Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through Intruder.
Summary: He pays attention more than he thought.
Author Notes: I think of it as payment rendered. Chopchica wanted fic for DVDs. CJ and Chopchica beta'ed, because they are afraid of my tense changes. I don't blame them. I am too.

Sleeper

by jenn

Rodney's awake long after any sane person would be asleep, drumming tense fingers on the blanket over his chest. The jumper is all quiet breathing, all that sleep that he and Teyla are pretending to get hovering over them.

First times are like that. Awkward, uncomfortable, frustrating, and it occurs to him that he's comparing a mission to bad sex. He's more tired than he thought. Enough to lay here and listen, silence outside and all around, because when Sheppard wants to disappear, he does, and he's been doing it for longer than Rodney had thought. Not quite enough to stop *thinking*, and God, what he wouldn't do for coffee right now.

It's not the first time he's noticed. Just a few too many meetings in the hall at that ungodly point where two at night becomes two oh one in the morning and you stop pretending you have any intention of sleeping before you see dawn. Elizabeth has started Looking at them. It's not encouraging.

"He's on watch, Doctor."

Rodney turns his head just enough to see Teyla, a gleam of eyes in the faint moonlight coming in through the cockpit. He doesn't like that she knows what he's thinking, but the truth is, she's good at reading people, and he's not. He didn't get a reputation for being an asshole on the strength of his winning personality alone. All that obliviousness helped. A lot.

He'd say something, because getting a rise out of Sheppard these days isn't the easy fun it used to be, just to keep himself in practice, but she goes to bed armed with three knives and a gun. She likes him, but she can also skin a deer-like mammal in under fifty-five seconds. He's watched her. And this? Is a very small jumper. "I know."

Sheppard never slept much anyway, and thank you Wraith for another victim of perpetual insomnia, but off-planet, Rodney has to wonder if he's shooting up somewhere in the bushes. It's getting creepy, night-of-the-living-dead creepy, when Sheppard can be in the same basic patch of grass as the rest of them, but his mind's following a lost jumper through a hundred wormholes. Ford can't know that many addresses. Sheppard's memorized them all. They haven't found him yet.

It's scary. It's annoying. It's ridiculous. Rodney would tell him that, but in a fair fight--one on basic ground without a decent laptop in sight and not even gunpowder basics--well, he knows who will be meeting dirt. Not that Sheppard would settle anything that way, or Rodney might take the chance of a broken nose if it got him something beside that deliberate look of incomprehension whenever he tries to subtly remind Sheppard that when he signed on, he agreed that, barring alien intervention, he would not go crazy.

The problem is, he's just not good at subtle.

Rolling over, Rodney faces the wall. Off-planet, he doesn't sleep well anyway. "Whose turn is it?" Before, it would be four easy two hours shifts, but some magical math Sheppard's conjured up has ended with a four-two-two arrangement, and sometimes, he forgets the two-two portions. There's nothing quite like waking up to dawn with your team leader bright with repressed exhaustion and stripped down to sharp motion and that weird stillness that Rodney keeps suspecting is only going to end with something messy and probably involving weapons and natives who accidentally say the wrong thing.

"It's time for your watch," Teyla confirms softly. It's the best idea he's heard tonight. Sitting up, Rodney finds his gun by touch, wondering again at the way the universe works, that he's *carrying a gun* and is kind of okay with it. He can check the safety blind these days, but the reloading is still kind of tricky.

Staggering up, Rodney finds the release, stepping out into the cool, damp night, the kind where everything you wear gets disgustingly damp and encourages the growth of fungus. A glance up confirms there'll be rain. Of course. It's just that kind of a mission.

There's a click to the left, and Rodney freezes, though he knows it's just Sheppard, doing his cute little commando-soldier routine, oh look at me, the loneliness of command and losing my people, blah blah fucking blah. Yes, yes, the drama is all very very. Community theatre's never had it so good.

Rodney's close enough to hear the shift of wet cloth, the rasp of a gun against metal buttons.

Sheppard's voice is quiet. "You should be asleep."

He should be. He should be asleep in that frightful mound of military issue blankets and thinking that one day, he's going to wake up to discover Sheppard's stripped naked and gone native on some godforsaken planet, and God, Rodney can *imagine* the sheer drudgery of hunting him down and talking him off some kind of alien tree, to abandon his stick-spear and rejoin civilization. Not to mention that he'd have to explain to Elizabeth how none of them managed to notice that Sheppard just might be on the edge of some kind of really spectacular, public kind of collapse.

So no. He'll take his two hour shift and like it, thank you very much.

Out here, Sheppard doesn't look anything like he plans to do anything out of the ordinary--armed, as usual, vaguely annoyed, as usual, still dressed and communicating in English, always good. Rodney doesn't even try to look casual. There's no way he can pull it off when he counting the hours until he sees coffee again.

"My watch."

At the beginning, when Sheppard still thought Rodney was liable to fall into holes if left unattended, or be chased by strange alien priestesses for unspecified and dangerously unhygienic fertility rites (once! And it hadn't been his fault!), Rodney had felt comfortable spending two hours complaining how very military he wasn't and wondering aloud why the person most likely to assure their *continued survival on Atlantis* had to go without sleep. Not that he needed eight hours. It was just the principle. Later, when John started doing strange and inexplicable things like leaving him with guns to guard *others*--and there's a memory he's not interested in pursuing far--it became habit, but mostly to himself. Because he'll say it in the farthest corner of his mind and nowhere else--back at SGC, they would have buried the gates and salted the ground where they stood before they'd let him go on a mission.

And he'd been told that, too. Repeatedly.

Here? Not so much. It's a faintly warm feeling Rodney tries to ignore as much as possible.

"Still my shift." Sheppard circles him like he's a lemon tart, or like Rodney would, which is to say, warily and not without some worry that the very air around it is contaminated. In Sheppard-world, which Rodney has visited more than a few times, it's all about the avoidance and casual brush-off. It works with normal people, and it's kind of sad, that Sheppard's started mistaking Rodney for one of them.

"It's really not." And not so much last night, either, but he's not going to go that route. All that contained energy, pushing at you like a big sign to go away, and take your geeky ass to bed. It's kind of cute. Does Sheppard think that actually *works*? Rodney holds up his watch like a beacon, elaborately checking the face. "I'd say that ended, oh, *an hour ago*. When you were supposed to wake me up. Which you didn't, by the way. You can read the numbers, right? Or did you lose your literacy along with--"

Sheppard looks at him blankly. It's very, very, very annoying. "I'm fine."

Exhausted, late night conversation can't ever end well. "You haven't been sleeping." Or eating, now that he thinks about it, but Rodney hadn't been watching for that one; it's not something he'd notice on a normal day. Of course, on a normal day, he wouldn't notice this. He's not Teyla, he can't read people, he doesn't get why they do the things they do, and there are reasons upon reasons that he loves the lab, not least of which this sort of shit doesn't happen there.

Or--he doesn't care quite as much if it does. Rodney falls into step beside Sheppard, pleased to note he's managed a two inch incursion into his personal space without even trying. It gets him a quick glance, but sadly, not much else.

"McKay." Yes, their long suffering leader, out to do his solitary soldier shit, now with a brand new rank title that Rodney's made a point to forget as much as possible. It can still get a twitch, sometimes. There's a brief temptation to kick him and run, just to see if that gets any reaction. You make your own fun on Atlantis when you run out of parts for new bombs or the mess runs out of twisty straws.

"I can't sleep anyway." And that could even be true. The Ancients were many really cool things, but they apparently were all Sheppard's size and double jointed. Sleeping in the jumper is better than sleeping in the lab only because he's reasonably sure he won't ever, ever open his eyes on Kavanagh's face. "Have I mentioned what a shitty planet this is?"

And it is. They're been here coming on three days, with natives at that part of civilization development known as "bronze age" and who keep making signs that, if Rodney remembers his folklore classes, could be either associated with the evil eye or, possibly, severe constipation. "No metals. No technology. No--and did I forget to mention this part--no *agriculture*. We could ask ourselves, what is it about these stunning examples of homo-erectus that keep us here?" They don't even have a written language, for Christ's sake. They do, however, have a fully tricked-out temple devoted to someone who bears a suspicious resemblance to Chaya that, if Rodney's any judge, was built by someone considerably higher up the Darwinian chain. Interesting.

And so right, Rodney kind of pushed to stay here for the second day, just to see if there were any other goodies stashed away. The Ancients were all about the hide-and-seek with technology. Either they assumed the people that came after them would be very, very smart, and so able to *intuit* where they hid their toys, or more likely (given, hello, *Chaya*), were getting some kind of kick out of watching them scrabble around the universe from on high, doubtless laughing their Ascended asses off.

Sheppard gives him an annoyed look, but doesn't comment. He's a waste of good sarcasm, so Rodney doesn't even bother trying. "We're leaving tomorrow. I thought you wanted to get a few more readings for the anthropologists." Curious look now, almost enough to fool Rodney into believing he's paying attention.

Actually, it's called blackmail, but that's what you get when you accidentally have sleep deprived, life-affirming quasi-sex on a desk with someone with both a triple doctorate and a camera. This is why you shouldn't abuse drugs, even for highly noble, one might even say, heroic reasons. You end up being the errand boy for the most useless department in creation. One day, Rodney will take revenge. It just won't be until he gets those negatives.

"I wanted to make sure we're thorough. It's not like we're ever coming back here again." Even if Rodney has to lose the gate address himself. Grass, trees, more allergens than any single inhabited planet ever, and Carson had shot him up with so many antihistamines after the preliminary report that Rodney's arm is still throbbing.

Sheppard is all that is quiet and frustrating beside him, and, though Rodney can't prove it, is deliberately taking too-long strides, stupid long legs. The first wet plop of rain hits Rodney's nose, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Sheppard glance up, then at him.

Right, like a little rain is going to send him running. "Maybe you should get back inside, McKay."

Something hits his nose that's decidedly not a rain drop. They both look up. Hmm.

"Is that--"

Maybe he shouldn't have thought little.

"Hail. Like this couldn't get worse."

It's too loud to really talk, but that's never stopped Rodney before.

"Do you think there'll be a tornado?" It is spring, they're in a wonderfully flat area, and it's hailing. Just the right conditions for a spectacular natural fuck up like that. Out the window of the cockpit, they have a stunning view of--nothing but rain. Vertical rain, horizontal rain, and lumps of hail, and really, who could have seen that coming? Rodney could have. If he'd been asked. Which had he been? No. "This looks like tornado weather." Not that he knows what it's like, but it looks bad.

"I doubt it," Sheppard says slowly, but he stares outside like just maybe, he's lying through his teeth. Rodney slumps down in the copilot's seat. "The jumper would detect it. Besides, we can get above it fast enough."

Sometimes, he finds Sheppard and his mindmeld with the jumper fascinating. Right now, not so much. "I hate this planet."

"You're the one who wanted to stay here three days."

Wow, an *argument*. It's like the first taste of coffee in the morning. The world rights itself on its axis, all is well, and also? "I didn't think we'd die in a natural disaster, either."

Sheppard twitches a smile. "You always think we'll die in a natural disaster."

Not entirely true. There's always Wraith, murderous natives, and homicidal plantlife that make the top three. "Did you notice them giving us the evil eye?"

Sheppard gives him a wary look. "That old woman kept throwing salt at me. What was that about?"

"How would I know? Do I look like a sociologist?"

Leaning back, one foot kicks lightly onto the Ancient equivalent of a dashboard, which Rodney's never seen him do before, and he crosses his arms, looking straight out at the weather with a smirk. "There's this video going around--"

No one will ever find the bodies. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sheppard smirks, and God, *video*.

"Not that you could see faces." A sidelong look. "Not well, anyway."

They'll be praying for death long before Rodney's done with them. "Huh."

"Guess you haven't seen it yet." Sheppard swings both legs down, and like a light put out, he's a galaxy away, and God, it's not like Rodney doesn't *get it*, he does, but--

"Sheppard--"

The hazel eyes stay fixed outside, like their lives depend on a good weather report. He's the first person Rodney's ever met who can ignore a person like that, so perfectly, so casually, and so damned *completely*. It's almost like a challenge, really, and Rodney prides himself on his ability to rise to--the bastard *closes his eyes*. "Good night, McKay."

Like that's going to work. Arms crossed, Rodney leans back in his chair, eyes stubbornly open and fixed on the rain outside, trying to shift into something resembling a comfortable position. No real orthopedic support. What on earth were the Ancients *thinking*? He's going to need *surgery* to get out of this position come morning. "You too. Major."

"Perhaps you should discuss this with the Colonel?"

Yes, this is the kind of wisdom he could get from the back of box of cereal. It really doesn't pay to ask people questions. Not that he asked. Or hinted. Maybe complained, once.

Off-duty is a mythical thing, like a unicorn (so far) and a reasonable human being, but he comes awfully close when Elizabeth makes threatening noises of sending him to the mainland for a few days of overseeing some of the upgrades to the Athosian camp. Perimeter sensors and a lot of people talking, always *talking*, and they don't ignore him and never go away, especially the children, leading to that unfortunate incident involving a slippery slope, a raccoon thing, and Rodney with an almost-dislocated shoulder. Little sociopaths, all of them.

Doesn't help that they ask for him to visit now. God knows what they've come up with to terrorize his off-hours.

Stretching his fingers over the keyboard, Rodney rubs at a sharp twinge running from the base of his fingers to wrist. Carpel tunnel? What a perfect cap to a perfect day. And also, oww.

"You know, I didn't ask."

Zelenka looks up from his hunch over the monitor, a flicker of eyes to show, yes, he's listening, and no, he doesn't care how much Rodney whines, he won't get one more of those sugar cookies that somehow appear magically whenever Zelenka hauls himself to the mess. Blatant favoritism there, not that Rodney's complaining, or at least, not until Zelenka cuts him off. That could happen today. And why the hell does his hand hurt so much? Flattening it on the desk, Rodney considers going to Carson.

"You never ask."

This is why Rodney likes to work alone. *People* are annoying. And also, "What are you doing?"

Zelenka smiles. "Diagnostics. Good for relaxation." Turning on his chair, Rodney's the complete focus of mildly amused eyes and a twitching mouth. Zelenka stretches his back luxuriously, like he's aware that the tiniest movement makes Rodney wish desperately for weapons grade morphine. "You slept little, yes? Or so you have said, at length. Perhaps you wish to go down to jumper and redesign chairs? Go to mainland and enjoy spring festival? Nap? Anywhere but here?"

Rodney's eyes narrow. "Are you throwing me out of my own lab?"

"No." Yes, he really is. "I am suggesting, since you have been poor hand, poor back, poor me for three unproductive hours--"

"I'm thinking. I could be on the verge of a breakthrough the likes of which Einstein has never dreamt--"

"Or you could be sulking from last mission. Or perhaps due to very mysterious video clips, though I do not see why those would upset you." Zelenka turns back to his computer, and Rodney's hand and back stop being priority when the grainy footage appears via media player.

"Where did you get that?" He wonders if he sounds as casual as he thinks. From the look on Zelenka's face, he's thinking not.

"Mysterious source. Perhaps it is manufactured?" You can't see that much, but that's because angle was working for him, and also, because at sixty-three hours awake, Rodney hadn't been entirely sure how buttons worked when they didn't belong to hardware. "You. Go do something. Practice zen. Hit things with sticks. Go play with Colonel. Fresh air. Sunlight. Not here."

Rodney eyes him warily. "I could dump you in waste recycling, you know. I can do that."

Zelenka smiles brightly. "Perhaps video vanishes off servers if you spend few hours away? Like magic. Poof."

Zelenka has been spending too much time around him. "In some places, that's called blackmail."

"Friendly assistance." Zelenka leans across the space between them and shuts down his laptop. It's almost like he thinks he won. "Goodbye. Do not have too much fun."

When Sheppard first made noise about Rodney joining the field teams, Rodney hadn't laughed in his face, but mostly because he was eating, and that would be rude. He'd waited to swallow. He could be thoughtful like that.

"Are you kidding?"

Sheppard, almost but not quite attempting a casual slouch over something that looked like a cross between soup and toxic waste, had given him an amused look. Smiles were apportioned out for more manipulative purposes than mere recruitment. "Not really. I take that as a no?"

Wait. He was *serious*? "Field team. Me." First thought--violent death. Second thought. Ooh, Carter will *eat her words*. Third thought. Violent death. Fourth thought. New Ancient technology, unseen by any but him.

Fifth thought. Violent death. Hmm.

"Why?"

Pushing a spoon into the thickly green goo, with no obvious intention of eating, Sheppard cocked his head. "Why not?"

Why not indeed. Rodney considered the plan. Violent death, never preferable. Field work, seeing everything *before* it was brought back, vetted, and figured out. New life and new civilizations. Violent death, again. Hmm. "I'm not military."

Sheppard gave him a blink that confirmed that this, at least, was stunningly obvious. "Can you use a gun?"

"Of course I can use a gun, Major." Pulling a trigger. Rodney'd seen it done. How hard could it be? Rodney followed the slow circle of the Major's spoon, a little fascinated. The level hadn't dropped appreciably since Sheppard sat down, which argued Rodney would have a cranky leader who didn't watch his blood sugar. A well-armed leader at that. On the other hand…. "You need someone who can detect the ZPMs, right?"

"Anyone on your staff could do that." Now the smile. It's not like Rodney hadn't had enough exposure to Sheppard to know manipulative when it was turned on him like a interrogation light. Forty-eight hours of testing him with Ancient equipment at the SGC had led to a lot of interesting thoughts about Major Sheppard, but Rodney still wasn't entirely sure of the results.

"Did Dr. Weir recommend me?" That's something she would do. She could be sneaky like that.

Sheppard smiled again, all sharp teeth. "She left it up to me. Interested, or should I put up a vacancy sign?"

Picking up the cake-like thing on the edge of the tray, Rodney considered the myriad ways this could go badly. He'd never wanted it before, not really, but-- "Who else have you asked?"

And that really annoyed look again, like Rodney wasn't keeping up. "Now why--" another slow stir of the bowl, completely unproductive, was he ever going to eat? "--would I settle for less than the best?"

Ooh, he's *good*. "There's a excellent chance I'm going to get killed." And in so many messy, messy ways.

Sheppard smiled then, bright as the gate after dialup. Rodney could see how people could get talked into the most insane things when Sheppard looked like that.

"So? Yes or no?"

Like this, maybe. "I'm in, Major."

Administrative work is boring. Walking around Atlantis watching the repairs, while fun, especially when there are twitching techs involved, loses its entertainment value when Elizabeth catches him at it, sending him a Look that he won't be forgetting any time in the near future. Half the repairs could be done faster, he thinks, if they'd just let him *work*, but even he can't think of an excuse to be wandering around like the repair fairy on third shift, and he's tried. God, has he tried.

Relaxation, Elizabeth had said when they got back, with a look at Sheppard like she *knew*, but really, if she was going to look it, why didn't she *say* something? Sheppard had just smiled at the tacit order to go do something, and something that didn't involve mapping out every active Stargate they knew of, doing rounds like he expected Wraith to leap from deserted rooms, around the bend of various corridors, and from under random desks, and generally get a hobby. Any hobby.

Elizabeth had called them into her office after Ford--left--and he, Sheppard, and Teyla had sat there, probably with the same blank expressions on their faces. It was still too raw, and Sheppard had the bruises hidden under his t-shirt to prove it. "I understand how you must be feeling."

Did she? Rodney wasn't sure then how he was feeling, and he's not sure now. Annoyance, some worry mixed in, frustration, but oddly muted. Exhaustion had that effect. There'd been more words, consolation, and something about a week off of missions, the three of them warily seated in front of her desk, and then something else after Rodney and Teyla left, to Sheppard alone, though he and Teyla had ended up pretending that they had really great reasons for hanging around the control room. After all, Rodney had reasoned, after pushing a nameless tech out of the way, the equipment was still new and God alone knew what these Daedalus people understood about how the Ancients did things, with their completely obscure logic that, as far as Rodney was concerned, bore no resemblance to actual logic.

Sheppard hadn't told them what Elizabeth had said, but Rodney had ended up with his laptop on one of the benches, doing repairs in the gym to some blow circuits from the attack--really, they'd needed it--while Sheppard and Teyla worked out behind him until third shift.

Some people, Rodney's heard, talk about these things. He's never been a huge fan of that.

There was a regrettable expanse of time that Rodney likes to think of as his punishment for even *considering* the idea of joining the field teams.

"Oh God. I think I broke something."

He didn't need to open his eyes to know Teyla was standing over him with a bewildered expression. People with excellent coordination always annoyed him. "Doctor, are you--"

"Dying here, go away." He thought he might have motioned, but his arm hadn't moved from the floor.

"You tripped, Rodney." That was from the peanut gallery. Rodney seriously considered opening his eyes enough to glare, but that would lead to things like, say, getting up, and this mat was probably the most comfortable place on the planet right now. "Look, I'm not saying you should be able to do hand-to-hand like a professional. Just. It never hurts to be prepared."

"There are *three of you*. All three of you? Are professionals. I will, like any sane person, stand behind you and encourage you while you--do your thing." He tried a wave. Still not much with the moving. "Isn't that your *job*, Major?"

If he was the kind to be paranoid, he'd think that Sheppard was laughing.

"And part of my job is to make sure that, say, in the incredibly improbable chance you are somehow left alone, for just a few brief seconds, you *can* take care of yourself. Until we get there, of course. So. Get. Up."

"You are taking a suspicious amount of pleasure in my agony, Major." He did that a lot.

"It's never pleasure." A hand grabbed his, pulling. Rodney considered that being hauled to his feet was a hell of a lot less dignified than standing on his own, and besides, Sheppard was deceptively strong and--

"I'm getting up, I'm up." Staggering, how humiliating, it was gym class all over again, but better armed. Teyla and her sticks of death were a few feet away. Ford, perched on some kind of exercise equipment that looked like something out of a sixteenth century Inquisition room, was laughing. Rodney felt a little thrill of satisfaction at the thought of how Ford's next shower in his quarters was going to suck so very, very much. "Does my humiliation have to be a team event?"

"We're bonding," Sheppard answered, with a completely straight face. How did he do that? "I'll take over, Teyla. Hurt Ford a little for me." With a slap on Ford's back, Sheppard lit up with a grin that spoke volumes about how many times he planned to see Rodney flat on his back in the near future.

Well, great. From utter humiliation at being beaten into the ground by a woman shorter than he was to utter humiliation at being beaten into the ground by a man who was taking a sadistic pleasure in watching Rodney's pain. Fantastic. Over John's shoulder, he could see Ford and Teyla across the room, taking up some kind of stance holding those bits of wood. Beside him, he felt Sheppard still, and then they were *moving*.

It wasn't like Rodney had ever had a chance to watch people fight, other than the life-and-death sort that weren't terribly educational, but this was--different.

It started slow, a click of the sticks, together, their faces focused, like when Rodney's in his lab, circling each other, all quarter-speed turns, nothing useful in an actual fight, really, and he almost asked, but Sheppard's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Watch." He looked at Major Sheppard--after all, he'd seen the way that Sheppard's eyes followed Teyla around--but the expression on his face wasn't that at all. Then his eyes drifted back, watching the slow, careful movements, as intricate and structured as an equation.

It got faster after that, like something building around them, around *him*, almost something he could feel, almost too fast for Rodney to follow the intricate movement of four blurs of wood and two blurs of body. Click. Another turn. Click. A frozen second of observation. Click. Like perfect choreography. Then Ford went down with a clatter of lost sticks, Teyla at his throat with her knife, and even from here, Rodney could see the smiles, like this was the most fun any group of people could have in their lives.

Oh.

After a few seconds, Teyla offered a hand and Ford took it, letting her pull him up, getting his own sticks and going back to position. When he looked up, Sheppard was still watching, a little smile curving up one corner of his mouth, like he'd had just as much fun as they did.

*Oh*.

"Can you beat her?"

The smile widened as Sheppard looked at him. "Not yet. But I will." The hazel eyes studied him, and yes, Rodney got the other lesson just fine, thanks. "You can do this."

Rodney thought about it. "Okay. But if you throw my back out, you owe me. Big time."

Sheppard didn't even look surprised. Rodney wondered if anything ever really surprised him. "Anything you want." Loosening his shoulders, Sheppard took a precise three steps back, all liquid easy movement. Rodney wondered what Teyla and John were like when they fought. "Now watch."

Rodney's been doing a lot of that since then.

The short supply run doubles as a way for Elizabeth to legitimately make them take time off. It's impressive, all things considered, and Rodney upgrades her from Zelenka to Kavanagh in terms of annoyance level.

"I know you think you're fine, Rodney--"

"Think?"

"But losing a team member can be--difficult." She's probably been talking to Heightmeyer, may she burn in some kind of hell involving serial killers and Kavanagh clones. All the SGC records are probably flashing through her computer right now. "I want you to take some time off."

"Because we're in such excellent condition, not like we've been *invaded*, and half our equipment damaged. We don't have *time*--" To do this tiptoe about the feelings thing. It's pointless. "Elizabeth."

"Teyla agreed to take some time on the mainland for the Athosian spring festival." Elizabeth sits back, eyeing him with that look that says his sessions on the couch will double if he doesn't do whatever it is she wants. Do it and like it. "I want you and Colonel Sheppard to take some supplies to them from the last trade." She gives her laptop a glance, then smiles at him, all white teeth and compassionate understanding. "I'll expect you back tomorrow night."

He'll be lucky if Atlantis is still *standing*-- "You have got to be kidding."

She waves her fingers at him. "That's an order, Rodney. Have fun."

A few weeks ago, Rodney had caught himself in the common room, staring at the silent TV on the way back to his lab.

Technically, it was open to anyone, but Atlantis had several, and for some reason, this one wasn't often used by anyone but the team. The furniture here was more worn than in the others, and Rodney could see the coffee stains on the upholstery that even Ancient technology couldn't quite get out. The arm of the couch had been broken one really strange night involving Athosian liquor, a recent near-death experience, and a bet on who could hold their breath the longest.

Rodney couldn't quite remember who won, but he did remember waking up with a crick in his neck from falling asleep bent over the broken arm, Teyla half across his lap, half on the floor, and Sheppard and Ford in an untidy pile and snoring, two shot glasses slumped over between them. The TV had still been on, and for the life of him, Rodney couldn't remember what they'd been watching,

Teyla liked animation, soaking it up with wide, surprised eyes. Rodney liked science fiction, and he really didn't care how clichéd it was. Ford liked action, a complete non-surprise. Sheppard just liked to watch, and sometimes, Rodney had wondered if the movie even mattered.

Rodney had left without looking back, lights dimming behind him with a thought.

He couldn't remember the last time they'd been in there, but it was long enough for dust to cover the last movie, in its case on the floor.

It helps that Sheppard doesn't look much more amused.

"We could plot a coup," Rodney says, staring at the ocean, feeling bereft without a laptop or energy scanner. "We could do that."

"We could." Sheppard mulls the possibilities, scratching absently at his chin. "But then we'd have to lead."

Rodney shudders. "No."

"We could run away."

Oh. Good idea. "Think the Genii would take defectors?"

"We could offer weapons."

"I could mock their poor attempts at nuclear technology."

"I could--" Sheppard stops, frowning. "They'd probably kill us instead."

"Yes, there is that." Rodney glares at the water. "We don't need time off. Does she have any idea how much research is going to be pushed back because of this? God knows what horrors Zelenka is committing in the name of his wholly imaginary grasp of the basics of theoretical physics."

"You like him."

Rodney gives Sheppard a Look. "He took away my laptop." Right out of Rodney's hands, too. A man with a crush on a commanding officer cannot be trusted.

"Ah." Sheppard leans back, looking up at a flash of numbers on the cockpit before getting up. "You take over. You need the practice."

Rodney would protest, just for form, but anything is better than sitting here. They change places, and Rodney can almost understand, at least now, how Elizabeth was able to get Sheppard off without threatening his laptop. Flying is *fun*.

"You're getting better." It could almost be a compliment, if Sheppard would sound the least bit enthusiastic. "Relax."

"This is relaxed." He consciously loosens his hands. "What is this festival thing anyway?"

Sheppard shrugs, watching the water pass them in a blur of blue. "Teyla seemed excited about it."

If he remembers correctly, and Rodney's memory is *flawless*, Teyla hadn't been so much excited as resigned. Probably the result of one of those little office chats.

"Is it even spring?" They live, for all intents and purposes, on an island. Before that, Rodney lived in Antarctica. He hasn't seen an honest to God natural season in *years*.

"Hmm." Which is to say, Sheppard doesn't know either. Yes, yes, moody silence, how sad, how tragic, blah blah the fuck blah, if this is what he has to look forward to for the rest of the day--oh god, *two days*--then maybe a leap from the jumper isn't out of the question. "Pull up a little. You're going off course."

Rodney's better when Sheppard isn't watching. A lot of it is a simple, really unpalatable fact of life--he's not good at this. He will never be good at this. He could do this for the next ten years and never be anything above competent. Sheppard is good at it. And he's good at it a chair away, not even on the controls, barely paying attention, which, hey, by the way, *annoying*. He's good at it, Rodney's not, and there you have it. And Rodney's really, really not used to being bad at something. Especially being bad in front of someone he--

"It's fine." And to prove it, he keeps his hands on the controls and watches for the mainland. The festival can't be worse than this.

"He is feeling the loss of Lieutenant Ford," Teyla said, like this was completely new information. Then she dumped him on his ass, which delayed any decent comeback. Staring up at the ceiling, Rodney remembered the good old days, when he didn't know exactly how much a stick to the knee could hurt.

Pushing himself up on one arm, Rodney considered leaving, but it had only been an hour and even he couldn't get out of a workout he'd been putting off for a week. He was too used to Sheppard dragging him out of the lab, metaphorically of course, and now, not so much. Or ever.

"It's getting ridiculous."

Teyla's head titled thoughtfully. "That he is worried?"

"He's obsessed." Some things you recognized on sight, and Rodney knew what a man looked like when he spent his nights hunched over a laptop. Sheppard had been scanning the Ancient databases, pulling up coordinates and descriptions, Rodney's watched him. "It's interfering with his work."

Sleep deprived, moody commanders made mistakes that non-sleep deprived did not. They also were disturbingly silent, ignored things, and generally made even Rodney's most sarcastic commentary feel completely wasted when he couldn't even earn a twitch.

"Has it?" Teyla extended a hand, pulling him to his feet. "I have not noticed any change in his efficiency, Doctor." Though her face said she'd noticed other things, and she watches Sheppard as much as he does. She knows.

"You wouldn't." Another waste of good sarcasm. It's not, he suspected, that she didn't get it, either. Taking her hand, he pulled himself up and gave the sticks a long look. "Maybe I'll pass on the rest today."

"You have not been practicing." She flipped a stick between long fingers, body casual, but she could put him on his ass in under ten seconds when she wasn't trying, so really, that didn't mean much.

"I don't feel like it today. I have, unlike some people who shall remain nameless, actual work to do besides brooding and--"

"What, Rodney?

And the man of the hour himself. Rodney tried to remember if he'd heard the door open; he glanced at Teyla, but she was facing the door and looked equally surprised, so great, neither of them were paying attention.

Turning around, Rodney was greeted with a sharp, impersonal smile. "Nice of you to show up. Major."

Sheppard tilted his head. "I could say the same for you." Sheppard's eyes went to Teyla briefly. "Having fun?"

"You missed our last session," Teyla said, voice flat but perfectly capable of conveying reproach without effort, the casual dropping away like a shed coat. It was on the order of being surrounded by hungry cats, one on either side, as Sheppard casually circled from one side and Teyla from the other, keeping each other in constant view. A lot like they started practice any day, except they'd never done it with Rodney in the middle. They'd also never done it with intent before, and it made Rodney wonder just what was going on in here that he'd been missing for the last week.

"I've been busy." Sheppard didn't reach for any sticks, which argued that they didn't plan to attack straight through Rodney's body, but he did shed the jacket on a bench.

"Are you ready, Colonel?"

Sheppard's smile had a lot more to do with an attack of wraiths than a friendly competition. Rodney started to move, wondering when in the name of God he picked up enough instinct to be aware that neither of them were looking particularly friendly.

A glance took him in, all at once, evaluative, dismissing him as a threat, going back to Teyla. It'd be a lot more insulting if it wasn't true. "Two against one, Teyla?"

"I can think I can handle you on my own, Colonel," Teyla answered evenly, and Sheppard leaned over, eyes never leaving Teyla, to pick up Rodney's discarded sticks. Moving into position, he grinned a little, humor absent, and Rodney let himself lean into the wall to watch for a moment. They'd forget he was here at all if he waited long enough, and he sure as hell had better things to do than play spectator to Sheppard running on too much testosterone.

He didn't leave, though.

"You're hovering."

Rodney glances over at Sheppard, slumped on a bench beside him, watching the bonfire that the Athosians and personnel from Atlantis had put together a few hours before. As a work of engineering, it'd been impressive, almost a pity to watch them light it.

"I'm not hovering." He's not, either. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not many places to *be*." The others are wandering around the fire, or gathered in groups to talk, or, if the way some of them are slinking away, making out in the bushes or behind tent walls. It's not like Rodney came here to get laid. For one, outdoor sex sucks.

He has to wonder, though, if Elizabeth really knows how many Atlanteans come to the mainland specifically to get laid. And in retrospect, considering how many times he's seen Sheppard doing the mainland runs, he has to wonder how often Sheppard's done the same thing.

It's almost on the tip of his tongue to ask, but somehow, he stops himself. Sheppard won't respond. Hell, Rodney will be lucky if he's even listening.

"I'm going to go for a walk." Sheppard stands up, words tossed over his shoulder.

"That is what you're best at," Rodney hears himself saying, and across the fire, he can see Teyla straightening from her crouch with a group of her people, eyes on them. He almost thinks Sheppard pauses. "You run away any faster, you'll leave tread marks. Don't stop on our account."

And there are magic words after all. Please, thank you, sir, ma'am, he's always known those get you nowhere. Looking up, Rodney watches the long back tense beneath the thin shirt, that quiet stillness that's says more than a thousand words, means more than a thousand gestures. Rodney reads people for shit, sure, but Sheppard isn't people and Rodney's had a year to watch.

"McKay."

What the fuck ever. "Spare me. Go do your lone soldier routine. It's not like no one in the history of the world ever lost anyone they cared about." Waving a hand, Rodney sees Teyla, picking her way through the bodies between them. "It's not like Teyla and I are still *here*."

He can feel Sheppard looking at him--actually looking, for once, seeing, for once, and Rodney lets the bitterness show, because hell, what's he got to lose?

"McKay--"

"You know, a walk sounds good. Excuse me, Colonel."

Away from the fire, it's darker than Atlantis could ever be, thick, heavy with the smells of smoke and a considerable amount of barbecue, a vague cool-edged warmth lingering in the air. Maybe it's spring on Atlantis after all. It's stupid to wander off from the camp. He doesn't really care.

"McKay." Footsteps behind him. Sheppard, heavier in boots. Teyla, barefoot and almost silent. He'd know them anywhere. "*Rodney*. Where the hell do you think you're going?"

Good question. There's just really not that much *here*. Sand shifts under his boots, and Rodney realizes he's somehow made it all the way down to the beach. "You know, I can be ignored anywhere. I really don't need you to turn it into performance art. The question here is, where the hell are you?"

It's too dark to see Sheppard's face, just the vague outline of a tall body. Just behind him, Teyla comes to a stop.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" And Sheppard sounds honestly surprised, which really just puts a capper on the entire shitty month--hell, *year*.

"Ford's gone." He's gone his entire life saying what he's thinking, and it's sometimes like all of it was training wheels for this, for this place, for a time when being careful, being kind, got you killed. "Yes, we got the memo. Yes, it hurts. Yes, we miss him. But this has got to stop."

"Excuse me?" Sheppard's gone still again. Teyla circles slowly, close enough for him to see she's watching Sheppard like he is, waiting for him to shut down or bolt or both at once.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." Rodney thinks of Gaul for a second, lets it show on his face. "Throw a fit, break something, I don't care, but just stop--"

Shutting us out.

"We are still here."

Sheppard's head whips around, like he had no idea Teyla was there. Rodney wishes he had more light. Instinct doesn't replace being able to pick up body language, but so far, that's all he's got.

Long seconds pass, getting worse by the moment, and Rodney thinks, this isn't going to work. This is going to go on and on, and it'll get worse, like they don't know each other, worse than that, because they had more. Ford leaving is a hole that they'll always feel, but losing this--Rodney's never had it before, never needed it before, can barely believe it himself, but--he can't face that.

"It's--not that easy." There's something in his voice that's Rodney's never heard before, old and dark and vulnerable.

"Nothing's easy."

He hadn't realized he'd moved closer, either, not until he realizes he can just make out Sheppard's features, eyes dark, and feel Teyla, close enough to touch.

"We'll find him, Colonel," Teyla says, and her voice says everything. We will, not you, not alone, never alone again. Teyla reaches out, like Rodney can't quite, touching Sheppard's arm with careful fingers, like he's glass and will shatter on a breath. One slow breath, and it's weirdly warmer, and Sheppard almost nods, a vague flicker that could be imagination, and Rodney lets out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

Yes.

"Perhaps we should return to the celebration? My people have been working with Dr. Zelenka on a new drink. Perhaps we can sample it and give our opinion?"

Sheppard looks between them, like he might want to run, but Rodney contentedly considers the fact he received at least *ten* less bruises than usual from Teyla this week. He can trip Sheppard if he tries anything. "I'm scared to ask, but what did they use?"

Rodney shrugs, falling into step beside Sheppard as they make their way up the incline to solid ground. "From what Zelenka smelled like the last time he came back from the mainland, you really don't want to know." Rodney look at the bonfire, a tiny scrap of brilliant orange far ahead, feeling the brush of Sheppard's jacket against his hand as they navigate their way off the beach, listening to Teyla's amused recital of the numerous experiments done in the name of finding the perfect drink, feeling the muscles in his back relax for the first time in days. Weeks.

"We should take some back to Atlantis," Sheppard says easily, and it's weird, how even his *walk* seems less rigid. Rodney can see his face, and it's the same, but the man behind it isn't a stranger anymore. The dark eyes slide to him and fix, just long enough for Rodney to feel it. "So. You up for a night of drunken debauchery, McKay?"

Rodney rolls his eyes. "I can drink you under the table, Major."

Sheppard smiles, fast and bright, and Rodney thinks Sheppard could make anyone do anything when he looks like that. Anything at all. "Colonel. And bring it on."

They're almost back to the fire when Sheppard's shoulder brushes Rodney's, warm and solid. "So," and Rodney sees Sheppard's eyebrows arch mockingly, knows *exactly* where this is going, and *God dammit*, "have you seen that video clip yet?"

The end