Salt Of The Earth 3

Something At The End Of The Tunnel...

by Dasha

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asd/dasha/saltof03.php
Summary: The conclusion.


Rodney was dozing again when the door finally opened. He jerked awake and looked up at John Sheppard looking down and said, "You're going to have to help me up."

Sheppard looked like hell. His hair was limp and droopy with sweat. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. He wouldn't meet Rodney's gaze. He set down his jacket and gym bag and squatted down on Rodney's right. "Get your feet under you," he said.

Rodney squirmed and shifted. He was stiff, and damn, they were going to have to get some getting-up-from-the-ground exercises on the PT schedule, because half the worlds you went to, you sat on the floor or a tiny cushion or whatever.

Sheppard closed his strong hands around Rodney's upper arm. "Ready?" he asked, and at Rodney's nod, surged them both upward in a single, smooth, painless movement. He gave Rodney half a moment to get his balance, then let go. He didn't step away. "I'm not going to answer any questions," he said.

"No, I won't ask any," Rodney vowed.

"Okay." He turned and started down the hall at a pace Rodney could comfortably follow.

In his quarters Sheppard showered. Rodney waited, sitting on the bed because the chair had a bit of a bucket-seat scoop thing going and right now his back really couldn't handle it.

He still didn't have a clue what he was going to do about (with? for?) Sheppard. Not a clue. Rodney was good at important things, like math and engineering and particle physics. Not people. For the most part, people were disappointing anyway.

Except now, *now*, he really felt the limitations of his genius. Sheppard was hurt-- maybe very badly hurt, because, god, you read about veterans, didn't you? This was the sort of thing that really messed them up, wasn't it? Senseless tragedy? Ugly and pointless butchering? Rodney had seen his eyes. He didn't like the fear he saw there. The anger was better, but there was more helplessness than anger.

Rodney felt--probably stupidly, he was sure--better with Sheppard within his sight. Or at least within his easy reach. The horrible emotional knot in his chest had loosened as soon as Sheppard had squatted beside him in the corridor. Having him close....

Having him safely in orbit, like Sheppard had been some kind of rogue planet, careening through space with no direction, with no light or heat or protection from the vast, empty universe. Which was a stupid metaphor to latch onto, Rodney knew. But it sort of worked. He had considerable light and heat and good, stabilizing gravity (okay, not as much as some people had, but some, enough), but he had absolutely no clue how to give John any of it.

They had been through horrifying crap before. They had faced terrible losses. How had Rodney coped before? How had they managed? But his memory offered no answers. They had survived the crap *together* before.

When the bathroom door opened, Rodney froze for a moment, unsure what to say, desperate to say something. What came out was, "I'm sorry I wasn't there." For a moment he thought that was a good start.

Then he saw the utter fury rise up in Sheppard's eyes. "I'm not," he snapped, stalking to the closet and sliding aside the door to reveal the shelves where he stored his clothing.

Rodney blinked, astonished, stung. His breath stuttered and froze. He didn't know if he should be hurt or pitying, and wouldn't know what to say either way.

Sheppard picked up a shoe and tossed it hard against the wall before spinning back and snarling, "I ordered Teyla and Ronon and that little guy from biology to fire on a pack of *children*!"

Rodney lifted his chin. "I could have pulled my weight--"

"You don't get it. I have to remember them doing it. I have to look them in the eye tomorrow. For the rest of our lives, we'll have to remember--" he ran, and still didn't quite make it to the commode before vomiting.

Carefully, Rodney pushed himself up off the bed and followed. The bathroom was tiny, since the Ancients saved all the luxury and really elegant plumbing for the public facilities that were just overtly social enough to make most of the Earthlings wince. There wasn't room for two. The ancients used air dryers, so there wasn't a towel rack, either. Rodney rooted through the mess on the shelf and produced a washcloth. By the time he had it wet and ready, Sheppard was still heaving. Rodney winced. He folded the cloth into a thin line and laid it on the back of Sheppard's neck.

Through the cloth, Rodney could feel the tight spasms. They were small and short, but relentless. It was forever before Sheppard finished, sank to his knees on the floor, and pulled the damp cloth around to wipe his face.

Rodney filled a cup of water at the sink. In the tiny room he didn't have to move to reach it. "It's all right," he whispered. "I'll call--well, not Carson. Someone. It'll be all right."

"And *what*?" Sheppard gasped. "Drug me? I've got to deal with this. God. I've got to face it. I know what happens, if you don't--"

He did. Of course, he did. John Sheppard wasn't some good little soldier who'd given up his independent brain in exchange for his wings. He saw through everything, pretending he didn't, never let on. He had acted the grunt when Rodney met him--sometimes, even now, he seemed to be just another goon in uniform--but since the day Sumner had died, Rodney had known better. Sheppard understood everything important.

"God, McKay. This wasn't supposed to be *that* kind of mission. We were doing something here. It was... it was good. And clean. Important. It was honorable."

Oh, god, it was, it was. Rodney felt his eyes fill. The Atlantis mission had held such hope. Even after the Wraith, when it had become desperate and frequently frantic, it had still been beautiful.

"This wasn't supposed to happen to me."

There wasn't room to kneel beside him, even if Rodney could have managed it. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around John's shoulders, tight.

After a few minutes they both pulled back. Sheppard left the bathroom and finished getting dressed. At the door, he called over his shoulder, "You coming?"

Rodney hurried after him into the corridor.

Control asked for a flight plan. Sheppard, who normally had no trouble with either bullshitting, ordering, or ignoring his way out of inconvenient procedures, just shook his head at the open comm line and closed his eyes.

"This is Doctor McKay," Rodney snapped. "We're taking jumper five out for some gravitational measurements. Log it under astronomy."

"*Oh. Um. Sir, are you on active duty?*"

"What are you talking about?" Still quick, still sharp, don't give them any time to think. "I'm a civilian. I don't get relieved of duty, I take sick days. Log the flight and stop bothering me."

When they cleared the horizon, Sheppard cut off the inertial dampeners and began a series of high speed elevation changes. Rodney, who had pretty much forgotten what unmediated flight felt like, clung to the arms of his chair and--when necessary--closed his eyes.

The sight of the ocean sliding by just a few feet below the windshield was exhilarating. So was speeding through the upper atmosphere until the blue sky faded to black and filled with stars. The fact that Sheppard was trying to make these changes at the greatest acceleration the human body could physically stand was an added bonus. It was uncomfortable. Okay, nerve-wracking. And scary, at that moment when the drop started and gravity seemed to disappear (especially since they were high enough that there really was noticeably less of it), but no worse than a really big roller coaster. Much safer than a roller coaster, too. Rodney had seen a lot of truly frightening engineering on his few visits to amusement parks. Sheppard was pulling daredevil shit right and left, but he wasn't being careless, he wasn't overreaching his skills, he wasn't actually taking chances.

Sunlight glittered blindingly on the white clouds spread out below them. Then they plunged into ruffled surface, and the gleaming clouds became grey fog around them. Then they were out of the clouds, and the ocean was glittery and greenish in all directions. And then the surface of the water was rising fast. Closer. Closer.

Rodney's stomach lurched as they ended the dive and flattened out to streak along the water. The mild nausea he'd been fighting for the last ten minutes ratcheted up another notch. Rodney glanced at his watch. It was hours after the lunch he hadn't had much of. Possibly, this wasn't just motion sickness.

There would be power bars with the emergency and first-aid supplies stored in the back. He'd need the inertial dampeners on to get them, though. He looked hard at Sheppard's face and decided to hang tight. He'd gone longer than this without eating. He could manage.

There was the fine line of land in the distance. It grew into a blue smudge. An outline. Rodney could see trees.

The jumper shot up, slamming Rodney into his seat. Rodney glanced at the HUD. They were only pulling a G and a half, which was the jumper's top atmospheric speed anyway. It felt like more than that. The seat felt very hard under him and the pressure on his chest made it hard to breathe. He closed his eyes and clung to the arms of the seat.

Long moments stretched out. Rodney concentrated on breathing slowly through his mouth, but he was barely getting enough air and the short, jerky breaths he actually managed weren't doing anything for his upset stomach. Finally, the pressure leveled out to lightness, to normalcy, to smooth and bearable and--comfortable? Rodney opened his eyes.

They were in orbit, with the inertial dampeners back on. Rodney released the chair. His hands hurt.

He got up and retrieved a power bar. He took a tiny bite and sucked on it, trying to quiet the nausea. As he returned to his seat, Sheppard said, "Part of me wishes I wasn't the kind of guy who could fire on desperate civilians."

God--that was easy to answer. "That doesn't say anything terrible about you. Anybody would defend themselves. Besides, if you hadn't, a lot of other civilians would have died. The locals, the Ervallans weren't ready to fight off the attack."

Sheppard sighed. "Would we have helped them? The Hoffans? If they'd asked?"

"We wouldn't even take their calls," Rodney said. "If they'd called."

"Not that we'd have anything to lose. I mean, we could hardly make the Wraith more mad at us."

"We couldn't have protected them. And they made Carson a murderer."

"Carson. Fuck." Sheppard turned in his seat. "How's he doing?"

"I don't know. He was pretty angry earlier."

Sheppard's jaw dropped. He reached for the controls. "We have to go back."

"Elizabeth had Carson."

Sheppard paused. "What?"

"We divided you up. I got you. Elizabeth got Carson. You don't have to worry."

Slowly, he sat back. "She sent you to me?"

Annoyed, Rodney answered, "No, I sent her to him. Look, I'm not *always* a total idiot about people."

Sheppard glanced away. "You're not an idiot. You just don't think most people are worth the effort."

"Most people aren't. John, it's not your fault the Hoffans literally can't make a good decision to save their lives. Huh. And it's not your fault that no matter what decision they made, they still would have lost most of their people to the Wraith anyway. We were in another galaxy, for Christ sake. We could barely fight off the Goa'uld. We're here now, and we're going to help, and that's good. But if we can bring down the Wraith, it's going to take a while. And we're going to have to live with some losses first."

"I know that--"

"And we're going to see those losses. Some of them close up. If you take those losses inside you, you'll become one of them. And I won't. I can't. I." Rodney stopped. He turned away and took another tiny bite of power bar. The worst of the nausea was gone, but what was left had been joined by a headache.

Sheppard took their position and then computed their re-entry in his head. It was one of the sexiest things Rodney had ever seen in his life. The irony that this miracle of utter hotness was performed by his (unutterably beautiful) straight best friend while Rodney was too physically miserable to even manage an erection for it was just pretty much par for Rodney's life. Sheppard executed his descent 'by instruments' rather than by program or by active autopilot. It would undoubtedly have been a wonderful thing to watch, if the sunset as they'd entered the lower atmosphere hadn't seemed so bright it nearly split his head in half.

Sheppard's voice sounded nearly normal when he called in for landing clearance. Well, good. There was still a lot to worry about, but the raw panic could probably be let go.

Sheppard turned Rodney's chair so he faced the aisle and gently undid Rodney's pants.

"Oh, yes. Very funny."

A light touch ghosted over the wide scar. "It doesn't feel hot. I don't see any swelling. Does it hurt?" A push. Another.

"No," Rodney said. "Stop that. I'm not... what? Bleeding internally?"

"Your color sucks, McKay. I'm going to get some help."

"I'm space sick. If you really are my friend, you will not make sure everybody on the whole base knows about it, which they will if you call for 'help' I don't need."

Sheppard replaced Rodney's pants. "You should have said something."

"What? And missed out on a life long dream?" Rodney opened his eyes. The jumper lights were diffuse and the hanger beyond was on the dim side, since the upper doors were closed. "I used to read science fiction and *ache* to get space sick."

Sheppard smiled. "*Ender's Game.*"

"Oh, please. Card's an idiot. Heinlein."

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. *Glory Road.*"

"You would. God, that explains a lot, actually.... But, no. Lazarus Long had the right idea."

Apparently (unfortunately?) Sheppard had read those books, too. His eyes grew very serious. "Rodney--"

"If we hurry, there will still be some dinner left."

Sheppard shut up. Stood. Used his strong, strong hands to help Rodney up. Dredged up a smile and said, "You just want two identical female clones of yourself."

Rodney rallied. "One, if they're clones, 'identical' is redundant. Two, who wouldn't? And three--" Three, I dare you to think about it. But Rodney caught himself before he said that aloud. He didn't want to see the look on Sheppard's face as he considered the possibility of a female McKay. "Think about how much more work we could get done if there were three of me. Say, you know, Carson's a geneticist."

"I've heard that. But if he's going to clone anybody, it should be me. I've got the gene. That's much more important than just being kind of smart."

Kind of smart. "I am so going to get you for that." Wishing he had a better comeback, Rodney paused to get his breath. They had just made it to the hallway, and it seemed a long way to the transporter. He was tired. It had been an endless day.

"You okay? Is your back bothering you?"

Rodney stretched. "Huh. No." It felt better than it had since he'd started PT. "We may have to do that again sometime." He took a deep breath and plodded off toward dinner.

Rodney's first choice would have been spending the night awake brooding about the mess with John and the Hoffans, but he fell asleep fully dressed as soon as he got back to his room. He overslept, and even skipping the shower and eating a powerbar on the way, he was late for PT.

Which didn't go well. Even when he'd completely woken up, he was oddly clumsy and weak. Weirdly sick in a way he couldn't put his finger on. Halfway through, the nurse called Carson, who grunted distractedly and popped Rodney back in the scanner.

Carson looked like hell. Rodney didn't argue. Carson scowled at the readout and said nothing.

"What?" Rodney said.

"Your electrolytes are a mess. You are retaining water. You have a low fever." His eyes narrowed. He was fully present and distinctly *not* happy. He checked Rodney's file. "You skipped yesterday's PT. Were you feeling poorly?"

"I was with the Colonel. He was upset."

Carson closed his eyes, but pushed on. "Are you eating?"

"Of course I'm eating. I'm not an idiot--"

"Fine. Go home and get some sleep. I'll come check on you myself in a few hours."

Elizabeth brought him lunch. Rodney sat up and rubbed his eyes, muzzily thinking the door open for her. She set the tray on the desk and pulled over a chair so she could sit and talk. Rodney glanced at lunch. A sandwich and another damn protein shake. It was probably well meant and not a form of torture, but he wasn't positive.

Rodney rubbed his face again. "So? What's new?"

"Since we talked last, not a lot." The relaxed tone was completely belied by the sharp look she was giving him. "Apparently, my command staff went joyriding yesterday."

"Yeah, who did you have on ground control? Was he new? Because he actually argued with me. Well, tried to argue. You need to send a memo or something."

She smiled slightly. "You didn't file a flight notice and you didn't use an emergency protocol. Nobody is above proper procedure."

"Yeah, that's very funny. But seriously. Send the memo. I don't want to have to fire anybody because they inconvenienced me." He sighed. "Pass me the sandwich; I probably ought to eat."

She fetched the plate. "What's your take on John? How worried should I be?"

"Worried? He's... I wouldn't be worried. He's dealing with it."

"Heitmeyer thinks he needs a few days away. The mainland, maybe, helping the Athosians winterize the camp. Or a long hunting trip with Ronon."

"I don't think he wants to go kill animals. But that's just a guess."

"Right." She looked down. She looked up. "And how are you doing?"

Rodney shrugged. He bit the sandwich. It was odd and fishy. "What is this?"

Elizabeth sighed. "The consignment. They were so grateful they threw in a couple of extra barrels."

Rodney winced, but took another bite. Fish was full of protein, anyway. He needed that.

"It's just...."

Rodney swallowed the bite. "What?"

"Are you all right?"

Rodney sighed, a wave of heaviness settling over him. "Why? Did Carson tell you something?" Damn. "What is it now?"

She flinched. "Er. Nothing. I mean, no, Carson hasn't said anything. It's just... Usually, you complain. That's how I know you're basically all right. But you're quiet and subdued and not...."

"Complaining."

"No."

Rodney sighed, set the sandwich aside. "We've already done getting gutted this month. Unless it's already next month. The blood thing and the pain thing and the sepsis thing and let's not mention my intestines leaking shit here and there. I'm pretty much all panicked out."

"That's not making me worry less, Rodney."

"Well, good, actually. If you're worrying, then I don't have to feel like I ought to."

"Would *you* like a few days on the mainland?"

Rodney narrowed his eyes. "Maybe. If someone was going over anyway. I can lift really boring free weights there, too. And the walks would be new."

"I'll keep that option open."

She left soon after that and Rodney finished the lunch. Before he could get back to sleep, Carson came by. He gave Rodney a brief, old-fashioned exam this time: hands, stethoscope, portable scanner. He was very slow and gentle. It was reassuring. He wouldn't meet Rodney's eyes, though, and that wasn't.

"Are you freaking out over me? Or you?"

Carson threw up his hands and turned away. "Must you blather on? I'm working."

"That's the first thing I've said," Rodney answered, aggrieved. "And I was asking what was wrong."

Carson didn't answer, didn't turn back.

Rodney got up, retrieved his shirt, put it back on. Waited a few moments after that. Said, "What can I do?"

"Nothing, I expect," Carson answered stiffly. "You're my patient. You shouldn't be asking after me."

"I'm your friend. We've been in this together for a very long time. Carson--it wasn't your fault--"

"I know that. I know that. They were desperate and they used me and it wasn't my fault."

Rodney came up behind him and hugged him.

"I understand desperate," Carson said softly. "I've been desperate. I was desperate when the Wraith came. Desperate enough to give you stimulants. You might have died, the oldest friend I have here, because I was desperate. So I understand."

Rodney hugged hard. Carson sighed, "Ah, damn. Damn."

Rodney didn't have any idea what to say. Maybe there was nothing good *to* say. Maybe Rodney was just too far off his game to come up with anything. He held on tight.

"Enough, lad," Carson said, finally. He pulled away, ran an affectionate hand over Rodney's shoulder. "You should be resting."

"Right. Yeah. Am I in trouble, here? Really?"

"*Yes*, Rodney. You nearly died. This recovery business isn't a game. And you're not done with it yet. I really, truly, didn't think I would have to give *you* the lecture on not overdoing."

"Oh. Well. Thank you very much."

"I didn't--I only meant, you have a good deal of sense. Normally."

Rodney sighed, flopping awkwardly onto the bed. He gave up. Really, he did. "No, you meant I'm a hypochondriac coward who's obviously too self-centered to inconvenience himself for a friend."

Carson froze. "I didn't mean that. And it's not true." He sighed and sat down on the bed beside Rodney. "I didn't think. If I'd thought, if I'd been paying attention, I'd have been watching you both. You'd do any mad thing for him."

"Yeah. I would."

"I should have--"

"I'll live. I'll sleep tonight and go back to PT tomorrow and everything will be fine. Stop worrying."

"Frankly, it's easier to worry about you."

"Happy to oblige. Maybe I can whip up appendicitis."

"Don't you dare." Carson patted him on the shoulder. "Get some rest. I'll stop by tonight."

When Rodney woke again, Sheppard was there, sitting on the bed. Rodney smiled, patted his hand, and went back to sleep.

He did feel better the next day. Carson nixed the free weights and sent him for a slow walk on the south balcony. He spent an hour fussing idly with progress reports from exoengineering and looking over the schedule for the structural survey. Elizabeth and Sheppard both joined him at dinner, everyone doing their best to make things seem normal. It worked. Sort of.

The next day after lunch, he got a call from Zelenka. Rodney had a sudden wave of memory, or perhaps it was the resurgence of habit. Suddenly, he felt solidly back in a time when his headset chatted at him dozens of times a day, when everyone wanted to talk to him and nothing could wait and Rodney could multitask enough to take notes on his computer, talk to someone standing next to him and hold a conversation over the comm. It seemed almost unreal, now.

Now, of course, Rodney couldn't even walk and listen at the same time. He stepped to the side of the corridor and said, "I'm sorry, Radek. Can you say that again?"

"*We are making the call to earth today. We are finally making the first transmission of the back-up project. I thought you might want to be there to witness the great event.*"

"I'll be right there," Rodney answered. He hurried toward the transporter.

By Atlantian standards, the back-up project hadn't been a huge feat of software engineering. It relied mainly on Rodney's own data compression protocol and Radek's initial indexing system for the Ancient library, and both of these were already in place. The Earth end had been a pain in the ass. The SGC didn't have a network big enough to store the data once it came. The amount of data Rodney could squeeze through a stargate in four seconds couldn't even be decompressed by the near-supercomputer Sam Carter used for gate calculations and have it be usable for anything else for six hours. Atlantis had sent some hardware through which could handle the load, but nobody at the SGC had Atlantis Expedition's experience at interfacing Ancient and Earth technology. Once they'd finally gotten a receiving and decompressing computer on line, they'd still been having problems with the network they'd put in place to store the data on. It had been more than six months now, waiting to send that first large packet.

The project would take months to finish. Rodney could send thousands of gigs of data in four seconds, but those four seconds only happened once a week and the Ancient database was absolutely huge.

Radek was waiting when Rodney arrived. He looked both satisfied and impatient. "So, we're on?" Rodney said.

"We will attempt to transmit. After that, we won't know for sure until next week. They may yet screw it up."

Elizabeth made an appearance for the weekly transmission. She couldn't actually help, since almost everything was automated, but it was a big deal. She stood beside Rodney, in position to see the controls, and tried to make small talk until Radek said, "Time."

She nodded. "When you're ready."

Radek dialed. The wormhole established. Radek initiated the transmission sequence, which automatically contacted the SGC's network and downloaded the weekly bulk of reports, requisitions, and scientific data. At the same time, it took the data flow coming the other way. The primary communication stage finished faster than the eye could follow the report on the screen and the computers were already moving on to the next stage, connecting with the vast data storage unit that was waiting for the first chunk of ancient database. One of the laptops monitoring the transmission synthesized the sound of a dial-up modem synchronizing as it reported success, but again, before there was time to more than notice, the process was finished. The gate blinked off.

"That was exciting," Elizabeth said.

"Actually, it was," Rodney said. Zelenka nodded. Elizabeth sighed at them and went to look at the incoming mail.

***

That night, Teyla went to the mainland. Ronon and Sheppard went with her. So did Rodney, and because Rodney was going, so did Carson. Officially, they were going to help construct a few more permanent buildings in advance of the coming winter (the severity of which they couldn't predict, despite all the fancy equipment available. They only had a year's experience on this planet, and they couldn't get the weather report right on Earth despite thousands of years of practice) but obviously Rodney had nothing to contribute and Carson was there on a transparent excuse, since Rodney was doing fine.

Fine or not, there wasn't much for Rodney to do. He was forbidden to lift anything heavier than five kilos, he had never learned to hammer a nail straight, and while he actually wasn't a bad welder, there wasn't much call for that when you were building houses out of logs. He expected he'd spend most of his time going on longer, faster walks and possibly doing personnel reports he'd been putting off.

The first morning, though, he spotted the plans for a generic shelter built from indigenous materials on Sheppard's laptop, and they were just so wasteful and inelegant that he couldn't help himself. Three hours later, he made a significant discovery: if you really want to piss your commanding officer off, change the engineering specs on the project he's working on while he's laying the foundation. He called Rodney all sorts of names while Rodney showed him what was just so tragically *wrong* with the size, shape, and support structure of the building until suddenly Sheppard broke and stormed off with the tape measure so he could re-set the pegs outlining the floor.

Rodney got back to work. Multiple entrances, but sheltered, in order to preserve heat. The winter they'd seen hadn't been very cold, but that might or might not be the norm, and they needed to be prepared for a wide range of conditions. Chimneys. Multiple. And in the center of the building, not at the edges. Solar panels, very good idea, they'd have to order them from Earth, but they could be installed later. Structural support--

Over lunch he went over the plans with the Colonel and Teyla (and the three Athosians who had joined up to learn the foreign building techniques). "There's a lot that's not finalized," Sheppard said.

"I know, I know. I'm going as fast as I can. You won't catch up to me."

"What if you change your mind about the footprint when the roof is going up?" he protested.

"I'm sure I'll cope. We're not building a space station and we have five whole days. The next thing I want is a look at the materials."

A group of marines experimenting with a set of Ancient power tools (including a magnificent laser saw) had cut and trimmed a small mountain of logs during an excursion the previous year. The logs were still two valleys over, but small batches could be transported by jumper. The logs themselves were fine--solid, well-seasoned, and of similar size. The marines had apparently had a *wonderful* time with the power tools, because there were more than enough for Rodney's expanded design. The moss the Athosians had proposed for chinking the gaps was completely unacceptable, however. It crumbled when dry and Rodney could tell it was going to be bug-ridden. He didn't have a ready alternative, though, and he would need one in a few days.

By the end of the day he was exhausted. He'd fallen twice hurrying over uneven ground, and while he hadn't hurt himself, both times it had scared him into a slower pace for a few hours after. More than once, Carson had had to remind him to put down a rock he was examining because it was too heavy. Rodney had eaten lunch standing up, leaning over a portable work table, and there had been no nap at all.

At dinner he slumped in his stool and rested his elbows on the table to take some of the strain that had returned to his back. He was happy despite being tired. The food tasted wonderful, even though it was pretty much the same mashed tubers and dried fish they would have been eating in the city.

The Atlantis party was sleeping at Teyla's. Since she didn't spend much time there, "Teyla's place" was a large tent. It was roomy enough and they had the luxury of air mattresses, but Colonel Sheppard was worried about imposing, and as Sheppard collected the dirty bowls from dinner, he offered to set up the field tents so she could have her privacy back.

Teyla had scowled, looking around the Athosian camp. For a long time she didn't speak, and Rodney, not wanting to stare, followed her gaze. It was a pleasant evening, the sun just out of sight over the hill. Most people were eating outside, in groups larger than single families. Children ran among the tents and huts, pausing now and then to grab a bite of food. It was very informal and cozy, if a little dirtier and buggier than Rodney strictly liked.

"I do not understand your preference for isolation." Teyla's voice jerked him back to the conversation. "Privacy, independence, and formality are all commendable values. But you all take them to ruthless extremes."

"I'm sorry," Sheppard said quickly. "We appreciate your hospitality. We just don't want to impose--"

"I am not offended," she corrected. "I am worried." She opened her mouth to elaborate, but gave up and shook her head.

"Teyla... It's just a question of different customs. We're happy to stay with you."

"Of course, it is," she answered. "But tell me, would you speak so to your families?"

Sheppard, clearly worried about saying the wrong thing again, glanced at Rodney and Carson for help. "Yes, if it was just the one tent."

Teyla's eyes went hard. "Yes. I have no doubt you would. Even now."

Carson cleared his throat. Rodney could tell he was going to try to be helpful. "What's special about now?" he asked.

Much to Rodney's surprise--not--she looked at Carson like he was an idiot. "Now, when we are all so greatly in need of comforting. Even now, you would prefer to sleep in isolation."

"Er. What?" Sheppard gasped.

"None of you are sleeping well. Yet you would prefer to sleep in a room alone."

"Well," Sheppard said, very carefully. "If we aren't sleeping well... sometimes it's best to not have an audience."

"You do not believe that if you woke grieving that I would mock you, or in any way be unkind," she said in a tone of voice that said he better *not* believe it. "Do you think that they would?" Her eyes took in Ronon as well as Rodney and Carson.

"No. No, you don't understand. It's not our custom."

"It is your custom to abandon one another to pain, when you are friends?"

Ronon chose that moment to be perceptive. "If any of them show that kind of weakness, they'll be thought less of. If they even admit it exists." Perceptive and *not* helpful. Rodney could have hit him. Might have, if Ronon couldn't have mopped up the floor with him.

"You are a strange people," Teyla said. "You seem very close to one another. You seem very close to me. But I may be wrong. I have seen a 'new batch' come off the *Daedalus* and two days later follow you through a wormhole. They do not know you, but they risk their lives at your word. Perhaps none of it means anything."

"Oh, god...." Sheppard whispered. He looked completely unraveled. Rodney would have blamed Teyla, but she looked no better.

"They trust his *competence*," Rodney said. "His rank, he earned it. He deserves it. His competence has nothing to do with how he feels about anything."

Teyla's mouth dropped open. Carson hid his face into his hands. Ronon said quickly, "That's not as much a lie as it sounds."

Teyla swallowed, rallied, said, "Dr. McKay has been ill for weeks. You put him in a little room, alone, to sleep. I was there for one night. He was restless and unhappy and there was no one with him. Are all of you going to pretend this was *right*? I thought--at least here, here, in my tent away from the city we could look after one another. And you apologize to me for crowding me!" She stood up and stalked away.

Ronon rolled his eyes and went after her.

"She's not actually angry," Carson said. "She's just worried."

"By our complete incompetence, apparently," Rodney said. "You know, I had sort of been wondering, how do you get along without psychologists in a galaxy with Wraith-level stress? Guess that's the answer."

Sheppard sighed. "We can't go back. We're committed to finishing the lodge."

"We don't have to go back. She just wants us to sleep in the same tent. You do it all the time off-world." Carson was trying to be reasonable.

"The tents off-world aren't nearly as nice," Rodney said. He laughed suddenly.

"I don't see what's so funny," Sheppard said sourly.

Rodney laughed harder, "Can you imagine her response to us if you were, you know, actually a *normal* guy."

"Hey, I am a normal guy."

"No. Sorry. Haven't believed that since you computed all the possible gate destinations for a single set of symbols in your head. I know you've never given up your autonomy, uniform aside. And I've seen you with kids. You're way better than normal." Too late, Rodney realized the line he'd crossed. He froze, closing his eyes.

"Look," Sheppard said softly, "I'm pretty sure the only way we can avoid an international incident is to all be in our sleeping bags--and asleep--when Ronon brings Teyla back."

"Best get a move on, then," Carson said briskly. "I'll get the dishes."

Rodney had almost achieved sleep when Teyla and Ronon crept in. The previous night, he hadn't paid much attention to the situation. Now, after that horrid talk at dinner, he couldn't not notice the sleeping arrangements. Aside from the bed being on the floor and not quite as firm as he'd like, it wasn't any less comfortable than his room in the city. It was bigger than a field tent, by a lot. Sleeping with his team wasn't exposed and crowded like sleeping in the living cavern of the salt mine or like sleeping in the infirmary with nurses coming and going.

The not-canvas rustled as Ronon pushed it aside. Heavy but quiet, Ronon dropped onto his sleeping bag fully dressed. He never undressed when sleeping in the field, not even his boots. Seven years the play-thing of the Wraith. The hunted animal. Rodney had tried not to think too much about that when Sheppard had brought him home. Ronon, a feral stray, a half-wild thing... a resource, too, and one so different from Rodney as to be nearly incomprehensible to him.

Seven years running from the Wraith, with no safe place to sleep and no friend to share a meal with. That must have been so terribly lonely.

It didn't bear thinking about. No wonder, really, that Rodney hadn't thought about it.

On the other side, Teyla was stripping off her outer clothing, untying her short boots. She hardly made any noise at all. He felt a little self-conscious; he hadn't realized she'd been paying attention that night she'd spent in the infirmary. He wondered what 'restless and unhappy' meant and if he still was and if he had kept anyone up last night. Rodney had never had much patience for macho games, but he knew there was a difference between being human and just being whiny and pathetic.

Of course, Teyla wasn't judging Rodney for being weak. She thought the Earthlings were all crazy and a little stupid. She was *right*, yes, right, but it wasn't their fault. They hadn't made up the rules. It wasn't Carson's fault that being a good physician and a good medical researcher weren't strictly compatible. And it wasn't Sheppard's fault, what the military had to do to young men so that they could do their jobs--and oh, god, John had taken advantage of every crack a 'fly-boy' could fall through, hadn't he? He'd managed to keep an impossible amount of himself. He was a miracle, a wonder, and maybe he would survive opening fire on a bunch of kids, maybe he'd survive in the long run and in the short run both, maybe, but what it was costing him Rodney didn't want to think about--

Rodney pressed his hand over his mouth. There had to be a way to survive. There had to. He wouldn't believe the Pegasus Galaxy would destroy any of them. There was an amazing amount of sanity here, especially considering that every few generations kids watched as their parents were rounded up by the Wraith to be eaten. People who grew up in war zones on Earth, they didn't grow up well, did they? Rodney had never paid attention to the details. Elizabeth would know....

But if there was a way for the Athosians to be sane, then there was a way for them.

Sheppard was coping, wasn't he? He was going to be all right.

Rodney fell asleep brooding and woke up at dawn, cold. Fall on the mainland. Ronon was on his way out of the tent with his sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders and Sheppard was dressing at a speed that suggested he was very cold too. Sleepily thinking 'fire' and 'coffee' and 'extra shirt,' Rodney squirmed out of the sleeping bag and fumbled for his clothing.

The day warmed up fairly quickly and Rodney was moving too fast to pay attention to the weather anyway. The biggest modification he'd made to the lodge was the roof supports. Resting the roof directly on the walls limited size, was a wasteful use of materials, and wasn't nearly structurally sound enough to make him happy. He was going to hang the roof and the interior walls from upright supports. They had logs strong and long enough.

Rodney marked the position of the supports. Sheppard checked his math. Rodney told himself he didn't mind; they were hurrying, and hurry led to mistakes. It was better to have an automatic check. It was better.

It pleased him immensely that Sheppard didn't find any mistakes. Not that he'd thought mistakes had been likely. Or that he hadn't done much more impressive things. Or that it even mattered, in the grand scheme of things. But still.

They got a good deal done that day: they set the uprights, filled the shallow foundation with sand (they loaded the carts of sand onto the jumper, which saved a lot of transit time) and then set the flat stones that would serve as floor.

Tomorrow the walls would start going up. That meant using the cool power tools to cut the notches, and even the Athosians were looking forward to that. Rodney said, "It's all fun and games until somebody amputates a finger," and pretended he wasn't interested, too.

After dinner Sheppard produced a bag of marshmallows and a sharpened stick. They had to teach Teyla and Ronon what to do with them, and Ronon--naturally--preferred to eat his while on fire.

Rodney wound up running a small laser saw since he couldn't lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. He pretended it was repetitive and menial labor, so far below him it was a hardship. Since no one present knew that physicists and engineers were much more vulnerable to the lure of power tools than, say, biologists or chemists, no one called him on it. Hell, *laser* power tools. It didn't get better than that.

There was a trick to it, even beyond 'dear god watch where you point that thing.' It pulsed, so you had to move fairly slowly in order not to leave tiny stutters that became uneven tears when you knocked the extra out. Also, it was shaped a little like a hack saw, and the long blade guard tended to get in the way, if you didn't rotate the handle just so as you cut into the wood. Once you got the hang of it, it was fast, and Rodney could notch logs as fast as the others could lift them into place.

As he worked the logs were placed on nice high saw horses, but he still had to bend forward some. Too much. His stomach muscles hadn't grown back enough and his lower back wasn't strong enough to compensate. Carson noticed his stiffness at lunch and forbid him to continue in the afternoon. When Rodney protested, Sheppard told him to stop hogging the cool toy. He knew--of course he knew--that any protest would be seen as Rodney having been taken by the lure of Ancient power tools, and that Rodney would have to give up unless he was willing to take the teasing.

Outmaneuvered, Rodney said, "Fine."

After lunch he checked the plans again, and then, at a loss (since he couldn't shove logs up the ramp and into place and wasn't interested in watching other people do it) he retrieved his soap and towel and went off to bathe.

Probably, he had put it off too long. He could sort of smell himself. But while the tradesoap the Athosians required people to use when washing in their river was fine (organic, sweet-smelling, mild, and lathered well) the river itself was ice cold. One of the Atlantis engineers had set up a shed by the camp's well that made hot water, but the Athosians didn't run it in the summer. What was the point, when the river was so pleasant?

It was a short walk to the riverbank, and the path was wide and clearly marked. Rodney had washed off his feet in the shallows every evening before dinner, but he'd only wiped down the rest of himself with a washcloth. He couldn't put off a good wash any more, not sleeping communally. Well, at least he had privacy and full sun, he thought as he undressed on the bank. It could be worse.

He reminded himself that it could be worse again as he stepped into the cold water. Although the river was fast and deep, the Athosians had taken advantage of a short drop and some large boulders shifted with levers to make a small, calm pool for washing. It was very picturesque and ridiculously primitive. Rodney scooped a handful of soft tradesoap from the small pot and stepped out into the deeper water.

Cold. It was cold. But he'd been swimming in worse. Hurriedly, he splashed himself, climbed onto a slightly higher rock, and lathered. When he looked up and reached to brace his hand against a ledge for the climb back in, he saw Ronon sitting on the narrow, stony beach. Watching.

"Excuse me?" Rodney called irritably.

Ronon blinked. "What for?" he asked.

Fumbling and slipping, Rodney plopped back into the water. "You do *not* watch people bathe. What, were you raised in a barn? Have you somehow not heard of privacy?" A trickle of soap dripped from his hair down his face and into his mouth. Spitting and splashing and getting angrier by the second, Rodney shouted, "What is the matter with you?"

Ronon, unfazed, shrugged. "Sheppard told me to watch you."

"What, am I two? I can't take a bath by myself? No, never mind. Don't answer that. Just go away." He turned his back on the bank and submerged himself to rinse his hair. Damn, that was cold. And distracting. He was almost surprised when he turned back to the bank and found Ronon still sitting there. "Go away so I can get out."

Ronon looked faintly hurt. Not much, because, after all, he was Ronon. But faintly. "I wouldn't stop you from getting out," he said.

Right. Ronon had no clue. To be fair, Rodney had been naked in front of him before. Usually, he changed and washed after a mission in his room, but more than once they'd come back such a mess with something or other that they'd all used the communal shower in the locker room outside the jumper bay. And on missions, sometimes, like that damn bathroom at the salt mine. Sighing, Rodney climbed out of the water and retrieved his towel. "For the record," he said clearly, "I don't need babysitting."

He dried off and dressed. Carefully, because nobody liked chafing accidents, and then stormed back to the Athosian camp. Distantly, he recognized he was storming at a good clip, without having to stop once to rest and get his breath, but he was too distracted by annoyance to make anything of it. He stormed right up to Sheppard who was checking over a batch of logs for size. "So, are there man-eating, fresh water sharks in the river that you didn't mention before?" Rodney asked.

Sheppard stared at the logs for a moment longer, apparently counting. "No. Not that I know of."

"The large, dangerous land animals around here, they're herbivores?"

"Yes, Rodney. Nothing to worry about." He turned and called to two of the Athosians who were helping shift logs. "This one, and then those three."

"And if the Wraith were coming, the long range sensors would tell us. It's a very reliable system. I know, because I set up the maintenance schedule."

"Right." He walked around Rodney and went to stand at the end of the next log, waiting for the others to get into position.

"And none of the Athosians are axe-murderers."

That got him a puzzled glance. "Erm. No."

"So what was with the bodyguard?"

Before he could answer, the other men were in place. Sheppard shot Rodney an apologetic look, said, "One, two, three, hup," and they were away. Rodney danced clear. He followed them over to the building, the walls now up to Rodney's waist. He checked the uprights, calculating rough vectors and weight distributions in his head. It was looking good, so far. But. Damn, he still didn't have a chinking material. Scrap cloth and pitch? Sawdust and wax? The city's extruders could make simple compounds, polymer shapes, and a basic cloth. There might be a recipe for caulk....

He sort of heard Sheppard coming up behind him. "So, just what is the problem?" he asked.

"I'd like to know," Rodney answered fliply, "because last time I checked, a grown-up with reasonably good judgment hanging out in one of the safest places in this galaxy didn't need a babysitter."

Sheppard got his patient look, his 'handle the difficult genius' look, and said, "Ah."

Angry, Rodney leaned forward and hissed,"He watched me take a bath!"

For a moment, Sheppard seemed confused, then his eyes widened. "Rodney? Ronon didn't...." He didn't say what he was thinking, but horror clearly showed in his expression.

Rodney backpedaled. "No. Hurt me? No. Of course not. And--and has someone hit you with a stupid stick? Seriously, what is the matter with you? I just want a little privacy and possibly some control over my life. It's not rocket science here."

"Okay. Right. I--"

"Damn it, John. Jinto goes down to bathe alone. If I can't do that much, then it's all over. If I can't take care of myself here, there's no *point.*"

"I didn't.... Rodney, I didn't mean you couldn't," he stopped. "I don't," he said.

"Whatever." Rodney sighed. "I'm going to see what Atlantis can give us for chinking materials."

He spent the afternoon at the camp table working at his computer which was networked to Atlantis. The first and obvious choice was the Ancient structural goo Simpson used for minor repairs in the city. It was way more than they needed, though. The stuff lasted for thousands of years and was as hard as diamond when it dried. Overkill, much? Glutinous plant material mixed with pitch? Hmmm. Did the trees here have pitch? One of the Athosian teenagers passed carrying water from the well. Rodney waved her over and began to question her about the local materials.

By late afternoon when the building crew stopped working Rodney still didn't have an answer. He shut down his computer and went for a walk, circling the camp at the tree line. He made the circuit three times before sitting down on a large rock. He was sitting because he wanted to, not because he had worn himself out and had to. That was good.

When he heard footsteps behind him, Rodney ignored them, but Sheppard didn't take the hint and move on. He climbed up onto the rock and sat, too. "I didn't mean you were helpless," he said.

"Right. So it was--?" When Sheppard didn't answer, Rodney sighed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I can't--"

"You've had a hard time recently. And I know that sometimes you think that I don't take your safety seriously. And right now. With things as bad as they've been. Being out of the city. I didn't think you should have to worry about being safe."

"Somebody did hit you with a stupid stick. Or--no. Wait. Did somebody drop a log on your head?"

"Very funny," Sheppard said, but he sounded cautiously optimistic.

"You're not supposed to listen to me when I'm panicking. Really--it's unfair of you to remember whatever I say afterward. I have no control over what comes out of my mouth. I say things I don't mean. I lose perspective."

"No, you don't."

"Hello. You have met me, right? I blow everything out of proportion. Hell, I--I need you to tell me when I'm out of line, to show me where the edges are--I--"

"You don't lose perspective. You don't exaggerate. When you tell us something can kill us, you are being completely and reliably... exact. Yes. Exact."

"You always argue--"

"I argue so you don't stop thinking, not because you're out of touch with reality." Sheppard laughed. "I mean, let's face it. Most of the time, your only problem is you're *way* too in touch with reality."

Rodney took a couple of deep breaths. "I have noticed that being scared doesn't actually help. Justified or not. And normally, you're a help."

"Right. Okay. Sorry. I made a mistake."

"When I realized what Ronon was doing, I thought maybe there *was* something to be afraid of. Imagine my surprise; you were just pointlessly coddling me."

"I said I was sorry."

"You used to have too much respect for me to pander to my paranoia and let me get away with hysterical crap."

"Rodney. I let you get away with all kinds of crap. All the time. It doesn't mean anything. I'm still sorry."

Rodney closed his eyes hard. He felt something he refused to examine too closely, because it might lead to crying or wanting a hug, and neither of those would end well. Damn. The knowledge that Sheppard had tried to make things *easy* for him. Always before, Sheppard had asked for more of Rodney, not less.

"Hey," Sheppard said softly. "Are you okay?"

Rodney nodded.

"We should take a turn making dinner. Ronon set some snares earlier. We've got... they're sort of like chickens."

"How original," Rodney said, dredging up a sour smile and sliding off the rock. "But better us cooking than Ronon."

The evening was pleasant enough. Not-chicken was pretty good barbequed. A slow stream of Athosians stopped by to mention that they were admiring the new building. Sheppard and Teyla sparred a little after dinner, and it was always good entertainment to watch Sheppard get knocked on his arse. Something more than entertainment, to watch Sheppard get knocked on his arse by a fairly small woman and not be the least bit resentful or ashamed of it.

But Rodney's own mood stayed sour. He went to bed early and was still profoundly dissatisfied with the world the next morning. He didn't know why.

He did a short stint on the laser saw. It was still cool, but still didn't cheer him up. He took the long walk out to the field where some of the Athosians were harvesting vegetables to talk to Halling. Halling handed Rodney a knife and strongly hinted that he should help cut the prickly fruit loose (which Rodney did, although the fruit was both sharp and squishy, and besides, it stank), but when he heard what Rodney was asking for he knew where to get it. One of the trading partners Atlantis was already using made a good-quality pitch from tree sap and a local mineral. On Athos, it had been used in boat-making, a layer of stiffening and waterproofing between two layers of animal hide. It was bright blue, but Rodney didn't suppose that was important.

Rodney, satisfied that he'd solved his logistical problem, escaped from the botanists' nightmare of the Athosian garden and walked back to the camp. He arrived just in time for lunch, and the timing should have pleased him, but didn't. Left-over not-chickens were good cold, and Rodney didn't know why he didn't particularly care. He didn't miss the city and didn't particularly want to go back. He still thought the building was coming along nicely. He wasn't in pain. He was just grumpy. Or sad. Or bored. Or something.

After lunch, Carson took Rodney into the tent. He'd spent the morning looking at minor medical concerns among the Athosians; apparently even on vacation Carson was on duty. He shook the small but sturdy table that took up one corner of the tent. "Hop up here so I can reach you, and take off your shirt."

He was ridiculously old-fashioned about the exam. Blood pressure cuff and stethoscope, of all things. He probed the bright scar on Rodney's belly with slickly gloved fingers. "At least the thermometer is digital," Rodney said impatiently.

"You don't think much of the life sciences," Carson said, pressing the cold end of the stethoscope to Rodney's back. "Deep breath, please."

Rodney breathed. "What it gave it away, my continual mockery?"

"There's quite a lot we can do," Carson said, shifting the stethoscope. "Even you have to admit that. Again, please."

"It's not the results so much that bothers me," Rodney said. "It's the process. Living organisms are very... squishy. They have minds of their own. They adapt to experimental conditions. Okay, the results are pretty much a mess, too. The average prescription drug doesn't work on twenty to thirty percent of potential patients."

"It's not random, you know," Carson said, sounding amused. "The laws of cause and effect still apply. They're just very complex. Actually, from what little I know of quantum mechanics, physics is much more 'squishy' than medicine. I'm surprised you can stand it. The laws of cause and effect don't apply at all to wee particles."

"That's Earth physics," Rodney said. "Ancient physics is much, much worse, actually." He laughed.

"So there are moments when physics, like medicine, is as much art as science," Carson said as he put aside his instruments and stripped off his gloves.

Rodney sighed. "Is there a point to this?"

"Yes. Medicine is complicated, but it's not random and not incomprehensible."

"Yes, thank you. How reassuring." He grabbed his shirt and began to dress. "I appreciate that."

Carson caught his arm, gently held him still. "You're doing very well. You're coming along nicely. But it takes its own time, and it's left you quite drained."

Rodney gritted his teeth and deeply regretted not avoiding this conversation. "I feel fine."

"You're irritable. You tire easily. Your concentration isn't what it was. Your life has changed quite a bit in these last weeks; you don't feel like yourself."

"Can you do anything about it? I didn't think so--"

"It's going to take time. I know you're tired of this. Some things can't be rushed."

"So I should just take it easy and cheer up then?"

"It wouldn't hurt, but no. Even if you're grumpy, you'll still get better."

"Then the point of this little talk was...?"

"I was trying to be reassuring. Make you feel a bit better."

Rodney groaned. "Then just leave me alone. I promise, that will make me feel much better." Rodney heard himself use the tone that made people back down and go away. He watched Carson respond with just the right irritation and surrender. Then he sighed and looked over Rodney sadly. There was a sinking feeling in Rodney's stomach. It wasn't the healing injury.

Carson said, "I wish you'd take some comfort."

Rodney swallowed. "I'm a very difficult person. I'm sure you've heard that." He wished he had a better apology.

"I don't actually mind you being difficult," Carson said seriously. "I do mind that you're having such a rough time of it."

"You've done a good job with me, Carson. I know I never say thank you."

Carson shushed him. "Enough," he said. "They'll need another load of logs soon. What say you and I go and fetch it? Feel like piloting a jumper?"

Rodney's mood didn't actually improve, but in a way he did notice his restlessness and irritability less. He was used to being impatient, and the world was irritating most of the time anyway.

Getting the logs was time-consuming and kind of persnickety. Carson and Rodney were fair pilots, but carrying a batch of logs dangling below the jumper on a chain and landing them in the clearing next to the half-finished cabin was delicate. It took Rodney's complete attention, which was helpful, but the constant anxiety about what kind of damage could be done with a thousand pounds of swinging wood didn't put him in a more cheerful frame of mind. The day passed slowly and unpleasantly.

By the next day, all that was left was the roof. Rodney, using a laser cord to strip logs into boards, was bored to tears. The building was coming out both beautiful and charming. It was Rodney's design, and he had every reason to be proud, though the idea of being proud of a little wooden hut made him cringe.

In a burst of effort to finish, the work crew stayed at it until full dark. The roof itself was made of overlapping boards. When they had a supply of pitch, they'd gunk the seams between the boards and around the chimneys. That would probably be sound. A few months testing local materials beforehand would have been useful--would have taken out most of the guesswork--but who cared? It was a prototype. Just a wooden building, not a space station. It could be replaced in a week, if they completely screwed up. The people using it were living in tents now, practically anything would be an improvement. It didn't matter. Pretty cabin or not.

Imperfect and unimportant but beautiful and well made. Torn between embarrassment and pride, Rodney pretended not to notice how pleased the cabin made him.

They were using jumper lights when they finally finished nailing the last board in place. A cheer went up from the dozen or so workers and the gathering crowd of spectators when Sheppard announced that they were finished. One of the young Athosian men began dancing on the roof. He was lithe and agile. He twirled around the cylindrical chimneys that had been fabricated in Atlantis' impossibly sleek and clean metal shop. He made dangerous leaps along the ridgepole.

Rodney sighed.

Eventually they turned off the lights and gathered up their towels and lanterns and headed down to bathe at the river. Rodney followed along, moving carefully in the shifting shadows, pleased that the darkness would give them some privacy.

The others played and roughhoused in the water, crowding and splashing that was irritating even to watch. Rodney walked down the bank a little, stopping when he found a spot that looked shallow (if fast) and stripped to wash. The stones underfoot here were sharp. The water was still cold. He almost fell when he bent to rinse his hair. He dropped and lost the wooden jar that held his soft soap. Grumpy, chilled, and still feeling kind of grubby, Rodney dressed and headed back to camp. He could hear the others behind him in the river. Shouting and laughing and goofing off.

In the camp, one of the long temporary tables had been set up between Teyla's tent and the cabin. It was laid out with cold meat and fresh berries and some kind of cold soup made of the squishy, spiky vegetables. Rodney snagged a couple of handfuls of the meat on his way past and chewed on his way to bed.

He woke briefly when Sheppard and Teyla and then Carson and Ronon came in to get ready to undress. He woke again, much later, to see Sheppard slip out into the darkness. The camp outside was completely silent. Exotic night birds and squeaky insects filled the silence with weird cries, but there was no movement, no speech. Rodney sat up and waited for Sheppard to relieve himself and return. Several minutes passed.

From the darkness, Ronon said softly, "Something's wrong."

Rodney remembered his anxiety a few days before. "There's nothing out there," he whispered.

"No. Him." A pause, and then, "What should we do?"

"You're asking me?" Rodney squeaked.

"Never mind." Ronon pushed aside his sleeping bag and stood up.

"Wait." Rodney groped for his boots. "I'll do it."

Ronon paused. "Okay," he said.

With no light pollution, the stars were very bright and clear. It was an astronomer's dream, but for his part, Rodney would have liked a little more illumination on the ground. Slowly and carefully, he checked the latrine first, hoping that Sheppard had only eaten something that had disagreed with him. The latrine was empty. He checked the jumper. Empty, too. He turned slowly, eyes searching the shadows at the tree line. Nothing obvious. Damn it, John.

Rodney turned toward the cabin. He peered in the door. Inky blackness. He took a cautious step inside. Was that a shape in shadow by the window? "John?" he whispered.

The answer was quick and strong. "McKay! Rodney? Are you all right?" Swift, quiet steps across the stone floor. A hand brushing his shoulder in the dark. "Rodney? What's wrong?"

"You're asking me?" Rodney answered. "I'm not the one slipping off in the middle of the night." Rodney shut his mouth hard. He wished he could see Sheppard's face. He wished he knew what to say. "Can I... can I help at all? I mean, maybe Teyla is right. All we have here is each other. You shouldn't have to try to cope alone."

Sheppard was close; a shadow, a warmth in the cold night air. "Is that what you think I was doing? That I came out here to fall apart?"

"Didn't you?"

"No. No. I came out here to see your beautiful house."

Rodney pulled back slightly. "The cabin? You came out in the middle of the night to see the cabin? To look at the building?" Rodney wondered what he'd do if Sheppard were actually crazy.

"Yeah. It's a great building."

"It's the middle of the night."

Sheppard sighed. "I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking how strange it was, given that everything is so hard, so dangerous here, but we still keep building things. I mean, my god. It's a nightmare. A horror movie. We live in a horror movie. And we still have our harvest festivals and play with kids and build things. Really great things. We're still alive, Rodney. There's so much life here. And sometimes it's so good."

Rodney felt a little stunned. "Oh," he said.

"We might beat them," Sheppard said. "I mean, yeah, it looks bleak. But we have a chance. We might beat the Wraith." He took a deep breath. "Life here could be good." He laughed softly. "It's good now. Rodney? If we win the war, will you design a beautiful house for me?"

Rodney blinked, the words 'it's not that nice,' hovering on his tongue. Instead, he said, "With a really big garage for the puddlejumper?"

Rodney heard the smile. "And another one for you next door."

Rodney sighed. "You love the city. You'll never move to the mainland."

"It's a nice fantasy, McKay. Let me dream."

"Right. Okay. Dream of a really big house. With indoor plumbing. After we win the war."

Sheppard hugged him roughly. "Anything, Rodney. We can do anything."

Rodney laughed a little. "Can we go back to bed?"

They returned to Atlantis the next morning. Rodney got a hot shower first thing. He did two hours' PT, most of it involving the boring free weights. His stamina was better; after another shower he picked up a sandwich from the commissary and headed to the lab.

The team on Ithna Son had sent back a new set of reports. Rodney flipped through the pages of tests rapidly, and then opened the latest index of molecular recipes. Rodney drummed his fingers on the counter. There was a sense to all this somewhere. An elegance that he just wasn't seeing. He hated that.

He grabbed a laptop and a set of tools and headed off to one of the simple fabricators the Ancients had left behind. He had to get his mind around their approach to *making*, their understanding of materials. He briefly considered asking Elizabeth, but decided to wait on that. He could never really get Ancients from what they said. What they did, that had always been the key so far. You could tell how they thought by what they built and how they built it. Rodney needed to know how they dealt with material things.

Dr. Metier had done tests on a dozen or so of the materials extruded by the fabricator; near-polymers stronger and simpler than nylon, a cloth as soft and breathable as cotton but un-woven like a sheet of plastic, carbon fiber beads of various sizes, thin leaves of something that acted like ceramic but had a molecular structure that layered carbon and silicone in a really unlikely way.

Slowly, Rodney disassembled the fabricator. He ran scans on each component. He called Radek to bring him a camera so he could magnify each part from every direction. It would help if he knew what the materials were for. The polymer strands were clearly (he hoped) rope and cords, very handy. The Athosians were using the not-ceramic for cooking (it could stand up to several thousand degrees, never mind a cooking fire) and the cloth for tents and pavilions. The beads might be ball bearings, if there was any sign that the Ancients had used ball bearings for anything.

Carson had to call three times before Rodney finally gave in and went to afternoon PT. He barely noticed the boring exercises; his mind was on the mechanism he'd taken apart.

The next day Rodney took his breakfast with him and went back to work. Radek joined him for a while, sitting on the floor and disassembling the parts Rodney had removed into even smaller parts. They didn't talk very much. They didn't need to. When they had answers, they talked. When they didn't need to concentrate on what they were doing, they talked. When all they had was half-formed questions, there was nothing to say.

Carson had to come get him for morning PT. It wasn't free weights again. It was walking and what one of the other doctors called 'gentle' stomach exercises. Rodney's gut muscles were weak and unbalanced where they had been torn. They tired quickly, twitching and knotting at even simple movements, and hurting more than they had in a long time. Rodney was panting and aching and thoroughly pissed off when he went back to the fabricator.

Sheppard brought him lunch. He sat quietly while they ate, not trying to make conversation. He watched Rodney with a gentle patience that said--very clearly--that Carson had called him and reported that Rodney had had a bad day.

Rodney ignored him and pulled the crystal chips from the fabricator console. Copying and decompiling the code wouldn't take very long, but sorting out the Ancient programming language a line at a time would be a pain in the ass and would have to be done mostly by hand.

It didn't get any easier. Over the next few days, Rodney tried to explain to Carson that he didn't have time for physical therapy twice a day every day. Carson said he was sure a man with Rodney's vast intelligence could manage the scheduling. Rodney finally felt forced to point out that he was technically Carson's boss. Carson calmly agreed that Rodney was his supervisor in the lab but had absolutely no authority in the infirmary. Rodney got angry. Carson laughed and told him to bugger off.

During the day he read Ancient schematics and carefully diagrammed the workings of the Ancient fabricator. He wanted to get his hands on the equipment in that salt mine, but no, that was out of the question. It didn't matter. He could learn the Atlantian construction paradigm with the equipment here. He could learn to see what they saw. At night he dreamed of molecules. Usually, it was just a tired replay of the day, but sometimes the molecules did things Rodney wouldn't normally picture. This was a very good sign.

When Carson finally got fed up with, 'I'll be there in five minutes' six or seven times in a row, he sent a marine to collect him. That was a little embarrassing and completely out of line and Rodney set his watch alarm so he was always on time after that. When he was walking or doing weights, Rodney could send his mind back to his lab, even though Carson nagged that focus and attention would make the exercise more effective. The new belly stretches were joined by sit-ups, and he couldn't concentrate through that. They left him stunned and shaking. It was awful. Carson stayed when it was hard. Every time. If Carson couldn't be there they did something else, and Rodney appreciated that. He wasn't good with pain.

Except for one day when he was off-planet, Sheppard showed up every evening with dinner. It saved Rodney from living on power bars. After a minor mess the first time, he brought sandwiches which Rodney could eat one-handed while scrolling through text. Sheppard stayed and ate with him. Sometimes he talked. Usually, Rodney babbled about molecular bonds and pin-point force fields. Sometimes Rodney thought about the cabin on the mainland. An Ancient wouldn't have built that. They would have considered it pitiful and inelegant. Rodney, with his growing double vision, could see his own design as both rather pathetic and ruggedly graceful.

They had been back in the city just over a week when Sheppard showed up at about eleven o'clock one night. He folded his arms and studied the current configuration of mess Rodney had spread out across the floor. "Call it a night, McKay. It's late."

Rodney glanced up. "In a little while."

"Now." It was the hard tone, the reining Rodney in when he was out of line or way ahead of himself on a weird tangent tone. It made Rodney look up and take another look, and, yes, Sheppard looked very serious. "Carson's tired of nagging. He's really tired of being ignored. You need to get some rest."

"I'm fine," Rodney said. "I'm not tired."

"You're faking it with massive amounts of coffee. You're exhausted."

Rodney rolled his eyes.

"I'm the good cop, Rodney. If Carson has to tell Elizabeth, she's not going to come down and give you a nice, polite reminder. She'll take you off duty."

Rodney opened and shut his mouth. He said, "Don't be stupid. It's not convincing. What's Elizabeth going to do, get the sys admin to shut down my passwords? I planned the network."

"She can take away your laptop and lock you in your quarters."

"This is insane. Do you really think you can keep me locked up?"

"Do you really think fighting over this is a responsible and efficient use of your very valuable time? Are you really going to make us lock you up? And then spend hours getting out of it? And besides that piss Elizabeth off? All because you won't get a good night's sleep?"

Rodney caved. He wouldn't admit it, but now that his attention wasn't on atomic structure he could feel how tired he was. His shoulders ached. And his back. His stomach muscles were tight and tired. Sheppard followed Rodney back to his room, which would have been embarrassing if anyone had been around to see.

The next day Elizabeth showed up at lunch. She was carrying two MREs. She sat on the floor, slid one of the packets over to him. "How's it going?"

Rodney looked up slowly, blinking. "You know the designs on the doors?" he asked, picking up the MRE.

She nodded, watching him. "They always looked kind of deco to me."

"They're a diagram of the molecular structure of the walls. The big pink and grey picture windows in the east gym, that's the composition of the exterior casing of a ZedPM. The striations on the door to Colonel Sheppard's office, I think that's a picture of the material the windows are made of."

Elizabeth paused in her disassembly of her MRE package. "You've given me half a dozen diagrams of molecules. None of them looked like the stained glass windows."

Rodney blinked, dragged himself back to the mental world where he could translate mind-blowing miracles and intoxicating mathematics into English sentences. "I can't make a diagram of a molecule that actually looks like a molecule. Well, I could, if I wanted to spend the time to set up a three dimensional CGI, but even that would be a lie, totally misleading on so many levels. Different diagrams communicate different kinds of information."

She nodded. "And it depends on what kind of information is relevant."

"Right. Yes. Well, the diagrams on the doors convey aesthetic information."

She nodded. "So even the art is really about science."

"What? Huh. No, not at all. That's like saying we put up flowered wallpaper because we're a society of botanists. They just thought the patterns were beautiful. The reality, the structure of the matter, was beautiful. It meant something to them."

She leaned forward, asked softly, "Rodney, what are you doing here?"

"Trying to figure out how they thought. Trying to find the things they didn't put in the users' manuals."

"Carson says you're well enough to go back on limited duty."

Rodney motioned to the glittering parts spread out around them. "Working," he sang, and took a bite of meatloaf.

"I want you to start coming back to staff meetings."

Rodney turned that over for a moment. "Really?" he asked.

"Unless you can think of a reason why not."

Rodney felt a coil of nervousness, of uncertainty. "Radek--"

"I have no complaints. But it's not his job. It's yours."

"Right. It is. I wasn't worried." Not about leaving you in the lurch. Not about being replaced. Not worried at all.

"Radek is a *very* good engineer."

"Yes," Rodney conceded. "He's competent."

"But he doesn't like to disappoint me."

Rodney stiffened. "You say that like it's a bad thing." Rodney squashed the juvenile urge to protest that he didn't like to disappoint her either and by the way, he usually didn't.

"You don't mind telling me things I don't want to hear. In fact, you'll quite cheerfully tell me I'm being stupid."

Rodney was a little thrown. "Should I apologize? Or is this a really weird performance review?"

She thought about that. "Well. Maybe I should apologize. I know you don't feel well. And you don't get enough time to work on your own projects. I almost hate to drag you back into administration."

"O...kay."

"But I really need you. Radek's good at catching the maintenance engineers before they do something fatally stupid, but I don't know how long he can do it alone. And he won't ever just come out and tell me I'm stupid."

"Now, look, Elizabeth, you make it sound like--I mean, I *don't*--I show more respect to you than I ever have to anyone, and in 'ever' I'm including all of my PhD committees."

"Yes. I'm not complaining. Well, I wouldn't, would I? It's why I put your name on the list first. If I was doing something wrong, you'd tell me in the fewest words humanly possible. When you're sure you're right, you don't worry about humility or your career or anybody's feelings. I need that. I need you."

Oh. "Oh," Rodney said. He didn't bother to hide his suspicion. "Surprisingly, I get that a lot. I'm hardly ever hired for my basic brilliance with physics or engineering. What people really want is somebody who can deliver creative verbal abuse in volume." The sarcasm was a thin cover, but Rodney was badly thrown. Usually, nobody actually said that they needed him except right after he'd saved everyone from some kind of ghastly and painful doom. They didn't usually remember it for very long then. Even the hiring speeches--generals and project managers always told Rodney he was 'brilliant' and 'perfect for the job,' that they 'had a challenge worthy of his intellect,' that they 'wanted' him and were willing to pay accordingly. Even Elizabeth, the first time they'd spoken. She'd called and introduced herself, said that they'd opened the Antarctic outpost for research, asked him if he wanted in. Nobody had ever said they needed him.

Elizabeth watched his surprise and uncertainty flow across his face. "The verbal abuse is a bonus," she said. "It's your *directness* that I need."

"Oh," Rodney said, trying to digesting that. "Right. Flattery will get you everywhere."

She smiled, the fencing smile she used in negotiations. "No, it won't. It just makes you smug. Except even that doesn't work long, because you're smart enough to see through flattery."

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "You're still doing it. What are you...? Are you testing me? What for? Elizabeth, I'm never up to mind games with you. I know you handle me, but I think I only catch you at it when you want me to." A thought occurred to him. It was kind of embarrassing. "You probably have to handle me a lot more than you should. Than you should have to. I mean, you expect geniuses to be difficult, but I can be...." Rodney couldn't bring himself to put it into words. Elizabeth knew what Rodney could be.

She looked into his eyes. "I need you to be difficult. I need you back. Carson is pleased with your progress. Physically, you're doing very well." She frowned. "I wish I could give you more time. But I need you back."

Rodney straightened. "Well. I'm indispensable."

She didn't sigh and say grudgingly, 'yes, you are.' "I'm so sorry," she said. "I'll do whatever I can to make this... well, not easy on you. But easier."

Rodney waved a hand at the scattering of bits on the floor. "As much fun as this is, I'm not in a hurry. It will be five or six months before we can actually turn the factory on, even experimentally." See? No problem. Rodney had the time to spend a few hours a day actually doing his job. Thinking about the morning meetings, though, was a little scary. Rodney wasn't usually shy about things like responsibility and management. But his concentration wasn't what it had been before the injury. Mistakes were possible. He could let Elizabeth down.

Elizabeth--and John and even Radek--were very good at handling him, but they were used to a different Rodney McKay. Rodney could design a competent log cabin. That wasn't on the same order as shield maintenance or wormhole physics or any of a thousand other things they would expect him to be able to master.

Elizabeth reached out and took his hand. "What can I do?" Because she couldn't ship him to Earth for a nice, long rest. Rodney didn't want that anyway. He wanted--

He wanted things to be the way they were. He wanted to be strong enough to take the chance that they might be. He looked at Elizabeth, who was watching him calmly. Rodney let her go, gathered up the detritus of his eaten MRE, and carefully got to his feet. He triggered his headset. "This is McKay. Radek, I need you to email me a copy of this week's assignment schedule and the current project log."

"*They are on the network, Rodney,*"

"I don't want the original, I want the version with your notes."

"*Are you sure you want to lower yourself to accepting my opinion.*"

"I didn't say I'd accept it. But there's no point in wasting time looking for problems you've already found."

"*I am sending now. One of my own current projects is at the top. I would appreciate your opinion.*"

Rodney sifted his memories of the last few weeks, the conversations he'd had with Radek where Radek had done almost all of the talking. He had been hinting for Rodney's input. "Field harmonics," he said, hoping he was picking the right project.

"*Yes. I have begun to think my results are reflecting a feature, not a bug, but if this is correct, I will have to start again at the beginning and figure out what the feature is for.*"

When Rodney looked up again Elizabeth was gone.

Zelenka had labeled the mid-priority low-risk projects with 'MH' meaning 'Mostly Harmless.' Rodney ignored those for the time being, going to the ones marked with exclamation points, multiple question marks, and the words (in Czech, but Rodney recognized this much after two years) 'god help us.'

It took the rest of the afternoon to get through the short reports, and Rodney carefully added his own notes to Radek's. He wasn't confident of his own memory or speed. Probably, he would have made better progress on it if he hadn't been worrying about it. He never used to. It was all habit, probably. He wasn't used to really, seriously, doing this anymore.

Afternoon PT was a total bust. Carson was taken up with a mess in the genetics lab. One of the freezers had failed. So had the system alarms, and Carson, along with most of the microbiology staff, was trying to salvage as much viable tissue as possible. That left Rodney with the nurse--not Irina, the other one. She was a twit, apparently, because every time Rodney yelled at her, she folded. Did the woman have no confidence *at all* in what they were doing or her ability to facilitate it? Didn't she think her work was, oh, maybe, *important*. Or were they just playing around? Her uncertainty made Rodney anxious as well as annoyed. He gave up and stormed out half an hour early.

He told himself he wasn't taking any excuse to rush back to the lab and try to catch up on his reading.

He was still frowning over his laptop when Sheppard showed up with dinner. Rodney had efficiently disappeared half the sandwich before remembering to thank him. Sheppard, only a couple of bites of his own dinner gone, set his plate aside and stood up. "Come on. Let's go for a walk."

"What, now? Why? Not now, I don't have time. Why?"

"Yes, you do. Because I'm asking you to."

It turned out that when Sheppard looked at him earnestly and kindly, Rodney didn't have any independent will of his own. He swallowed hard on his current mouthful, set down the sandwich, and followed Sheppard out the door and to the nearest balcony. They walked around to the south side, so that they weren't looking directly at the setting sun.

Sheppard said, "How are you doing?"

Rodney said, "Is that a trick question? Because, really, I'm not in the mood."

"I guess what I'm asking is, are you ready? To go back? Or is Elizabeth pushing too fast?"

Rodney glanced at him nervously. "Why? Do you think I'm not ready? Do you know something?"

Cursing softly, Sheppard slumped against the railing. "No." Then, "It doesn't matter what I think. It sure as hell doesn't matter what Elizabeth thinks. A big step like this should have been between you and Carson."

"So, you don't think I'm ready."

"Damn. And the thing is, I knew better." He sighed. "Actually, I do think you're ready. I thought you were ready last week. But what I think doesn't matter. Elizabeth...."

"She pushed all my buttons," Rodney said. "She pushed buttons I didn't know I had." He sneaked a glance at Sheppard, who nodded stiffly. "She said she needed me."

Sheppard frowned. "Are you asking me if it was true?" he said carefully.

"Oh. Well, no. I mean, of course it's true. I'm...."

"Irreplaceable. The smartest man in two galaxies."

Rodney knew the tease wasn't meanly meant. He forced back the rush of defensiveness. "Actually, yes."

Sheppard closed his eyes. "It's true," he said. "It is. We need you. Elizabeth says I'm letting my personal feelings get in the way--"

Rodney snorted. "Right. Because you don't actually want me back on duty--"

"I don't want to risk losing you permanently!" He broke off, folded his hands carefully on the railing, looked out at the folding waves below them. The sun was fully down now, leaving the ocean cast in deep grey. "Before you ask, as of this morning, there is no sign that you are in trouble. Your recovery is nicely on schedule."

"I know my own limits," Rodney said.

That got a sour laugh. "Usually not, actually. Usually you set them way too high or way too low."

Rodney folded his arms, steeled himself. "Just as well everyone is willing to decide for me, then."

"Rodney," Sheppard whispered, "do you want to come back? Do you want to be in that lab? On an off-world team? Is this what you want?"

"Well, of course--"

"Because I'm not seeing it." Sheppard's voice, still soft, grew hard. "Carson says you're doing great. But I'm not seeing it, Rodney. I've been looking, and you don't seem to want--" he stopped abruptly, pulling back his anger with effort. "I don't know where your head is. I don't know why you've been hiding in a back corridor for almost two weeks."

"I'm just scared," Rodney said. "It's not like that's new. I'm always scared."

"You never let it stop you before," Sheppard shouted.

"Oh, please--"

"Name once, *just once,* McKay, when you got stopped by fear. You overdosed on Ford's enzyme. You followed me into the virtual reality on the *Aurora.*"

"Virtual environment."

"You walked into an *iratus* nest. You let yourself be transported from one site to another within the same ship. You went with me to hunt down the X-302 with the virus into the radiation field of a sun--"

"I didn't actually have a choice about that."

"You don't think you could have stopped me?" John asked in astonishment. "I'm sorry, didn't you help design the power systems of the X-302? If you'd panicked--"

"I would have died anyway! There wasn't any point--"

"You could have called it quits at any time!"

Rodney pulled back and turned away. "I am working," he said. "I'm doing good work now. Necessary work."

"Holed up in the middle of nowhere. Playing with a piece of equipment we never use. Doing something that can't possibly lead to anything dangerous."

Rodney couldn't argue with that. It was true. He hadn't really caught himself doing that, but Sheppard was right.

"If you're not ready, then you're not ready, and it doesn't matter what everybody else wants, Rodney. And if you don't *want* to come back... if you don't want to come back, it doesn't matter how badly I want...."

"Don't be an ass," Rodney whispered. "Of course, I want to come back. Wanting to come back is the only thing that got me through. It's just...."

"It's just what, Rodney?"

"It's just, all I can think about is, what if I can't do it? It's here. Right in front of me. I'd really like to be back in the lab--you know why nobody's nearly killed us in the last month? Because Radek won't let anybody do anything interesting. He doesn't trust them without me to keep an eye on things." Rodney wanted to go back so badly he could barely let himself think of it. But. "But what if I can't do it?"

Rodney was expecting something reassuring or polite, but Sheppard seemed to take this seriously. "Okay. Maybe you can't. But that isn't any more true now than it was before. You're still the best we've got. Our chances are better with you than without you. But you have to know that."

"And you know that," Rodney whispered. He hadn't meant to, but most of the people who really understood what Rodney was capable of were jealous as hell and waiting for him to screw up. People believing in him and being happy about that was still sort of a novelty, even after almost two years of working for Elizabeth Weir. "John--"

"I know that. I want you back, but don't come back for me. It can't be because it's what I want. Or because you feel pressured. It won't work. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

Rodney took a deep breath. "I better go clean up my mess and get some rest. Tomorrow is the department heads' meeting. I'm not going to know if I'm ready if I don't try."

"Okay."

The City Systems meeting was held every day at eight-thirty in the morning. Atlantis hadn't had regular maintenance in thousands of years, which would be a problem even if the current maintenance staff had had more than a couple of years' experience with the technology. The nine o'clock meeting rotated between Rodney's own tech/xeno department, the division heads' planning meeting, and mission priorities committee.

When Rodney walked into the sunny conference room where he held the City Systems meeting his chair was open and waiting for him. Radek had gotten out Rodney's coffee mug--the chunky ceramic one that a filthy urchin on M7G677 had given himâ€"and it was waiting at Rodney's place. Rodney was careful to keep his expression neutral as he sat down.

Radek said very casually, "Dr. McKay, would you like to begin?"

"I'm just observing for today. Go ahead."

Rodney's firm intention to keep his mouth shut lasted almost five minutes. Dr. Paoli was reporting on a structural failure in a part of the city that had been flooded during the initial shield failure while Atlantis was on the bottom of the ocean. He was getting it wrong. "The tower itself is a write-off. It's past unusable, it's dangerous." Paoli put a schematic of the tower, its position in the city, and the problems with its structural integrity on the main screen. "What does concern me is that we haven't completed cataloging it. If the tower collapses with dangerous contaminants or anything explosive--"

"No, no, no," Rodney broke in, too shocked to remember that today he was only watching. "You're what, twenty-two? You realize you're peaking right now, right? Statistically, this will be the pinnacle of your career. And you're dangerously incompetent."

Paoli blanched. Radek took a hasty swallow of his own coffee. Simpson and Durant giggled. Rodney ignored all of it. "You can't let this tower collapse. I realize it's a small tower. And, hey, look, it was also damaged by the Wraith during the siege. It is clearly not worth saving. Except for the fact that if it comes down we'll lose at least twenty percent of the south pod."

"I would say closer to fifty," Radek said. "This quadrant has certain structural, well, I would not say weaknesses. But you could lose all of this...."

"Possibly fifty," Rodney conceded. "I was being conservative. The point is, contents aside, you cannot let this tower come crashing down."

"We can't stop it. One good strong wind--" Paoli protested.

"Right. Shut up." Rodney turned to Radek. "Can we do something cool with the city's inertial dampeners?"

"Not this year, no. And not in that part of the city until we completely overhaul the system."

Rodney snaked Paoli's laptop and brought up a better image of the tower's structure. "Is there some way we can brace it, shore it up?"

"It might be better to bring it down ourselves. Cut it apart and take it away piecemeal," Radek said.

"That's going to be labor intensive," Rodney said, frowning at the man-hours he didn't want to spend. "Puddlejumper?"

"Risky. Not impossible." Radek nodded to himself. "Paoli, Lafayette, Chow. Take a closer look at our problem. Give us options for saving the tower or taking it down safely. I want your report in two days." He caught himself and glanced at Rodney. "All right with you?"

"Yes, fine. I don't think they can kill all of us in two days." Rodney drummed his fingers on the table. "Who's next?"

The department heads' meeting wasn't nearly so interesting. Zelenka, Parrish, Beckett, Akmatova, Smith, Escobar, Tupper, Zhang, Drake, and Katsatsu. Today, McKay was to referee. As far as biology and social sciences were concerned, Rodney didn't really care about what they did as long as they stayed within budget and he didn't get any complaints from Earth. As for linguistics, Rodney's main interest was bullying as much translation time for exo-engineering and particle physics as he could. Rodney did his best to ignore everything else. It wasn't that he didn't understand their work. He could follow the general outlines at least. It was just that the softer 'sciences' almost never produced anything that was either urgent or interesting, and so didn't warrant his careful oversight.

The meeting went very smoothly. People made reports concisely with watchful glances in Rodney's direction. They clearly remembered how unpleasant Rodney could be when they made this difficult by hogging time or disagreeing with him. From his seat at the far end of the table, Zelenka looked both delighted and smug. Mostly, he was probably glad that the zoo wasn't his problem anymore.

After that was Elizabeth's senior staff briefing. Rodney was sweating a little, worrying about it. He refilled his coffee cup and joined Radek in the walk from the lab section to the central tower. Carson, Elizabeth, and the quartermaster were waiting already. Teyla and Sheppard came in just behind them. Aside from Teyla's tiny smile, no one paid special attention to Rodney's presence in the room.

The first topic on the table was a trade question: the agrarian society on L7O115 were eager to trade, but they wanted to know if the Atlantians wanted tavetta or merit. Elizabeth smothered a smile. "The choice, ladies and gentlemen, is do we want beans or beans?"

"There's no contest," Colonel Sheppard said. "The tavetta is much better."

The quartermaster--a solid-looking female bureaucrat who never seemed to be impressed by anyone--sighed. "Unfortunately, the nutritional analysis is in. The merit has twice the protein and micronutrients."

"Crap," Carson said. Everyone turned to look at him. Slightly embarrassed, Carson protested, "Well, the other was very good."

"Could we get some of both?" Sheppard asked. "We could justify it as a morale issue."

'I came back for *this*?' Rodney wondered. 'For a petty shopping list meeting?' Elizabeth made an executive decision on beangate and moved things along to expanding their inspection of the city.

Most meetings, Rodney realized, weren't particularly hard. Most days, life in Atlantis was--well, not petty, certainly. Not even boring--but it wasn't all unrelenting drama and life and death decisions. Mostly, it was just administrivia and maintenance, like anything else.

Then it was time for departmental reports, and Elizabeth looked at Rodney, not Radek, and Rodney said, "There may be a major structural engineering project coming up later this week, but we're still looking at our options. I think we can make it through the day without exploding, melting, or sinking into the sea, but ask me again tomorrow," and it was over. Over and normal and not such a big deal after all.

He had morning PT right after the meeting. Rodney walked down to the infirmary with Carson. He was half-way there before it occurred to him to notice that he had no trouble keeping up. The routine that day was one of Rodney's least favorites: free weights and then belly exercises. Grimly, he plodded through it, moving from one set to another with Carson checking in every now and then to see how things were going. Half an hour before the session was slated to stop, Carson sent Irina away and dropped down onto the mat beside Rodney.

"Do you want to talk about it, lad?" he asked seriously.

Rodney blinked. "About what?"

Carson studied him. "You're awful quiet," he said. "And you're awful focused. Well, for you. I'm a mite concerned."

Rodney made a face. "So you're worried because I'm cooperating?"

"Aye. Are you in pain?"

Rodney rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his arms. "Don't you think I would tell you? If I were in pain? I mean, really!"

"If you were in denial. Or if it were worrying you. You might not."

Rodney sighed. "I'm fine," he whispered. "I just... it's all within reach, you know? My life. My work. My position. I've almost got it. My mind is ready, but my body still...."

Carson was quite for a while. Rodney, uncomfortable with his open scrutiny, refused to look up and meet Carson's gaze. "All right," Carson said at last. "If you're going to focus this hard, I'll cut your PT in half. Once a day is enough."

Rodney jumped. "No," he said. "I need--"

"If we were on Earth, you'd have been cut back days ago."

"No--"

"Rodney, you don't think much of modern medicine. Or even Lantian medicine."

"What has--"

"Let me make the medical decision. I'd rather have you focused in here for two hours a day than with your mind wandering for four. If getting you back to work is this good for your morale, then I say, go for it. Get in all the work you can."

Rodney thought about that. Among other things, he thought that he probably owed Carson a little bit of trust. "What I want to do is almost never the right thing to do," he said.

Carson laughed. "Oh. Well. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Now, turn over. Let's get you finished."

Complying, Rodney asked, "How will we know when I'm done?"

"The test is an overnight camping trip on the mainland. Long hike, camping in the cold, sleeping on the ground. You manage that, and I'll clear you for field duty."

"Oh," Rodney said. That seemed reasonable.

For the next two days, Rodney was wonderfully busy. In the evening, he read progress reports. In the mornings he terrorized underlings in meetings and went to PT. In the afternoon he sorted out his own projects and made notes on his work with Ancient molecular paradigms. At night, he dreamed in long chains of atoms.

The third afternoon after Carson cut back the PT, Elizabeth called on the radio to summon Rodney to the conference room. Major Lorne was there, along with one of the anthropologists he frequently took through the gate. There was also an alien envoy--five people with amazingly long hair dressed in saris--and Elizabeth and John and a large, reinforced box.

They looked up expectantly when he came in. Rodney sighed impatiently. "I don't do meet and greet," he said.

Sheppard smirked and pointed at the box. "They've brought you a present," he said.

Lorne cleared his throat and said, "It's a mine."

Three steps toward the box--which was the right size to hold a ZedPM--Rodney froze. "A what?"

Sheppard shrugged. "It's a dud."

The anthropologist said quickly, "It wasn't giving off energy readings like the others."

Rodney, appalled that someone had brought an explosive--dud or not--back through the gate, turned on her. "And, what? You know how to interview people and somehow that qualifies you to handle a scanner?"

Mutely, she removed the scanner from a pouch on her vest and handed it over.

"The charge was broken," Lorne said. "The explosive had leaked out. Or melted. Or something. This had been sitting in somebody's closet for years."

Rodney scanned the box. Nothing in the EM. Not radioactive. On a whim, he scanned for neutrinos, tachyons, and--what the hell--heat. Nothing. "Which brings me to the next question. Why?"

Elizabeth glanced at their guests. "Apparently half of their arable land is mined. The legacy of a war during a long Interval five cullings ago. They'll trade us food, raw materials, information, pretty much anything we want, if we can figure out how to clear their fields without getting people killed."

Rodney glowered at the box. "Fine," he said. "Somebody expendable open the box."

"Rodney!" Elizabeth admonished, reaching over and flipping open the lid.

Nothing exciting happened.

Rodney walked over and peered into the box. The device inside was a complicated mess of springy wire and mechanical trigger mechanism and--damn, that was a little shell of metallic slivers, this was *fragmentary* and nasty--and the casing for the explosive, whatever it had been, cracked open and empty. "Help me lift this out," Rodney ordered Sheppard, trying to gather all the dangling parts at once. From its position, that little box *there* was the power supply. Hell, if it was about a thousand years old, it might warrant looking into, because Lorne's 'scientist' had claimed that others were still active. If those little balls at the ends of chording were sensors, then this was a proximity mine, not a pressure mine. The technology might be far enough below Ancient standards to make reverse engineering fairly quick and easy. Elegant, and within reach, lovely technology, except for being designed to tear human bodies to little bits.

Rodney looked up to thank Lorne for his gift and realized that every one was gone except for John. Oh.

"It going to kill us all?" Sheppard asked, not worried.

"No, and I need more. There is a very interesting--"

"You realize, the point of this exercise is to figure out how to diffuse them?" Sheppard said with exaggerated patience.

"Yes. Of course. Do you mind if I spend, oh, twenty minutes thinking about it first? Or shall I just bestow the answer as a miracle from on high?"

Pointedly, Sheppard glanced at his watch. "You've already had an hour. I think you're slipping, Rodney."

That wasn't worthy of comment. Rodney called for Zelenka to come up and bring a trolley to take the parts back to the lab with them.

Rodney could have spent several days playing with his new toy. Unfortunately, (but unsurprisingly, because Rodney really was that good) in less than two hours he was holding out a tiny junction box for Colonel Sheppard's inspection. "This is a radio receiver." The technology was advanced enough to be interesting, but not up to the standards of the Goa'uld. "Remote control. We've already got the frequency, we just have to trial and error it until we figure out the code."

Sheppard shook his head doubtfully. "They're a thousand years old. On some the receiver may be broken. Even if the receiver is good, if the firing mechanism is bad, it'll go off anyway."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Really? No kidding. I hadn't thought of that. All we have to do is turn off and retrieve one functional one."

"Two," Zelenka amended helpfully.

"Well, obviously two would be better. If I--"

"We." Zelenka again.

"Once *we* can work out what the explosive is and how the power supply works, I'll--we'll--be able to take care of the rest. Right now, I'd say it might take all week, if we take really long breaks."

Sheppard rubbed his hands together and looked approving. Not that Rodney needed his approval, or was the least in doubt of it. "Let's go tell our guests."

The diplomatic reception that followed would have been a complete write-off if it weren't for the food. Elizabeth as hostess was serious and boring. She talked to people about what *they* thought was interesting, and dull yokels equaled stultifying conversation.

Worse, the chief of the delegation had brought his sister. She was ridiculously young and very pretty, and Sheppard was being charming. Rodney could dissect and analyze his technique. Eye contact, proximity, that beautiful smile. He teased a little, when the girl looked uncertainly at the foreign food. He talked about the city and the Ancients and the dramatic moment when the city flashed up from the sea floor right before the shields completely failed.

The girl was young and soft and completely enchanted. Her teeth were crooked, but there wasn't a lot of orthodontia in the Pegasus Galaxy. Her wide, innocent eyes made up for the single flaw. If not her eyes, her perky, perfect breasts. Looking at her, Rodney felt....

Absolutely nothing. Well, faintly relieved, actually. John was pouring on the charm, being completely delightful, and it was totally empty. A vapid little game that scarcely did more than pass the time during a dull diplomatic reception. He could see that Sheppard admired the girl, but it wasn't personal or particularly respectful. Sheppard was flirting, being friendly and kind, but the sweet-faced girl was nearly a child, and Sheppard's kindness, while real, was sort of patronizing.

Very relieved. Very, very relieved. Rodney had never been on the receiving end of this sort of delightful performance, not from Sheppard. Rodney asked more of him than this, and Sheppard had always managed to rise to meet Rodney's expectations. Exceed them, even.

Feeling a little stunned, Rodney finished the technical explanation that nobody understood and wandered out onto the balcony so he could think. It was nearly sunset, but the balcony faced east, so the long shadow of the city painted the water below him dark and mysterious.

Rodney had been jealous before. He really thought he'd wanted John Sheppard's attention. He did, didn't he? Still did. *So* still did. And yet. He didn't want just any attention. He didn't want to be an afternoon's diversion. Or a casual conquest. Or a trivial game. Those women (and yes, there were a lot of them, an endless parade of them, and maybe they did have something Rodney didn't) would have something of Sheppard that Rodney never would. But it wasn't something he wanted.

Through the long windows, he could see the polite good-byes. Smiles. Bows. Experimental handshakes. Lorne and the anthropologist escorting the sari-people away.... Rodney's thoughts drifted back to business. He'd have to modify an algorithm to find the "off" signal. It would take him longer to pick an approach than to actually do that part. He would give it a little thought, though. Make the algorithm elegant and efficient. Probably, nobody but Zelenka and Sheppard would appreciate it, but Rodney had a reputation to uphold.

Elizabeth came out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing beside him. She took a deep breath and let it out. It wasn't a sigh. "You can't kill him, Rodney. I need him alive."

That was unexpected. Rodney said, "Who?"

She looked at him levelly. This time she did sigh.

"Oh. Him." He could see Sheppard through the window. He was talking to Teyla. One of the technicians was clearing the table while dodging Ronon, who was scooping up the picked-over remains of the fruit. It was all very domestic and harmless. "I'm not..." Rodney said. "I'm really not." And he wasn't. He wasn't bitter. He wasn't sad. He wasn't hurt. He wasn't even pissed off.

Elizabeth looked at him sympathetically. Rodney didn't want sympathy.

"I'm okay," he said.

Kindly, Elizabeth put her business face back on. "So when do you think we'll be ready to move on the next phase of the mine project?"

"Possibly tomorrow afternoon. I'll let you know."

That night, Rodney dreamed the sort of nanite you'd have to use to defuse the proximity mines. He was still seeing the model in his mind when he woke up. For a moment he gaped, enthralled at the idea. Then he shoved the thought away and went to shower. He knew what the invisible robot would have to be, but he didn't have command of the tools that would make it. Even if he had been able to make them, he wasn't fool enough to turn his first nanite experiment loose on a defenseless, uncontrolled environment.

By the senior staff briefing, Rodney had his initial algorithm and was ready to test it. "I can be ready in two hours," Rodney said. "I'll have to get some equipment. We can leave as soon as you can schedule a jumper and get an escort ready."

"Rodney," Carson murmured, "you aren't cleared to travel."

Rodney gaped. He wasn't sure what surprised him most: the reminder that he was still on limited duty or that he had somehow *forgotten* that he was on limited duty. He covered quickly, announced, "Don't be silly, Carson. I'm not going mountain climbing. I'll stay in the jumper."

"Rodney," Carson said softly, "I'll not have this conversation here."

"Oh, come *on*!" Rodney protested.

Elizabeth intervened by pretending not to hear. "*The* mission will debark at sixteen hundred hours today. That will put it at early morning on Suvaies. Teams 1 and 2 will act as escort. Shall we move on? We need to set the mission schedule for next week--"

Rodney ignored the rest. He knew from the mission priorities list that trade and biology were going to dominate the next few days, and he had to marshal his arguments for Carson. He had less than six hours to change Carson's mind.

He started in the hallway after the meeting.

"No," Carson said. "And that's final."

"Why? Just what is it I can't do? Wait, I know. I can't lift anything over five kilos. I can't climb mountains. I can't walk more than three miles at a time. I can't... no, wait. That's pretty much *it*."

"You can't handle a weapon." Carson continued walking. Rodney blinked and stumbled, stunned.

"I can--"

"No."

"I'll qualify," Rodney said. "There's time. I'll show you--"

"You can't handle the kick, Rodney." Carson shook his head. "Newton's got you licked here. You can't go off world."

"I'll stay in the jumper." But Rodney had passed from scathing and cold to miserable and begging. "You can come."

"I don't want to come. And I don't want to come to put you back together, because I am going to skip letting you hurt yourself over this." Carson walked into his office and shut the door.

Rodney was livid. They could not do this. Where they'd gotten the idea that someone else could make his decisions for him, he didn't know, but it was completely wrong. He knew the systems better than anyone else. He set everybody's protocols. He'd designed the damn network and the interface technology. He had the last word on every piece of equipment on this base. If *anyone* thought they could order him around like a child--

Except, even as furious as Rodney was, he knew he couldn't actually *force* anyone to give in. Yes, he was better with these systems than anyone else. Yes, they needed him. But if he tried to take what he wanted, Elizabeth--

Rodney had seen Elizabeth really angry. He knew he would lose. Any thoughts otherwise were just heated fantasy. Rodney, pacing up and down the halls, stormed back to Carson's office. "I'm not giving up," he snapped as he overrode the door.

Carson looked up from his computer, ostentatiously checked his watch. "You're supposed to be in PT," he said.

"I'm getting plenty of exercise pacing. A stunner has no kick, and it weighs less than ten pounds."

"No."

"Damn it, Carson--"

"I'm not your enemy, Rodney. It's not my fault."

During PT, Rodney thought about subterfuge. Actually thought about it. Seriously. But there was no place to hide in a puddlejumper and the stargate dialing out was kind of unsubtle and Elizabeth would kill him. She would be in line right behind Carson. As stupid and unreasonable as Carson was being, the thought of outright defiance--

Carson had held Rodney's hand for weeks when the PT had hurt so bad it had him gasping. He couldn't, even if he was right, betray that with defiance or deception.

When Zelenka went out with the away team at 4:00 that afternoon, Rodney was sulking in his quarters. He came out at 4:15, though, and took up his place in the control room so he could supervise via radio. The fact that they were too stupid to admit they needed him more than they needed their pointless rules didn't mean they didn't still need him. John was out there with Zelenka and Lorne trying to disarm thousand-year-old proximity bombs. He needed all the help he could get.

Rodney paced the control room while the jumper traveled to the edge of the nearest minefield and scanned around for an active mine.

It took less than three minutes of transmitting signal for the mine they were watching to suddenly and spectacularly blow up. The explosion took out the sensor monitor and camera they'd set five meters away, so they didn't get a good recording of the event. Unfazed, Zelenka selected another mine, set a new batch of monitors, and ran the transmission cycle again, this time leaving out the code identified for 'detonate' as he ran through thousands of other possibilities.

Rodney had one eye on the clock, watching the seconds slide by and the other watching the transmission from the remote sensor. "Hold it," he said at the same time Zelenka turned the signal stream off.

"Yes, I see it," Zelenka said over the com. He was watching the same data from the puddlejumper billions of miles (and one wormhole) away.

They sent a very small, remote control ATV over to the targeted mine. It didn't blow up. The little ATV vibrated very provocatively. Still nothing. Sheppard sent out the demolitions guy with a shield to dig the target up. Half an hour later the mine was in five parts (in five different armored boxes) and on its way back to Atlantis. Rodney wiped his palms on his pants and stormed off to his room.

Two days later Rodney made his report to Elizabeth and the foreign representatives. "Basically, there is no elegant solution. Not even a tidy one. They're just too old. About a third are already duds, but if we send the disarm signal, we estimate only about seventy-five percent of those remaining will actually receive the signal. Some of those may explode anyway."

"So--what?" Elizabeth asked. "They have to wait until they all degrade to harmless with age."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "I'm not that useless. No. Anyway, that's a bad idea. When the explosive jell is exposed to oxygen, it degrades to very concentrated salts. If they plan to use these fields for crops, they need to get the mines out before any more of them degrade to the point of leaking."

Sheppard stirred impatiently. His teenage admirer was back, and hanging on his every word and silence. Rodney ignored both of them.

"We have to fall back on the crude solution. If we send the detonate signal over a wide area, seventy-five percent of the hot mines should explode. Dr. Zelenka's simulations are very encouraging: the shock wave of so many simultaneous explosions *should* be enough to set off the other twenty-five percent."

The alien leader looked appalled. "Oh. My. Well, it will save us the effort of clearing the field of trees."

Elizabeth shook her head. "If the explosive is toxic--"

"Not toxic," Rodney corrected, "At least not after it breaks down. Just... inhospitable. It's nothing *after* it explodes. Nothing dangerous. We've tested the residue." He glared balefully. "Look, I told you it was crude. If the damn things were new, we could do anything you wanted. I could whip up a signal to teach them to tap dance. But they are a thousand years old and they weren't built by the Ancients. All right?"

"Thank you, Rodney," Elizabeth said quickly. "Messy but effective is fine."

"What about the ones that don't blow up?" Sheppard asked.

"We have a scanner to detect them," Rodney answered. "If there are any left, and there won't be many. Those will have to be handled the old fashioned way." Here was the ugly part, because who wanted to try to dig up and defuse a malfunctioning proximity bomb?

When the first field was cleared three days later, Rodney was watching from the gate room. They had been ready to proceed right away, but a village was in the valley, and it was close enough to the mined hillside that the locals wanted to evacuate as a precaution. The first target was small, just about four acres, but if most of the mines went off it would make a pretty big boom.

Most of them did. It was a very big boom. Dirt and broken wood rained down for five minutes. When they ran the scanners over the torn ground and torn trees an hour later, only three intact mines were found, and all of them had already lost their explosive to the ground; harmless salt, and not even much of that, comparatively speaking.

The next evening, Sheppard dropped his tray on the table beside Rodney's and said, "You really need to stop sulking."

Rodney looked up from his plate. "You are this far," he indicated a distance of half a centimeter, "from being an utter asshole. Don't go all the way and make me do something I'll have to pretend to be sorry for later."

Sheppard looked at him patiently. Kindly. He said, "What was it? That you got left behind, or that we managed without you?"

Rodney collected his tray and left.

He went to his lab. There was work to do. He spent three hours disassembling one of the tiny sensor heads that had been part of their test mine. He could see why it was so durable. The components were made out of gold and diamond, not subject to oxidation or easy breakage. Durable, although not to Ancient standards. Rodney could see the difference now. These components, this basic design... if you weren't manufacturing parts and then assembling them but instead creating the structure from continuous molecular chains....

He could see it. He knew what it ought to be like. Rodney didn't need to magnify the components to know what flaws they would have.

He was so absorbed that he didn't hear anyone come in until a field pack and some kind of black, strappy contraption dropped onto the desk beside him. Rodney blinked at it, readjusting his vision, and looked up. Colonel Sheppard. Huh. "What's this?"

"That's a field pack." Sheppard nudged it. "One third normal weight."

"And this?" Rodney picked up the other thing. He recognized the parts. It had padding. Wide bits. Straps. Velcro.

Sheppard paused. Blinked. "Right. That's a weightlifting belt," he said. "The doc said it might help. Come on, let's go. Down the west pier and back twice is almost exactly two miles. Let's get moving."

Rodney struggled to keep his face neutral as he realized what Sheppard was doing. What he was offering to do. He slid his current project into a padded box and struggled into the weight belt. Sheppard had to help, because the straps tended to tangle and get caught in the Velcro. Then the pack. Which Rodney left on the table and slid into backward because he wasn't cleared for bending-and-lifting (according to the schedule) until day after tomorrow.

The pack seemed ungodly heavy. The weightlifting belt chafed. Sheppard's pace was not his usual pace, no, but still *hard*. Rodney clamped his mouth shut and didn't complain. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on or what kind of deal Sheppard had cut, but if Rodney could convince his team leader that he could do his job, then he was that much closer to getting close to the glorious technologies hidden like Easter eggs throughout the Pegasus Galaxy.

It was already full night. The wind was brisk and damp and salt-smelling. The external lighting on the west pier was good enough to break the darkness and reveal the uncluttered pathway above the black void and lapping waves. It was quiet, except for the wind and the waves and the muffled sound of feet hitting the duralast coating on the gangway.

Down and back up and down again. At the far point, Sheppard called a halt.

"I can keep going," Rodney protested, trying not to pant eager snatches of air.

Sheppard nudged him over to the railing overlooking the sea. They were down low, near the water just a few meters below. Rodney leaned forward, breathing hard. He'd done faster walking for PT, but the weight made a difference. He wasn't used to it anymore.

Sheppard held out a canteen. Rodney drank. The spray blew up and sprinkled his hot cheeks.

"How's your gut?" Sheppard asked, breaking the silence.

His shoulders ached with the new weight, but Rodney's gut, tucked behind the wide belt, felt fine. "I'm okay."

"I've got a mission tomorrow. We'll do this again Thursday. You do *not* try this by yourself."

Sheppard took the pack, easing it off Rodney's shoulders and carrying it in one careless hand. They walked back to the living area slowly.

When he got back to his quarters, Rodney dropped onto the bed and fell asleep without showering or even taking off his shoes. First thing the next morning, he hacked his medical file. He didn't know what was going on, but he figured he needed to.

Yesterday's entry was short and mostly in medical jargon, but reading between the lines, it appeared that Colonel Sheppard had somehow talked Elizabeth into helping him appeal to Carson to move up the date of Rodney's field test.

Huh. That was nice of him. It showed that somebody was listening.

Dr. Beckett, for his part, thought that Rodney would fail the test--would call it off in the first half of the hike, let alone the overnight camp and hike back--but he didn't think Rodney would actually re-injure himself, and there was no way Rodney would accept his current limitations without a graphic demonstration. He would probably fail, but it would free him to worry about something else. If he passed, then he *was* in fact safe in the field, and the problem was solved anyway.

This notation was date-stamped by two consulting doctors who apparently agreed. (Sheppard hadn't been kidding about the committee) but the whole project had been vetoed by Heitmeyer because--

Rodney had to read this part three times, mostly because it was written in a horribly roundabout way. What it came down to was--

Damn--

It was vetoed by Heitmeyer because, while she agreed that Dr. McKay wouldn't give up his insistence on his physical competence until the situation was graphically proven to be otherwise, his ego was pretty much a house of cards and couldn't cope with failure.

Damn.

The entry was very blunt. Despite his great faith in his own intellect, Dr. McKay was deeply uncertain of his body. Undermining his confidence with a vivid, physical failure of this type would be very damaging.

Rodney closed the medical file and sidled into Heitmeyer's records. He hadn't done this before and didn't want to think about why he was doing it now. From the tone of things, she seemed to enjoy treating him. And why not? It seemed he offered such interesting challenges. Seven separate neuroses. Three mild anxiety disorders. Willing to talk about it, which made him a refreshing change from the marines.

Rodney felt affronted: in all fairness, neurosis number six was probably an expression of anxiety disorder number two....

Furious--or maybe only irritated and impatient, he couldn't decide--Rodney slammed his computer shut and hurried off to shower. As it was, he was going to be late for the city maintenance meeting.

***

Sheppard's mission ran long. He was gone for three days. He was in voice contact, making every check-in, so while he was inconveniently absent, he wasn't worrisomely missing. Rodney made good use of the time. He idly watched Paoli's team produce bad ideas for dealing with the weak tower in the south pod. He continued to freak Carson out with his nearly-silent and rabidly focused physical therapy sessions. He prodded his minions into shorter reports and invested a little time into a more efficient distribution of person-power. He had time--not as much as he would have liked--to play with the data sent back from the team stationed in the mine on Ithna Son.

They had the entire database from the Ancient nanite factory now. Rodney found the master inventory of the production systems on the third try. It was practically a catalog of wonders. Toys. Spare parts. Intellectual riches. Quite easy to page through, once you knew what you were looking for.

When you had the hang of it, the safety protocols weren't hard to master either. Rodney couldn't just test, he was fairly sure he could also repair. He was ready for another look at the factory itself. He was ready, but not cleared for off-world travel.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Sheppard appeared in the doorway with the light pack. He was still wearing his wrinkled uniform. "Come on," he said.

"You just got back," Rodney said, but even as he protested, he was closing down the open files. It was almost a conditioned response; the sight of Sheppard in a field uniform holding a pack made Rodney almost creepily compliant.

"I've debriefed and been through the exam," he said.

He looked tired, and Rodney felt a little guilty. "You don't have to...."

Sheppard frowned and said, "I've been sitting on my ass for three days exchanging ritual stories with the Tethisi. Who, by the way, think the Tale of the Growing Grain is not only riveting, but warrants a sing-along and hand gestures. Let's go."

Rodney set the weight belt aside and struggled into the pack. Sheppard started to protest but Rodney shook his head. "It chafes. Anyway, they pulled the weight restriction yesterday. And the packs distribute the weight very well. Ergonomic." Rodney realized he was rambling and shut his mouth.

Down the long promenade of the west pier at a speed that made Rodney pant. Up the other side. It was day this time. The wind was down, becalming the sea. The water was as flat and smooth as glass. The ocean looked like a lake. Rodney thought about his first time through the gate in a *full* pack and hiking over rough ground and told himself it was worse than this.

Down the west pier again. At the point, Sheppard called a halt.

"I can keep going," Rodney said, trying not to gasp. Huh. Deja vu all over again. He managed to keep the hysterical laughter inside.

Sheppard ignored him, climbed onto the wide rail and kicked his feet over the water.

Rodney found a couple of power bars in his pocket and passed one up. He said, "I appreciate that you tried. You were right; I could have coped with... you know. Not making it to the camp site."

Sheppard glanced back and down. "Who ratted us out?" he asked.

"Nobody," Rodney said.

Sheppard nodded. "You've hacked your file." He sounded like he'd been expecting that.

"I'm not admitting to anything. But--seriously--I think Heitmeyer is wrong about--"

"Stop!" Sheppard said quickly. "I haven't seen your records. I get reports on your recovery because you're on my team, but I don't... I don't get the details."

"Oh," Rodney said, relieved.

"Whatever it is, it can't be worse than mine, anyway."

"Please," Rodney snorted. "I know what you think of counseling, and you're smart enough to tell her whatever she wants to hear. Your file probably says whatever you want it to say."

"Sometimes I didn't care what it said."

"Oh." Rodney groped about for a change of subject. "So how was the food? On Tofooti?"

"Tethisi. Good, actually. They take grain very seriously, so the bread is fantastic."

"Red bread fantastic?" Rodney asked, thinking about how that had been too good to be true. "Or fancy grocery store fantastic?"

"Huh. You remember Panera?"

"Oh," Rodney said. "Hey. Girly bread with nuts and stuff in it?"

"Yeah." Sheppard swung his legs over the rail. "Ready?"

The next day, Rodney didn't get to go running. Meteorology (a department of two) had finally gotten the hang of the long range weather monitoring equipment, and it was projecting that the coming storm season would be serious. Nothing as bad as the previous year's giant hurricane, but wind speeds high enough that the weakened tower on the south pod had become urgent. Unfortunately, Paoli's team was producing one stupid idea after another. Even after Rodney had handed it to them by saying, "Use shield technology. Some of the portable gizmos," they hadn't come up with a workable plan. The latest scheme called for cutting the tower to bits from the top down with laser saws, hoisting the pieces out of the way by puddlejumper and using portable shield generators to protect the surrounding towers from accidents.

It wasted time. It wasted man-power. Possibly, it wasted energy, although that wasn't the primary concern, since the difference wouldn't be much either way. He'd have to do the math. The big worry, of course, was the potential for ugly, loud, crashing, mistakes.

Rodney knew what the tiny, invisible robots would have to look like. The ones that could eat the tower tidily from the tip down in less than three weeks. Actually, he had already thought of three separate designs. He also knew what could go wrong with them. They couldn't risk it. Rodney didn't think about it except in his sleep.

Reality was less fun. First, they had to finish cleaning the tower out. Starting that phase of the operation early was the only thing Paoli had done right so far. Nothing toxic, nothing explosive, nothing useful. It was almost completely clean now. Then they would have to place the portable shield generators. This was the hard part-- in so far as any of it was actually hard--calculating where to put the force fields so that when active they would cut through the structure just below the fault, ease it into a suspended position, and crush it into a lump of recycling.

The math on all of that was tedious rather than interesting. Rodney tried to console himself with how ultimately cool--as demolition projects went--it all was (force fields, for pete's sake). But the power costs just made him shudder and the calculations weren't particularly difficult and despite Rodney's excellent attitude (his attention span and work ethic were fine, thank you very much), it was boring.

The next afternoon, he handed his work off to Radek and Chow for simulations. If Rodney had made any mistakes, well, they couldn't afford mistakes, so the computer would catch them. Rodney found Sheppard in his office and said, "You look peaked. You need a fast walk around the west pier."

Sheppard didn't lead him around one of the prongs of the city. He led him up the stairs of the central tower. Starting at the bottom and heading toward the jumper bay. The speed wasn't terribly fast, but Rodney's legs burned. The pack on his shoulders seemed to be filled with bricks. Ten levels, and Rodney was stunned by the exertion. Gravity on Atlantis was only .002 greater than Earth normal. It shouldn't feel like this.

After twenty levels, Rodney's breathing was coming in great, tearing gasps.

Sheppard looked completely unfazed by the climb. Rodney would have hated him if he could have spared the energy.

Twenty-three floors and Sheppard looked back and cursed. While Rodney was still swaying to a halt, Sheppard was unclipping the pack and shoving Rodney down on to a step. "What the hell, McKay?" He tucked Rodney's head between his legs.

Rodney didn't answer. Folded over like this, he couldn't breathe, or at least not breathe enough. Feebly, he shoved Sheppard back and sat up, gasping.

"Are you all right? Do I need to call Beckett? Rodney?"

Rodney shook his head wildly. "Don't--you dare," he gulped.

Sheppard pulled out Rodney's canteen and offered it. Rodney shook his head again. If he tried to drink, he'd throw up, and he had spent too much time lately with a sore belly to risk tearing himself on nausea.

"Rodney? I can call--"

Rodney grabbed his hands so he couldn't reach the radio. "No. M'fine."

"Fine?" The sharpness of that made Rodney look up. "This is not fine. Why the hell didn't you say anything?"

"Fine. Fine."

"If you had fainted, you would have tumbled all the way to the basement. There are no landings." Rodney looked at the stairway winding away below them. He couldn't even manage a glare for the word 'fainted.' He closed his eyes and leaned his shoulder against the wall. Sheppard sighed.

"I've been lying to myself," Rodney wheezed, feeling his heart finally beginning to slow.

"No--No, Rodney. You're doing great. You've come so far. We're almost there. Carson's right, you're going to be fine." He poured some of the water from his canteen into his hand and leaned forward to trickle it onto the back of Rodney's neck.

Rodney was shaking his head. "Not that... I told myself... I hated gate travel... I only did it because you couldn't manage without me."

"Rodney, that's true, we can't--"

Rodney waved his arms. "I pretended all the coolest stuff was *out there*, and I only went because I had to. All a lie. All a lie. Damn it, John, I'm so bored, I'm going out of my mind." Which made no sense at all really. There was plenty of work to do. The exact work Rodney had always wanted. Better. More. "I've got to get in the field," he whined.

Sheppard laughed, clouted his shoulder. "Are you just now noticing this?"

Stung, Rodney pulled back. "What?"

"Well, it's not a secret."

"Bastard," Rodney grumbled. "You've turned me into some kind of adrenalin junkie. This is all your fault. I'm insane now. You've broken me."

Sheppard pulled a tiny, plastic capsule from somewhere and emptied it into the canteen. "Sip, but drink all of it."

Rodney obeyed. "Yuck." It was worse than Gatorade.

Sheppard shifted so that he was sitting along the step, his back pressed to the outer wall. "The thing is, I think you couldn't have made the climb even this far, the first time I took you through the gate."

"Then why were we trying to do it now?" Rodney asked sourly, sipping at the sweetish but unpleasantly tangy contents of the canteen. "Really. Inquiring minds want to know."

Sheppard shrugged. "I thought we'd get farther. I have to say, though, I could have done without you turning grey and collapsing--"

"I did not!"

"Did too." But it was a teasing voice, and Sheppard's eyes were gentle. Things were all right between them. Rodney closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall.

"Drink," Sheppard reminded. Grimacing, Rodney drank. After a while, they went down to the next level and exited into the hall.

The next day, Rodney was running meetings without Radek. The simulations were being a pain in the arse and there were storms on the horizon. The tower had to come down before it fell down. They still had days before the situation became an emergency, but not many of them. He had an appointment with Heitmeyer after PT. He left earlier than usual, but gave her the revelation that--against all logic--he was bored, and got back to work. He didn't trust anyone else to check over portable (up to a point, if you didn't have to 'port' them very fast) shield generators. He redid the energy calculations. He checked the weather. Paranoid about the capability of his staff (or maybe just bored), he took the little Ancient laser-level that doubled as a scifi tape measure and re-checked the original sizes and distances.

In the early evening, when the Colonel came for him, they jogged the west pier twice. It was cold and raining on them toward the end.

The next day they brought the tower down. It was only twelve stories, and only the top eight had to go. They demolished it in two phases, razor-thin forcefields slicing a section into chunks even as resonant fields closed around the pieces and crushed them like a soda can and then slid the lump neatly into a plaza. It took five hours to reset for the second round. Part of that was checking the first lump. The Ancients had stored dangerous things in odd places. If one of the recon teams that had been going over the building for the last week had missed something hazardous....

The second cut on the tower was a replay of the first, but a silent explosion went off inside the shrinking sphere during the crush. It was brighter than the sunset and filled the sphere with grey clouds of boiling debris. Everybody started yelling at once. Rodney dragged his eyes away from the inferno-in-a-fish-bowl and onto the screen showing the readings from the scanners aimed at the force field. They showed nothing, just the force field, which was good; whatever was going on in there was so completely contained that even readings weren't getting out. The feedback on the force fields was good. "We're okay," he said aloud, not that anyone could hear him over the frantic running and yelling as people asked other people who didn't know, 'what's going on?'

"Rodney," Elizabeth was saying nervously.

"We're fine," he said quickly, "hush." He interrupted the automatic program and eased the force sphere a little larger. The tower remnants suspended inside the force field just looked dark. There ware no more flashes of light. Rodney sighed, wondering what had gone up. Damn. These multiple fields were using power at an appalling rate. He pushed down his impatience, shut down the fields they'd set up to protect surrounding buildings, set another layer of energy-expensive resonant field around the suspended problem.

"Are we in trouble?" Elizabeth asked.

Rodney grunted, checking to make sure none of the shields were leaking radiation or anything besides visible light. "We're not about to die. That's always good news."

"Okay, good. But?"

"We can't release the package until we're sure it's done exploding. We're probably going to deplete a naquada generator."

"Rodney," Radek said from his position monitoring the power supply, "we cannot maintain--"

"Yes, reconfigure, go, hurry, you have ten minutes," Rodney snapped. He felt the pressure, but he wasn't worried. Radek was taking care of the power supply. Rodney only had to watch the force field.

The bubble was transparent to visible light. The explosion was already starting to settle. The dust was definitely thinner toward the top. Still, he waited sixty minutes before slowly beginning to shrink the field again. Very slowly. Slower than the naked eye could detect, slowly. It was long past full dark and fairly cold. The bubble glistened a little, but it wasn't clearly visible in the dark. It was clear on the sensor readout, though. Rodney's gaze flipped over the screen, anxious that there should be no weak points or leaks, no feedback. There would be no warning if there were another explosion.

It was midnight before the second section, compressed down to the size of a Winnebago, sat beside the first in the plaza. Aside from being *quite* hot, it wasn't putting out radiation. The engineering team cheered. Rodney detailed a handful of lackeys to clean up the equipment and tromped off in search of a late dinner.

The next two days were spent on postmortems of the demolition project and sealing off the top of that tower to keep out the weather. By noon of the third day, however, Rodney was hiking through the hills just beyond the Athosian village. The trail, such as it was, led to a hunting camp at the edge of a wide, lush valley. It wasn't getting a lot of traffic at the moment. On the mainland it was much later in the season than in sub-tropical Atlantis. Already, the big herbivores had migrated out of the valley, so there was no reason for Athosians to go there. The day was overcast and cold and they'd been walking for only an hour when the drizzle started.

Sheppard and Rodney hadn't come alone. Teyla--who looked like she was enjoying the trip--was with them. So was Ronon. He seemed deeply amused. Rodney wasn't sure *by what* and he didn't really care. Dr. Beckett had offered to come with them, but Rodney had graciously snorted and refused, pointing out that if he needed a doctor on a hike he had no business going through the gate.

It was cold and wet and there was tree after tree after tree. Actually, it sort of reminded Rodney of parts of home. He hadn't been all that fond of trees on Earth, really, except maybe in an abstract way, and he wasn't fond of drizzle anywhere.

From his position on 'point' Ronon called back, "Sheppard, you said when I had a question, I should ask."

From the rear, Sheppard called, "Yeah."

"I was just noticing, it's cold. It's wet. It's uphill. There's no gizmos with flashing lights...."

"Yeah?" Sheppard was being encouraging. Rodney adjusted his poncho hood to try to keep the water from running down his neck. Just ahead of him, Teyla slipped on a pile of damp leaves, caught herself on a tree, danced forward.

"And McKay is *here*...." Ronon said over his shoulder.

"Yeah, and?"

Ronon laughed. "Why isn't he complaining? Are you sure we got the right scientist back?"

"Well, thank you very much!" Rodney snorted. "Like I have no--no--no--*perspective* at all. My team is wandering around in the cold and wet going nowhere just to prove me fit for duty, and you think I'm actually going to complain--" Rodney knew he sounded too affronted, but he'd been practically biting his tongue for three hours now, and Ronon was being an ass.

Teyla looked back and smiled languidly despite the fine mist of water in her hair. "It is not quite the hardship you believe, Dr. McKay."

Sheppard was checking a hand-drawn map he'd gotten from the Athosians and an aerial printout of images taken by puddlejumper. "Shouldn't the path be steeper by now? We're a little west of where we should be?"

"Okay, getting lost is *not* my fault," Rodney said.

Teyla brushed past Rodney and consulted with Sheppard over the maps. "This is our route," she said, pointing. "Here, not here. It is less direct, but much more pleasant."

"So, what?" The homemade maps rattled, "Are we climbing here?"

"It is steep," she conceded, "but short. And worth it, I assure you."

Rodney wondered if he should worry, decided not to. Cold and damp and dull was enough without looking forward to steep, too. Over the next hour, the air turned both colder and drier. The drizzle turned to a light snow. The snowflakes looked just like ones at home.

Teyla called to Ronon to bear right around a large, black rock. The path dropped at once. Long steps from boulder to boulder, down and around a low ridge, and then suddenly a wide depression tossed with giant boulders opened up before them. It was a lot of rocks. A whole lot. Rodney wondered if they were considered particularly scenic.

"This way." Teyla picked her way among the broad surfaces to a low overhang. She stripped off her pack and poncho and leaned down to tuck them far under the rock. Then she removed her jacket as well.

"Are we camping here?" Rodney asked, checking his watch. "We can't have gone far enough."

"Oh, wow," Sheppard said, stepping around Teyla and looking out at the expanse of stone beyond her. "Neat."

There was a pool of water among the dark grey stones. The water was steaming and looked very striking what with the falling snow and all. In fact, the water was steaming quite a lot.

Teyla streaked past him--streak being the operative word, since she was completely naked--and raced across the rocks, taking funny little hops as she moved from one boulder to the next. Ronon, quick on the uptake and completely naked, was right behind her.

Oh. Communal bathing again. Just when you thought the experience had gotten about as bad as it could get, when you were sure you had seen everything, you got communal bathing *outside* in snow.

Rodney managed--just barely--not to sigh aloud.

Colonel Sheppard was stowing the last of his cloths in a neat pile under the rock. He produced a short stack of towels and followed the others. At least he showed enough sensible caution not to run over the unfamiliar rocks.

Rodney stripped and followed. The air was cold. The rocks under his bare feet were colder. By the time he reached the edge, he was shivering. Even with goose bumps so hard they hurt, however, he paused at the edge and said, "You don't know what's in there. Don't you people watch *any* science fiction? Hot, freshwater piranha? Things with tentacles? Stupid aliens who will steal our clothes--haven't you even seen 'Planet of the Apes' for pete's sake?"

Teyla moved to the center and stood up. The water came to her chin. "This place has been known to my people for over a year. It is quite safe, and well liked by hunting parties. There is nothing to fear."

Rodney had given up and climbed in before she had finished the first sentence. Either she was right, and it was safe, or she wasn't, and there was no point in being naked and freezing as well as doomed.

The water looked pretty clear. In sunlight, he probably could have seen his feet. The white sky left shadows everywhere, though, and his feet were just pale shapes under the water. Cautiously, he brailed forward, feeling with his toes. The rock was rough, but solid and not too sharp. No plants. Nothing swam past him. Rodney shivered at that idea, being in water with alien animals. This wasn't Earth. His toes came to the edge of a rock. Cautiously, he stepped down. The water was deep enough here to cover his privates, a relief from the cold, and a terrible temptation. He could just sit down--

"That did come out nice," Ronon said. Rodney looked where he was pointing. Rodney's belly. The scar, still pink and not strictly as tidy as Rodney would have liked. Rodney met Ronon's serous eyes. He meant it. Which was weird and stupid, and the only thought more disturbing than *not* understanding Ronon was the suspicion that he *did*.

Sheppard said, "I don't know. It's not in a spot where it's easy to show off. It won't do him much good." He was teasing, but whom was unclear.

Teyla nodded. "My most impressive scar is also in an unimpressive place. She lifted her foot out of the water. The angle of her leg was so sharp that it displayed a limberness that made Rodney swallow hard. Not that this was a surprise. Teyla was superb in all things; fluid, graceful, balanced, but even so....

Then Rodney noticed the bottom of her foot. The warm water made the jagged scar that ran the length of it stand out brightly. Ronon gently grasped the foot, leaned in for a closer look. "Wow," he said.

"Damn," Sheppard agreed.

Rodney wondered if he should be pretending to be impressed instead of horrified.

"I was quite young," Teyla was saying. "The wound was not deep at all, but it infected and was a long time in healing. It looks much worse than it was."

Sheppard reached for Ronon's shoulder. "Here, turn around," he said, "show Rodney your tracker scar."

Ronon turned, trying to put his back to the light. Sheppard swept Ronon's heavy dreads aside, showing paler skin beneath the hair. "Look," he said.

Rodney stood up and stepped into the deep center, scientific curiosity overriding his distaste for bodily damage. In the center, just at the top of the shoulder blades, was a cross hatch of faint, slightly dark lines. Ronon reached back and traced them with his right hand. "This little spot is where Dr. Beckett removed it. I can't even feel it. Here and *here*," these cuts were larger and uneven and they had not healed neatly, "are where I tried to remove it myself."

Rodney had not wanted to picture being desperate enough to take a knife to himself. He had not wanted to picture seven years on the run from the Wraith, or being that alone, of finding his civilization destroyed and his people dead. Rodney had a really good imagination, and he hadn't ever wanted to go there.

Behind Rodney, Teyla said, "Colonel, you must also take a turn."

"You've all already seen mine," Sheppard said, extending his arm. Rodney's eyes went right to the spot, although it was tiny. Pale and smooth and hardly more than a couple of millimeters on a side, in this light Ellia's feeding scar looked a little blue.

"This is so morbid," Rodney croaked.

Sheppard laughed. "No, it's not. If I'd died, that would be morbid. But I didn't. This little scar is good, Rodney. It didn't kill me." He pointed over Ronon's shoulder. "That is a victory over the Wraith. Every moment he is free." He moved closer. It should have been unbearably intimate, but with just their heads showing, Rodney felt like something essential was concealed. "It's not about what happened to you--which was pretty bad. Or about things being what they were before, because they can't. It is about it being over, and you being alive."

Rodney opened his mouth, but nothing he could think of to say was big enough. All the words he could think of were trite or evasive or small. Rodney nodded. Sheppard, mercifully, moved away.

Teyla sank all the way under, came up with her hair dripping. Ronon pointed at her and laughed. Teyla, with uncanny accuracy, splashed him. Rodney snorted and got out of their way.

The water was pleasantly hot. The snow flakes that drifted down melted just above the surface before dropping in as rain. There was no wind. Rodney found a comfortable boulder and sat, watching, as Sheppard and Teyla ganged up on Ronon, splashing him from two sides at once.

Rodney knew it was only a matter of time before they remembered him. Geeks were notoriously easy targets. He would have to think--

Away from the warm pool, the rocks were cool enough that the snow didn't melt as it landed. It was hardly thicker than a layer of frost, but it would be very cold. He looked back at the rest of his team. Teyla and Ronon were dunking the colonel now. Sheppard couldn't have taken *either* of them in a fight, but he could have ordered them to stop. It was some kind of trust game. Slowly, Rodney stood up at the edge and reached back, carefully gathering up a handful of snow and dragging it as close as he dared.

By the time they moved on him, he had enough snow for a pair of respectable snowballs. Ronon, at the front, caught it full in the face. The other went to Sheppard, not thrown so much as smeared by hand. Teyla was strong enough that she wouldn't risk moving on Rodney alone for fear of hurting him, but here Rodney completely lucked out: she lost her footing laughing and came up spitting water. Sheppard, recovering first, splashed a wall of warm water, fast and hard, but Rodney only shifted the still laughing Teyla in front of him as a shield. She was easy to move in the water, and she didn't bother to resist.

Rodney glanced at Sheppard over Teyla's shoulder, checking to see how this minor victory was being received. What he saw was confusing. Sheppard wasn't surprised. He also wasn't looking either supportive or patronizing. As though Rodney McKay driving back his teammates in a *physical* challenge was hardly worth noticing.

Teyla was pointing at Ronon, gurgling, "The look on your face!" not paying attention to Rodney either.

Rodney retreated back toward the edge and crouched down so that he was neck-deep in water. With the solid stone behind him, he tilted his head back. He could see the sparse falling of snow, dizzying at this angle. He looked back. Ronon was doing something with his hair. Sheppard was floating in the hot water. Teyla was standing--mostly out of the water, but facing outward, so the view was only PG13. Everything was normal.

Well, Rodney thought. Of course it was. This was no big deal. He'd fought off Wraith. In a frantic and not particularly efficient way, usually, but he had. He'd survived a pick fight with a crazy mine engineer. He'd been captured more times than he cared to count. It was silly to think someone who had managed all that would *always* come out badly in a little roughhousing.

Rodney stilled this line of thought. It was just too transparently a lie. No. *They* hadn't been surprised, but he had. He really had. Although he might defensively claim he was quite tough, actually dangerous, it had always been more of a goal than an actual description of fact. He stayed away from juvenile, macho displays because he always lost.

Except when he didn't.

Well, crap.

This was his life.

He'd never put his effort in the jock thing. Why settle for being the runt of the litter, when playing to his strengths made him top dog? It had been so easy, the geek thing. He hadn't had to invest subtlety or effort when he'd had so much raw brilliance. He'd assumed that same brilliance would carry him through in the field. Well, that, and the US Marines. He'd been very clear about being cowardly and fragile and that had *worked* for him. But somehow along the way he'd apparently gotten cross-trained. No, he wasn't even close to Colonel Sheppard's class, let alone Ronon or Teyla's. But they were acting like the difference was degree, not kind.

This was his life. Both the jock-thing and the geek-thing at once. And really? He'd be tempted to turn around and go back to what he was *good* at (because being able to multitask brilliantly really fast was enough, he hadn't had to aspire to more, and the jock-thing tended to become a grunt-thing and that was dangerous, never mind how embarrassing if he screwed up) except Colonel Sheppard had openly been playing on both sides of the divide since Sumner had died. Hadn't he? Rodney had loved watching that.

Rodney put his head back again, watching the snow spin dizzily toward his eyes. This was his life. He hadn't even realized he even wanted it.

When they got out they had to shake the snow off the towels.

They climbed up from the glade of boulders. The hillside was steep, but covered with large, broken rocks. It wasn't any harder than climbing stairs, except you had to watch where you put your feet.

The top of the hill was broad and flat. It was covered in trees that looked a little like pines, but with short, thinner needles. Small animals played in the branches, dislodging damp rains of snow as they leaped from tree to tree. Ronon eyed them speculatively. "Good hunting?" he asked.

Teyla shook her head. "The meat is toxic. They eat the leaves, and the poison accumulates."

Ronon looked regretful. The little animals were plentiful. Rodney could almost sympathize, although he preferred MREs to roast whatever.

The path led them to the far edge of the plateau. The trees thinned out, and sometimes you could see the broad, grassy valley spreading out below. The view was softened and blurred by the falling snow. To Rodney's surprise, they reached the campsite long before he really got tired. Smooth ground in the lee of a couple big boulders, a fire pit, a series of pulleys set in the trees to make storing meat easier. They wouldn't use that last convenience.

Because the boulders made two good walls, they set the little field tents up under a central, protecting tarp. A dry campsite out of the wind. Rodney almost laughed. This wasn't nearly as inconvenient and unpleasant as camping off-planet usually was. It wasn't quite as clean and comfortable as camping in the puddlejumper, but it was nicer than some huts they'd slept in.

Setting up the tents and chopping firewood didn't take too long, even though they weren't in a hurry. Teyla made hot water and fixed light tea. Sheppard checked in with Atlantis Control and made sure the weather wasn't anything to worry about. It was domestic. Not rivetingly interesting, but not particularly objectionable, either. Rodney found a comfortable spot under the tarp and checked reports on his laptop. If Rodney had liked the idea of recreational camping, he'd be having a wonderful time. As it was, the whole enterprise seemed a little surreal.

It was surreal, too, that the hardest part of the trip was bedding down in the small, two-man tent. Rodney had forgotten how much fun it wasn't to try to sleep with the walls so close and the roof all but pressing down on his face. The very first time they'd had to spend the night in them off-world, Rodney had wiggled in beside Ford and promptly dragged himself back out. That first night he'd slept with his head outside the open flap until it had started to drizzle. With practice, the little tent had become bearable. The walls weren't gas impermeable. The material wasn't rigid and confining. The tent wasn't going to collapse.

But it had been a long time since he'd had to do this, and it was hard. Rodney reached up and pushed against the ceiling. He was alone, since he was bunking with Sheppard, who was taking first watch. There was a little bit of extra space. But it was fairly dark, and the air was growing warm and close. He pictured the snow piling up outside, the walls sagging, caving in--

Well, hell. Rodney thought, hard, about the slanted tarp above, catching the light snow. He thought of all the other times he'd spend the night safely in one of these stupid tents. He thought about the light wind, and about having a whole planet full of air. He thought about Teyla and Ronon, racing around through the trees playing hide and seek until they'd been forced back to the fireside by the darkness. He thought of a pleasant dinner of MREs.

He woke buried all but nose in the sleeping bag. His nose was cold. Sheppard was crawling in, bootless, but still dressed. He was trying to be quiet, but the quarters were close and the zippers made noise. Sheppard was shivering, which was very nearly making the little tent shake.

"You okay?" Rodney whispered.

"Yeah. Cold," he added. "Getting colder. It'll be freezing by your turn."

"Sleep now. Gloat later."

For an answer, Sheppard rolled over onto his side and inched closer to Rodney's warmth, hiding his face in Rodney's shoulder. How fair was that? Because, really, Rodney had spent way too much time imagining how John Sheppard would feel pressed up against him. None of that imagining had been this platonic.

The irritation that should have risen, didn't. For one thing, Rodney was too sleepy to get worked up into a pissy mood. For another, it wasn't unpleasant. The warm breath at his shoulder wasn't exciting--couldn't be exciting, mustn't be exciting--but it was safe and friendly. You couldn't be lonely, not crammed in like this with your best friend. You couldn't tell yourself that anything was unfair. Or even that he wanted things to be different; Rodney couldn't have brought himself to trade fantasy for this snoring reality.

Rodney fell asleep content and woke when Ronon reached into the tent and tapped the top of his head. It was still dark outside. The snowfall had stopped, leaving about three centimeters of powder on the ground. Rodney, layered in heavy clothing, made an efficient circuit around the camp.

When the others rose shortly after dawn, Rodney had breakfast ready. Or, at least, had the MREs laid out. They fell very quickly into old habits, breaking camp and packing without needing to talk. As they took a last look around to make sure nothing was forgotten, Rodney felt a stirring of nervousness. His stomach jittered a bit. He was *so* close. Something could still go wrong--something could always go wrong--but he was so close.

The trip down the hillside was shorter than the trip up had been, but it was harder on the knees. Rodney didn't complain. Not now. Not when he was so close. Not when it was almost over.

Almost over.

The ground evened out and gave way to the Athosian gardens, all brown plant stubble under the snow. The jumper was parked on this side of the village. Mercifully. There was less chance of running into someone and having to spend time being all polite and friendly. Rodney quickened his pace, was the first one to the hatch. Almost over. "Come on," he said. "Let's go." But when he looked back to hurry them along something caught in his chest and for a moment he couldn't think. They paused, hesitating, uncertain. Without meaning to, Rodney said, "I'm not good at saying things. To people. But I want you to know I appreciate this. And everything. I don't think you know what it means to me."

Teyla stepped up to him, close enough that the weapons they were carrying clacked together gently. "I do not think you know what it means to *us*." She leaned forward offering her forehead. Awkwardly, Rodney met her. "Congratulations, Rodney," she whispered.

Rodney stepped back and looked away, blinking. Colonel Sheppard swiftly filled the empty space that Teyla left, giving him no respite. "Thank you, Rodney," he whispered. "I know how hard this was. Thank you."

Ronon brushed past them and knocked his boots against the hatch to get the snow off. "You people are so weird," he grunted. Rodney choked in surprise. Ronon might be joking. He never normally used the word weird. Anyway, mercifully, it got Sheppard and Teyla moving.

When they landed in Atlantis Rodney rushed down to the lab (closer than his quarters) and logged his laptop in to the network. He called up the Mission Priorities List for the sciences (which, unjustly, didn't always get priority over the Mission Priorities Lists for diplomacy or provisioning) and reordered it so that his status check on Ithna Son was at the top. The matter wouldn't come up until the meeting tomorrow with Elizabeth, some twenty-two hours away, but Rodney had been waiting half an eternity to do that.

The change only took half a minute. When he was done, Rodney continued to his quarters to shower and change.

The next morning, Rodney barely noticed when Elizabeth sat down across from him at breakfast. He was distracted, taking notes on a scrap of paper-like extrudite made by the Atlantis synthesizers. At first, he'd been taking notes on more flexible programs to tie sensor feedback to the forcefield generators. After a few frustrating moments spent trying to decipher a smear on the paper substitute (and a short detour cursing the supply department for not just trading for some real paper so that they didn't have to ration the stuff) he started taking notes on reprogramming the synthesizer so it would produce something flat and white and *not* almost completely impermeable to both ink and pencil. The molecular recipe couldn't be too complicated, because the synthesizers in the city itself didn't use nanites and could only accept a limited number of raw materials. He scribbled a couple of alternate molecular structures, gritting his teeth as he re-traced over the faint markings where they had faded out completely. The synthesizer was good with carbon. Paper made mostly of carbon fiber--

Across from him, Elizabeth cleared her throat. Rodney glanced up. "Hi," he said, politely. Really, he needed to talk to one of the physical chemists about this.

"Rodney?"

"Hmm?" He glanced up. "Oh, did you want something?"

Elizabeth measured him with her eyes. "I noticed you going to Ithna Son suddenly appeared at the top of the Mission Priorities List--"

"If someone's complained, I have final say on science section priorities. Whoever is feeling miffed can just wait. I'm usually very generous--" Rodney raised his voice, ignoring the tiny choking sound Elizabeth made here, "--even the stupid social scientists are kept so busy they barely have time to breathe, so I have nothing to apologize for."

"I wasn't aware of any complaints," she said calmly.

"Oh. Good. Never mind."

"I just wanted to mention," Elizabeth paused, frowning. "Rodney, you don't have to do this. You don't have anything to prove--" she trailed off, looking more uncertain by the second.

It wasn't like Elizabeth to flake out in the middle of the conversation, but Rodney had three meetings this morning, and the first was starting in eleven minutes. "What are you talking about? What do you mean, 'prove'? Oh." Rodney blinked. "You think I'm--No, this is professional. This is necessary. I've got to get back there. Elizabeth, if we can make the factory work--No, I can make this work. No if. Even if I have to rebuild parts of the containment from scratch and completely overhaul the security protocols, I *can* make it work."

She blinked. "Oh."

"I'd show you the notes, but frankly you wouldn't understand." Rodney felt a sting of longing. "I've been waiting weeks. Please don't get weird about this."

She held up a hand. "No, not at all. Absolutely no getting weird." She sat back in her chair and took a contented sip of coffee. "I want a report first. Put together something I can understand."

At some time during Rodney's long convalescence, Atlantis had talked the people of Ithna Son into permitting a landing pad big enough for one jumper. It was on a broad bench in a hillside about an hour's walk from the mine entrance, but that walk was on a broad, gently inclining road and was a lot more convenient than the options they'd had before.

The hike itself was made even easier by the content of their party; Radek and Carson were no more built for speed than Rodney was and hadn't been doing forced marches for practice for the last week. Both of them disliked gate travel so much that Sheppard had to treat them with kid gloves to get them to come at all.

Although, in some sentimental way, Rodney would have rather his first mission had been just him and his own team, that was emotional nonsense. He was going to need help to get anywhere with the factory, and unless he wanted to be there for *weeks* it needed to be competent help. When Rodney had shouted that at Elizabeth (because normally it was against policy to have both McKay and Zelenka off world at the same time, let alone on the same alien planet), Radek had batted his lashes and said, "How flattering. I am touched," so not only was Rodney endangering the city's security by having all their best engineering eggs in one basket (puddlejumper), he had made his colleague assistant impossible to live with, because he wouldn't shut up about how Rodney "needed" him.

Carson was along because it was time to give a set of Ithna Son volunteers the ancient technology activation gene. In the future, he would probably send someone else, but this first time, Carson wanted a few days to observe the subjects himself.

Between them, the pace was so leisurely that Rodney not only wasn't complaining about needing a rest, but was actually hovering up front with Ronon, who had taken point. He wished, not for the first time, for better ground transportation. Faster. Able to carry more stuff. ATVs would be nice. Or motorcycles. Horses would be the most adaptable, terrain-wise, but they would also be inconvenient and smelly.

The mine was still picturesque. Two foremen and the Atlantis ethnographer assigned here to teach the locals the basics of non mine-oriented science came out to meet them. The owner was waiting in the main chamber, which was otherwise empty at this time of day. He bowed deeply to Rodney and gave a little speech of apology and regret. "Your recovery is nothing short of miraculous. It pleases us greatly."

Rodney blinked at him. "Well, yes. We did tell you our medical supplies were a bargain at twice the price. Although if you needed a demonstration, you should have--"

"Rodney," Sheppard said through his teeth, smiling.

"Thank you for your concern. Apology accepted," Rodney said quickly.

In compensation for Rodney's lost labor time, the owner presented Sheppard with a flatteringly large--although completely useless, given that the desalination tanks back home gave out not only fresh water but several pounds of salt a day--shipment of food-grade salt. Finally, finally, they had finished being pleasant and continued toward the factory. Leaving Carson with the ethnographer and two marines to guard him, they took the loud and unpleasant tram into the dark tunnels.

Rodney didn't need to do any research or make any decisions. He could already see exactly how this needed to go. Naturally, he couldn't just jump in and skip to the good parts. The team they'd kept on site at the factory had been sending back reports, but there were tests Rodney wanted to run himself: structural integrity, tightness of seals, that sort of thing. It went quickly, since he was planning to work with one of the smaller fabrication chambers, but still, they'd been in the mine for about seven hours before they were ready to try anything fun. Rodney stuffed down a couple of power bars and called it dinner. "We're not going back to the cave of the voyeurs for bed," he announced. "Just forget that." He gave a dark look to the local observer, who shrugged. Apparently the Atlantians were old news at this point, and nobody cared.

"What are you doing?" Sheppard asked.

"I want to watch the invisible robots work their mojo."

"Is that safe?" Sheppard asked.

"No, but I'm feeling suicidal. Actually, I thought I'd just pour them out on the floor and see if they tap dance." Rodney held up a sealed container about the size of a coffee thermos. "Colonel. The nanites were usually conveyed by ductwork, directly from storage to the isolation units. We'll have to take a month to disassemble the wall to check the conduits. Before we invest that kind of effort, I want to give the system a try. I'm just going to hand-carry a sample over."

"Okay..." Sheppard said hesitantly. He was clearly torn between real uncertainty about the hazards of what Rodney was proposing and his reluctance to get his head ripped off for questioning Rodney again.

Rodney took pity on him. "This," he pointed at a screen, which showed part of the list of nanite types, "is a tiny, invisible robot. Sixteen percent of its molecule is iron atoms. That," he pointed toward a black box sitting on the counter behind Sheppard, "is an electromagnet. Hit the red button, and it will admit a one Newton--well, give or take--magnetic jolt for however long the power supply lasts. About twelve seconds. That is more than enough to rip the molecules apart."

"And we'll know we need to turn it on because--?"

Rodney pointed at Zelenka. "He will have a scanner pointed at the sample at all times. Oh, and be sure to keep the magnet away from the scanner; if we break it, we won't know if we get them all. Ready? Good." Without waiting, Rodney put the container into the socket and triggered the release of a hundred million nanites.

The interface said the transfer was complete.

Radek nodded, not lifting his eyes from the face of his scanner.

Sheppard held the electromagnet in one hand, the other hand hovering over the red button, ready to push at a moment's notice. "Um, what do they do?" he asked.

Rodney checked the seal on the container and disconnected it from the spigot. "Nothing flashy. They do things with silica and fluorine. I've programmed this set to make a kind of fiber-optic cable. It's a standard recipe. A good test case."

"Wow. Exciting."

"It is, sort of. Now stop bothering me."

Rodney had brought his own raw materials and his own recording equipment, as well as the electromagnet nanite eradicator. Rapidly, he checked everything one more time, sealed the small fabrication chamber he'd settled on for the test, hooked the nanite jar into the portal, checked the seal on it--

--and ejected the nanites into the fabrication chamber.

Rodney indulged in one gleeful moment of satisfaction, before turning to his laptop to to check the sensor and feedback readings.

"Well?" Sheppard asked, rocking forward on his feet, holding out the nanite destroyer.

Nothing was happing yet. Which was good, since Rodney hadn't triggered the molecular robots yet. "Wait, wait." He checked the interface with the chamber, pinged the waiting nanites. They pinged back, a hundred million tiny voices. He initialized and triggered them.

When he looked up, Zelenka had his eyes glued to the scanner, but Sheppard and the others were watching Rodney with baited breath. "Well?"

"Well, it's going," Rodney said.

Sheppard came around and looked at the video feed in the corner of Rodney's computer screen. It showed the interior of a white box and a stand holding the powdery sand that was Rodney's raw materials. "I don't see anything."

"What did you think you'd see?" He pointed toward a number climbing slowly in the lower right-hand corner. "This is the progress report. It's in micrometers."

Sheppard visibly deflated. He took a seat on the floor, still holding his electromagnet. Ronon began to sharpen his knives. Teyla settled into conversation with the local observer.

Three hours later, the strand of fiber optic cable was five centimeters long. Sheppard grunted. "Not very fast," he said.

"Well, I'm not using that many. This is just a test run."

"You said you had a few million!"

"That's not even enough to see with the naked eye."

"Oh, I'm not complaining. It's just, you know, like watching grass grow."

"Thank you, Colonel Helpful." Rodney looked at his tiny length of glass in the corner of his screen. He magnified it, but still couldn't see the tiny robots making it grow longer. "Fine. I guess we've seen enough." He sent the signal to cease production.

According to the computer, they ceased. Radek, checking his own sensor, nodded.

Rodney sent the order to self-destruct. Sadly, there were no teeny-tiny little explosions.

When the monitor reported that they were neutralized, he told Sheppard to trigger the magnet, just in case. Only then did he unseal the small chamber and retrieve his short length of glass wire. It would have to be tested and analyzed in Atlantis. Rodney turned around. "Nice job, people. Good work. Let's pack it up."

Sheppard gaped at him. "That's it?"

"For this one. I'd like to do another test tomorrow. What were you expecting? It'll take me a couple of days to go over the sensor records from this." All they could make this trip was fiber optic cable. High-iron nanobots didn't have a lot of uses. There was a type you could program to disassemble organic matter into its component parts, but given that Rodney and all of his friends were made of organic matter, he didn't want to play with those.

Instead, he cleaned up, packed his sample away, and headed toward the currently useless ring-room, where the field team had set up camp. There was a comfortable and roomy section of living quarters, but of course the local barbarians refused to let anyone live in them. It was some kind of shrine.

Despite the pointless hardship, the Atlantis contingent had made a comfortable camp in the ring-room. The three engineers, four marines, a linguist, and the ethnographer had been living there in two-week rotations. They'd made themselves at home. Tarps had been set up, creating a few areas of privacy. Instead of the suspect bedding used by the miners, there was a stock of air mattresses. There was a camp table, a supply of coffee, a small library of movies. A bathroom was near-by, which they were allowed to use (naturally, there was a line). Rodney would have preferred a nice comfortable bed, but for a day or two, this would do.

While spreading the sleeping bag over the airbed, it occurred to him that this was his first night actually back in the field after a long absence. Which was obvious to the point of stupid, and really, hardly worth noticing.

Of course. He was back. That had been the whole point. He had wanted to be back.

He was back... here.

Abandoning his bed roll, Rodney headed for the power room, trying not to think too closely about what he was doing.

The power station looked exactly the same. Rodney approached the central console. It was passive at the moment, a flat expanse of black glass. It wasn't damaged. Someone had cleaned up all the blood.

*Come on, McKay. Did you forget where you are? Look around you! You're in a nanite manufacturing facility. You're not done here, and I know there is no way in hell you can resist this. So you're going to keep it together through the-the-the operation. Then Carson will come and fix everything. And then we'll take you home so you can recover in a nice soft bed. Then you'll come back. You'll figure out how all this worked, what it all means. You can do this. I know you can.*

Feeling a little sick, Rodney stepped back. He didn't know what he was retreating from, it wasn't rational, but--

He stepped into something tall and solid and lumpy. Rodney jumped and spun. "Damn it, Colonel, are you trying to kill me?"

"Yes, that's right. The exercise didn't do it, so I've moved on to fright. If you hadn't spoiled everything by tripping over me, I'd have yelled 'boo,' and been done with it."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "How mature."

Sheppard shrugged.

Rodney couldn't think of anything to say. The silence became awkward.

"You okay?" Sheppard asked.

"Sure. Great. I mean, why wouldn't I be?"

Sheppard pointed at the central console. "Oh. That." Bastard. He was entirely too perceptive. Rodney hated him. "No, I'm fine."

Sheppard watched him thoughtfully. "I'm not. Not completely."

"You're not?" Rodney's voice sounded funny. He swallowed.

"No. And I think it's probably okay, you know, to take a little time."

"Oh. You do." Rodney turned to look back at the table. "Right. Sure. I mean, it was a big deal. It's only been a couple of months. Right?"

Sheppard stepped closer behind him. "It was a big deal. It was scary. It sucked. Just because it's over doesn't mean.... We don't have to be completely fine."

Rodney didn't know what to say. He said nothing.

"So. What are we doing tomorrow? More fiber optics?"

Rodney took a deep breath. "We can use the same nanites and raw materials with a different recipe to make silicone date chips. Well, one. It'll take about eleven hours, using just a few million nanites. I'll have to rotate the personnel watching the monitors and scanners. People who don't take breaks from watching grass grow make mistakes."

"Sounds like fun."

"Yeah. Sorry. We can go home after that. I can analyze the computer data and the products in the lab."

"So. Early day tomorrow. Let's get some sleep."

Rodney nodded and turned back toward the door, thinking about the next day's work, picturing tiny robots in his mind. Sheppard followed just behind him, humming softly.

Fin