabilities of anything actually happening to me—the man could lie to himself like no one’s business when he wanted—he grudgingly succumbed to reason. And since then there’d been no turning back. He was the Red Baron reincarnated…minus the talent and nifty silk scarf. Still, he might not have a spot waiting for him in the RCAF, but he got by and was worlds away better than Beckett. Plus he got an enormous kick out of it. And that…not ability…is why you flew.

An hour later we were home and the navigation system hadn’t had a single hiccup.

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It was later that night that I figured out what had been wrong with the jumper.

Me.

I was what was wrong. I came to that less-than-happy conclusion when I discovered I couldn’t walk to the gym. I was standing in the corridor dressed in sweats and T-shirt with my gym bag in hand, and I simply couldn’t do it. I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other and, moreover, I didn’t want to. Why?

It was in the wrong direction.

It was in the opposite direction of the hangar bay. And in the hangar bay was the jumper I could use…you know, if I just happened to be in the mood…to fly through the gate back to Proculus.

“Ah, fuck,” I breathed.

All right, this wasn’t good. No, no good here to be found at all. And the longer I stood, shifting from foot to foot, the faster the compulsion built. It had started small. It had been so small on the jumper I hadn’t even been aware of the pull that kept me steering us off course. Hours later when I’d been pulling on my work-out clothes was when it finally reared its ugly head enough to be seen. A mild urge, like for a cold brew during a football game. I’d put it down to a last kick of misbehaving brainwaves, grabbed my bag, and hit the hall. That was when I in turn got hit. And hit big. Mild urge to full on compulsion in sixty seconds flat, and now I couldn’t even goddamn walk in the wrong direction. Fortunately for me, there was something in the right direction that could help me.

If anything could.

A control thing. Yeah, I had that in spades. That I hadn’t yet been bounced out of the military still tended to amaze me. I loved to fly, had to fly, would put up with almost anything to fly. It was the almost that tended to get my ass in trouble. You don’t end up in Antarctica because your superiors are grooming you for better things. You end up there to give them an immense sense of personal satisfaction when your balls freeze and shatter like ice-cubes. Anyone with less control issues might have learned their lesson at that point, right? Yeah, too bad that anyone wouldn’t be me.

I felt the tug tighten. It was a fishhook embedded in my guts and reeling me in and with each step my feeling of desperate claustrophobia grew in leaps and bounds. By the time I reached the lab I was sweating and it was all I could do not to break into a run. But if I ran, I’d pass the lab and keep going to the hangar bay and then…yeah. I had my sincere doubts anyone would catch me after that.

I palmed the door open and managed to stop my progress down the hall only by gripping the frame with the white knuckled grip of one hand. In my other hand I held the nine-millimeter I’d pulled from my gym bag. I didn’t remember taking it out, but there it was. God, there it was. Sucking in a breath, I raised my eyes from the gun to the interior of the lab. McKay was elbow deep in a pile of components that covered an entire table. From the look of it, he was tearing something down. Zelenka was leaning over him with glasses perched at the end of his nose and a distressed expression. “This is quite unnecessary. Kavanaugh exaggerates. She did not break his arm, only…bent it somewhat. And who among us has not wanted to do that, praveelno?”

“It’s for the best,” McKay said with determination. “Trust me on this, Radek. I’m as ready, willing, and able to play God as any other scientist…well, more so actually…but I am not removing you from last night’s particular situation again. My stomach can’t take it and neither can my vise-grips.”

Neither of them had looked up when the door opened. That wasn’t unusual. The geek squad were selectively blind, deaf and dumb when it came to distractions. Short of dancing a jig and pulling a rabbit out of your butt, you were unlikely to get their immediate attention. Normally.

“Rodney?”

This wasn’t normally. I don’t know what he heard in my voice, what gave me away so thoroughly. I was composed, right? Cool, collected…in control…shit. All right, not in control. Not in fucking control. As far from being in control as was possible and carrying a gun. A gun. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to pull the trigger. But I hadn’t wanted to be an asshole either. I hadn’t even known at the time that I was doing it. And I thought it was safe to say whoever stood between me and the gate would rather be told to stay out of my goddamn business than to be shot. I couldn’t promise that that would be the case. Maybe it would be different now that I knew what was happening.

But maybe it wouldn’t.

At his name, Rodney jerked his head up instantly and stared at me. “Major?” He dropped the tools in his hand and stood. “What’s wrong?”

“Take my gun.” I felt my grip on it tighten automatically. “Take it now.”

There was one thing that had never failed to impress me about McKay. He would complain, moan, snap and snarl, throw an astrophysicist hissy fit the likes of which would boggle the mind, but when the time came for action, he was ready. This time was no different. He quickly moved over, took the barrel of the nine-mil and yanked it out of my grip. “What’s wrong?” he repeated, taking in the sweat and the bone-grating clenching of my jaw.

“I want to go back.” No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. “She wants me to go back.”

“Shit.” He was close enough that I could see his pupils dilate from a spike of adrenaline.

“Yeah,” I gave a grim sketch of a smile. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“Radek, here.” McKay turned and pushed the weapon into Zelenka’s hand. “Go to control and wait for me.” Turning, he ran to one of the work-tables and ripped open a drawer. He grabbed something small enough to be hidden by his hand and jammed it in his pocket, then tucked an energy scanner under his arm. Meanwhile, Zelenka was juggling my gun, trying to get a solid grip on it. I was hoping he managed it before he shot himself in the foot, but the thought faded fast as McKay pushed me through the door, and with one hand on my arm and one fisted in the back of my shirt, ushered me down the hall. Luckily for us both we were still heading in the right direction. He’d carried me before, leaving me with a visual memory I was still working hard on suppressing, but that had been with my cooperation. Trying to make me go where my body didn’t want to…I didn’t know that McKay was up for that. He was a soldier, too, whether he wanted to admit it or not, but I’d been at the game a lot longer and I played a lot rougher.

“Uh, McKay…where are we going?” I reflexively picked up the pace until I felt the drag on my shirt as he tried to slow me down. “Actually I know where I’m going. You don’t plan on going along for the ride, do you? She didn’t seem like the threesome type.”

“You’re not going anywhere but the infirmary, Major,” he retorted sharply. “Just let me…wait, you don’t actually hear her spooky pseudo high holy priestess voice in your head, do you? God, there’s a fate worse than death. We’re a peaceful people, an enlightened people. Blah blah blah. A lying their ass off people is more like it.”

“To be fair, Chaya was the only one of them lying.” The sweat had soaked through my shirt and I could feel it sheening the back of my neck. “And no. No spooky voice. Just….” I grimaced. There was no way to put it in words. It wasn’t pain…quite…not yet. It was a hard hand on a short leash that yanked me ruthlessly along. And I hated it. God, I hated it.

He nodded quickly, not pushing it. “Okay, okay. No voices. Good to know. A compulsion then.”

“Yeah,” I bit off, my breath exploding on the word. “Compulsion is close.” I twisted my arm in the curve of his fingers, absently testing the strength of his grip—which immediately tightened. “What the hell does she want?” I waved a hand at the general area, although truthfully I didn’t remember if my better half had been involved or not. It hadn’t glowed afterwards…that had to mean something. “I mean, damn, I know it’s pretty frigging legendary, but to go to all this trouble? What the fuck?”

“Yes, well, Major,” he gave a snort that worked hard at concealing the worry beneath, “as much as I hate to burst your bubble, I doubt the vastly delusional size and prowess of your…ah…puddlejumper has anything to do with it. It more likely has something to do with your ATA gene.”

I was about to thank him for kicking me when I was down but he kept talking. My attention wandered over the stream of words like a skipping stone. My surroundings blurred softly and I must have lost my focus, maybe for a few seconds, maybe longer because the next thing I knew I was slammed face first into a rock hard surface. Exquisite pain bloomed in my nose and I tasted the salt of blood. Staggering back, I could see I’d hit the wall next to the infirmary door—a result of a hard ninety-degree turn on McKay’s part I was guessing. “Jesus, Mckay.” I cupped my nose, eyes watering. At least the pain gave me a new sensory source to momentarily distract me from the visceral urge to keep moving. “I know you’re jealous of my pretty face, but damn.” The salt taste grew stronger and I wiped the blood welling from my split lower lip with the back of my hand.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he chanted. Still holding onto my arm with a fierce strength, he dragged me through the infirmary door. “I was losing you. You’ve less meat than a Chicken McNugget yet you’re stronger than an ox.” As the door closed behind us, he yelled, “Carson! We need help, as in now!”

“Actually, McKay, forget help. What we need are restraints,” I gritted between clenched teeth and did my best not to yank my arm out of his hand. “We’re not going the right way anymore.”

“What’s happened?” Beckett came out of the back supply room in a rush. He might be a master of vengeance, but he was also a damn fine doctor, the best, and he’d saved my life more than once. Trouble was this wasn’t medical, not precisely. It was debatable there would be anything he could do…although he could sedate me. Physical restraints or chemical ones, one of the two needed to step up to the plate and soon.

“It’s that Ancient wannabe, she’s trying to pull the Major back,” McKay grunted as he tried to muscle me further into the room. To give credit where it was due, Rodney had slimmed down and toughened up in the months since we’d arrived at Atlantis; he had the muscle to work with. Except…I…my body really didn’t want to be here and it had been tough a good deal longer than a few months. He wasn’t budging me. “Carson,” he demanded. “Help me.”

This wasn’t going too well. I could feel myself trembling on the edge of making a move. If I did, if I started a lunge towards the door…started back on the path back to the hangar bay, McKay and Beckett weren’t going to be able to stop me. “Doc, get some restraints. Fast.” Beckett gave a quick nod and ran. I took one jerky, uncoordinated step towards the nearest bed. And that hurt. The almost-not-quite pain was all grown up. It hurt like fucking hell. The next step was worse. “Damn it, McKay, push.”

“I am pushing,” he shot back desperately before planting his shoulder in my back and putting all of his weight into it. It propelled me forward a step and then another, and that’s when I started to turn back towards the door. “No, no,” he denied immediately. “That way lies madness and alien STDs. Maybe she wants you for your gene or maybe she forgot to bite your head off after sex. We don’t know. So let’s go back towards the bed, all right? Okay? We’re almost there.”

“Rodney.” It was a warning and a last ditch plea for help—I was turning and this time I couldn’t stop myself.

“Damn it.” He let go of me for a fleeting moment, then hit me with a tackle that would’ve been the laughingstock of the Powder Puff football league. It was all elbows and an awkward rush, but inside I cheered him on…because damn if it didn’t work. I was close enough that I landed on my side, half on the bed and half off. Before I could move, Beckett had pulled a leather cuff over my hand, cinched it tight on my wrist, and buckled it at my side to the bed. And he did it in two seconds flat, I shit you not. I half expected him to throw his hands in the air cowboy style when he finished.

“Were you in the rodeo, Doc?” Pain or not, I had to give a twisted grin as pure relief rushed through me. I had some control back. Okay, it was Beckett and McKay’s control, but that was better than Chaya’s any day of the week.

He tossed another thick cuff to McKay who started on my other wrist. “Actually, I learned on sheep, feisty little buggers.” He moved to the head of the bed, locked his arms under mine and pulled me up in the bed in one smooth motion. “My Da wanted me to be a veterinarian. I’m beginning to think I should’ve listened to the man.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” I closed my eyes for a second as I heard the snap of the restraint buckle. “So, ideas anyone? Because I think I have about five or ten minutes before I’m going to have to be knocked out.”

“The compulsion’s getting stronger?”

I opened my eyes to see McKay hurriedly punching at the surface of his scanner. “You could say that. And you could say it’s beginning to get a little…uncomfortable.” My hands balled and I began to pull at the restraints, but not hard. Not yet.

His eyes flew up to mine, his lips tightened, and he turned his attention back to the screen. “Okay, pressure. I love it, live for it. What would the day be without it?” Pulling in a breath, he exhaled and said more calmly, “Five minutes? Piece of cake. Chances are it’s some sort of signal. If it is, all I have to do is isolate it. If it’s not….” The grim set of his mouth didn’t improve. “If it’s not…then I’ll think of something else.”

“So it’s pain then?” Beckett asked as he hooked me up to the heart monitor. “Pain and compulsion? What type of pain is it?”

I dropped my head back on the pillow. “Gee, I don’t know,” I said irritably as the sweat stung my eyes. “The kind that hurts?”

“I gathered that, Major,” he said mildly. “Is it a dull ache? A stabbing pain? A fiery one? Is it all over or originating in a specific location?”

Choices, choices. “All over. Fiery. No damn fun.” I sat up abruptly and yanked harder at the restraints until my skin began to abrade. I wasn’t moving and it wasn’t liking that. Not at all. I needed to go. Needed to move. Needed to…Christ, that hurt. Five minutes was beginning to seem like a bluesky estimate at best.

“Your heart-rate’s up as is your blood pressure.” Beckett frowned. “Very much up. Is the pain similar to what you experienced with the wraith-tick?”

“This is no time…,” I could see starbursts of color behind my eyes, “…for comparison shopping. Ah, Jesus, that’s enough. Enough. Take the restraints off. Take them off!” Through the haze of unbelievably escalating agony, I felt pressure on my shoulders and something hit my legs. Square, metal…McKay had dropped the scanner onto the bed and now had his hands on my shoulders.

“Carson, do something!”

“I’m getting a sedative now, Rodney. Hold him down.”

That’s when pain invited his friends to play, and that’s when I thought of Charlie. I hoped like hell he was thinking of me.

It was agony and blackness and no air. It was my hearing cutting in and out…it was the sounds of shouting and the word seizing and not being able to comprehend where you were anymore. Who you were. It seemed to last forever, but it couldn’t have because that would be Hell. Real Hell, true Hell. And Hell doesn’t let you come back, yet here I was.

I blinked up at the ceiling. It was green. I didn’t remember the infirmary ceiling being that particular shade of neon green. It was kind of tacky.

“John?”

My body seemed in no particular hurry as I slowly turned my head to see Rodney’s face close to mine. He was green, too. And I don’t mean nervous green or anxious green or worried as fucking hell green, although he did have all of those things written in the starkness behind his eyes and in the taut lines of his face. He was as neon green as the ceiling. In fact, everything was that color. It was rather festive in a radioactive Grinch kind of way.

“Major?” The green wasn’t fading and neither was the worry.

“You’re green, McKay.” My voice was as slow as my movements had been and slightly slurred.

His hand dropped from my chest as he fell into the chair beside the bed. Bending over, he rested his face in his hands for a moment and mumbled, “Yeah, well, I hear it’s a good color for me.”

When his hand left my chest, the green disappeared from the world. He’d left something behind though. Small, glowing that same green…. “Hey…I’m invulnerable,” I said, surprised.

Rodney laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh. Choked and thick, but it sounded good to me all the same. “Now it’s my turn to throw you off a balcony. Fair’s fair.”

My confusion was fading fast. The pain was gone. So was the compulsion. Rodney was right. There had to be a signal triggering all of this, and he was protecting me from it with his personal shield…his broken personal shield. “Uh…wasn’t this drained when that big black goopy thing spit you back out?”

“I fixed it…mostly.” He straightened and ran his hands over his face in a scrubbing motion.

“Mostly?” I tried to sit up. “Is mostly good enough?”

I didn’t get an answer to that as Beckett took my chin and firmly turned my head towards him to flash a light in my eyes. “Major, you had a seizure. Sustained and unrelenting. Now I could ask you a bunch of silly questions, but I’m believing we don’t have the time for it. Just tell me you know what’s happening here?”

“Yeah, I know.” I knew something else, too, from years past. A little thing in the face of what was going on, inconsequential really, but it didn’t stop me from glancing quickly downward at the word seizure and then thinking with heartfelt relief as I saw dry pants, ‘Thanks, Charlie, I owe you one.’

For a few seconds I simply wallowed in the absence of pain. And, damn, it was good. No fire licking at my nerve endings, no hand at my throat shoving me headlong to places I really, really didn’t want to go. Funny how the lack of something could be the best you’d felt in your life. All thanks to McKay and his little turtle toy. “Rodney,” I said sincerely if hoarsely, “you’re my new best friend.”

Leaning over me, he retrieved his scanner. “You wound me, Major,” he replied with a sarcasm that while recovering was still shaky. “I thought I already was your best friend.”

He had me there. “True enough,” I admitted as I eased the rest of the way up with Beckett bracing me. “Okay, you’re now my best friend to the tenth power. Happy?”

“Give me the goat picture and we’ll talk.” His fingers moved with lightning speed over the scanner’s screen as he stood and started pacing. “Carson, what’s the quickest you could find an implant in the Major, assuming there’s one to find?”

“Aye, well, the absolute quickest would be X-rays…if it’s fair-sized or metal. If not metal, a CAT scan would be next in line. There are more accurate scans, but they’re all a mite more time consuming.”

“We can’t assume it’s metal and I doubt it’s large.” Whatever he saw on the luminescent screen apparently didn’t make him too happy and McKay smacked his hand against the side. “Major, you don’t remember anything that could help? You didn’t notice any boo-boos after the space orgy?”

“No, nothing, and space orgy, my ass. What happened to my being the victim?” I rattled the restraints. “And do you think we could cut me loose here?”

“The personal shield’s only mostly fixed, remember?” Rodney shot me a look that was a mixture of exasperation and apology before turning his attention back to the screen. “There are only so many carrier variables she could use,” he muttered under his breath. “Now what…ah ha, got it. But will the….yes, yes, yes.” He looked up and rapped, “Radek, are you ready?”

“Yes, Rodney,” Zelenka’s voice came from thin air. “I am waiting for instructions.”

“All right. I need you to turn on the city’s shield, standard modulation.” He tilted his head in my direction and raised condescending eyebrows. “Thank God she had you babble your all on the shield. She knew it would be down, that we’d be conserving our power. Consequently, she’s not exactly putting her best effort into concealing the signal.”

“Hold on, McKay, the shield.” I shook my head. “We can’t waste it, not now…we don’t know how long it’ll be until the Wraith arrive. We’re going to need everything we have.”

“We’re going to have to turn off the personal shield for any test Carson does,” he countered instantly. “So we don’t exactly have a choice.”

Weir’s voice joined us from the control room. “What precisely is going on down there, gentleman? Dr. McKay, I’m sure you realize that every moment that the shield is up is a moment we won’t have when the Wraith come.”

McKay cast his eyes upward along with his hands, not that Weir could possibly see it. “Yes, Elizabeth, I am aware,” he snapped. “But it’s either turn on the shield or watch Major Sheppard’s brain melt and run out his ears. As you can imagine, I don’t have much flexibility on the subject, and I don’t have the time to explain it. If you wish to discuss it further I suggest you come down here and watch the show. Is it up, Radek?”

“Yes. Shield is up and Dr. Weir is giving me unpleasant looks. Please to hurry.”

“She is going to kick your ass, McKay,” I whistled.

“Yes, fine, whatever.” He stuck fingers in his short hair, standing it on end. “Yours needs the break anyway. Now, turn the personal shield off. I was able to turn it on for you, but you’re on the other side of invulnerability now. Only you can turn it off.”

“Are you sure about this, Rodney?” Beckett hesitated then said without evasion, “Another seizure like that, if we couldn’t stop it…there could be damage or worse.”

“Yes, absolutely. I’m sure,” he spit out rapid-fire, before making a visible effort to rein himself in and meeting my eyes. “I’m sure, John. I am.”

That was all I needed to hear. “Okay.” I nodded, matter-of-fact. “Then so am I.” The green glow flickered on my chest and died. But the best news was…I didn’t. Rodney blew out a breath I don’t think he was even aware that he was holding and sat back down hard. I curled up the corner of my mouth. “At least I could turn it off.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The implant was imbedded in the flesh of my back, right over the base of my spine. Not deep…a half inch at the most. Beckett removed it fast and dirty with a local anesthetic while McKay and Weir watched. After I asked for the third time if I could charge some sort of ‘entertainment fee’ if the sterile drape shifted, Weir and the Doc decided it would be best for her to wait in control for updates.

“As if anyone would be interested in the five grams of arse you’re carrying around back there.” Beckett’s voice was muffled by his surgical mask, but I caught the soft-edged attack on my self-esteem all the same. “How you managed to survive Antarctica is beyond me. You’ve less body fat than a starved alley cat.”

Lying on my stomach, I rested my cheek on folded arms and offered in my own defense, “I’ve got it where it counts, Doc. I never had to worry about keeping myself warm at McMurdoch. I had people lining up to do it for me.”

I felt the consoling pat of a gloved hand on my shoulder blade. “There’s brain damage from the seizure after all then, lad. It’s quite the pity.” Then he was all business. “I have it, Rodney. Open the container.” I twisted my head to look back over my shoulder and saw a thin blue wafer the size of a dime fall from a pair of tweezers into the transparent box McKay was holding. He’d gone to the lab to fetch it, saying it was some sort of Ancient holding device thought to have been used for unstable chemical compounds.

Rodney slammed the lid down and gloated, “Gotcha. Earth ingenuity takes down an Ancient superbitch. There’s a certain symmetry to it. A poetic justice. David versus Goliath. And David triumphs utterly.”

“You did use all Ancient technology though, right?” I pointed out as I felt the cool touch of adhesive being applied to the incision.

He glared at me and cradled the box under his arm. “Yes, but I used my ingenuity, which trumps Ancient technology every time. If not for that, you’d be on Proculus right now wearing a leash and a copper bikini. Or having your ATA gene sucked out of you with some uber-advanced, giant twisty straw. Or maybe, just maybe, she would’ve moved into your body to escape exile permanently, after which I’d doubt there’d be very much left of Major John Sheppard in there.” He drew in what was probably a much needed breath and finished, “So how about a little…you know…credit? If it’s not too much trouble.” Before I could open my mouth, he raised his voice, “Radek, turn off the shield.”

I couldn’t deny giving an involuntary twitch although I did have the personal shield folded into my hand if worse came to worse. But it didn’t. I felt nothing…other than the cold metal beneath me. I exhaled and dropped back flat on the table. “Right, McKay. Credit where credit is due. I owe you one. Tell you what…next space bimbo is yours. Free and clear. I’ll even put a good word in for you and tell her how big your ingenuity is.”

“As if I’d need your help,” he snorted. “I was quite the Casanova back…in….” His words trailed off as he lifted the box to stare unblinkingly at the contents. “Um.”

Casanova…I’d have to remember that. At an opportune time, that would be great ragging material. “Um what?” I demanded as I shifted on my stomach for a better view. The box was vibrating minutely in McKay’s hands and the reason why was immediately apparent. The blue wafer had sprouted tiny legs no bigger than hairs and was throwing itself at the walls of the box. It was also oozing a thin fluid that smoked and hissed when it hit the transparent material of its prison.

I felt my stomach drop and bile burn the back of my throat. That thing had been in me. Inside of me. That acid dripping, creepy crawly little monster had been nesting about an inch above my spinal cord. “Holy shit.” It bore repeating. “Holy fucking shit.”

“That seems about accurate.” McKay was green again and this time there was no blaming it on the personal shield. He tapped a finger on the glassy substance. “Er…you…settle down in there.” Not unsurprisingly, that didn’t seem to placate the putrid piece of Smurf dandruff. It’s speed doubled as it scuttled around the box in faster circles.

“Shit. Doc, where are my pants?” I rolled off the table and grabbed frantically at the sweats Beckett tossed in my direction. Yanking them on hurriedly, I said, “Unstable compounds, right? You said that thing was made for unstable compounds. Damned if it comes anymore unstable than that. Is it going to hold?”

“Theoretically.” Rodney held out the box at arms-length as smoke begin to fill it. “As in according to an as-yet-untested theory, it should hold.”

“Whose theory?” I demanded. “Yours?” The box was beginning to glow a sullen red.

“Believe it or not,” he declared crossly, “I don’t have the time to conjecture on every piece of Ancient technology in existence. Unstable compounds fall under senior chemist’s domain. It’s Kavanaugh’s theory.”

“Rodney,” I said incredulously, “if that’s the case, then why the hell are you still holding that goddamn box?”

“Hmm. Yes. That’s a good question. A very good question.” He blanched and swiveled to run to the infirmary door, palm it open, and start to throw the box. I snatched it up before he could.

“Pitched in college,” I grunted as I wound up and tossed the box down the corridor. I’d felt the searing heat and the oscillating whine under my palm, and the moment it left my hand, I turned and tackled McKay to the floor. The infirmary doors had begun to close, but it was too late. The explosion rocked the hall, the infirmary, and sent acrid smoke and heat rushing over us. It was a hot, heavy hand pressing us flat as the ground rumbled endlessly beneath us. When the aftershocks begin to slowly die away, I lifted my head and coughed. “Doc?” A hand waved at me from the opposite side of the toppled gurney and I exhaled in relief. Pushing a hand under me, I raised up a few inches and hurriedly patted a smoking spot on the back of McKay’s shirt.

“Am I on fire?” came the stifled question. “Because, quite frankly, being on fire wouldn’t much surprise me at this point.”

I flopped back on the floor and reassured, “You’re not on fire, McKay.”

Weary eyes popped up over the horizon of his sheltering arms. “I think we may…may…have pissed off your space bimbo. Just a tad. But don’t quote me.”

“Eh, who cares?” I grinned and patted out another tiny wisp of smoke on his shoulder. “A supergeek trumps a space bimbo every time.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Ah…Major Sheppard?”

I rolled over and pulled the blankets over my head. No. No way. It had been a bad day, a very, very bad day and all I wanted to do now was sleep. Whatever rude son of a bitch was timidly tapping me on the shoulder better take the hint and run for his life.

“Major Sheppard.” The tapping became less timid and more urgent. “I need to speak with you, yes?”

No. No ‘yes?’ Just No. I wedged my head under the pillow and growled audibly.

“Major Sheppard, I must insist.” The blanket and sheet was yanked from my body and I yelped as the cool air hit me. Rolling over, I sat up and aimed a poisonous glare at the open-mouthed Zelenka. The blanket cascaded from his hand like woolen rain as he recovered and coughed politely, “I apologize. Moya osheebka. My mistake. Ah…oh…here. To…cover…ah….” He flapped a hand and dumped the blankets hastily back on top of me.

“That son of a bitch Beckett stole my clothes so I wouldn’t leave,” I snarled with hazy ill-temper. Apparently, he’d decided that was the only way to keep me in the infirmary overnight for observation to make sure there were no lingering effects from the seizure. No clothes, no hospital gown, no scrubs…and no female nurses. It was to weep.

“Yes, I’m sure. Very plausible reason. Of course.” He took off his glasses, tapped his chin with the ear-piece and shuffled his feet. Oh, and he laughed. I might not have heard it or seen it, but the fuzzy headed bootlegger was laughing his ass off on the inside, I knew it. “I have heard of this medical method of forcible nudity…well, no, but I’m sure is widely used. Widely.” He cleared his throat, replaced his glasses and gave me a gentle smile of complete understanding. Smart ass Czech bastard.

“Dr. Z,” I said with a hard won patience as I pulled the blankets back up to my waist, “what’s the big emergency at…,” I checked my watch on the bedside table, “three AM? And I’m being a helluva nice guy to assume there is one.”

“Yes, yes.” He immediately got down to business. “An emergency. I come about Dr. Kavanaugh.”

Unless some idiot was out there cloning the man, I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be worth waking me up if it involved Kavanaugh. “Kavanaugh.” I rubbed eyes that refused to focus and tried to think with a mind that followed suit. “What’s-his-ass Kavanaugh…does the man even have a first name?” So that I might carve it on his tombstone.

“Of course,” he said as if genuinely startled that I didn’t know. “This week it is Shithead. Last week Dickface. Next week Madame Curie…you understand, for the women’s underwear.”

That woke me up with a mental picture unpleasant enough that it instantly put a significant dent in my exhaustion. “He wears women’s underwear?”

“Probably not. But the rumor I start tomorrow to say differently.”

“All right. Good to know.” It was also good to know that I planned to never get on Zelenka’s bad side, at least not any worse than I had during the grounding incident. “So what’d Kavanaugh do? Destroy the lab? Grow a Wraith in a test tube and set it loose? Set back human interpersonal relations a few hundred thousand years? What?” I swallowed a heavy yawn that had my jaw popping and creaking. “And why are you telling me? McKay’s head of science. Let him kick Kavanaugh’s pompous ass.”

“That is rather the problem,” he sighed. “He already did. Kavanaugh…he bitched and moaned, whined about his arm, stomped feet like spoiled child, and then he say things run more smoothly if Rodney spend more time in lab and less being a…what you say? Glory hound. Yes, glory hound. And so…Rodney punches him in the nose.” Zelenka shrugged. “We all turn our backs. Amazingly, no one sees anything. It’s quite unfortunate for poor Madame Curie.”

A glory hound. McKay had saved my life and was nearly blown up in the process and Kavanaugh was sneering that he was doing it all for the attention? Jesus Christ, what sort of chemical fumes was that man sniffing? That was one son of a bitch who needed an ass kicking like there was no tomorrow. And while I couldn’t…not officially at any rate…do that, I could give him a verbal one he wasn’t likely to forget. “Yeah, thanks Dr. Z.,” I said flatly. “I think I’ll pay Kavanaugh a visit.”

“No, no.” He shook his head and flashed teeth in a grin that had Steppe wolf written all over it. “I take care of Kavanaugh. You take care of Rodney.”

“McKay?” My attention sharpened. “What’s wrong with McKay?”

“It was a bad day,” Zelenka said soberly, unknowingly echoing my own waking thought.

McKay was in his lab. No big surprise there. The man spent ninety-nine percent of his waking time there. And lately with the worsening Wraith situation, he’d been sleeping there more than a few times a week. I couldn’t count the times I’d either dragged him off to breathe actual unrecycled air or had given in and delivered pizza to him and the other geeks when they couldn’t make it to the cafeteria. Naturally it wasn’t real pizza, but it was the closest thing we had here. Tough Athosian flatbread covered with vegetables, a purple paste and chunks of meat that were better not thought too closely about.

This time I came empty handed. I leaned in the doorway and watched McKay work. He was crouched beside a large metal casing. His back was to me, but I could see the dogged set of his shoulders and the faint glitter of sweat on the nape of his neck even in the cool of the room. He was working hard at…whatever it was. “Hey, Rodney, whatcha doing?” I asked casually.

“Building a nuclear warhead,” he responded in a clipped tone without turning. “I find weapons of mass destruction soothing.” There was a particularly loud metallic clang that I personally didn’t find at all soothing, but to each their own. Brusquely, he went on, “What are you doing out of the infirmary?” He checked his watch and this time did turn with a frown. “It’s awfully late, Major. You had a seizure; you shouldn’t….” He stopped speaking when he took me in. “There’s a party and no one invited me? Nice. Very nice.”

I rolled my eyes and walked in, my makeshift toga not doing a whole lot to insulate me from the chill of the lab. “Funny, McKay. Beckett took my clothes, okay? You have anything I could borrow?”

He blinked through red-rimmed, tired eyes. “First locker. Keep what you take. You’re still contagious.”

Hell, I’d forgotten I even had a cold. I gave an experimental sniff. “Nah, I think the cooties have passed.”

They weren’t lockers per se, but that’s the function the narrow crystalline oblongs served now. I opened the first one and rooted around until I found a pair of black sweat pants and a T-shirt that said ‘I’m with Genius’ and an upward pointing arrow. I snorted to myself and changed quickly, hissing at the bite in the air. “Damn, does the Geek Nation have something against heat?”

“We’re conserving energy on all systems now, including environmental controls. It’s going to be cold at night, sweltering during the day, and unless we fall ass backward into a pile of ZPMs, that’s not going to change. ” He was back in front of the baby warhead. As I sat down beside him, he shot a glance over at me and took in the shirt. “Figures,” he grumped. “My favorite.”

“I’ll give you mine in exchange,” I yawned again. “It says The Man, The Legend. I’ll let you guess the two directions those arrows point.”

“Good God,” he muttered. “Yes, I’m sure that would go over well at staff meetings. Radek would laugh himself into an early grave and Kavanaugh would want to present proof as to how I could never usurp his throne. How about we just don’t go there?” Mouth twisting, he abruptly changed the subject, “You feeling all right? No….” He hooked a finger in the side of his mouth and gave a pretty decent impersonation of a hooked fish.

I narrowed my eyes, but let it go. “No. I’m compulsion free. You cut my strings permanently, Geppetto.” And I was never going to forget that.

“All in a day’s work, right?” He stared grimly into the inner workings of his bomb as he went back to work. “A really crappy, godawful day’s work.” His hands were a blur and his words weren’t much slower. “This whole lives hanging in the balance thing gets old after a while. Knowing that y…that someone could die if I don’t come up with the answer, believe it or not, can be a little nerve wracking in a way that both sucks and blows. And if I come up with it a little late, people won’t wait. Have you noticed that? I have. They won’t wait. They just go ahead and die anyway.”

And what could you say to that? It was true. We had a shitload of brilliant scientists among the geek squad and a good number of board certified geniuses as well. But McKay was our answer man. End of story. Zelenka was damn close and I’d trust him with my life in a heartbeat…if Rodney weren’t around to be my first choice. Between his work with SG-1 and having dragged us out of mess after mess, a few of my making, since we’d arrived, McKay was our first and best line of defense. He could think on his feet like no geek…hell, no man…I’d ever seen and he’d been doing it from day one. Very vocally, but he’d done it. Under Wraith fire, torture, and threat of his own imminent death, he pulled the rabbit out of the hat time and time again.

Unfortunately, it never stopped. Oh, there might be a few days here and there or even an entire week disaster free. But hanging over that was always the knowledge that the Wraith were on their way. We didn’t know when they’d arrive, but it would be soon. They were coming, and that very well could be the one disaster none of us could avoid…even with our supergeek and his crew working miracle after miracle.

So, what could I say to that?

“I didn’t die.”

He looked up sharply. “What?”

“I didn’t die.” I leaned slightly and bumped my shoulder against his. “I waited for your arrogant ass, and I didn’t die.”

“No, you didn’t,” he affirmed softly. “You didn’t.” His shoulders squared and he dropped his tools to turn and plant a finger firmly in the center of my chest. “And you better not, you hear me? You goddamn better not. People just keep slipping away and I need to know at least one person is going to stick around, no matter how much that person ignores my infallible advice, pointlessly orders me around, and cheats at Hiveship. I need to know, okay? I need to know.”

Ah, Christ, Rodney.

I closed my eyes and bowed my head. McKay was our first line of defense in the city, but I was frontline above the planet. And that…that wasn’t conducive to making promises of any kind. It was coming down to the wire and I would be standing between the Wraith and the city, between the monsters and my geeks. I wouldn’t have changed that if I could have. We were here for a reason…me, Ford, Bates, the rest of my men. And from the moment I woke the Wraith, we’d known that reason might very well end up only one way. And I was pretty sure Rodney knew that, too…whether he wanted to or not.

I open my eyes to see determined ones staring back. Determined, demanding, and scared as hell.

“Okay,” I said simply.

He sucked in a ragged, uncertain breath that teetered on the edge of hope. “Really?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll stick around,” I said with absolute assurance. All the best lies were told that way. “Who else is going to keep you from taking over the city? Crowning yourself the Once and Future Geek? King Rodney the Smug, all Hail the King. Hell, you’re already a nuclear power.” I leaned over and thumped a finger against the metal casing, ringing it like a church bell.

“Uh, Major, I don’tbelieve you want to do that,” he warned, but he was smiling. It was that peculiar McKay smile, rare and crookedly arrogant and vulnerable in a way no personal shield would ever change. “As a matter of fact, a goon like you should probably stay as far away from nuclear weapons as you can.” It was good advice…I was glad that at that moment neither of us knew how that piece of advice would return to bite us in the ass.

I leaned back, supporting myself on my elbows and nudging his ankle with a bare freezing foot. “You know, McKay, you remind me of this kid I knew when I was ten. Charlie. He was a lot like….”

Zelenka interrupted me from the door, his voice as carefully solemn as that of a mortician, “Ah, Rodney, so sorry to interrupt, but something very, very terrible has happened.”

“Oh Christ.” McKay covered his eyes like a child. If you can’t see it, it’s not there. If you don’t acknowledge the boogeyman under your bed, it can’t exist. “I don’t want to know. I just…don’t want to know.”

“It is Dr. Kavanaugh. He is trapped in quarters. Door is jammed and sanitation system has been switched to reverse.” He coughed hurriedly. “A systems malfunction I’m certain. Liquid waste from two levels is pouring in quite rapidly. Kavanaugh says is half meter deep already, but I think he exaggerates. Is hard to tell through all his cursing. He is very ill-tempered man.”

McKay peeked between his fingers. “Why, that’s almost…tragic.”

“Yes,” Zelenka confirmed gravely. “Tragic. I searched for right word…but I believe you are correct. It is a tragedy for the ages. That must be cause of all the weeping from technicians gathered by his door. The tragedy has doubled them over with…ah…grief.” He brightened. “So, Rodney, what are we to do?”

“Do?” Rodney dropped the hand from his face, stretched and yawned with a weariness apparent in heaviness of his drooping lids. “I think I’ll go to bed, that’s what I’ll do. I’ve my fill of disasters tonight. More than my fill. Exit the glory hound stage left.”

Zelenka pursed his lips and asked with a remarkable lack of interest, “And what of Kavanaugh?”

“Umm….” He yawned again and shot me a look. I was more than happy to fill in the blank for him.

“Shit happens,” I grinned.

The End