Codes:McKay, Sheppard/McKay, all
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: none specific
Updated: 5/26/2008

Atlantis was a neutral colony before it became a prison camp, split between the mainland facilities and the ocean bound city itself for the war criminals and those convicted of crimes against humanity. Alcatraz, he'd heard Sheppard drawl when he arrived in the gateroom, manacled and bruised from a scuffle in the Colorado gate room that ended with four injured Marines. Inescapable, or so they said, but Sheppard's single word reminded him that nothing's inescapable.

They just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Rodney's restrictions keep him from the computers, unwired rooms, as low-tech as an Ancient facility light years beyond human evolution can possibly manage. Setting his hand against the wall, he feels the hum of energy just out of reach, the flashes of power that pulses into his palm like heat, watching the flicker of the force fields, memorizing the new modulation like he does every day, like there's a damn thing he can do about it.

God fucking dammit, he hates this place.

Looking out of his cell, he watches Sheppard being brought down the hall, accompanied by ten special ops, zats trained on his every movement. Tall and rail-thin, bloodstained prison uniform and messy dark hair, moving like naqada-reinforced manacles at wrists and ankles don't weigh any more than air. The dark head lifts briefly, eyes flicking to study the line of cells that were once living quarters, and for a second, Rodney feels that intense gaze on him.

Just a second, long enough for a pretty quirk of his mouth, and Rodney nods back, introductions done.

The cell across from Rodney is opened, and Rodney's view is blocked as one of the men presses the zat against John's throat, forcing his head higher, stripping away the manacles and pushing him inside. Rodney hears the sound of a body hitting the floor, straining his neck enough to see Sheppard on his feet, moving almost too fast for the eye to see, but they're ready, the forcefield going up instantly.

Rodney winces as John's thrown back with a shower of sparks, hitting the far wall, the sound like a rotten watermelon slamming into the ground.

Atlantean prison guards don't bother with banter with the prisoners--work done, they set the passwords and leave. Grabbing his one chair, Rodney pulls it to the doorway, sitting down to wait for Sheppard to recover consciousness.

It's been a while since he had a neighbor, after all.

Four years ago, Dr. Rodney McKay was the toast of the scientific world, consulted by the Asgard for his work in subatomic particle physics and winner of the Nobel prize twice over. He pioneered the creation and engineering of the first-ever ZPM based bomb and extended his research to learning how to create ZPMs using vacuum energy from their own universe.

Thirteen hours into his first tests, he wiped out a living solar system, leaving blackened asteroids and the extermination of sixteen point three billion lives.

Later, Rodney still thinks his biggest mistake was not killing Dr. Radek Zelenka with the rest of his staff after the failure, as Zelenka's testimony was integral to the prosecution that stripped him of his titles, his accomplishments, and sent him to rot the rest of his life away on the outskirts of the universe, convicted of crimes against humanity before an intergalactic panel.

He's still a little bitter about that.

Sheppard, he learns, was brought in under an intergalactic warrant, crimes unlisted, but Rodney's been around a while, and rumors are as good as fact. There was once a county and now there's a barren wasteland, the levels of radiation so high that it's impossible to survey, burned into dust. There was an Asgard embassy, and now there's rubble. There was a president and now there's a corpse.

And that's just what they *know* about.

Sheppard's quiet, but he's intense, and Rodney watches him pace his cell for two days, running long fingers over the walls and checking the unmoving panels and flat, smooth floor, a thorough study of a twelve by twelve foot cell with a meticulousness Rodney approved of.

On the third day, though, it gets boring. "There's no way out," Rodney says, watching Sheppard do his thirtieth study of the panels by the door.

"How are they powering this?" Sheppard asks, not looking up.

"ZPM," Rodney says, and the bitterness in his voice brings Sheppard's head up, pushing too long hair from his eyes to grin, sudden and bright. Christ.

"Huh." Sheppard drops liquidly to the floor, legs neatly crossed. "Isn't this place supposed to be mind controlled or something?"

Rodney waves a hand. "ATA was deactivated," Rodney says, and Sheppard's eyes flicker. "And it's not like anyone here has the gene to use it anyway." Rodney thinks of Carson, six cells down, writing his theories on the walls of his cell these days, and Rodney might mock, but his own walls aren't any better. Absently, he flexes his hands, looking away from nails bitten to the quick, the crusty line of dried blood at the tip of every finger.

"Huh." Sheppard leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, watching Rodney with bright, curious eyes. "Dr. Rodney McKay, right?"

"Duh." John just grins. "And I suppose you're the one that did the first live test of my ZPM in atmosphere?" And God, what he wouldn't give to have seen it.

John's grin widens. "My reputation precedes me. Nice to know. So the question is, why the hell is someone like you still locked up in here?"

Rodney crosses his arms. "Oh, I don't know--the forcefield may be an issue? Armed guards? The fact I can't so much as look at a touch tone telephone? Any of that penetrate?"

Scratching his chin, Sheppard considers him for a moment, then his eyes snap to the side, leaning forward and craning his neck at the sound of multiple footsteps--definitely more than the four required for any visits to this level. Getting as close to the forcefield as he dares, Rodney sees six grey clad bodies surrounding a tall, slim woman, in prison white, head up. Familiar in that way that their kind are always familiar to each other--and then Rodney's memory puts it together.

"Elizabeth," Sheppard says, softly enough that only Rodney could hear. Elizabeth's eyes stay straight ahead, but Rodney isn't fooled--she notices everything. The cell beside John's is opened and she's pushed inside. Standing straight, she stays in the center of the cell while the forcefield is activated, unmoving and quiet. Only when the guards are gone does she move, coming to the very edge to glance around warily.

Closer up, Rodney can see the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of too much time spent in a South American prison before extradition. The fragile bones of her collar are in stark relief beneath the thin skin, and her slow movements tell him that her clothes are hiding some less savory results of too much time with guards not acquainted with Geneva convention standards.

He can feel her eyes flick over him, pause, then dart back. "McKay."

Rodney waves. "Got it in one. Nice to see you again, Dr. Weir."

Her mouth quirks in an amused smile before her gaze darts to the side. "And Sheppard, I presume?"

"Presume all you want," Sheppard says expansively, leaning his head on one hand. Anyone else would look silly, Rodney reflects, but not Sheppard. "So I guess your government failed?"

The dark eyes narrow sharply. "And your famed ability to vanish into thin air abandoned you?"

Oh yeah. Rodney sighs, leaning back in his chair. "Yes, yes, yes, we all are here because we didn't get away. And hello? Some of us have been here a couple of *years*, so spare me the self-pity." Flexing his fingers, Rodney watches Sheppard uncoil himself, standing slowly, eyes fixed on the wall separating him from Elizabeth. "I'm glad we've all gotten to know each other. Now if you'll try to be interesting now? That would be nice." Before Carson was moved, at least he'd been subject to fits of psychosis, and watching had pretty much been Rodney's only form of entertainment. This isn't as fun, but at least it promises to break the monotony.

Sheppard relaxes. "You know. You have to wonder." Finding his chair, he drags it to the edge of the forcefield, slumping into it in a way that should, by all rights, be impossible.

"Wonder?" Rodney says sharply, when Sheppard lets it drift. The dark eyes are unfocused, still everywhere. "Wonder *what*?"

"Whose ass is going to go up in a sling when we get out of here." Turning his head, he smiles slowly, all teeth. "You in?"

******

During trial, Rodney's lawyers hadn't been able to break Zelenka's testimony that Rodney had already been aware of the dangers of his research and that his test in a populated solar system had been both deliberate and with malice aforethought.

There are reasons for this, though the truth is, Zelenka is pretty close to right. Fifteen hours before the first stage of the testing, Major Samantha Carter was touring the fourth planet after formally opening an inquiry into the deaths of ten of Rodney's most recently deceased staff.

So really, when he thinks about it, he just can't see how he's to blame at all.

******

For a few weeks, Rodney has some questions on Sheppard's sanity.

Socializing with the other prisoners has never been restricted--something the Nox and Asgard had insisted on during their negotiations for alliance with Earth. Group exercise is provided in the wide inner courtyard, under heavy guard. A city-island in the middle of the ocean isn't something any of them are going to voluntarily try to run out of without an active gate. Very rights of prisoners, even the ones you never expect to allow to breathe free.

Every afternoon, just as the sun passes its zenith, their block is led here, two hours of free time surrounded by forcefields and armed guards before another twenty-two hours in their cells.

Rodney blinks up at the narrow stripe of sky and wonders if he's actually as pasty as he feels. Even Sheppard's tan is fading, pale winter-gold from dark brown, hazel eyes flickering green when they catch the light.

The women come out later. Not that there are many besides Elizabeth and Carson's scary wife.

Sheppard crouches, eyes flickering around the guards, probably looking for weaknesses, but for all Rodney knows, maybe he's noticed their uniforms don't fit.

"Special ops," Sheppard told him once when he asked. "Special conditioning." Sheppard had leaned into the wall, thoughtful. "I read up. They have to pass an intergalactic committee to get an assignment here. Incorruptible."

"Tell me something I don't know," Rodney had snapped.

"The second in command is a junkie," Sheppard had said easily.

"Ford," Rodney says, circling Sheppard. As he passes, he sees Sheppard's gaze meander up, fixing on one of the balconies briefly, then he stands up.

Every time, every guard tenses, and Rodney thinks it just might say something, that a room full of the most notorious scientists and criminals in the Milky Way doesn't freak them out half as much as the slightest twist of Sheppard's smile.

Rodney tries to see what Sheppard saw in Ford. The dark face is still, but now that he's looking, he can see the tension around his mouth, the tight look around his eyes. Rodney remembers his days on amphetamines--there's a look you get when you're going without, and Ford has it, in spades.

When he looks at Sheppard again, Sheppard nods briefly, stretching as he makes a circuit of the perimeter. The other prisoners have avoided him since the first fight three weeks ago.

And for that matter, how long is Bates going to be in the infirmary anyway?

But they avoid Sheppard, and so they avoid Rodney, which Rodney admits he's getting used to. Getting your ass pounded into the floor three times a week gets old, and he worries about concussions. The guards break it up. But Rodney suspects they give it a few minutes for the entertainment value.

Sheppard drops on one of the smooth, bolted metal benches, smiling as Rodney follows him. It's the warmest part of the courtyard, highly prized, and pretty much the demesne of Sheppard alone. No one's bothered since the second fight to even try. "Sumner's watching."

Rodney doesn't bother being subtle, craning his neck to see the red-clad commander on the balcony beside Ford. In all his time here, he's only seen Sumner twice, and always from a distance. Sumner never dirties his hands with his own prisoners if he can help it. "Why?"

Sheppard licks his lips. For the first time since Rodney met him, he looks--nervous. "I used to serve with him."

Sumner's eyes are on them--on John--the entire time. Rodney feels his back begin to crawl at the narrowed focus, laser-intense and utterly unflinching.

"He can't--" Rodney says, but the words stop in his throat. Atlantis is an modern, enlightened, commission-overseen prison, bright and lovely and humane and boring as shit. But that doesn't make it any less a prison.

And they're a very long way from Earth.

After Sheppard is taken from the courtyard, Rodney doesn't see him again for two weeks.

The thing about Elizabeth Weir isn't her work for the Goa'uld, because that was impossible to prove, though Rodney's pretty sure it's accurate. Her bloody coup that united South America into a single force under her command with a serious chance of taking over the planet--again, brilliant and dangerous, but on the scale of criminality for Atlantis, it was pretty standard.

Her deal with the Ori, turning over thirty five Nox and Asgard peacekeepers for interrogation and torture in exchange for their assistance in taking Earth--that had gotten her ass here, a woman who was willing to play the part of god or mystic or diplomat, whatever the situation requires. Her cult's still going strong and petitioning for her release, he's heard. They leave offerings of bodies all over the galaxy.

They don't talk much; Elizabeth is like Sheppard, happy with silence, but she doesn't do anything else either. Rodney's getting envious of Grodin down the hall, where every Thursday Carson has one of his episodes, screams echoing down the hall and the pounding of a body against unyielding metal.

They won't let him look at a computer, touch a wire, life bound by books, a small cell, and two hours beneath the sky every day. Insanity, Rodney thinks, watching Elizabeth sitting cross-legged in her cell for hours on end, has started with a lot less than this.

"Where's Sheppard," she asks the second day. Rodney shrugs, but the truth is, he's beginning to wonder too.

"Sumner," he says, and she opens her eyes.

"Oh." She stretches her legs, studying the force field with a thoughtful expression. Her head cocks slightly, mouth tightening in a thin line. She doesn't say anything else.

Rodney really misses Carson

Sheppard's brought back, pale and pounds lighter, showing signs of flesh regeneration at the small of his back and into the waist of his pants when he changes shirts. He talks even less than he did before, but the restlessness is back, like something's burning him up inside.

They don't hear much from the outside world, but they do hear some things, which is why Rodney's surprised but prepared when half the wing is cleared and Sheppard shoved into his cell when ten Athosians are brought in for temporary storage until the next dial-up to earth. The guards are doubled and suddenly their two hours a day is switched to one.

"Ori," Elizabeth says briefly, looking fond.

Sheppard's even thinner than Rodney thought, fragile bones beneath too-thin skin, and a change of clothes shows exactly why regeneration was required, making Rodney wonder how Sumner explained why a prisoner would need such extensive surgery. Sheppard twitches at the most casual touch and occasionally wakes at night with his hands around Rodney's throat, but he always stops as soon as he comes back to himself, and honestly, this is about the most interesting life's been since Rodney was exiled to the Pegasus galaxy, so he's not complaining too much.

Sheppard's chattier in such close quarters, curling up on the foot of Rodney's bed wrapped in their combined blankets, telling him about the last few years in the Milky Way that he's missed. The Afghanistan ZPM explosion, assassinations, the return of Dr. Jackson from the dead, and the efforts of Jack O'Neill to repair negotiations with the Asgard after John had started destroying their embassies.

"Why did you?" Rodney had asked, and John had grinned, stretching out beside him with a wince when it pulls the tender flesh of his back.

"I was hired to." He shrugs a little, and Rodney watches the dark eyelashes fan over his pale skin and the way his mouth quirks. "Not like the ZPM though." He opens his eyes, eyes shining. "That was a thing of beauty."

Rodney pushes himself up on an elbow and leans closer. "Tell me about the damage again," he breathes, and John begins to whisper casualty and mutation rates, the massive environmental destruction unseen on any planet before, and then he tells Rodney how he worked the equations to calculate the destruction perimeter, how he adapted Rodney's greatest achievement to create something that could have destroyed a world.

Rodney falls in love with the sounds of his voice, the cadence of his speech, and the way his eyes shine when he tells Rodney that one day, they'll test it on Earth, watch from the sky as they destroy a world together.

The next dial-up to earth is canceled for reasons unknown, but Elizabeth's suddenly watching the halls like a hawk and talking to the other prisoners. Late at night, Rodney wakes to find Sheppard seated by the forcefield, listening to Elizabeth with wide eyes, and later, when Rodney pulls him back to bed, John tells him what she told him. She wants out, and she thinks they can do it.

"How?" Rodney asks beneath the masking cover of blankets, closing his eyes against the warmth of John's body. What Sumner's doing to him makes Rodney wary of sex, but it's been two years, and he's just not sure he can hold out against that lean body much longer.

"I'm figuring it out," John says softly, eyes bright, and Rodney believes him.

The upshot is, Elizabeth gets as a roommate the elusive leader of the Athosian terrorists and John takes up permanent occupancy in his bed. The Athosian also offers up the kind of visual porn that was seriously lacking in Rodney's life before John came, and between the two of them, the number of times he's jerking off beneath the covers has tripled. Teyla Emmagen and Elizabeth are weirdly compatible, in that way that women can be when their goals are the same. Every night, Rodney wakes up to hear the two of them work on John, and every day, he listens John make plan after useless plan.

Useless, but interesting. Rodney knows shit about strategy, but what John's doing is the kind of stuff Rodney thinks that most former soldiers just can't do.

"The ATA," John says finally, leaning back, and Rodney pull him back to bed, mostly to feel the lithe body curl around him again, run his hands over too-thin skin and feel the shape of his bones. Sumner's weekly meetings with Sheppard haven't gotten any easier, and Rodney dreads and waits for the mornings he wakes to find John returned to him, crouched in a corner, wild-eyed and simmering. Coax him to bed and feel John wrap around him like a blanket, clinging fingers and soundless rage that beats against Rodney's skin like the feel of his heart.

He wasn't fond of Sumner before, but Rodney's beginning to think that when Earth goes up in a gaseous cloud, Sumner's going to enjoy the view from vacuum.

"What about it?"

"We need it," John breathes against his skin, and Rodney wishes to God John would stop moving his thigh like that. "We can--you know what the Ancients were. What this city was."

"The most secure place in the galaxy," Rodney says, but it's an interesting thought. Rodney turns it over in his mind. "But we can't use it. We need the gene--"

"Carson," John says softly, head pushing under Rodney's chin like a giant puppy. Rodney runs a soothing hand down John's back, feeling him arch into the touch. A few weeks of conditioning and John pretty much lets Rodney touch him whenever he wants. Familiarity, in this case, definitely does not breed contempt. "Gene therapy. He was working on--"

"Right." Carson theoretically has the gene, but not in any useful way. He could make lights come on and that was about the scope of his talents outside the lab. "Hmm."

John lifts his head. "You have an idea."

Maybe. "Not yet. But I'm getting there."

John smiles, curling back up against him, and Rodney resigns himself to a restless night and a quick jerk-off while John's sleeping in the morning. "I like their guns," John murmurs.

"Zats," Rodney corrects absently. "One stun, two kill, three vaporize."

John snickers. "Why bother with stun?"

"It's a question I often ask myself. God. We have to figure out why they're not dialing earth."

John shivers, and Rodney pulls the covers closer over them, thinking of Elizabeth's murmurs of Ori conspiracy, but for some reason, he just doesn't believe it. He's noticed, however, that they're cutting the power to environmentals, conserving energy, which argues that the officials are worried about power, which means they're worried about supplies. And he's noticed they're getting a lot more Pegasus galaxy staples and less exclusively earth foods the last few days.

John's noticed too.

Free time in the courtyard has triple guard, what with forcefields is pretty much the epitome of overkill, but John looks suddenly about as happy as Rodney's ever seen him.

"It means," John says softly as he stretches out on the bench, head in Rodney's lap, like a cat drowsing in the sun, "that they're getting paranoid. And paranoid men make mistakes."

Rodney watches the rotation again, the way the guards jump at unexpected noises, Ford looking that much greyer, and strokes John's hair. "What I wouldn't give for a fucking palm pilot," he says, and John's head tilts back, eyes dark and curious. "For the force fields. They used the lowest level of tech they could," and with so many unstable geniuses, Rodney admits it was probably a good idea or there's a good chance the really crazy ones would blow up the city in a fit of pique, "so it's pretty simple to disrupt." He sighs. It's what comes after that would be the problem.

John nods, eyes closing under Rodney's touch, and from the corner of his eye, Rodney sees Bates limping the far side of the perimeter. Sheppard's head turns sharply, pushing himself up as Bates freezes, then turns toward them, and as John stands up, Rodney resigns himself to a week alone in bed.

On the other hand, watching John beat the shit out of Bates is the kind of masturbation material you just can't turn down. Leaning his elbow on his knee, Rodney watches John and Bates begin to circle and hopes the guards don't stop it too quickly.

Rodney wakes the next week to John crawling into their bed, smelling of disinfectant from a shower in the infirmary and fresh blood. Moving over, Rodney sleepily reaches for John beneath the blankets and his fingers encounter cold, faintly damp metal.

Opening his eyes, he stares into John's glittering eyes. "Just don't ask me how I got it in here," John says, and Rodney wraps his fingers around the palm pilot, reaches for John's face with his other hand, and kisses the smiling mouth, tasting antibiotic and dental regeneration like victory.

John likes guns and bombs and weapons of mass destruction, reminding Rodney a little of Zelenka in his enthusiasm for explosions. Rodney shows John his equations, written in ink when he can get it, pencil when he can't, and blood when that's all he has, the work he's done that's recorded in the margins of his books, the rare paper they let him have, the walls of his cell, the mattress they sleep on, beneath the sheets.

And John *understands*, which makes Rodney begin to think this is all a hallucination brought about by isolation, because no one should be that hot and that smart, sitting naked on the edge of their cot when Rodney's too wired to sleep, quoting master class engineering texts and murmuring the sums of strange particles and calculating fallout in a voice that's made for porn.

Pi naught plus n must equal the sum of kappa plus and epsilon minus, John whispers while Rodney scribbles on the wall with bleeding fingertips, sucking Rodney's blood away with the same soft lips. One planet, two, a solar system, a *galaxy*, and Rodney watches John get hard beneath the sheet when Rodney tells him the death tolls.

Sumner was five days back, and Rodney doesn't even pretend he's going to wait anymore.

Pushing John down on the bed, Rodney finishes his notes on John's bare stomach, sucking down John's cock and gripping his hips to stop the instinctive arch. Pulling up, he crawls the length of John's body, straddling his hips, cock rubbing the math into flaking smudges, breathing sharply at the glazed look in John's eyes.

"Fuck me," John says, and Rodney grins, leaning down to kiss him, tasting blood from a bitten lip, his or John's or both, he's not sure, doesn't even care.

"Not until I'm the only one that does," he says, rubbing into John's skin, soft hair tickling his balls, entwining their hands as he rides John's responsive body. "Not until they're dead and this place--Christ, John, we can have it, we can do it, we can--"

"Yeah," John says, breath catching. "I can--if we do it right--Rodney--"

"We will," Rodney says, ducking his head to John's throat, biting down the curve of his jaw.

"Shift change, third to first," John grunts, arching up. Rodney thinks he could die happy like this. "Thirty off, sixty on, we need--we need--"

"Elizabeth," Rodney whispers, and John's eyes glaze more. Yeah, she's getting to him, Rodney thinks, setting a mental note aside to watch John more carefully when she and Teyla are talking to him. "She can--oh, God. John."

"She wants Atlantis," John whispers. "She's--"

"Fucking nuts," Rodney whispers, just to feel John shiver. Reaching between them, he lines up their cocks, breath catching at the feeling, a shot of heat that rides down his spine, so close, so *close*. Burying his face against John's neck, he bites into the soft skin just below his jaw. "Next time she's up for a chat, let me do the talking." Thinking of the palm pilot beneath his mattress, Rodney shuts his eyes, feeling John's fingers tighten around his, bone rubbing bone. "That's it, come on, come for me, we'll get all of them, we'll save Sumner for last, he can *watch*, you can do anything to him you want, anything at all--" John goes still, shaking, and the burst of heat between them brings Rodney off, too, a rush like falling off a roof or watching a solar system die.

Afterward, he traces his fingers through the come drying on John's stomach, writes his name and his promise into John's flesh with fingers and mouth, loving the way John watches him with naked eyes and sucks his fingers clean.

After that, it goes surprisingly fast.

Elizabeth's a natural organizer, no surprise there, and she has access to the women, passing messages for Carson when he's lucid enough to talk, pulling together a workable plan out of Sheppard's analysis of the guard patterns and the fact that Ford's been demoted to command of third shift.

"He wouldn't notice a landmine under his feet," Sheppard says disparagingly, stretching out on their cot, body relaxed, still too thin but putting on weight again. "There are ten blocks of twenty prisoners each on Atlantis, not including the mainland facilities." Sheppard purses his lips thoughtfully. "We want them?"

Rodney thinks of Kavanagh and Simpson in the mainland complex and sighs. If he's going to get anything done here, he's going to need his people. "Yeah, we do." Seeing John's mouth turn down, Rodney grins, crawling back up on the bed. "Elizabeth's got people there, too. Limit it to the guards for now. We have plenty of time to work out who stays and who takes a walk through the gate into space after we've secured the planet." John's still tender from Sumner, so Rodney's careful, kissing John gently before relaxing beside him. "You okay?" Regeneration again. Rodney's watched people die before, but he's thinking that Sumner will be the first to give him a taste for it.

"Yeah," John says, eyes dark, and Rodney kisses him again, running his fingers through dark hair. "I just--" John's restlessness is taking sleep he can't afford to lose, and sometimes, Rodney suspects Elizabeth's actively working John's instability, though she can't be stupid enough to set him off when they're still confined.

Elizabeth's timetable has set them for the night before John's next visit to Sumner, which can't be a coincidence, considering how tense John gets the closer the time comes. Watching Ford make rounds, Rodney watches him using John's experienced eyes, and notes the way his hands tremble and the dark eyes dart, his hand near his zat at all times. John watches too, coolly evaluative and weirdly hot at the same time.

Every time John catches him looking, he smiles, though, and Rodney grins back and thinks of the legendary Ancient labs, years in disuse, but waiting for him beyond the walls of his cell, the wide ocean around them, the computers and the databases, the massive collection of Ancient data that no one had ever bothered to erase.

And how when this is over, it'll be his.

During the trial, when Rodney was restricted to the Cheyenne Mountain military base, he'd watched as Zelenka inherited his job, taking command of the remains of the science contingent that hadn't died in the lab explosion that destroyed key records needed in his prosecution. The data had been recoverable, Zelenka working day and night to assure that Rodney never saw daylight again.

Rodney had listened as his lawyers told him in careful words that he was fucked, no deals, listened to the galaxy call him the greatest mass murder in human history, listened as they convicted him to imprisonment, stripping his name from the journals that once celebrated his every word, his awards taken, his work destroyed, his doctorates revoked.

It was like he never *existed*, and when he wakes up in a cold sweat, shaking with hate, he has John pressed against his back, John's voice in his ear, telling Rodney what they'll do with Zelenka when they have him, how many days it will take Zelenka to die.

When he opens his eyes again, John rolls him over and Rodney remembers what today is with a rush so good it's almost painful. "Ready?"

Rodney kisses the smiling mouth, biting John's lip hard enough to draw blood. "Yes."

Carson's fit starts like clockwork, screams echoing down the hallway, metal chair hitting the metal wall with an off-note, echoing bang that makes Rodney's ears hurt and John tense up beside him. Beneath the blanket, Rodney desperately enters his calculations, despite the fact that Carson's really taken it up a notch today--Elizabeth's encouragement or Carson's inspiration, he can't be sure.

"The door locks at both ends of this hall," John had told him, sketching out a diagram on the floor. "They lock themselves in when they do patrols before they unlock to get out. Good for security, bad for them. It leaves them four to eight men vulnerable for the entire length of the hall with backup having to get through both sets of locks." John had leaned over him, tracing a dusty red path with one finger. "Ford's the best armed, but his aim's shaky and his concentration shit. These two first." John traces a line, grinning. "Once we have the hall secure, you work the doors open."

The plan calls for all forcefields to drop simultaneously, with the understanding that each block is on its own. Priority is to get control of the computers before they're gassed, which, considering the people they use for tech work here, won't be hard if Rodney has a laptop and five minutes.

John stays quiet on the edge of the cot, fully dressed beneath the thin blanket, and shivering in the cold. Rodney thinks, not for the first time, that second priority is getting environmentals back up to par, because John's cold feet are beginning to drive him crazy. The hazel eyes are huge and dark, fixed on the hallway outside, his entire body attuned to the barracks, waiting for the activation of the locks that signals the last third shift patrol.

"Shields," John had said succinctly to Elizabeth. "Once the shields are up, no one can get in or out. Communication blackout." John had waved a hand idly, looking bored. "Atlantis' weapons systems are deactivated, but they're still here. Shouldn't be a problem."

They both hear it at the same time--the soft sound of fingers entering code, the almost inaudible voices of men about to go off shift. Rodney reaches over, placing a hand on John's thigh, muscle thick and tense and almost *shaking* with anticipation.

Across the hall, Elizabeth's shifted to the edge of her cell, crossed-legged and relaxed to casual view, Teyla leaning against the edge of the cell behind her.

They wait as the patrol starts, passing the first two cells, Dumais and Kusanagi, the four cells of Athosian prisoners, and Elizabeth makes a soft sound just as they come parallel to John's cell.

Carson screams like someone just killed his mother in front of him and Rodney, sliding to his knees, enters the last three digits and hopes to God this works.

When the fields sputter and die in anticlimactic dark blue fizzles, Rodney thinks, oh my God, it worked.

The thing is, watching John with Bates hadn't really prepared him for when John went lethal. John makes violence as good as sex, *better*, and Rodney wonders dazedly what he looked like when he took out the first Asgard embassy, if anyone born had ever looked so good.

One broken neck and four zat shots later, Rodney comes out to see the other prisoners just beginning to emerge, a little dazed and a little put out, because Elizabeth had revved them up for a serious fight in the halls and John kind of spoiled that. Coming over, Rodney watches John study the cowering Ford in the corner with cold, bright eyes, zat trained neatly on his head.

"Search them," Elizabeth says somewhere behind them, but John's focused on Ford.

"How the hell did you get through the psych tests?" John says softly, and Rodney frowns, looking down to see Ford pressing harder against the wall. Like calls to like, he remembers abruptly. "Rodney. Can you activate one force field?"

Rodney sighs, pulling out the palm pilot. "I can, but why--"

"Command codes." John's head tilts. "And Ford here would love to be helpful." Crouching, John grins. "We'll talk later." Firing off a single shot, John steps back, motioning to one of the men behind him. "Bates? Search him and put him in a cell and there's a private moment with that pretty little guard off block six in it for you."

Bates limps by and Rodney watches blankly as Bates picks up Ford's unconscious weight like it's nothing, dragging him to the room before throwing him inside. With another sigh, Rodney reactivates the shield, setting it for single room, then follows John to the locked door.

"Can you break it?"

Rodney frowns at the panels, then shrugs. "Low tech. Open it up, blow the interior out. The failsafes will kick in." Stepping back, Rodney tries not to find John's grin as hot as it really is as he pries open the panel with the edge of the zat, then steps back, pushing Rodney behind him as he takes aim and fires.

"Bates," John says as the smoke clears and the door trembles. "Stay with Elizabeth. Anything happens to her, you live long enough to watch your guts fall out. The rest of you? Fan out. Keep to the plan." John's head turns, eyes glittering dark. "Fuck this up, you'll deal with me. Gateroom, fifteen minutes."

Opening the door, John peers out, then turns to Rodney. "Ready?"

No shit. "Let's go."

Elizabeth had been difficult about what to do with alpha shift.

"We can't lock them out," John had said reasonably, head turning toward Elizabeth from the safety of Rodney's thigh.

"And we can't fight eighty fresh guards on top of third shift," Elizabeth had answered sharply.

"Okay, first, that was insulting. I can totally handle them. Second--you have some people on the mainland, right?" Elizabeth had nodded reluctantly. "Okay. When shields go up, there won't be any communication going out. What we don't want is to alert the *five thousand staff* assigned there that anything is wrong in the city by a mass of shifts running back. Not unless we drop a bomb and wipe out the facilities, and Rodney's got some people there he'd like to keep." Scratching his chin, John had closed his eyes as Rodney fondly stroked his hair. "And Lorne's there, and he's pretty cool. I'd like to keep him around."

"Lorne?" Rodney had heard himself say later that night, in a voice that he barely recognized. Funny how jealousy could do that to you. "Who is Lorne?"

John had grinned and pushed him into their cot, arms braced on either side of Rodney's shoulders. "An old friend. You'll see. You'll like him."

Rodney had doubted that, but when John kissed him, he didn't worry. Carson would need new subjects when they got out anyway.

Coming down the corridor, John keeps in front of Rodney, but it's not like there's much resistance. And it makes sense.

The problem with an inescapable, technically advanced prison is that outside the cellblocks, there really isn't much in the way of defensive measures. Rodney picks up a laptop after John wipes out the tech staff in lab three, rubbing off the blood from the keyboard with the edge of his sleeve before tucking it under one arm, kicking a body out of his way and sitting down at one of the Atlantean interface stations. The moron hadn't bothered to log out when he heard fighting in the corridor, so Rodney finds himself with midlevel access. Pulling up the defenses, Rodney checks the shield and then sets the locks on all the gateship bays. Lifesigns show none of the alpha shift got out.

"Cool," John murmurs, looking over Rodney's shoulder. Reaching, John strokes a bloodstained finger in a line. "Here, here, and here, gas? Set it off."

Rodney tilts his head up. "Why not just blow it?"

"Gateships. Spaceships. Two armories and anyway, why damage the city if we don't have to?" He looks as disappointed as Rodney feels.

"Fine," he says, pulling up countermeasures in neat menus, amazed that anyone would make a system so easy to turn against them. "Ooh. Did you know there's a self-destruct code? Set for command level only." Tilting his head back, Rodney grins. "If Sumner tries, think you can get Ford to help override?"

John grins back, leaning down enough to brush lips in an electric kiss. "Absolutely. Got everything you need here?"

"Activating the ATA first," Rodney says, typing. "Carson's useless until he gets Laura back, but some functions--yeah. They'll respond better with the gene." Finishing up, Rodney sets a few more of the countermeasures off, then nods, ducking beneath the computer under John's amused surveillance and pulling two of the crystals. "Okay, just in case someone gets in here after us and tries to fuck around. Then we--"

But he stops, watching soft blue light begin to fill the room, earth-based lamps and harsh fluorescents lost beneath the cool light of Atlantis waking up. Turning in a slow circle, he watches Ancient computers slowly begin to beep to life, waking up with a stretch and a yawn, the city seeming to curve around them, around--.

Rodney had himself tested years ago, and he knows, *knows*--

"Oh my God," Rodney whispers, turning to see John surveying the bright room with wary eyes. "It's you."

First thing--Jesus Christ, his life can't get any better.

"All you need to do is think," Rodney says, talking fast. John, two fingers hooked in the back of Rodney's pants, gives him a wary look. "Oh please, Carson can feel it, even if he whines about it too much. Think on, open, activate--hell, just think of something you want, and if the city can give it, it will." Doors are suddenly marvels of ease--no need to work manual locks, they open smooth and wide every time John comes close, corridors lighting up around them, John beginning to grin, and oh God, yes. Of course. Of course John would have the gene. "Okay, we have five minutes to get to the gateroom. What--"

"This way," John says, head turning, and Rodney follows when John lets go, getting a handful of John's shirt to keep him from getting too far away. "We need a better way to communicate."

"Atlantis has a communication grid built by the Ancients that came up when the ATA came online. I've seen examples of the earpieces." The guards use Asgard tech, not compatible with Ancient systems. "If we can get those--"

"It'd be easier," John says, and Rodney opens the laptop still moving, bracing it on one arm as he interfaces with the system.

"There's an armory--thirty feet straight ahead. But we need--"

"Let's see what they have in there," John says, sounding drugged, and Rodney thinks that just maybe, he shouldn't have said armory. But even a zat has its limits, and John's going anyway.

The door opens for John easily, and Rodney takes a second to enjoy the way John glows as he looks at the crates of P-90s in the corner, Berettas and M-16s, C4, grenades, things Rodney doesn't recognize but John does. Reverently, John tucks the zat into his pants, picking up a P-90 with the look of a man in a church. "Christ," John whispers, then slides it on, picking up two more handguns and a bag, dropping weapons and grenades in. "Ammo, ammo--got it," and dropping on his knees, John loads five guns in less time than Rodney to tell him they don't have time. Standing up, John grabs two black vests from a high shelf. "Put this on," he says, and Rodney sighs but puts it on, taking the gun John gives him and waiting as John gets a gun holster and straps it on. "All right," John says, looking almost post-coital standing there, playing gently with a utility knife, expression soft. "Now I feel better. You see those communication thingies?"

Rodney nods, mouth a little dry as he points, and John gets the box down, opening it up and handing one to Rodney before taking one himself. Rodney can hear static until John keys his, another Ancient system coming to life around them.

"This working?" Rodney hears in stereo, and he meets John's eyes with a smile.

"Oh yeah."

John shoves them into a pocket of his jacket and, hooking a hand in Rodney's vest, pulls him into the corridor.

Elizabeth's team took the south entrance, leaving them the north. Conventional Asgard locks held the door closed beneath John's stare, but only barely, and Rodney steps back as John takes out the C-4, setting the timer before backing away, pushing Rodney down the corridor and into the wall, John's body shielding his.

He's almost deaf when John pulls away. Then a jerk, pulling him flat onto the floor when zat beams skim the air above them. John's hand on his chest holds him still.

"Give it a second," John says, slinging the P-90 around, shifting until his back is against the wall. Taking aim, he starts to fire, one bare foot pressed to Rodney's chest, a silent warning to stay down. In the distance, Rodney hears people screaming, but he's not sure who they are. John pauses, peering down the smoky corridor, and Rodney stifles a cough at the smell of burned metal and the byproducts of the explosion filling the air. John's foot presses gently into his waist, nudging him, and Rodney scrambles for the wall, laptop clutched against his chest. "All right. You stay here--"

"You have got to be kidding me," Rodney says, pulling out his gun. John frowns, but nods shortly, standing up and pulling Rodney behind him as they approach the gutted door.

John keeps him back, though, as he peeks inside, but Rodney gets a look at John's smile suddenly bursts out, huge and happy, as he unslings the P-90, takes aim, and fires once. "Hey, Elizabeth. Need some help?" John waves a hand behind him, and Rodney comes up to look over his shoulder.

The gateroom looks like the scene of a massacre, bodies everywhere, Elizabeth lowering a zat with a contented expression while Bates and another man methodically go body to body and put bullets in every head. "Glad you could join us, Sheppard." Her eyes linger on the P-90. "Nice gun."

On the other side of the room, Sumner leans against the wall, a bullet neatly shattering one kneecap, gun forgotten on the floor beside him. Strolling over, John kicks it farther away and places a bare foot against Sumner's chest, Atlantis' lights coming on around him in welcome. "Nice to see you again, Colonel."

John, Bates, and a couple of the more military inclined lead sweeps of the city and check the other prison blocks while Rodney and Grodin secure the gateroom and listen in using the Atlantis communication grid. Carson spends most of his time muttering in a corner until John shows up with Laura Cadman in tow, leaving her to bring Carson into coherence and give them all a little peace and quiet before Rodney shoots Carson himself.

"Sheppard," Rodney says as he starts bringing up the power grids. "You busy?"

The sounds of shooting drown out the response, then Sheppard drawls, "Not really, Rodney. Whatcha need?"

"A muffle for Beckett, but if you can spare the time? I need you to activate a few more things." First thing they need to do is get Carson in his lab and let him go as crazy as he likes. Early testing of the gene treatment on earth had been positive; surely the man retained enough sanity to recreate his work. Preferably now.

A glance at Carson curled up in Laura's lap isn't encouraging, though.

"We're almost done. Found some lifesign detectors in the jumpers."

Rodney rubs a hand across his eyes. This is more activity in a few hours than he's had for years. "What on earth is a jumper?"

The conversation is briefly derailed by another round of gunfire, and then John is back, sounding smug. "For the gate."

"Gateships."

"Those little puddlejumpers?" Rodney can hear the amusement in John's voice. "Hey, can you bring the west pier online?"

Flicking a few keys, Rodney sighs. "Got it. How's it going?"

"We're almost done. Can Grodin get that manifest up? I've done a head count and we're still missing ten, not including the ones in the bays."

"He's decrypting it." Rodney shoots a sour look at Grodin, who winces before going back to his laptop like his life depends on it. Which it does, come to think. "All the blocks open?"

"No." John's voice changes slightly. "Six of them didn't get their heads out of their asses fast enough, so I'm leaving them until we decide what to do with them."

"If I can interrupt, gentlemen?" Elizabeth's voice slips between theirs. "I'd like to see you both." Rodney can hear her moving in her seat. "Have you gotten the gate operational, Rodney?"

"A long time ago," Rodney answers, checking the shield automatically. "What's so important that we need to stop our very important work? I mean, some of us have more to do than lay around and--"

"I thought," Elizabeth says, voice sharpening, "that you both might want a say in what happens next." She pauses significantly, then sighs. "Rodney. We're in this together. Let's figure out what we're going to do before Earth or the mainland figures out what's happened here. Conference room." She keys out, and Rodney hears John's breath release in a soft exhalation of air.

"Wait there for me," John says softly, then keys out, leaving silence behind.

Rodney finishes opening as much of the grid as he can, leaving the locked cell blocks locked, backed with Ancient tech so no one can change that but John. Eighty loose is enough to deal with, he thinks, nodding at Grodin as he gets up, just in time for John and Bates to emerge from the top level. At some point, Bates had acquired serious weaponry and a vest, looking crazier than usual. Unhooking his laptop, Rodney tucks it under one arm and follows them up into the conference room.

Elizabeth and the Athosian, Teyla, are already seated, and as John slums into the chair beside him, Bates on his other side, Rodney begins to wonder exactly what Elizabeth means about what comes next.

As it turns out, she's talking more than the mainland.

"They could send hyper drive ships," John says, while Bates and Teyla stare each other down across the length of the conference room table and are no help at all. Opening his laptop, Rodney hacks into the administrative database.

"If the Ori don't occupy them," Elizabeth says a little dreamily, then shakes her head. "The Daedalus is scheduled to arrive in less than a month--"

"Twenty two days," Rodney says, pulling up the manifests that Grodin has finally managed to decrypt. "The mainland's going to figure out something's wrong in a few hours. Grodin's playing at communication officer, but they're going to notice when second shift arrives, if they don't get around to wondering what the hell happened to third shift."

"Mainland facilities don't have a lot of tech," John says unexpectedly, and Rodney turns to see the hazel eyes are almost green with excitement. "Hey, I read up, okay? Not like there's that much to do waiting for sentencing." Stretching, John relaxes back into his chair. "Conventional weapons, nothing we can't handle."

"Except numbers," Elizabeth says sourly.

"And ten thousand prisoners." John grins, and the lights seem to glow with him. Christ, when he gets John alone…. "Give or take a few I really don't see us needing out here."

Elizabeth folds both hands on the table, erect and focused. "You have something in mind."

"I think," John says, waving expansively, "that if Earth is having issues, we don't need to go back there. Tell her about Pegasus, Rodney, the original survey."

Rodney flicks up a screen. "Mostly pre-industrial, a few pushing into early fifties technology, a couple of others doing something vaguely at our level of development, but let's put it this way--nothing we can't handle. Surprisingly low population density, considering the abundance of livable worlds." Looking up, Rodney catches a fond look on John's face. "Easy."

Elizabeth nods, leaning back in her chair with a satisfied expression. "Teyla and I were considering something very similar." Crossing her arms, Elizabeth smiles. "It's a whole new galaxy, gentlemen. Teyla's informed me that Earth forced her people from their rightful planet, and she's very interested in seeing if what we can do to--rectify that. They have many contacts throughout the galaxy that they'd be happy to share with us."

"A whole new galaxy," John echoes, elbow braced on the table. "And I take it Teyla wants to be on the winning side?"

Teyla's eyes narrow, but Elizabeth's hand on her arm stops her in place. "You suddenly object to allies?"

"Not at all." But John smiles then, leaning forward to look at Teyla in a way Rodney does not find amusing at all. "I heard about your work all the way across the galaxy, Teyla. You and Halling have quite a reputation here, don't you?"

Teyla's head tilts. At least she's bright enough to hear the implied compliment. "We do not tolerate weakness." Unlike humans, she seems to imply, with a glance at Rodney that speaks volumes.

"And the Athosians are willing to make an alliance with us?"

Teyla hesitates, then nods slowly. "For now, it would seem the wisest course." Her eyes flicker to Elizabeth. "If you indeed plan to stay."

Elizabeth looks between them with the look of a woman whose negotiations have gone extremely well, head tilting before she stands up. Dressed in the blood and dirt stained prison uniform, dark hair ragged around her thin face, she still manages to capture the attention of the entire room. "Ten thousand years ago, Atlantis ruled the Pegasus galaxy from this city." The dark eyes brighten, like John with weapons, like Rodney feels every time he creates a new bomb. "They left it and lost it. We won't make that mistake."

And Rodney knows exactly why Elizabeth Weir was locked up here; he can trace it in the glaze of John's eyes, Teyla's fierce agreement, even Bates' startled, absorbed attention. She created her own cult and built her own country, negotiated with the Goa'uld and the Ori, stood before more international courts than he can count and they let her off scot-free, every time. A woman that scared the Milky Way so badly the tried her in space and sent her across the galaxy to silence her. Even Rodney's caught in her certainty, but he reaches over, sliding a hand over John's thigh, jerking him back into the room, reminder and warning both.

John's eyes flicker, giving him a quick glance of understanding before his eyes slip back to Elizabeth.

"What do you say, gentleman? Let's see what Pegasus has to offer."

John follows Rodney willingly as they scout for clothes, leaving Grodin and Kusanagi to take care of keeping the mainland oblivious to problems. The latest excuse is repowering the jumpers, which is completely plausible only if you know nothing about Ancient technology.

Apparently, the mainland is filled with idiots.

The private quarters are easy to open with John wandering down the halls, and Rodney's greeted with comfortable looking beds, sofas, huge windows spilling early morning light in squares all over the floor. For a second, Rodney thinks bitterly of his tiny, cold room, the hard surface of his cot, then turns around, pulling John inside, the door sliding shut behind him.

"Rodney--" John says, but Rodney pulls at the vest until John moves, letting Rodney push him down on the bed. Instantly, John's eyes dilate, spreading his knees slightly before Rodney steps between them, pulling the vest sharply over his head.

John has weapons everywhere, Rodney discovers, working open the thigh holster with fingers that aren't as steady as he wants, running his palm up John's inner thigh after, feeling the tip of a small knife beneath the thin material. Another one at the small of his back beneath his shirt, slicing his finger open on the razor-sharp blade, and an ankle holster holds another one. "Christ, John--"

John licks the blood away, sucking Rodney's finger, eyes going even darker, and his mouth makes Rodney think of how it will feel around his cock. They hadn't gotten too creative in the cell, but now, now….

John raises his arms as Rodney jerks off the filthy top, taking in the collection of scars on his chest before straddling his lap. Tangling his fingers in John's hair, he jerks John's head back. "What's with you and Elizabeth?"

John smirks up at him. "I like her."

Rodney snorts softly, but the odd coiling in his gut begins to ease at the smile in John's eyes. "Really?"

"She's good at this sort of thing," John says reasonably, which is true. "Why? You want Atlantis?" Rodney tightens his hold, trying ignore the flare of heat from John's easy words, the press of John's cock against his belly.

"You do, don't you?" And does he? "You can have it," John whispers, and Rodney rides the buck of hips beneath him, trying to ignore the rush. Atlantis. "I'll take care of it for you. Go out, put a bullet in Liz's head. Teyla's too. Anyone you want. Everyone you want. Everyone here, if you want me to." And Christ, that's hot, the image of sending John to the control room and watching him take them out one by one. That John would *do that* if he told him to, then come back here and stretch out on this comfortable bed, just for Rodney. It's as good as a ZPM, a nuclear explosion in unprotected atmosphere, better even than the anticipation of watching Zelenka die.

And such a bad idea. "I want it," Rodney admits reluctantly as John's hands close over his hips. "But we need her."

John's head cocks slightly and Rodney softens his hold, leaning down to brush a slow kiss over John's parted lips, tasting copper and salt and the warmth of John's perfect mouth. Pulling back, he slides one hand to rest on the back of John's neck. "She's good at this," Rodney agrees, closing his eyes when John's mouth presses against his throat, soft and wet. "And if we're going to pull this off, we need her." The woman who could get the Goa'uld to cut a deal wasn't someone that Rodney ever wanted to be on the wrong side of this side of the grave.

Rodney thinks dizzily of the labs he only glimpsed, the massive databases, years of research ahead of him, freedom suddenly hitting him like a speedball. "God. We can do anything." He grinds down into John's lap and feels teeth graze his throat. "Harder."

John obliges, and Rodney tilts his head back as teeth sink into the side of his throat. "Anything," Rodney says dizzily, fingers digging into the back of John's neck. "Where's Sumner?"

"Locked up," John says against his skin, then he pulls his head back, grinning up at him. "I thought we might need some information. Just in case."

"How's his knee?" Rodney asks, pressing his forehead against John's.

"Which one?"

"Christ." Kissing John, Rodney pushes him back on the bed. They don't have time for much, but he doesn't need all that much. Pull John's pants off, swallow him down quick and dirty, feel him shiver beneath Rodney's hands, unstringing his words into meaningless pleas and promises, drive him out of his mind, wiping out Elizabeth's speech and Sumner's touch, remind him--

Rodney loves his work, loves the bombs he's built, the power contained in a single red and gold cylinder that he's created, the potential to end a galaxy that can be held in the palm of his hand, and John's all of those things rolled into one. Destruction and power condensed and refined, wrapped in addictive skin, beautiful and dangerous and perfect and his. Rodney holds John down when he comes, salty and bitter, climbs up to rub his cock against John's bare skin, John's fingers leaving bruises on his thighs, and God, everyone that sees them will know what they've been doing, what Rodney does to the man who terrorized a planet before he was brought down.

Mine, Rodney says against John's lips when he comes, the world exploding in silver white heat around him, looking into eyes as green as new leaves that know him better than anyone he's ever met.

"We won't always need Elizabeth," John says softly, and Rodney lifts his head, meeting John's smile.

"No, we won't."

Rodney leaves John to shower alone, suspecting that if he stays, very little showering will get done. Finding a spare science uniform, he pulls it on and wanders back to the gateroom, checking Grodin's work and smirking at the way Grodin fumbles the laptop when Rodney comes up behind him.

"They suspect anything?" he asks, setting up his laptop.

"They're not suspicious, but they seem--distracted." Grodin frowns down at some readings, making an adjustment in power flow to the east pier before continuing. "I think--" He pauses, frown deepening. "They ask a lot about a transmission from Earth. I think they suspect that Sumner received one and has not informed them."

"Hmm." Rodney watches the screen of his laptop blankly. "Find the transmissions log and hack Sumner's files. I'd like to know what's making them so nervous." Stretching his fingers, Rodney opens up the weapons system diagnostics to see what they have to work with.

"So do you have a plan, Sheppard?" Elizabeth's voice cuts through the quiet room, and Rodney turns to see John slumped against the stair rails, arms crossed, smirking up at her. Clean and still damp from the shower, he'd changed into a black t-shirt and the standard pants of the guards, issue boots though John made them look a little indecent and a little messy. Rodney tries not to stare at the gun at his thigh or slung across his back, and fails.

"Always." Picking up the bag and the vest at his feet, he comes to abrupt attention with a mocking look. "Atlantis' third shift is reporting to the mainland."

Elizabeth raises an eyebrow. "Who's going with you?"

"Bates, a couple of the others. We only need enough time to land inside." John pauses, giving Elizabeth an expectant look. "And Rodney to shut down their computers enough for the forcefields to be deactivated."

At Elizabeth's look, Rodney shrugs. "I could do it in my sleep. They're not going to worry about activity from Atlantis until it's too late."

Elizabeth's mouth twists, but she doesn't seem displeased. "What's my guarantee you don't use them and turn on me?"

John shrugs expansively, still watching her with the same mocking smile. "The same as mine that you won't raise the shields the second I leave. I'm taking it on faith." And the fact that Rodney's encrypted the shields to his personal code. John's head tilts. "Rodney'll keep in constant touch and you can listen in on communications. I'll need up to date sensor information and Rodney can hack into their mainframe."

"It's not a hack if they don't even bother to protect it," Rodney says disparagingly. ''And since when am I staying here anyway?"

"Since this is grunt work and not for someone of your elevated intellect," John says with a warmer smile, eyebrow raised. "I need floor plans, guard deployment, armory locations--"

"You mean everything."

"Pretty much."

Elizabeth nods thoughtfully. "You're taking one of the gateships?"

"Puddlejumpers," John answers, pulling on the vest. "Yeah."

"What makes you think you can fly Ancient tech? You haven't been in the air for a while, Sheppard."

Sheppard's head tilts slightly, eyebrows raised in amusement. "Elizabeth. If it flies, I can fly it." Draping the bag over his shoulder, he gives her a jaunty salute that somehow manages to include Teyla. "With your permission, Doctor Weir?"

Elizabeth grins back, and Rodney's struck again how she turns that on. No fucking wonder people would die for her. "Have fun. Bring me back a surprise."

"I'll bring you back a planet."

The 'jumper--God, only John could think up something like that--flies like John's been in them all his life, and Rodney fights off an inconvenient erection as he pulls up everything Atlantis has on the mainland facilities.

Beside him, Elizabeth's pulled up a chair, comm in her ear as John has small, terribly public orgasms over a mind controlled ship and does nothing for Rodney's self-control. "This thing--" John says, voice husky, "--it's like--"

"It's reading your mind," Rodney says dryly. "Duh."

"Better," John says, voice dropping, and Rodney gives Elizabeth a sideways glance, watching her cheeks slowly flush. Uh huh. "You have got to try this. There's nothing like it."

Rodney thinks of Laura leading Carson off to the infirmary to help him relax. He needs familiar surroundings, she had said with glittering eyes, which might mean Carson just wants time to feel up the instruments, but also might mean she's going to go pull a prisoner or two from the locked cellblocks and let him indulge in a little nostalgia.

Gene therapy, he told her sharply, and she'd smiled, head cocked, and wandered away, Carson in tow. "Have you thought about what to do with the rest of the prisoners?" Rodney asks sharply, and Elizabeth's gaze clears, eyes snapping to him. He wants to say, keep your hands off John (it's not like he doesn't know what she does with her followers), but it might be a little premature to worry. After all, she has Teyla to occupy her.

Tapping her fingers on the edge of the console, Elizabeth looks thoughtful. "Keeping two hundred people under control--much less the addition of whoever we want from the mainland--won't be easy." Hell, keeping control of themselves is hard enough. Rodney's holding out on the labs by the skin of his teeth. That's a few too many brilliant, dangerous people trapped in one area, and Rodney thinks uneasily of the blocks filled with ex-military.

"John scares them," he offers, pulling up blueprints as John makes a pornographic sound when the jumper does new. "Christ, John, we're trying to think here."

"Yeah," John drawls thickly. "And that's not enough, if we're still talking control."

"You have any suggestions?"

"Several, but I think you can figure out the easiest way to control Pavlov's dog."

Rodney stops short. "Huh." Looking away from the laptop screen, Rodney sees Elizabeth's curious gaze. "Pavlov was--"

"I know who Pavlov is," she says sharply, arms crossed, but she looks intrigued. "You mean conditioning."

"I mean if our resident genius can engineer us up a small neural interface, we'll have a lot less problems with population control," John says, amused.

"An implant," Rodney says, intrigued despite himself. At Elizabeth's raised eyebrows, Rodney feels himself begin to grin. "It's pretty easy, actually. Small bit of Ancient tech, set to react to certain--unhealthy neural impulses. With a manual switch, of course, for more direct action, but--hmm. The Ancient tech all uses a neural interface--that's why John's getting himself off just sitting in the pilot's seat right now."

"Hey!" But it's not like it's not true.

"A little refining, we can use it as a more--direct form of control." Now that he thinks about it, Rodney's pretty sure he saw this episode of Star Trek.

"Can you make it?"

"Making it isn't the problem. That's a lot of data even for Ancient computers to calculate. But if the majority was manual control--it'd be a good way to silence dissent." And keep the science staff's collective mouths *shut*. "Hey, by the way, John? Block C, section eight--Gaul, Kavanagh, Simpson. I want them back in one piece, if possible."

John snorts softly. "They'll be wrapped up all neat in a package just for you. I have visual contact--anything in their communications?"

Rodney glances at Grodin, who shakes his head. "Nope. You're clear. I assume you have a plan and not just running out screaming and shooting your gun?"

"There are some explosions, and a few concussion grenades, but that's the gist." John's good mood is contagious--Rodney catches himself smiling and forces it down when he feels Elizabeth's gaze. "They seem to want me at the west landing. Good or bad?"

"Um, give me a sec--good. One armory, all general administrative and private quarters, nothing interesting. Go ahead and blow that, you won't lose anything we'll need. I should have their computers wiped before they blow anyway. First goal will be block A, lower priority prisoners." Glancing at a manifest, Rodney sighs. "And no one terribly interesting there, either. Blocks C, F, G, H--"

"M," Elizabeth says quietly.

"M, K, and looks like--your Lorne is in Y. Let's keep those intact. You have the lifesign detector?"

"Got it." John's glee is contagious.

Rodney watches until Grodin gives him a quick nod. "Okay, you're in communications range."

"Cool." John pauses. "All right, communication blackout until we're inside. Three minutes. See you on the other side." The radio goes dead, and Rodney sits back, startled with the sudden sense of loss.

John's fine, John's the best at what he does, but--

He's startled by Elizabeth's hand on his shoulder, and turning, he looks into serious brown eyes.

"He'll be fine," she says softly, and Rodney thinks of John's warm hazel eyes and quick, capable hands and nods.

"I know."

It'll be the longest three minutes of his life.

John doesn't waste time on dramatics--three minutes on the dot, the gateroom is introduced to the sound of something blowing up, a rain of gunfire, and John Sheppard drawling, "Miss me?"

Rodney breathes out and catches Elizabeth doing the same thing. It's weirdly comforting. "Not really. Please tell me you're actually getting work done, not blowing up things for fun."

"I live for my work." There's a pause, and Rodney thinks he hears Bates in the distance. "Right, go for it, but don't do anything stupid. Drop the forcefields, Rodney."

"All at once?" But Rodney's already pulling up the screens. "Or systematic?"

John seems to take a few seconds to think and commit homicide before answering, if the sound of a P-90 is anything to go by. "All of them. One third staff terminated during the initial explosion. A breakout should take care of the rest of them." Even from here, Rodney can see his head shake. "Stupid. No defensive measures in the administrative residential area at all. I could have walked in with a pipe bomb. Have you got all the computer stuff you need? Bates is setting the C4 now."

Rodney glances at Elizabeth, who's already nodding. "Go for it."

There's a brief silence livened only by gunfire, and Rodney weirdly wishes he were there with them. And that's just crazy.

The explosion is loud enough to knock both him and Weir back in their chairs, and Rodney grabs for the earpiece, massaging the skin at the back of his ear where he still thinks he can feel the vibrations. "What the hell, Sheppard?"

From somewhere distant--probably the result of permanent damage to his eardrums--Rodney hears, "Cool." Then, "Hey, you Kusanagi? No? Too bad."

Turning his head, Rodney sees Elizabeth shake her head ruefully, but she's smiling. "John," she says, "don't eliminate the other prisoners if you can avoid it. We may need their skills." Or other things, she doesn't say, but she watched Carson going off to the infirmary. And it's not like a lot of the guards survived John and Bates.

"I'm not," John says, sounding aggrieved. "I'm sending them outside to wait. Hey, Block C--and let me say, these are the worst guards I've ever seen in my life--"

"And how many prisons have you been in?" Rodney asks, thinking that soon, he should think of pulling up John's file.

"Eight, if you don't include the Asgard brigs." John pauses. "Now they understood security."

"You still got out." Faintly, Rodney remembers hearing about that on the news, but at the time, he'd been a little busy in court.

"Anyone but me wouldn't have." Because John can kill easily and fly anything that could get in the air. Rodney still wonders what John did with that Asgard cruiser. It's not like that's a subtle machine to have lying around. "Okay, we're wrapping this up. I'm getting bored." John sighs, sounding faintly disappointed, and Rodney hears the sound of many feet running, fairly close, followed by gunfire. The lack of screaming tells Rodney this must be Bates' idea of incentive for them to move quickly. "Their systems are toast, if there are guards left there won't be much longer, and I'm starving. I say let them fight this out and we'll check out whose left. Rodney, Liz, I need a list of your people--"

"All of M," Elizabeth says steadily, hands clasped in her lap, eyes shining.

"Gaul," Rodney says, searching his memory for the name. "Simpson, Kavanagh, some other people--Simpson knows, she'll tell you who else to bring back. You'll need another jumper--"

"I can take forty," John says easily, "the way I'll be carrying them. Liz, what, twenty of yours, hey, Lorne!" Another burst of gunfire. The screams are becoming enough to give Rodney a headache. "All right. Packing everyone up for home. They'll be unconscious, so have someone down there with the sedatives and get some cells opened up. I'm not risking them out and about until we have population control ready. You up for some fast and dirty inventing, McKay?"

Rodney grins, leaning back in his chair. "Please. Give me an actual challenge." He pauses to listen to John giving orders. "How long?"

Someone who is definitely not Bates says something about weapons, which John replies to with a grunt and, "Sure. Why not?" Another pause, longer this time. "All right, should be finished in about two hours," John says. "We'll do a quick sweep for supplies and weapons. Anything in their inventories you just have to have?"

Rodney thinks about it. "Bring all the computers that aren't damaged. Any Ancient tech--that means, anything that makes pretty lights when you go near it." Rodney smirks at John's snort. "Anything that looks interesting."

"Got it."

"And come by Lab A when you get back. We'll look at some options while Elizabeth does orientation for the new arrivals. And the ones still locked up for that matter."

Elizabeth gives him a sideways glance but nods affirmation. "Good job, John. Bring them home."

"Yes, ma'am," John says jauntily. Rodney can almost see him salute. "See you later."

When John signs off, Elizabeth straightens, shaking her head. "That was--faster than I expected."

Rodney watches her smooth down the front of the prison uniform, mouth pursing as she hits a patch of dried blood, picking at the loose waist with a frown. "Hoped it would be harder?"

The dark eyes fix on him, one eyebrow arching. "I'm not stupid, Dr. McKay," Elizabeth says steadily. "I can't run this place alone."

"Maybe you can with your people from the mainland." Though he doubts it. Elizabeth tended to attract religious zealots, failed sociologists, South American guerrillas without a leader, and terrorists in need of a cause. Getting competent security had always been a problem of hers. "I'm monitoring all computer activity until they're back."

"And if you know my file--which I presume at some point, you have read--you know I don't have a background in Ancient tech. Relax, Rodney. At least give me the benefit of the doubt until I have people here." With a quick, charming smile, she moves off, dusting her hands against her pants. "Where are supplies? I need to change."

"Near the mess," Rodney says, glancing at his laptop and tapping a few keys. "Or try quarters. All the doors should be open."

"Thanks." With another smile, she heads to Sumner's former office.

Beside him, Grodin tenses. "I don't trust her."

"Never trust the soft sciences or a beautiful woman who can speak Goa'uld," Rodney says sharply. "Monitor her, tell me where she goes, what she does, and how she does it. I'll be in my lab. Anything goes wrong and you fuck up, we'll test out the gate's power levels on you first." Standing up, Rodney unplugs the laptop. "Radio me when Sheppard's back in the city."

"Aye aye, sir."

Rodney can't help the smirk as he turns away. "I knew I kept you alive for a reason."

John reports as ordered, still slick with blood and black-streaked from the fires, grinning from ear to ear as he hops onto the lab table, thrumming with energy. He makes Rodney tired just looking at him. "Whatcha got?"

Christ, is he never not attractive? "You didn't shower," Rodney hears himself say, reaching out despite himself to rest a hand on one dirty knee.

"Did you want me to?" John's smile widens, then he reaches across, tapping Rodney's screen. "You have something."

"Kind of." Pulling his attention from John, Rodney frowns. "It's a little crude, but I can make something better when we've got things under control. This," he says, pointing at the screen, "is the program the Ancients used for interface with the computer. It reads intent--in a very, very general way. Luckily, this variation doesn't require the gene. But this part--" Rodney points to his own quickly added code, "is a little different. It has a direct link to the brain and sends very specific signals to certain sections."

John's eyes light up a little as he reads it. "If I'm reading this right, you plugged into the pleasure and pain centers."

"Set to certain unpleasant intentions, and a manual control and override," Rodney says, enjoying John's pleasure. It's always nice to be appreciated. "It can be individual, group--I'm going to need Carson to double check and help design the actual delivery method and the best place for implantation. Once it's in, in the best of all worlds, it should fuse to the spinal column. Not easy to remove."

John's eyes widen. "Wow."

Rodney crosses his arms, feeling smug. "What you were looking for, hotshot?"

"Pretty much read my mind." With another grin, John hops off the lab counter. "Everyone's tucked into a cell nice and tidy, and last I saw, Elizabeth was telling them how they're part of a grand new adventure or something." Scratching the back of his head, John frowns as blood flakes off. "She's good."

"That she is." Finishing up, Rodney saves and closes the laptop. "Grodin's watching her."

"So's Lorne." John's eyes flicker over him. "You're frowning."

"Lorne's not with the others? You trust him that much?"

John raises an eyebrow. "Guess who sold an Asgard cruiser on the black market?" With another smirk, John shrugs. "Bates is with him, and yes, I trust them both that much. If I didn't, I wouldn't have gotten him out."

Rodney stares until John sighs, rubbing his neck. "If they so much as twitch the wrong direction, I'll shoot them myself, okay? Now. We have a little time while the new people are locked up and briefed on the situation. Let's get some sleep before Elizabeth wants to start a crusade or something."

Rodney frowns but lets it go, making a mental note to get Grodin to watch Lorne as well. "But the lab--" God, all around him. The computers are *fast* and he hasn't even scratched the surface of the databases.

"And food," John says, a hand sliding under his elbow and pulling him unresistingly toward the door. "We don't have kitchen staff anymore--and hey, we should do something about that--but there's a lifetime supply of MREs." The doors open for John with a liquid slide, and Rodney tries hard not to envy him the ease of use. "And I need a shower," John says, frowning down at his shirt. Rodney brushes his fingers across the front, feeling the stiffness of the material. "Seriously."

They go back to the room they'd originally appropriated, and Rodney sets himself to methodically searching it for anything interesting. A laptop, some photos, a hidden cache of candy, an impersonal room, but then, guards didn't stay here long. Stripping the sheets and blankets, Rodney finds clean linens and remakes the bed, then tosses a pile of unearthed clothes at the foot of the bed for John to go through. He seems attracted to the monochrome look.

Pilling the discards in the corner, Rodney sits down with peanut butter cups and a considerably improved frame of mind after a quick chat with Grodin, listening for the shower to turn off. John comes out wrapped in a towel, and free of dirt, Rodney can see the exhaustion coating him like a second skin. Drying his hair, John surveys the pile of clothes with disfavor. "Ford's started hyperventilating. I should think about feeding him."

"He can wait." Sitting back on the bed, Rodney watches John dress, approving of the lack of underwear. "Hurry."

"Anything from Cadman about Carson? Speaking in full sentences yet?"

Rodney thinks of the two missing guards from where John had the few survivors stashed. "He's probably fine." John snickers softly as he sits down to pull on his boots, so Rodney guesses he must know, too. "Done? Food? You mentioned it? I'm holding you to it."

"Got it." Grabbing his holster, John straps it on, and Rodney takes a few seconds to watch John arm himself like someone about to engage in single combat with a battalion. "I'm thinking we need to--hmm." John stops thoughtfully, head tilting as he looks at Rodney.

"What?" Standing up, Rodney palms the door open, hoping John will follow. Suddenly, food seems like the most appealing thing in the world.

"Just hmm." John follows him, though, eyes flickering down both sides of the hallway. "The SGC on Athos. They check in here pretty regularly."

Rodney stops, catching John's wrist. "How do you know that?"

"About once a week," John continues, eyebrows raised as he tilts his head. "Or so."

Oh. That's how. "They checked in at night?"

"Athos evening, something with the regular gate cycles." John pulls gently, and Rodney starts moving. "So should be today sometime. You break Sumner's files yet?"

And no, they haven't, and Rodney can't even fairly blame it on Grodin, though he thinks he might anyway. "Not yet. We have access to the computer core, but not the command codes, either. I've disabled all the SGC protocols I can find, but that doesn't mean they didn't leave a nasty surprise somewhere. Do they actually--is it communication or visit?"

John shrugs. "He leaves, but that doesn't mean much. It never took long, so probably databurst for a report to Earth." Turning the corner, John eyes a vaguely familiar man hurrying by them with a wary expression, shoulders hunched, like if he moves fast enough and small enough, they won't notice him. Rodney makes a mental note on his list to find out who he is, locking the face in his memory. "Hmm. Actually, there was more than one last week," John continues, steering them down another corridor. How the hell John is finding his way is anyone's guess--Rodney's got the route between the gateroom, his new lab, and their quarters and hasn't tried deviating yet. The abject humiliation of having to call Grodin to help him find his way around Atlantis tends to defeat his curiosity.

"More than one?" Something on Earth, maybe. As they turn into the wide mess hall doors, Rodney takes a second to appreciate the huge windows and wide open spaces, stepping over a body and ignoring the smell of spoiling food. Keying his radio, Rodney follows John into the kitchen. "Grodin? Sumner's files. I want everything he has, and find all transmissions between here and earth and here and Athos. Something could be going on, and I'd kind of like to know before it shows up and screws us."

"Yes, sir," Grodin says, not sounding mocking at all, but Rodney bets he's rolling his eyes. "I need another tech up here--"

"Get--God. I don't know. Probably lost by now. That little Asian girl--get her up to help."

"And she's--"

"What's her name?" John says, touching his own radio. Rodney's blank--she worked in his lab, but damned if he knows much more than that.

"Miko," Grodin says, and Rodney passes it on. "Miko."

"Bates? Do a floor to floor, little Asian girl, Miko, get her to the gateroom to help Grodin."

"Got it."

Keying his radio off, John sighs, looking around at the food--*God*, real food, not the crap they've been serving them the last month. "The bastards were holding out on us," John says, and grins. "Come on. I want to sleep before Elizabeth decides she wants a holy war."

John gets about two hours, mostly due to Rodney taking his radio and hiding it as soon as he drifts off, one arm slung across Rodney's waist, head buried against his shoulder. If there's an emergency, and only if there's an emergency, Grodin will call, and Rodney's not sure if Bates or this Lorne know the difference.

"Anything with Elizabeth?" Rodney whispers, but John pretty much sleeps like a brick when Rodney's there, so there's not much chance he'll wake up to his voice.

"Still talking. Glorious age, bright future, she's been at it for hours." Grodin sighs. "There were references to revered Ancestors, but that could be for Teyla's benefit. Miko's taken over decryption--she's better at it than I am."

Hmm. Possibly true. "She make any progress?"

"Short databursts, she says. Something about potential communication blackout, but without context…" Grodin trails off and Rodney nods, feeling John shift against him, nuzzling sleepily before drifting off again.

"Right. Keep me informed what she comes up with. Athos is calling in this evening and I'd like to be ready for them." Carding his fingers through John's hair, Rodney thinks of his lab, but he can't quite find the motivation to get up just yet.

"Will do." Communications cut, Rodney closes his eyes, drifting off to the sound of John's slow, even breathing, the warmth of his body, and the fact that environmentals are back at normal and they don't live in a meat locker anymore.

They open again at the sound of a pounding at the door.

"What the--" Sitting up, Rodney shifts John over, mumbling unhappily, and grabs his pants, jerking them on as he goes to the door. Palming it open, he comes face to face with a man he doesn't recognize but guesses maybe he should. From the startled look on his face, and the way he cranes his neck to look over Rodney's shoulder, he's going to go out on a limb and guess this is Lorne.

"I'm looking for Sheppard," Lorne says, about to push by. Setting himself in the door, Rodney pushes him back.

"And that would be a no, he's sleeping," he says, "and what the hell is--"

A fist wound in the top of his shirt stops the flow of words, pushing him up against the wall, and Rodney has just enough time to think, bad idea, before the sound of a gun cocking cuts through the room like a bullet.

"Let go."

Lorne drops him like a sack of potatoes. Rodney catches himself on a knee and a hand, rubbing his throat and looking up to see John sitting up, perfectly awake, a gun pointed at Lorne's head with very, very little chance of missing.

"Sheppard--"

"Step back." Lorne takes a slow step back, arms out, no sudden moves here, and Rodney pushes himself up, shaking his head a little. John's eyes flicker over him briefly before fixing on Lorne again. "You okay, Rodney?"

Rodney takes a few seconds to think about it, wondering if John will shoot if he says no. From the look on his face, there's a very good chance he will.

It's tempting. But. "Fine. Though if your friends are going to visit, maybe they could, I don't know, *learn some manners*--"

"We're going to have a talk about that," John says pleasantly, and even from the wall, Rodney can see his finger on the trigger. A twitch and Lorne will be a dead man. "Wait outside, Lorne."

Lorne takes another step back, eyes never leaving the gun, and the door closes with a satisfying slap of Rodney's palm. "So, that's Lorne?"

John sighs, uncocking the gun and lowering it to the bed. "Lorne. You sure you're okay?" Crawling out of bed, John walks over, thumbs pressing beneath Rodney's jaw, tilting his head up, peering at his throat for a few seconds before gentle fingers trace the sides of his neck. "You seem okay. What did he want?"

"Didn't tell me," Rodney huffs, but he leans into the touch anyway. "I'm going to like him, huh?"

"When I get done with him, you will like him a lot," John says with a smile, brushing a quick kiss against Rodney's mouth. "Or you won't see him again." Stepping back, John dresses quickly, frowning as he searches for his radio. "McKay--"

"In the bedside drawer."

"Right." Taking it out, John shakes his head. "Okay, I'm going to go chat with Lorne and see if Elizabeth's still having a religious experience. You need anything?"

"Athos should check in soon, so I'm going to the gateroom. If it's just communications, we should be good. If they want to visit--"

"We'll let Teyla have them." With a brush of fingers against his shoulder, John backs toward the door. "Tell me when they call in. I want to hear it." With another smile, John goes out, and Rodney gets a satisfying glimpse of Lorne's pale face before the door shuts between them.

Sitting down, he picks up his shoes and keys his radio. "Grodin, I'm coming up. Have everything Miko's done ready for review. Also, thought. When I said, keep an eye on Lorne, what did you think that meant? Not telling me when he appeared at my door?"

Grodin's quiet for a long second. "Dr. McKay--"

"You're fucking lucky I don't have anyone else right now. That will change. McKay out."

Rodney spends most of the night with Grodin, disabling the SGC protections and defenses, slowly stripping out command level code inch by painful inch. The SGC had never been able to achieve a good interface with the Ancient computers, so the massive databases and upper level computer functions were relatively clean, leaving Rodney to start rebuilding new protocols from scratch. His fingers remember better than he does, pulling Miko from decryption to start work on the laptops that need to be evaluated, setting up a network between them to back them up into a single secure area before starting the process of wiping them clean. SGC runs with Asgard and Nox protections, and Rodney's brilliant, but that doesn't mean he wants to spend the next year trying to wipe them out if they trip a defense code.

Weapons control, environmental, defense, sensors, power consumption, and Rodney grits his teeth at the dazzling information just beyond his fingertips and forces himself to move on, not look too closely. He has time. God, does he have time.

Elizabeth comes in for a little while, Bates at her elbow, and they talk supplies and scenarios for contact with Earth while Rodney personally vets each laptop Miko finishes, writing new protocols to keep the city running until he can get one of his programmers down here to work on an entirely new interface.

"They just copied the database," Rodney tells Elizabeth as she watches over his shoulder. "Didn't bother with setting up any kind of reasonable interface here, since they didn't need to."

"I'm almost surprised they didn't wipe the entire database," Elizabeth says softly, eyes on the screen.

"No need. The Ancients were big fans of overkill--lots of extra space." Backing up another laptop into an isolated section of the network, Rodney start reconfiguring, and Elizabeth leaves again, Bates a shadow behind her. Rodney doesn't think she's fooled by John's bland statement of security, though it's that, too, but she hasn't said anything yet.

Six hours in, Rodney frowns at his watch and touches his radio. "John?"

There's a pause. "Sheppard here" He sounds breathless, and Rodney feels something tighten in his chest as he pushes the laptop away. "Problem?"

"Where are you?"

"The gym." John laughs suddenly, and in the background, Rodney can hear other voices-a lot of voices. "Setting up security teams, that sort of thing. Teyla's been demonstrating how thoroughly she can kick my ass." The sound of a body hitting something that's not quite floor interrupts, and over the radio, Rodney can hear John's breathing, fast and light. "Lorne's now enjoying quality floor time. Everything okay up there?"

Rodney frowns at the laptop screen. "Just a lot to do," he says, which doesn't explain why he's wasting time on the radio when he could be working. "Athos hasn't called in yet."

"How's Carson coming along on the implant?"

Rodney snorts. "He's not an engineer, but he's working. I'll check on him. Look, I get we need to keep the population low, but if we want to actually use this city, I've got to get more people.

"I can get them," John says easily. "Gateroom okay? I'll bring them up. Which ones?"

Rodney mentally maps the distance between the cells and the gateroom. It would be faster if he went to the labs, but-- "Gaul. Simpson. Going to have a little talk?"

Even through the radio, Rodney can hear the smile in John's voice. "A little explanation of the rules. There's some ankle monitors they used on prisoners when taking them offworld on work detail or transported on the Daedalus. They'll do for a short term solution with small groups. Check security and see if there's a way to flag specific people so you don't have to have them directly under your eye, or I can get a couple of people to watch them."

Rodney doesn't seriously think that any of his people, after seeing John, will do more than nod hysterically and promise whatever the hell he wants as long as he puts down his gun, but John's got a point. "Right," Rodney says dryly, catching Grodin's eye. "Have fun with that. I'm going to my lab and then check up on Carson. Radio me if anything interesting happens."

"Got it. Sheppard out.." The radio clicks off on the sound of Teyla's voice calling for John, and Rodney watches Grodin's head jerk down, concentrating on his screen as if it holds the secret to cold fusion. "Peter."

Grodin stiffens. "Dr. McKay-"

"You didn't survive Colorado because I'm sentimental." Rodney waits for Grodin's fingers to twitch, slipping off the keys. "Simpson and Gaul will be up here soon, and that makes you expendable. I need scientists, but I can live with being short staffed. Do we understand each other?"

Grodin lowers his chin, eyes downcast. "Understood, Dr. McKay."

"Good. When Simpson and Gaul get up here, brief them and get them started. Sheppard wants security flagging on them. Find a way for the computer to identify them automatically. I'll be in the infirmary. Keep me informed."

Carson, for a miracle, almost passes for normal in fresh scrubs and a white lab coat, various bottles and beakers in neat lines across the shelves. Something's in the incubation oven, but Rodney honestly does not want to know what. "Carson?"

Carson turns around with a wide grin. Laura's not in evidence, but Rodney remembers vaguely that she's former Marine and Sheppard had probably picked her up for security. Coming around the bed, Rodney glances into the isolation ward window briefly and then turns away before he sees anything he might regret. "Thought you'd be lost in the databases," Carson says jovially, washing his hands in an Ancient sink. Rodney watches bloody water swirl down the drain with a flicker of bitterness as the water turns off at a thought. Carson has the gene. John has the gene. Rodney thinks he could get heartily tired with not having the gene very, very fast.

"Rodney?" Carson says, and Rodney jerks his attention back to Carson. "Do you need something?"

"A lot, and I need it yesterday." God, it's been twenty four hours since this started and he's slept less than a full hour since. "To start, the implant. I send my notes with Laura. Can you make it?"

Carson rubs his chin thoughtfully, crossing to one of the few cleared laptops and sitting down. Pulling up the correct screen, he frowns slightly, then shakes his head. "Possible, yes, but--"

"But what? I can find you an engineer to build it if you can do the surgery."

Carson turns his head up. "S'not that. Body rejection of artificial--"

"And you are a geneticist. With Ancient tech. Look, this isn't a point of debate--"

"*Rodney*." They stared at each other for a second. Running an absent hand over his face, Carson sighs. "Rodney. I've not practiced for over four years--"

"And I haven't touched a computer in nearly three, but do you see me whining? Figure. It. Out. Preferably before Earth and the SGC figure out what's happened and we end up right back where we were." Leaning into the side of the table, Rodney stares down at Carson until he looks away. "You want to go back into a nice cell somewhere far away? And hey, you're not enjoying actually touching your wife, are you?" Carson flinches. "This isn't a debate. It's an order. We have plenty of very smart people to help build it and a few thousand to test it on to get it right."

"I can build the implant," Carson says finally, eyes flickering to the screen. "What I can't guarantee is that it will be as reactive to mental commands as you wish."

"I don't need it reactive to mental commands. A manual control will do for more direct action. I just want them to be sensitive to--unfortunate turns of mind."

Carson's mouth turns down. "You want them tortured for how they think."

Rodney raises his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, did we skip into an alternate dimension where you give a shit? Don't argue purity of research and the advance of scientific knowledge being a higher purpose. It didn't work in court and it won't work on me. Unless prison time was good for you. Or do you even remember?"

Carson's mouth tightens, but he's already turning away, flicking through his laptop, opening up Rodney's design. "Give me a few hours to build a prototype. I'll need a test subject, preferably someone already engaged in thought patterns we can use to fine tune control."

Like that's hard to decide. "Just tell me when it's ready."

"Rodney?" Carson says slowly, and Rodney pauses, hand on the pad. "Sheppard brought one of his men down for regeneration."

Rodney turns around, feeling a smile curl up the corners of his mouth. "What happened?"

Carson gives him an steady look. "Looks like he lost his hand to a door. I was able to reattach, but he'll have some weakness for a while." Carson's eyes darken, and Rodney wonders if Carson's done any delving into their files. From the look on his face, he might have hit Sheppard's. "Said it was an accident with the technology."

Rodney leans into the door, arms crossed. "Then that's what happened, isn't it?"

Carson watches him for a moment, then nods slowly. "I suppose so."

"Carson," Rodney says softly, and the blue eyes flicker up. "Don't try and grow a conscience now. Go play with your new toys. It's a whole new world we've got here. We're not going to fuck it up." Pushing out the door, Rodney goes into the hall, touching his radio as soon as he's out of earshot of the infirmary. "Grodin?"

There's a pause that lasts almost too long. "Dr. McKay?"

"Get to the infirmary and makes sure Carson gets that prototype ready. And watch him until Laura gets back. I don't want him leaving his lab for anything short of the city sinking."

"Yes, sir."

Kusanagi and Gaul are both assigned to the main lab to start debugging. SGC had been careless and stupid both, setting up the protections in the same pattern of all Earth-based SGC computer systems, hybridized human-alien technology that would be frighteningly complex to the layman.

Careless and stupid, setting up the same system that Rodney had designed himself at the SGC. Setting them each to a task, Rodney starts work clearing the databases of all blocks, hoping to God the SGC hadn't left corrupt data in their haphazard attempts to remodel Atlantis into a prison.

It's pretty boring, all things considered, and Rodney closes his laptop before the lure of Ancient data can tempt him into staying too long. From somewhere distant, his stomach rumbles, and Rodney abruptly remembers he's no longer bound by a schedule. He can eat *any time he wants*.

"I'm getting something to eat," he says, and catches a hopeful look on Gaul's face. "Yeah, nice try. Figure out how to get that self-destruct disabled first." Rodney glances at the plain prison pants, bare feet peering from beneath the folded cuffs, and notes the shine of the security anklet on one thin ankle. Looking at his laptop, he pulls up the security logs and sees Grodin's program patch that shows Gaul in here, with Simpson under Grodin's eye upstairs. Assuming Grodin's not contemplating further rebellion--and in all honesty, Grodin doesn't have that kind of courage, so Rodney feels comfortable enough--all should be fine for an hour away.

In the hall, he passes two fairly professional-looking pairs of former prisoners, redressed in the guard uniforms, unarmed but trying to look dangerous, and assumes that John's got his security force. Rodney touches his radio anyway. "John?"

This time, John's even more breathless. "You're still awake?"

Rodney frowns and goes back into his lab, opening his laptop and pulling up the security feeds. "Where are you?"

"Gym," John answers promptly, and Rodney checks his watch, just to make sure.

"For the last ten hours?" If this lab had windows, he'd probably be able to see late morning on Atlantis.

"Still testing personnel," John says easily, and Rodney tries to remember if John's military background had included command experience.

"So that's who's wandering the halls." Rodney frowns. "Is there a point, since they can't actually, you know, *shoot anything*--"

"You'd be surprised what they can do without a gun," John answers, sounding amused. "Come down. I'm almost done."

"I'm hungry."

"I'll buy you dinner. Know a great little place." The background sounds sudden rise in volume--it sounds like people yelling. "Come down. Where are you, lab one?"

Close enough. "There."

"Take the transporter to your left and follow the noise. Trust me, you won't miss it." The radio clicks off just as the sound of crashing comes over the radio. With a frown, Rodney keys it off.

John's right, it's not hard to find--well before he finds the right corridor, the noise is at an almost painful volume. The door opens at a touch, and Rodney walks in to see a group in a large circle around two moving figures, both armed with--and he can't believe this--what looks like pieces of wood.

The room's thick with sweat, hot even with the far windows opened wide, and Rodney thinks he sees Laura on the other side of the circle, but the moving bodies keep blocking his line of sight.

It takes him a second to recognize John, shirt stripped away, feet bare on the padded surface of the floor, flushed and looking about as happy as Rodney's ever seen him. A flicker of long leather skirts draws his attention to Teyla and her halter top of minimum concealment, and he watches as John ducks another swing, crouching to watch her for a moment before they begin to circle each other again.

Rodney pushes one at someone's back until they see him, moving out of his way fast enough to make him wonder if Lorne's been talking, coming up to the front in time to see Teyla roll gracefully out of John's way, almost faster than Rodney can follow, sweaty hair clinging to her forehead and the back of her neck. This close, Rodney can see fresh bruising rising up on John's arms and a thin cut on his temple, the reddened knuckles on both hands. Eyes searching the crowd, there aren't many that don't have some sign of having their asses kicked, but no one seems willing to leave and miss this.

He can't blame them, really. Watching John in his element is always, always the best part of his day.

It doesn't last much longer, though, and Rodney half-tries to follow the crowd's shouted instructions and encouragement, but John, slick with sweat and flush with energy, pulls his attention back every time. Another flurry of sticks, sharp and fast, and John's on his back with Teyla's foot pressed into his throat, skirt swirling around John's head.

He has, Rodney thinks, a little dazed, one hell of a view. The room goes quiet, either due to the fact that the fight's over or they're all thinking how they can subtly find some time alone after watching the closest thing to pornography Rodney's ever seen live.

After a long moment, Teyla removes her foot, extending one hand, pulling John up almost effortlessly. Then her hands close over his lower arms, pulling him close, John's head tilting toward her, and Rodney watches them touch foreheads. Right. The Athosians did that. It didn't mean anything.

"All right," John says, pulling away, fingers lingering on Teyla's shoulders for longer than Rodney thinks is strictly necessary. "Clean up, bandage up, sleep, and be back here at twenty-two hundred hours and I'll assign out shifts. Laura, Lorne, pick your teams and be ready by six tomorrow morning." Taking a towel from Lorne, John wipes his face and glances toward the back of the room. Craning his neck, Rodney follow his gaze to Elizabeth, Bates at her elbow, watching with dark, thoughtful eyes. "Be ready. We have a lot to do tomorrow." He waves a hand, bringing instant pandemonium as people move to leave, and Rodney pushes out before he dragged outside with them, coming up to John just as Elizabeth pushes off the wall.

"Only two teams?" she says softly, and John shares an unreadable look with Teyla before shaking his head.

"Halling is taking a group of Athosians and I'll be leading another group, four total." Cracking his neck, John's eyes flicker over to Rodney. "Ready?"

"What do you need teams for?" Rodney asks, watching Elizabeth turning to Teyla, fingers delicate on the curve of her elbow. Rodney flickers a look at Lorne's bandaged hand and then catches the dark eyes for a moment before Lorne moves toward a small group comprised of two Athosians Rodney doesn't recognize, Laura, and Bates.

"Athos," John says, running the towel over his arm, wincing as it comes in contact with bruised flesh. "If the message doesn't come tonight, either something's wrong or they figured something out."

"They can't contact Earth directly."

John shakes his head. "No, but they can send out a subspace transmission that eventually, the Daedalus could pick up when they enter the galaxy." Tossing the towel into a pile near the door, John shrugs. "Anyway, they'd expect to be contacted if they miss check-in, so--"

"You're going to go." Rodney stares at him. "John Sheppard. Recognizable on sight by pretty much everyone. Yes, that sounds like a brilliant idea. Did you want to offer yourself up for a quick bullet to the head or wait until they try to question you?"

John grins, reaching out, and Rodney lets long fingers close around his wrist, pulling him to the door. "Don't worry so much. I'll take care of it." John lets go, pushing his hair back with a frown, then shaking his head. "In and out. Once Teyla's there, the Athosians will do whatever the hell she wants, and as for the Earth personnel--" John's smile widens, showing teeth. "I can bring Carson a nice present. If I can."

Rodney frowns, that urge rising again, because John's good, but he's reckless, and Rodney just doesn't trust anyone here to know how to keep him safe. It's a whole new galaxy and Pegasus doesn't know John Sheppard. "I want to go with you."

John shakes his head. "Security only. In and out, no fuss, promise. Besides, I don't want Elizabeth left here alone."

Yes, that's one for the nightmares. "Right," he says, staring past John to Elizabeth, still talking to Teyla. At a glance from John, Bates casually starts to move toward her. "And you think I can stop her if she does something stupid?"

"I know you can," John says, following it with a kiss, brief and salt-thick before fingers close over his wrist, gently pulling him to the door. "Have you been in the labs all this time?"

"Just trying to keep the city running while you and your friends play soldier."

"And we're eternally grateful," John answers as they go out, door opening at look from John. "Your new people behaving?"

Rodney thinks of Gaul's barely concealed terror and Simpson's white lipped silence. "If they aren't complete idiots, we should have the computers clean by tomorrow."

John nods as the transporter door slides closed, programming it absently before leaning back into the wall. Rodney catches himself staring at the bare, narrow feet peeking out from under grey pants hanging too low on narrow hips, wonders what happened to his shoes. And his shirt. "Who are you taking to Athos?" Rodney hears himself say, and John makes some kind of answer, but Rodney's staring at the line of his shoulders, the gleam of his skin, pale gold beneath Atlantis' cool white light, the curve of his mouth as he falls silent.

The transporter door opens. Still staring at John, Rodney reaches out and palms the door closed. "Get on your knees," he hears himself say breathlessly, and John complies, hands loose at his sides, head titled up, pupils blown wide. Riding on enough endorphins and energy for Rodney to feel with the first touch against one high cheekbone, humming beneath his skin as he runs a rough thumb over the cut on John's temple, blood flaking in the air. "Who did that?"

"Teyla," John says, voice husky. Rodney reaches down, jerking his chin up farther. John licks his lips briefly, and Rodney can see his hands fisting at his side. "She's--"

"Don't talk."

John swallows, eyes almost black as the lights seem to respond to them, edging yellow, painting John in dark gold. Rodney pushes his foot between John's knees, knocking them farther apart, hearing John's breath catch when he comes up against John's cock, pressing against his leg. "Suck me." He slaps away John's hand when it brushes against the waist of his pants. "No hands."

The dark eyes flicker down, then John leans forward, and Rodney has to brace a hand on the wall behind John at the slow, deliberate rub, slow and hard, John's lips moving against the too-tight material, like a rough hand jerking him off. A scrape of something harder than lips, then John's mouth is wet and brief against his stomach before teeth close over the top button.

It spins lazily across the floor a second later, and Rodney watches as John slowly, deliberately leans forward, teeth closing on the zipper and pulling it down with aching slowness. Reaching down, Rodney caresses the tense line of his jaw when John leans forward again, mouthing his cock through the thin boxers, breath hot and wet and teasing against the head. There's a frightening chance Rodney could come just watching this. "John," he says, tangling his fingers in John's hair and tightening. "Do it. Suck. Me. Off."

John licks his lips, looking up for a heart-stopping second, then he's nosing the material aside, tongue on flesh, warm and wet and perfect, an air-gentle brush of lips, and Rodney peels his hand off the wall and reaches for his cock, pulling it through the opening in his boxers. Pressing his thumb into the joint of John's jaw, he opens him up, pushing past swollen pink lips, watching John's eyes flicker half-closed, mouth stretching round and obscenely hot, taking it with a tilt of his head as Rodney grabs for the wall, knees liquid. "Christ, John."

John has a mouth made for cock, and he knows how to use it, tongue sharp and fast on the underside, wet and slick and *tight*, cheeks hollowing under Rodney's fingers when he sucks. Wide eyes stare up at Rodney, glittering in the light, cock so hard against Rodney's leg that he's got to *hurt*, but he's still, hands loose at his sides, following the touch of Rodney's fingers, slow and easy, the way he likes it.

Except he wants more, shifting his grip, pulling back until just the head rests on John's tongue. "Hands behind you," Rodney hears himself whisper, and John obeys as Rodney pushes his knees further apart. Running the tips of his nails against the back of John's neck, he presses them in and thrusts into John's wet mouth.

John's perfect, God, he knew that, but he didn't know the half of it, John swallowing him down as naturally as breathing, taking it like this, eyes open and as dark as a moonless night. And it goes on, leaving him hovering on the edge, unable to look away from John's pretty, swollen mouth, his cock wrapped in the hot, tight flesh, sparks flickering in his vision, narrowing the universe to the space of the transporter and John on his knees in front of him.

Then John does something--something amazing, indecent, tongue pressing just *there*, and Rodney gets two more thrusts, losing feeling in his fingers from his hold on John, coming with a shock of sensation that starts everywhere, glittering bright and almost frightening, balance shot and John's hands on his hips the only thing holding him up while he swallows it all down, easing Rodney through each rippling shock, intense and so good he never wants it to end.

When his head clears, he just lets himself drop, trusting John to catch him, like he'd feel a goddamn thing if John cut his throat right now. "God. John."

John deliberately licks the corner of his mouth, grinning as Rodney pulls him forward, licking the taste of himself from John's pretty, pretty mouth. They make out on the floor of the transporter, John easy and pliable and almost lazy, pressed up against the wall when Rodney pushes his knees apart and opens up his pants with one hand, palming John's cock, slick and hot against his hand.

John shivers, head twisting away, and Rodney runs a finger over the bloody marks of his fingernails in the back of John's neck.

"Come on," Rodney whispers, licking John's ear to get another shiver, jerking him off as slowly as he can, watching his face as he bites his lip. "Yeah, like that, take it, John." Kissing the unresisting mouth, he pulls John into his lap, enjoying the feel of slick, sweat-damp skin and the way John tastes, the movement of his hips and the sounds he makes, buried in Rodney's mouth. John shivers and shudders and twists, breath hot and erratic against Rodney's temple when he licks down the slope of John's throat, skin salty-sweet, using his teeth below his jaw, John's arm around his shoulders tightening until he stiffens, breath catching in his throat, coming in Rodney's hand.

Rodney coaxes him back down, soft and careful, breathing into his skin as John relaxes in a liquid sprawl, flushed and indecent and the hottest thing Rodney's ever seen.

They're both going to need a shower before they can go near anyone, Rodney thinks contently as he runs his thumb on the blooming bruise high on John's throat in the shape of teeth. A few long seconds later, John lifts his head, eyes sleepy, looking almost drugged. Food. Maybe a nap. Rodney stands up, pulling John unresistingly to his feet, taking another brief kiss, all soft lips and caught breath, before leading John back to their room.

Rodney takes John's radio before he's even touched the bed, calling Bates to inform him their fearless leader is sleeping and the first person to disturb him for short of an alien invasion or call from Earth will be the first testing the new implant.

It seems to get the point across. John gives him a reproachful look but rolls over, falling asleep so fast that Rodney hasn't even peeled his sweat and come-stained pants off.

"Yeah," Rodney mutters, "leave me to do all the work here." Tossing them in the corner--and Atlantis has something like a laundry room, doesn't it?--Rodney checks in with Grodin and almost sighs at the sound of Carson's unhappy Scottish burr in the background.

"How difficult is he being?"

"Not difficult, just perfectionist. He's trying to access nanotech data off the mainframes--"

"We don't have time to learn a whole new technology," Rodney bites off, finding a stash of powerbars he'd liberated from the kitchen. Just thinking of trying to find his own way across Atlantis is too tiring for words, and John, curled up around a pillow in bed, is too much temptation to resist. "Look, get him started, get some sleep, leave Gaul to watch him. Tell him to check in with me every two hours." Rodney kicks off his shoes and sits down on the edge of the bed. Regular sleep seems like such a luxury right now. "Anything goes wrong--and impress on him what I consider going wrong--call me immediately."

"The gateroom?"

"Put the shield up, I can set my codes from here to keep it up. Simpson can handle the rest. Same orders." Turning the radio off, Rodney debates putting it up, but settles for putting it on the bedside table, eating a powerbar as he finds his spare laptop and hooks it up, flicking on security while he rummages the bathroom for a first aid kit. John barely moves as Rodney cleans the cut, taping it carefully after. "I should have made you shower first," Rodney says ruefully, touching the dark bruising crisscrossing one shoulder and down his arm. John makes a soft sound, swollen mouth curving up in a sleepy smile before he drifts again.

Getting his laptop, Rodney nudges John until he moves over, kicking off his shoes and settling down with John a warm presence against his side, starting his second powerbar as he checks Grodin's work and resets the security codes to his own. Just in case Elizabeth gets any bright ideas of freeing her people early or trying to use the gate.

Rubbing his forehead, Rodney looks down at John's peaceful face and wonders if it's really worth the effort of keeping Elizabeth alive if they're going to have to watch their backs every second.

"I can hear you thinking."

Rodney frowns down, but John's eyes are still mostly closed. "You know, sleep? Good thing if you're wandering off to attack another planet. Or so I've heard."

John reaches down lazily, pulling at the blankets until Rodney slides off the bed, stripping off his pants and leaving them in a pile by the bed before getting back in. Laundry, soon. Not that they don't have enough clean clothes to see them through the next month. But still. "Sleep," Rodney says, running his fingers through John's hair, watching it fall over slitted hazel eyes.

"I'm fine," John says, breaking into a yawn. "You should. I can--" he yawns again, stretching, and Rodney tries not to watch the ripple of muscle under smooth skin. "Watch."

Rodney snorts. "I have every security protocol I could find on the door. And anyway, Elizabeth's sleeping, or so Bates said. He left Lorne to watch."

"Good call." John's eyes slit open. "Can I have my radio--"

"No."

Pulling a pillow more comfortably under his head, John watches Rodney thoughtfully. "You know we're not safe until there's no SGC presence in Pegasus," he says reasonably. Rodney bites off a piece of powerbar in answer, frowning at his laptop. "And it'll be easy. The SGC is Air Force."

Rodney rolls his eyes. "You were Air Force."

John smiles. "When did you read my file?"

"Didn't yet," Rodney admits, trying not to smile back. "Public information."

"Black ops." Rodney blinks. "Yeah, that's kind of on the far side of information no one ever wants anyone to know, but it's there somewhere." John rubs his nose into Rodney's upper arm, making a low sound in the back of his throat. "I was very, very good."

Rodney swallows. "I should have known."

"Should have," John says, and Rodney feels the touch of moist lips. "Don't worry. You'll be safe. Bates knows his life depends on you while I'm gone."

Rodney turns his head, looking down at John incredulously. "Of course I'll be fine. It's just--" Rodney thinks of Teyla and Halling, the SGC and their arsenals, and John's inability to see the difference between risky and flat out suicidal.

John pulls himself up on one elbow, eyes searching Rodney's for a second. "Bates--"

"You're an idiot. You're going off to a planet of hostile aliens and SGC personnel with less than twenty people and some guns. In a shocking turn of events, I'm worried you won't come back. Sue me."

John stares at him a minute. "Huh."

Giving up, Rodney leans back against the pillows, setting his laptop on the floor. It'll alert him to suspicious activity. "Believe it or not, I've gotten used to you."

Rodney can feel John's smile against his shoulder. "Don't be worried."

"Oh, that helps."

John's mouth is warm and soft against his throat, a nuzzle that ends with Rodney giving up, stretching out with John beneath the thin blankets. "This conversation isn't over," he warns, but John's warm and close, strong arms pulling Rodney down. Closing his eyes, the steady beat of John's heart lulls him into sleep.

"What did you do?"

Moments of severe cognitive dissonance are rare--the universe isn't that unpredictable. But right now, standing in the gateroom after ten solid hours of sleep (and he's talking to John about that one), John Sheppard in a black and grey SGC uniform, straight back, standing at attention in front of Weir, with--

"McKay?" John says, deadpan, but the hazel eyes give it away.

Rodney comes down the stairs two at a time, ignoring Weir's smirk as he reaches up, fingering the razor cut edges. "Your hair…."

John's eyebrows arch in amusement. "SGC has regulations. If I'm going to pull this off, I have to look like I know what they are." And weirdly, Rodney's beginning to think he can. Clean shaven, shorter hair, the high cheekbones look even sharper, and maybe it's the sex and sleep, but the perpetual edge of barely-checked violence seems farther beneath the surface of his skin. It's almost a completely different person looking back at him. He could pass for normal. Hell, he could pass for an Air Force officer in good standing.

He's still John, though, in that for a gateroom without the potential for sudden outbreaks of violence, he's armed to the teeth. Elizabeth is nodding her approval. "The rest of your men?"

"Getting ready." John snaps off a salute, making Elizabeth laugh before she takes a report from someone that Rodney doesn't recognize. The glimpse of an anklet, however, gives it away.

"He one of her people?" Rodney asks, tilting his head.

John shrugs. "We pulled a couple of hers." John glances at Grodin, who looks well-rested and slightly pale. Rodney wonders idly what John's been doing up here. "Grodin's got them all in the computer." John flashes a smile at Grodin, and Rodney watches in satisfaction as his least favorite tech flinches away from them both. "We got the call."

"What?" Rodney pushes by John, kicking Grodin's chair from the communications relay. "I wasn't called? Why wasn't I called?" A few taps pulls up the databurst--short and to the point, routine except for the fact that Rodney's worked with the military half his life and in every even, non-inflammatory word is the language of fear. Something's gone wrong. "Okay, they're having problems?" He turns a narrow look on Grodin.

"Breathe," John says behind him, and Rodney turns the look on John, who puts both hands up. "Hey. It was less than ten minutes ago and you were in the shower. They didn't seem to want an answer, so we waited for you to get up here."

"Right," he says, reading through the information. Supply requisitions, deployment, two more Athosians captured, unidentified intruders-- "Wait. Intruders…."

John leans a hand onto the console. "They ran across something," John says, leaning over Rodney's shoulder, filling the air with the scent of clean skin and John. It's a little dizzying. "Some people disappeared. Unfamiliar ships were seen in the sky." Long fingers brush the air just in front of the screen. "Very kidnapped by aliens."

Rodney scrolls down, skimming the information. "It looks like they sent this data to the SGC a few weeks back."

"Huh."

When he looks, John is frowning. "What?"

"We have the transmission logs up yet?" he asks, and Rodney gestures sharply at Grodin, still flattened against the rail. "Okay. Get me--six weeks back, when they started cutting rations. And see what was in that databurst."

"John?" Elizabeth sounds worried.

"Shut up," Rodney says, as Grodin sends over the information. "Okay. Looks like the SGC found something here they didn't like." Or didn't like them. Either one works for Rodney. "Christ, they're coding this like they think they're at war…"

"Or they think there's intelligent life in the Pegasus galaxy after all," John says, reading over his shoulder. "Look, here and here--they're not asking for supplies, they're waiting for orders." John whistles softly. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think they were preparing to move out."

Rodney reads between the lines. "Abandon Pegasus?" he says, feeling a sudden chill run down his spine. Thinking of the cut rations, the lower environmentals, the well-stocked kitchen, Teyla and the other Athosians held too long. Doubling up on cells. "Conserving power," Rodney says slowly, and Elizabeth's suddenly right beside them, reading along. "John--"

"Yeah." Touching his radio, John steps back. "Lorne, get everyone awake and in the gateroom, full gear. One hour. Sheppard out."

"John--"

"All Sumner's notes, everything, we need it now," John says, and Rodney's picking up his urgency. John's military trained and paranoid by nature. If this is spooking him, there's something there to be spooked about. "I--"

"We don't have time to interrogate Sumner," Rodney says, meeting John's eyes. For a second, there's nothing there, just blank, thinking silence, and John nods shortly. "Right. Get him, take him to the infirmary. We'll meet you there." Turning to Grodin, Rodney waits until he looks up. "Any transmissions, call." John's already going out the door, Elizabeth a step behind him. Shoving his radio in his ear, Rodney keys it. "Miko, Gaul, Simpson, get to the gate room."

"Sir?" Grodin looks warily from the computer to Rodney and back again.

"Get someone at every station and bring weapons on-line. They're expecting a reply and soon. If they call back, do whatever you can to keep them on the line until Sheppard can listen in. I'll be in the infirmary."

Carson's frowning absently when he hands over the bottles, which doesn't bode well. Going through them, Rodney identifies the ones he'll need. "He's conditioned," Rodney says, getting out a syringe. "Mix me something stronger if this doesn't work."

From the corner, Cadman nods even as Carson makes unhappy noises, still working over his microscope. "If you want this implant completed--"

"Yeah yeah, Laura. You did interrogations, right?"

"Among other things." One long fingered hand runs over Carson's shoulders soothingly. "Don't worry, I checked. These should work." Reaching over, she taps two bottles. "Watch these. He's still coming off a heroin addiction, so his heart could stop."

"As long as he talks first, I don't care."

Picking up the packet, Rodney spares a glare at Carson, but he can't fault the man for his devotion to his work. Turning, he comes in sight of the first isolation room, blinking a little at the white on white of a sterile environment, the bodies twitching beneath thin blankets. Shaking himself, he turns away. Really, really don't want to know.

Coming in to the observation room overlooking the main surgical suite, Rodney sees Elizabeth already waiting, arms crossed over her chest, tense and fragile, her entire body radiating worry. Coming up bes