Mensa AU Fic Exchange: "Just Rodney" for wanderingwidget (1/2)
Title: Just Rodney
Author: losyark
Pairings: Sumner/Sheppard; McShep
Setting: MENSA-verse
Rating: NC-17 for language and sexual situations (but no graphic non-con!) and Sheppard!whump
Genre: Angst
Wordcount: 14 300+
Summary: Sumner is looking too, and suddenly his eyes spark. "Hey, kid," he says, sauntering over to the chair and cocking his hips obscenely against the arm rest. Sheppard pulls his hand away discreetly. "Wanna go to Atlantis?" Rod closes his eyes and counts to ten; Sheppard is a big boy, he can make his own choices.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta, whom I will not name in order to keep up anonymity, but who knows who she is and rocks. This story got way more serious, and way more McSheppy than I intended it to. While Sumner is a main player, he ended up fading into the sidelines a bit, and for that I apologize to wanderingwidget. I know you also said you liked McShep, so I hope this makes up for the diminished Sumner. I hope you like the story regardless.-Your Secret Author.
Recipient: wanderingwidget
***
Part One
Rod McKay knows the exact moment that he falls for Doctor Jonathan Sheppard.
The man -complaining loudly of the cold, of the glare off the icy snow into his eyes, of the turbulent flight he's just had with General Jackson, of flying squid bombs- shoves his way to the door of the chopper and puts out a hand impatiently, waiting for some lowly grunt to give him assistance out of the high seat.
The marines eye one another and as a single unit, take a step back.
Rod grins at them, pulls himself up to his full height and breadth, readies himself for a good interpersonal challenge, and puts out his own hand for Dr. Sheppard to use. The doctor scrambles out of the chopper inelegantly and it is only Rod's grip on him that keeps him from falling into the snow.
Rod turns the grip into a handshake when Sheppard has finally righted himself. "Hi," he says genially, voice raised to carry over the whining wind-down of the helicopter blades. "I'm Doctor Rod McKay."
"Doctor Jonathan Sheppard," Sheppard offers in return, as if Rod doesn't already know, as if Rod hadn't hand picked the man to come to Antarctica and work on the Ancient Outpost.
"Yeah," Rod says, and meets Sheppard's annoyed hazel eyes and wham bam, there it is, the one-two punch of lust. Rodney lets his hand linger in Sheppard's a second too long, a calculated move designed to make Sheppard wonder if Rod is flirting with him, but not long enough to either confirm it or show it to the marines.
Canada, the UK, the greater part of Europe may have legalized same sex unions, but that doesn't make the American soldiers behind him any less tolerant of the international expedition's 'multiculturalism'.
"It's freezing," Dr. Sheppard observes pointedly. "What the hell have you brought me all the way out here for? And what the hell was that thing that fired at us? I could have died you know. Every single precious brain cell of mine could have been scrambled!"
Sheppard is working himself into hysterics of self preservation which Rod thinks that he maybe shouldn't find cute. Rod wonders if there's something wrong with him, or if it really is just all about the fun he knows he's going to have winding this one up. Not that Rod is sadistic or mean, just that he takes pleasure in figuring out how people tick. Or maybe 'tic', in Sheppard's case.
"Yeah, Laura's sorry about that," Rod says with a bit of a sheepish shrug and claps Sheppard on the back. Sheppard doesn't look pleased. Or mollified.
"Fire her," Sheppard says. There's no hint of humour in this order and Rod bristles for a second on Laura's behalf.
Laura has been on the ATA project longer than Rod. No way in hell he's firing her just for brushing her elbow past the Chair by accident.
Rod sucks in a breath, puffs out his cheeks, grins, and doesn't let Sheppard get to him.
Challenge indeed. But Rod likes challenges. Rod had read that Sheppard was egotistical and difficult, but he hadn't anticipated this. The urge to pop Sheppard in the nose is just as strong as the urge to jump his bones. Luckily, Rod had very long ago learned the virtue of patience, so instead he smiles and jerks a thumb over his shoulder.
"Yeah, sure, I'll fire the best medical doctor on the base. I'm sure you won't mind patching up your own wounds, then? You're good with frostbite?"
Sheppard looks faintly ill and Rod resists the urge to laugh.
"No, then," he says, rubbing together mittened hands.
Sheppard frowns. "So why did you insist that I come all the way down to the bottom of the planet? Your monkeys couldn't haul a notebook of equations north?"
"I'll explain on the ride down," Rod says, turning and walking towards the entrance of the elevator shaft, knowing that Sheppard will follow.
"Down?" Sheppard pants when he catches up. "Down where? Where are we? What did you need me for?"
"We need you, Doctor, to sit in a chair."
"A chair?" Sheppard repeats sceptically.
"It's a really cool chair," Rod reassures Sheppard with a grin. "After you."
Rod absolutely does not use Sheppard getting into the elevator first as an opportunity to check out his ass. Absolutely not.
***
The head of the engineering team under Rod's supervision in the Antarctic Outpost-and probably Atlantis, if they ever find it-is Mr. Marshal Sumner, an Airforce Colonel who was dishonourably discharged for talking about things he shouldn't have in places he shouldn't have been in the first place. He is an asshole, a tyrant, and an all around petty jerk, but he is brilliant at what he does and motivates his underlings better than Rod himself could.
The old axiom about vinegar and honey doesn't quite apply; perhaps the one about talking softly and carrying a big stick is more appropriate.
Sumner's first glance at Sheppard tells Rod exactly what the man thinks of new doc. Dorky black framed glasses, wild mad-scientist hair, boots that look like they are perpetually untied, and a list of equations scrawled on the back of Sheppard's hand in blue biro, the man isn't exactly Hollywood material. But Rod knows Sheppard is brilliant, Rod's read the theoretical proofs.
Sumner will never know, never appreciate that Sheppard is a man who almost without any additional input from outside his own little lab at Berkley that travel via stable wormhole is possible. Sheppard is literally months away from inventing his own damn Stargate.
Rod got a big fat mancrush on Sheppard's brain way before he got to ogle the body, and
Rod is very pleased that they seem to compliment each other.
More than that, Laura has extrapolated from her research on genetic lineages that Sheppard probably has the ATA gene. Possibly, he is an even stronger carrier than Dr. O'Neill, but that remains to be tested.
"Right, fine, on the chair," Sumner snaps, and Sheppard draws himself up to snap right back.
"Don't bother wasting your breath with Sumner," Rod whispers into Sheppard's ear, and Rod does his best to make it a warm, inviting sound. Sheppard's shoulders tense, but he clicks his mouth shut, still too off kilter from the near-death experience and confused by Rod's flirting to make a good argument.
Get him used to Ancient technology and the labs, Rod surmises, and there will be shouting matches echoing all over the continent.
Sheppard obligingly stomps over to the platform, his untied books clomping and scraping along in an ungainly manner that makes his gait awkward, and plops down into the chair with what is dangerously close to a pout.
The second his (very nice) arse hits the seat, the pout vanishes, replaced with a shining expression of Christmas morning awe. The Chair glows such a bright blue that Rod is temped to shade his eyes. He doesn't. He can't miss this. It snaps back and Sheppard automatically puts his hands over the sensor pads without prompting. Laura jumps up and down with giddy joy.
"Think of where we are in the solar system," Rod prompts gently from the bottom of the stairs. The sentence has scarcely passed his lips when the most detailed and beautiful hologram of Sol Rod has ever seen springs into existence above Sheppard's head.
"I did that," Sheppard says with a smug grin.
There is no time for celebration. At that exact moment, Dr. O'Neill barrels around the corner, waving his datapad. "I found it!" he screeches with joy, "The eighth chevron! I have it! We're going!"
"Hey!" General Jackson shouts back, mock affronted. "Only if I give you the ZPM!"
His annoyed but affectionate remark is drowned out by the sudden, riotous yells of the soldiers and scientists around them. The whole Outpost cheers.
Sheppard sits back up. He wriggles out of his puffy coat to reveal a slim, toned body wrapped in a thick black sweater that makes Rod's neck warm.
Sumner is looking too, and suddenly his eyes spark. "Hey, kid," he says, sauntering over to the chair and cocking his hips obscenely against the arm rest. Sheppard pulls his hand away discreetly. "Wanna go to Atlantis?"
"At-atlantis?"
Rod closes his eyes and counts to ten.
When he is finished, the red wash of rage has subsided, and he turns and grins at O'Neill, takes a step into the group hug. Rod ignores Sumner as he leans over Sheppard in the chair, leering.
Sheppard is a big boy; he can make his own choices.
He'll walk away or he won't, and that has nothing to do with Rod.
***
The packing and the hiring and the preparations keep Rod busy in Nevada and Area 51 for the next month, so he doesn't see Sheppard again until Embarkation Day. Thinks about him a bit, sure, but Sheppard has his number and never calls and Rod isn't exactly the sort to go panting. Still, he's looking forward to another meeting.
If nothing else, the papers Sheppard has produced in his short time have been incredible-he's taken his own theories of how wormholes should work, applied it to the way they do, and seems mere years away from figuring out how to make a ZPM of their very own.
But instead of the cocky, robust man Rod is expecting, he meets with a much more diminished and exhausted version. Laura assures Rod that Sheppard is just tired-he's stayed at the Mountain the whole time, devouring every file and mission report SG-1 ever produced, tinkering in the labs, rewriting Colonel Carter's gate dialling algorithms and generally driving everyone insane with his boastfulness. He's also had a few tumbles, Laura confides-once in a parking lot, scraping up knees and palms; another, running into the low hanging cabinets in his office. Sheppard, she says, is a bit of a klutz.
Rod tells her that the next time Sheppard darkens the infirmary doorway, she should tell him to tie up his damn shoelaces.
Rod doesn't give it much more thought than that. Sheppard's pack is huge, practically bursting the seams, and it looks like it weighs a ton. The man probably hasn't slept for the excitement, and is being weighed down by his books. He'll look better after some rest.
Rod notices with grim satisfaction that Sheppard makes a point of staying on the opposite side of the Gate Room as Sumner during the whole pre-departure madhouse. Rod hopes that if anything has happened between them, it has already ended. Then he'll get his shot at Sheppard.
It is a mean, petty thought, so Rod pushes it away. Rod doesn't like feeling mean and petty; it makes him cranky and angry at himself. Nothing is going to spoil today; nothing, not even his awful temper.
***
All hell brakes loose about twenty four hours after they get to Atlantis.
The first day is fine; the wormhole engages, everyone and all their stuff gets through, and Dr. O'Neill is even thoughtful enough to roll along a bottle of champagne. The city lights up and rolls over like a slut for Beckett, Sheppard, Cadman, and the other ATA positive members of the expedition.
They verify that the 'Gate room and dialling platform are safe and secure, and then people are shuffled away into nooks and crannies like playing cards. They put the infirmary one floor below Stargate Ops, where the technology experts guess the lingering pieces of equipment are medical in nature. The commissary goes one floor above, where there's some food-prep looking tools and a great view of the swirling teal and green that hugs close on the bottom of the ocean.
Nobody's sure how they're going to charge up the things that require plugging in-Heightmeyer's hairdryer, Chuck's iPod, Zelenka's unbelievably annoying robotic pigeon alarm clock-but there are holes in the walls with grounded power currents that could be outlets, once Rod has a team determine how to regulate the flow to match what ever voltage specifications are required. This is also good because it means the naquadah generator that had been brought along with the battery recharging dock-for laptops and radios-can be set aside and saved for another use.
Once all the closet-sized living quarters on the floors below the impromptu infirmary and above the Mess are cleared, people drag their bags into some and flop down on beds. Sheppard takes the shoebox closest to what appears to be an Ancient astrophysics lab, and Rod takes one near the new Mess to be sociable. Sumner is somewhere near Sheppard, but Rod doesn't like to linger on that thought, so doesn't.
They find spaceships a few hours after Rod tries out his own new bed, and he's up and off again, trying to keep Ford from nick naming them "Naquadah Twinkies". They settle on "Gateships" for now.
It isn't until Sgt. Weir has her laptop connected to the dialling console and is running a diagnostic on their new, more advanced 'Gate systems, that they realize the city's ZedPMs are reaching their limit and the shield that is protecting them from the crushing weight of the gorgeous ocean is about to fail.
Even with all the naquadah generators they have, it isn't enough.
There's no time to scout out an Alpha site. They just grab what they can and hit the automatic dial on the first 'Gate address in the Ancient database marked "friendly" and go.
It's Ford who finds the Athosians. Or rather, it's Jinto and Wex who find the Expedition.
Sumner doesn't trust them, but he's not in charge, for which Rod is eternally grateful. They've only been in the Pegasus galaxy two days and he already regrets not replacing Sumner with Dr. Stackhouse.
Dr. Grodin, the leader of the Expedition, gets on smashingly with Tegan Emmagen, the patriarch of Athos. It seems that if they've lost Atlantis, then at least they've gained allies and a different base world.
Sheppard, still mourning the loss of Atlantis, is eager to join the scouting party that is going to figure out if the abandoned Ancient city on the edge of the Athosian encampment would be habitable. Rod approves, they need an ATA carrier to go. Teyla, Tegan's only daughter, volunteers to guide Col. Zelenka and Sheppard there. Rod would dearly love to go himself, but he's needed by Grodin's side in order to work out the new treaty that the Earthlings and Athosians are inevitably going to have to make.
Sumner wants to go too, claiming that he's needed to check out the soundness of the city's structures, but he leers suggestively at Sheppard, and Sheppard turns his face away, presumably to hide his blush.
Rod doesn't need to count to ten this time.
Instead he goes inside and indulges in a very bracing tea and small chat with Tegan and the other elders of the tribe, all of whom are very genial and help to take his mind off of the thought of Sheppard and Sumner working out their theoretical disputes in sweaty, sticky ways.
Rod is an adult. Rod can deal with the fact that he's missed his chance at Sheppard. Hell, Weir was eyeing him that morning, and so was one of the airforce guys on KP. Rod doesn't anticipate a dry spell any time in the future-Rod is rarely without company if he wants it - but none of these people give him the 'one-two' that Sheppard did.
Sex is sex, but Sheppard is something else.
Rod is a patient, gentle man, he reminds himself. Maybe tables will turn in his favour. Maybe they won't. Either way, Rod has a job to do and he's got to do it. So he settles himself down on one of the lush seats around the wooden table and eagerly takes in Tegan's tales of the 'Ancestors'.
The strange high pitched whine of incoming aircraft is both new and gut-wrenchingly familiar. Rod immediately thinks of Death Gliders and Replicators. Grodin, who, bless him, is a wonderful diplomat but a shitty soldier, stands there and gawps at the tent ceiling as the Athosians all slither down trap doors, screaming for their children and hauling down Expedition members at the same time.
Rod turns back for Grodin, who has stupidly gone outside to stare up at the sky, and that's when they see the strange, mirage-like beam sweep towards them. Then there's nothing.
***
Rod wakes with the biggest headache he's ever remembered having, and panics. Rod hasn't had a blackout in years, years, and he's so sure, so sure he had it under control. It takes him a few minutes of wracking his brain and rubbing his temples and listening to the sounds of people waking up around him to realize that he hasn't had another episode, he was just knocked unconscious.
Oh, thank god.
The last thing he needed was to get shipped back to Earth because his little secret got out and caused people to question his sanity. It's only belatedly that Rod realizes that the only 'Gate with the ability to dial Earth is crushed at the bottom of the ocean on Lantea, and he feels guilty for the vicious pleasure that gives him.
They can't get rid of him.
Grodin is beside Rod, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand, and Tegan and a few of the slower, older Athosians are there too. No more Expedition members, again thank god, but Rod feels slightly angry on behalf of the elders. Rod has no idea where they are, but it looks like a cell and by the reactions of the Athosians, a cell in a Very Bad Place. He's mad that the younger clan members left the elders to this fate.
What ever "This Fate" is.
That's when the Neo wannabie overgrown smurf shows up and Rod can't help but smack his own forehead and say, "Of course, of course" out loud, which makes Neo single him out.
Rod goes quietly with the guards, because there's no point in causing a ruckus that might get people killed until he knows where they are, and how to escape.
What he expected was Gu'aould boasting and torturous hand devices, and other forms of information extraction that he encountered during his time on SG-3. Instead he is lead to a room with honeycomb walls in 80s colours and a long medieval style banquet table, appropriately laden, and a Marilyn Manson smurf.
"Hello," he says amiably, because sometimes politeness works best, and offers his hand to shake.
The woman comes forward and lifts her own hand in response and Rod recoils as soon as he sees the toothy mouth in the palm.
"Oh," he says, and she laughs.
"Where are you from?" she asks. She has one of their guns on the table, and a radio. "This technology-it is not of this world."
"Um, no," Rod says, and decides to leave it at that. The less the smurfs know about the Expedition, probably the better.
"Where?"
"Nowhere," Rod offers, back straight and stiff, ready for the inevitable slap across the face. System Lords like to slap, Rod has learned. Instead his mind is buffeted with hers and he sways, falls to his knees and scowls, clapping his hands to the side of his head.
This is bad, this is very very bad.
Rod has spent years very carefully constructing his various mental barriers, created tight little niches and winding labyrinths to keep the episodes minimal, to stay in control, to make himself pleasant and personable and ... and the smurf is crashing through each wall, tearing down each maze, rending carelessly, and the Other inside of Rod is laughing. He is stretching and smiling and waking up from the ten year sleep Rod has imposed on him.
Rod can feel the smurf in there, cold and slimy and searching. Searching for... for the name... the place... Earth. Billions of prey.
No! Rod howls back. He can feel the blackness welling up, the onset of an episode, the terrifying familiarity of loosing control, and at first he shoves it back, frantically scrabbling to retain power. Rod hates nothing more than being powerless. Nothing.
The Other shoves forward eagerly. Then Rod thinks, Hell, why not? It would serve them right. So he closes his eyes and spreads open his arms and lets go.
***
When Rod wakes up, there is sapphire blood on his hands and bile in this throat. He is standing, swaying on the spot, and there's some sort of klaxon blazing. Silhouettes in the honeycombs are writhing, backlit by the awful 80s ambient lighting.
Col. Zelenka has his hand on Rod's shoulder, and it's not shaking. Rod suspects that it's only because Zelenka is so very good at making himself stony.
"I hear you have bad temper," Zelenka offers in his stilted Czech accent. That's all he says, and for that Rod is grateful. He wipes the blood off on the smurf's dress, grabs the gun and radio, and follows Zelenka out to the waiting 'Twinkie', where the rest of the Athosians and Grodin are being herded aboard. Rod takes the time to stand on the ramp and savour the left over adrenaline and the sight of the smurf ship being blown all to hell.
***
It turns out that Atlantis hadn't really been crushed after all. In a vain hope that they could maybe swim to the spaceships, Weir had tried dialling Atlantis and had found out about the failsafe. The Athosians agreed to migrate to Atlantis with the Expedition; the Wraith-the smurfs-now knew where their settlement was and they would never have peace if they did not move.
So instead of living on Athosian turf, the Athosians are stuck on theirs.
Rod gets on with the business of sorting out his staff, learning more about his Athosian neighbours, educating them about clocks and meal times and Ancient-style showers. From them, Rod learns how to make tuttleroot soup and eat with too-long spoons, how to pray to the Ancestors, and most important, how to meditate. Rod uses his time in meditation to carefully reconstruct the walls that the Wraith Queen had torn through. The Other howls, annoyed to be back behind bars, even if they are flimsy bars for now, and does not go willingly.
Every thought Rod has, it comments on. Every doubt that plagues Rod, it amplifies. Every time Rod sees Sheppard the Other growls want. It's like being sixteen again, awkward and uncertain and hormone driven, but nightmarishly worse.
Rod clamps tightly only his self control and becomes even more pleasant and accommodating to try to make up for it and hopes that no one notices. He takes turns eating with different groups of people in the mess hall, one morning with marines, the next with botanists, an evening with Athosians, a mid-day meal with people who are old-school SGC, and another with the noobs.
He spends two memorable, futile meals sitting opposite Sheppard and trying to engage in small talk. The first time, Sheppard ignores him utterly in favour of scribbling as he jams a turkey sandwich into his mouth ungracefully. Rod does not look at his lips.
The second time Sheppard is too busy looking over his shoulder for Sumner to pay any attention. When Sumner does arrive, he stands beside Sheppard and scowls. Sheppard darts wide and perhaps slightly scared eyes at Rod. Then he gets up and follows Sumner silently, all the manic energy simply gone.
Rod wonders why Sheppard doesn't seem happy to be going off to bed with his lover, but figures it's really not any of his business. Maybe they're in the middle of a row and that's why Sheppard looks less than pleased.
Rod spends the rest of his admittedly busy schedule putting together a 'Gate team.
Teyla, who has handled herself more than admirably in the sparring matches she's had with the marines, is his first choice. She's a native of this galaxy, and if Rod's group is going to be the First Contact team, he needs a face that everyone they meet will trust. Agent Beckett is his second-the man is MI5 special ops and damn scary with garrotte wire-but the last position is harder to fill. Ford is nice enough but too entrenched in the chain of command to want to be led by a civilian. Weir is needed on base. Kusanagi is a black belt three times over, but she is thinking of requesting her own team.
Eventually, the fourth finds him.
It's been a week, and Rod is working in his office, mapping out a labs-use share chart, when the door chimes. Rod rather likes the soft tinkle of the midi-style bells. They are less abrasive than a knock. "Come in," he says, resisting the geeky urge to leave it just at 'come', like they do on Star Trek.
Dr. Sheppard shuffles tentatively over the threshold and stops so close to the door that Rod is mildly worried that his ass will get cut off when it closes. Sheppard's marvellous rear seems safe, so Rod pushes his laptop aside, folds his hands, and gives Sheppard his full attention.
It's odd; whenever he sees Sheppard in the mess, the man is alone, furiously scribbling on notepaper or typing on his own standard issue laptop. When he is around other people-the Mensa group that has started up on base, for instance-he is loud and brash and wholly obnoxious. But here, now, Sheppard is quiet, withdrawn, and hunted looking. He looks sacked.
"Doctor?" Rod prompts, waving at the chair opposite him.
Sheppard shakes his head, twists his fingers, licks his lips, then nods and plonks down into the chair. "I-" he starts, then shakes his head again and says, "I don't know who else to talk to. No one else likes me."
"That's a bit harsh," Rod says gently.
It's not true either-Rod likes him well enough, Weir finds him amusing, and the anthropologists have a pool going on how long it will take Sheppard to rig up a still. Sheppard hasn't won any friends with his attitude, but nobody in Atlantis is stupid, and they know their best bet for survival is this man. That makes them willing to try, and once they do, they'll see how good Sheppard is-vulnerable and geeky and covering up with bravado.
"No it's true, I ..." He looks down, fidgets with his sleeves and holds himself stiff, as if something hurts. "This was stupid. Never mind," he decides, and stands up again.
Rod smiles patiently. The Other wants out and Rod shoves it back. "I'm sure it's not stupid," Rod says. "Please, Doctor," using Sheppard's title to mollify him. And who doesn't like being rewarded for all their hard work?
"I want..." Sheppard starts again, and presses his glasses up his nose, bringing Rod's attention back to those clear hazel eyes. "I want off-off..."
"Offworld?" Rod guesses, a bit taken aback. "Seriously?"
Sheppard blinks, processes, and a small smile twitches at the side of his mouth, "Yeah," he says, then "yes. Yes, I want to go offworld. I want a team."
Rod very heroically doesn't make a face. "I think your adventurous spirit is admirable, Dr. Sheppard, but I'm not sure there's any place for-"
"I'll take a fit test!" Sheppard shouts, standing suddenly and gripping the side of Rod's desk with white fingers. "I'll do gun training. Anything I have to do! Just get me away from..." He stops himself and looks down.
"From?"
"From... the labs," Sheppard finishes lamely.
"The labs," Rod repeats dubiously, raising an eyebrow.
"All the good tech is out there," Sheppard says, waving his hand at the window behind Rod's head. "And I'm stuck here."
Rod thinks it over while Sheppard sinks back down into his chair. Well, Rod's team needs a fourth, and he is pretty sure that between Teyla and Beckett, they can keep an eye on one clumsy scientist.
"Okay," Rod says, and something inside him clenches and gets warm when he sees Sheppard's posture straighten, his eyes sparkle with hope. "On one condition."
"What?" Sheppard asks, and his tone says anything, anything you want. Rod really wishes Sheppard was naked and in bed and looking at him like that, instead of clothed and on the other side of the desk and obviously in a relationship with someone else.
"Do up your shoelaces," Rod says, face pulled into a mock frown.
Sheppard beams at him and it's the best feeling in the world.
***
Sumner is not too eager to let his best scientist-and Rod assumes, lover-out into the field. There is a bitter, silent battle between the two in the middle of the primary lab until Rod steps in and summarily makes the decision as the Head of Science.
"I came to him," Rod lies. "He has the strongest ATA gene in Atlantis. He should be out in the field using it."
"No," Sumner says.
"Excuse me?" Rod shoots back. He feels the anger, the red wash slide up his face and shoves it back down. Ever since he let it loose on the Wraith ship it had been bubbling far too close to the surface for Rod's own good, too accessible, too easy to let slip despite his meditation and rebuilding. "Who made you his mother? It's not your choice."
"I make my own choices, you can't tell me what to do," Sheppard adds from behind the safety of Beckett and Rod.
Sumner glares, face puce with fury, through Rod and straight at Sheppard. Then he turns on his heel and stalks away. Sheppard lets out a sigh of relief, sags for a second, then straightens to his normal hyper-perfect posture and begins blustering. Beckett rolls his eyes, fingers his gun, and smirks. Beckett likes Sheppard too.
Their first team battle.
Not bad, as far as wins go, Rod thinks.
***
The second battle isn't as smooth.
It's their first trading mission. Teyla says that the natives of the planet are peaceful, but wary of strangers, which Rod thinks is fair enough in a galaxy filled with people who want to eat you. The Athosians always make camp at the outer edge of the village and stay the night so the residents become used to them first.
So they pitch their tents and set a bonfire, and go about sharing out MREs and trading tales of childhood jobs. Rod tells stories of early piano recitals. Beckett is the youngest of seven children, Rod is surprised to learn, every single one of them a sheep farmer before him.
"I couldna stand the smell," Beckett explains, "so I got out of there the only way a lad from a family like mine could-I joined the national reserve."
Sheppard leans around the fire to try to steal Teyla's pudding cup, and that's when Rod notices the dark bruises around his wrists. Sheppard has his cuffs rolled up to keep them out of the stew.
"What's this?" Rod asks, grabbing Sheppard's arm by the sleeve.
Sheppard yanks back faster than Rod thought Sheppard was capable of moving, and shoves his sleeves so far down they cover his knuckles. "Nothing," he says. "Just a... an accident in the lab. It's nothing. I'm clumsy."
It's a lie. It's probably the worst lie Rod's ever heard, and Rod's niece and nephews tell whoppers. Rod and Beckett and even Teyla know it's a lie, but Sheppard's eyes go tight and his face white, so nobody presses it.
Things start to click into place and Rod has to take several deep breaths to keep the Other in check. Focus on the mission, he tells himself. Focus on the mission first, then sort out what needs sorting. Beckett's hand is on the butt of his berretta, apparently thinking the same thing.
"Would you like my pud-ding, Doctor Sheppard?" Teyla asks. "I have not acquired a taste for it and would hate for it to go to waste."
Another bold-faced lie. Rod has seen her stockpiling the deserts under her bed-she loves chocolate as much as the next woman - but Sheppard takes the pudding cup and digs in and everybody lets it slide.
Rod turns his attention to his own pudding cup, and says nothing.
It's in this tight, tense silence that the unmistakable whine that already features heavily in Rod's nightmares rents the sky. Beckett reacts first, firing a spray of bullets from his P90 at the dart that sweeps over their heads. Teyla shoves Beckett out of the path of the transporter beam, but Sheppard is too slow and Rod isn't about to leave a man behind.
***
For the second time in as many weeks, Rod wakes up in a strange 1980s themed cell that looks like it could be made out of blueberry bubblegum. Beside him, Sheppard is sprawled across the cold floor, grey and lax. There are dark bruises under his eyes, bruises that Rod hadn't noticed before in the soft glow of the fire, which speak volumes about how much sleep Sheppard has been getting lately. Probably been up fighting with Sumner about whether he could go on missions.
No, not fighting with, Rod thinks, remembering the bruises on Sheppard's wrists.
Rod's going to have to have a word with Sumner when he gets back. Lover or not, he's far too controlling for Sheppard's own good. Maybe Rod will bring Beckett with him. Maybe he'll just let Teyla go alone.
Sheppard is team now and that means he gets looked after.
Sheppard's bony wrists poke out of the bottom of his sleeves, lurid with purple bruises as well, and Rod reaches out slowly and pushes one sleeve up. The pattern of the bruise is the exact shape of a man's fingers, overlaid on top of paler, yellow green marks in the same shape.
Rod sits back on his heels and counts to ten.
Okay, maybe Rod is getting it all wrong. This could mean anything, really. Maybe Sheppard likes it rough. It is none of Rod's business.
The Other inside Rod stirs, whispering yes yes, he likes it, do it, and Rod shoves it back, down, away. He counts to ten again before opening his eyes. He looks at Sheppard, really looks. Sheppard's shirt has ridden up over a tight, lightly haired belly that is so pale Rod wonders if it has ever seen the sun. Sheppard's ribs stand out in stark contrast and Rod realizes for the first time how much weight Sheppard has actually lost since they'd come to Atlantis.
Far too much in far too short a time.
Worry can do that to a person. So can all-nighters in the lab, and last minute emergency aversions. And nights of hot sex, Rod thinks a bit bitterly. He hasn't been without, as he predicted, but none of them had been... well, none of them had been Sheppard.
Rod likes his acerbic comments, his biting wit. He likes everything about Sheppard that makes him annoying to everyone else, maybe because Rod wishes that he could be that caustic, that honest. But Rod can't afford to affront people-he is the leader, he is supposed to care and be thoughtful and take charge and delegate, and not scream at people for their stupidity and threaten to beat them with their own keyboards. Rod takes vicarious pleasure in Sheppard's hissy fits.
Rod reaches out, lets his fingers drift across the pained crease in Sheppard's forehead. The man is clammy and too pale. The touch rouses Sheppard and Rod snaps his hand back guiltily. Really, pawing another man's boyfriend. What has Rod become?
I'm getting to be like him, Rod thinks with a shudder. I shouldn't have let him out. It was a mistake and now look where we are.
Self pity has to wait, because the moment Sheppard is sitting up and trying very hard not to vomit out of pain and fear, the Wraith guards-one still looking like Neo, though Rod is sure that first one had been blown up with its hive-are there and dragging them both along a corridor and to another grandiose, overblown audience chamber. They are made to kneel at the feet of another Goth Smurf and Rod tries very hard not to chuckle when Sheppard makes an irritated remark about her stylist and Alice Cooper.
Rod stops chuckling when the Wraith Queen slaps her palm against Sheppard's chest and begins to suck out his life.
The red wash slides up and the blackness comes, and this time Rod doesn't fight it.
When he comes to, Sheppard is huddled behind the throne, mouth wet and swollen and his eyes tight with fear. There is Wraith blood, a sickly thick blue, on Rod's hands, and handprints all over Sheppard, on Sheppard's shoulders. There is a knife that Rod doesn't remember packing in his hand. It's the same blueberry bubblegum colour and feels gross and squishy in his hand. But it's his only weapon, so Rod wipes it, and then his hands meticulously on the coat of the decapitated Neo wraith. He tucks the knife into the back of his belt.
This is getting to be a bit too Bruce Banner for Rod's liking.
"R-Rod?" Sheppard says, when Rod takes a step towards him. "What...? How did you-?"
"Never mind," Rod interrupts. "We have to get out of here." He finds and sheathes his gun beside the strange knife, and smiles comfortingly at Sheppard, who uncurls himself tentatively. "Which way to the dart bay and how do I fly one?"
With a task to occupy him, Sheppard's fear falls away, his ego takes over, and in no time they are back on Atlantis and in the infirmary. While they had been gone, Bates had discovered that Teyla's necklace, the one that Sheppard had found for her in the city, was a homing beacon, designed to bring the Wraith to the Ancients.
There is tentative talk to use the homing signal as a trap, and then everyone is sent away to let Sheppard and Rod sleep. Sheppard regards Rod grimly, then turns his back to Rod and burrows under the standard-issue sheets. An attempt at conversation is clearly unwelcome, and not wanting to intrude, Rod decides it can wait until morning.
Knowing full well that Sheppard was probably terrified by what he had seen, yet grateful that Sheppard hadn't spilled the beans to Laura, or the psychiatrist Dr. Parrish, Rod turns away, too, a semblance of privacy in the open ward, and tries to get some rest.
In the middle of the night, Rod cracks an eyelid when he hears the doors woosh open. Sheppard, of course, doesn't budge, mouth hanging open and snoring slighty. Rod tracks the sound of footsteps across the floor, to where they stop just beside Sheppard's bed.
"John," Sumner hisses under his breath.
There is the sharp intake of breath of Sheppard waking. "Sumner," Sheppard says and Rod wishes that he could see their faces. On a last name basis with his own lover? Was Sheppard really that frigid?
Rod wants to jump out of bed right that second and strangle the bastard. But what if he's wrong? So he stays still and listens.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Sumner hisses. "This-I didn't give you this bruise. And the handprint on your jacket."
"N-no," Sheppard whispers. "I didn't... I didn't do anything. I wouldn't-"
"You're damn right you won't!" Sumner snarls, and Rod is amazed at how angry a whisper can sound. "Your ass is mine, do you understand that?"
"N-no," Sheppard says again, "No, I'm not. I don't want-" The rest of the sentence is interrupted by the sound of a stinging slap. Rod tenses all over, gripping his sheet and biting hard on his lower lip. Sheppard makes a high, soft sound of pain, and says, "Yes. Yes."
"Yes what?" Sumner demands.
"Yes, I... I'm yours."
"You better remember that," Sumner says. "If you want to keep your job playing with the pretty ancient tech and going offworld, you better fucking remember that. One word to Zelenka and you'd be sent right back to Earth, you stupid fag, you got that?"
"Yes, yes," Sheppard whispers. His voice sounds damp. "I'm yours, I promise, it was just the Wraith. That was it."
"Good," Sumner says, and Sheppard makes another high sound, but this time it's muffled by the wet, slick sound of a kiss. "You come straight to my quarters when you're out of here. I'm gonna tan your ass for being dumb enough to get caught."
Sheppard says nothing, but the rustle of fabric suggests nodding.
Sumner tiptoes back out of the room. Sheppard sucks on a quiet, desperate little sob, and then goes quiet.
Rod lays very, very still, and counts to ten.
***
The moment he is released, Rod goes to Grodin. "I want Sumner outta here," he says. "I don't care where you have to send him-botony for all I care-I just want him as far away from Sheppard as possible."
Grodin closes his laptop and looks at Rod seriously. "Why?"
"Don't ask," Rod intones. "I can't tell."
Grodin goes a bit pale. "I see." He looked down at his hands briefly, then said, "How's the Alpha site? We need some structures put up. There should be an engineer to oversee it."
Rod feels the surge of the Other press against his mouth and lets the grin slip out. "That's perfect."
***
Over the next few weeks, Sheppard begins to look happier than Rod has ever remembered seeing him. They use the necklace as a lure and capture a Wraith that Ford nicknames 'Bubbles'. (Ford is forthwith banned from ever naming anything ever again). Sheppard pulls his own weight on the mission, and his terror does not overcome the orders he's been given. Rod thinks there is hope for Sheppard yet.
The bags under Sheppard's eyes vanish, the colour comes back to his skin, and the bruises fade. Sheppard starts to look less skeletal, and joins Rod, Beckett, and Teyla in the mornings for breakfast-usually looking like he's just come straight from the lab instead of his bed. But Sheppard still jumps at shadows and panics and fires at birds, so Rod makes up some crock about every team needing required time with Dr. Parrish. He pulls them off active duty for a while with the excuse that Teyla has familial obligations with the Athosians for the next month, and hopes that Sheppard is taking his therapy sessions more seriously than Rod himself is.
Rod spends the time steadfastly sidestepping every question.
"Let's talk about your emotions," Parrish starts in, yet again, to no effect. "It says in your file that you've had past problems with anger management. Would you like to talk about it?"
Rod smiles amiably and says, "I'd rather talk about my sex life. Aren't all you psychologists supposed to be obsessed with penises and complexes?" Rod waggles his eyebrows. "You know Katie Brown? The Marine? Hot. Fantastic in the sack. And she's been trying to get you to notice her."
Parrish goes red, but this time he isn't deterred. He holds onto his own question like a terrier. "I haven't mentioned it before now, but I'm concerned about some of your actions offworld, Rod," he says. "I know you're everyone's buddy on the surface, but-"
Rod feels his face go cold.
"No," Rod says, "I don't want to talk about it."
He gets up and walks out.
He thinks about going to spar, or to mediate, or for a jog, or to shoot things down at the practice range. He goes instead to the commissary and, declining the waves and the invitations, feels the need to sit alone with this revelation for a while. He grabs a cup of his favourite Athosian tea and slides down into a chair that overlooks the ocean and sips.
Somebody told Parrish. Clearly Parrish hasn't told Grodin yet, or Rod would have been on the Alpha site himself by now. Rod has to give Parrish grudging respect for that, for giving Rod the opportunity to try to work out his own issues before going above his head. But Parrish doesn't understand-this isn't something Rod can just make... go away.
And what about Zelenka and Sheppard? As far as Rod knows, they are the only ones who could have seen, who would have met...
In his mind, Rod hears Sumner say, "Whose bruises are these?" He remembers the way Sheppard had looked at him, the way his mouth had been kiss bruised and wet. Rod remembers the bloody handprints on Sheppard's jacket, hand prints that had lacked the indentation from a palm-mouth, now that Rod thinks about it.
Shit, Rod thinks, and very carefully sets his cold tea down on the table. He pelts towards Sheppard's lab and pauses only when he gets to the closed door to catch his breath. He waves his hand over the keypad and Sheppard says "Who is it?" where most people said 'come in', which says a lot about the man. That he needs to verify.
"Sheppard?" Rod says. "It's... it's me. Rod."
"Rod?" Sheppard repeats, his voice coming closer to the door. "Are you sure?"
"Why wouldn't I be sure?" Rod says back. "Let me in, I don't want to have this conversation in the hall."
"You're Rod," Sheppard says again.
"Who the hell else would I be?" Rod asks, getting frustrated.
The door swooshes open, and Rod is faced with a grim and mildly nervous Sheppard. "Meredith," Sheppard says.
Rod feels all the colour fall out of his face. "He told you his name?"
Part Two
Author: losyark
Pairings: Sumner/Sheppard; McShep
Setting: MENSA-verse
Rating: NC-17 for language and sexual situations (but no graphic non-con!) and Sheppard!whump
Genre: Angst
Wordcount: 14 300+
Summary: Sumner is looking too, and suddenly his eyes spark. "Hey, kid," he says, sauntering over to the chair and cocking his hips obscenely against the arm rest. Sheppard pulls his hand away discreetly. "Wanna go to Atlantis?" Rod closes his eyes and counts to ten; Sheppard is a big boy, he can make his own choices.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta, whom I will not name in order to keep up anonymity, but who knows who she is and rocks. This story got way more serious, and way more McSheppy than I intended it to. While Sumner is a main player, he ended up fading into the sidelines a bit, and for that I apologize to wanderingwidget. I know you also said you liked McShep, so I hope this makes up for the diminished Sumner. I hope you like the story regardless.-Your Secret Author.
Recipient: wanderingwidget
***
Part One
Rod McKay knows the exact moment that he falls for Doctor Jonathan Sheppard.
The man -complaining loudly of the cold, of the glare off the icy snow into his eyes, of the turbulent flight he's just had with General Jackson, of flying squid bombs- shoves his way to the door of the chopper and puts out a hand impatiently, waiting for some lowly grunt to give him assistance out of the high seat.
The marines eye one another and as a single unit, take a step back.
Rod grins at them, pulls himself up to his full height and breadth, readies himself for a good interpersonal challenge, and puts out his own hand for Dr. Sheppard to use. The doctor scrambles out of the chopper inelegantly and it is only Rod's grip on him that keeps him from falling into the snow.
Rod turns the grip into a handshake when Sheppard has finally righted himself. "Hi," he says genially, voice raised to carry over the whining wind-down of the helicopter blades. "I'm Doctor Rod McKay."
"Doctor Jonathan Sheppard," Sheppard offers in return, as if Rod doesn't already know, as if Rod hadn't hand picked the man to come to Antarctica and work on the Ancient Outpost.
"Yeah," Rod says, and meets Sheppard's annoyed hazel eyes and wham bam, there it is, the one-two punch of lust. Rodney lets his hand linger in Sheppard's a second too long, a calculated move designed to make Sheppard wonder if Rod is flirting with him, but not long enough to either confirm it or show it to the marines.
Canada, the UK, the greater part of Europe may have legalized same sex unions, but that doesn't make the American soldiers behind him any less tolerant of the international expedition's 'multiculturalism'.
"It's freezing," Dr. Sheppard observes pointedly. "What the hell have you brought me all the way out here for? And what the hell was that thing that fired at us? I could have died you know. Every single precious brain cell of mine could have been scrambled!"
Sheppard is working himself into hysterics of self preservation which Rod thinks that he maybe shouldn't find cute. Rod wonders if there's something wrong with him, or if it really is just all about the fun he knows he's going to have winding this one up. Not that Rod is sadistic or mean, just that he takes pleasure in figuring out how people tick. Or maybe 'tic', in Sheppard's case.
"Yeah, Laura's sorry about that," Rod says with a bit of a sheepish shrug and claps Sheppard on the back. Sheppard doesn't look pleased. Or mollified.
"Fire her," Sheppard says. There's no hint of humour in this order and Rod bristles for a second on Laura's behalf.
Laura has been on the ATA project longer than Rod. No way in hell he's firing her just for brushing her elbow past the Chair by accident.
Rod sucks in a breath, puffs out his cheeks, grins, and doesn't let Sheppard get to him.
Challenge indeed. But Rod likes challenges. Rod had read that Sheppard was egotistical and difficult, but he hadn't anticipated this. The urge to pop Sheppard in the nose is just as strong as the urge to jump his bones. Luckily, Rod had very long ago learned the virtue of patience, so instead he smiles and jerks a thumb over his shoulder.
"Yeah, sure, I'll fire the best medical doctor on the base. I'm sure you won't mind patching up your own wounds, then? You're good with frostbite?"
Sheppard looks faintly ill and Rod resists the urge to laugh.
"No, then," he says, rubbing together mittened hands.
Sheppard frowns. "So why did you insist that I come all the way down to the bottom of the planet? Your monkeys couldn't haul a notebook of equations north?"
"I'll explain on the ride down," Rod says, turning and walking towards the entrance of the elevator shaft, knowing that Sheppard will follow.
"Down?" Sheppard pants when he catches up. "Down where? Where are we? What did you need me for?"
"We need you, Doctor, to sit in a chair."
"A chair?" Sheppard repeats sceptically.
"It's a really cool chair," Rod reassures Sheppard with a grin. "After you."
Rod absolutely does not use Sheppard getting into the elevator first as an opportunity to check out his ass. Absolutely not.
***
The head of the engineering team under Rod's supervision in the Antarctic Outpost-and probably Atlantis, if they ever find it-is Mr. Marshal Sumner, an Airforce Colonel who was dishonourably discharged for talking about things he shouldn't have in places he shouldn't have been in the first place. He is an asshole, a tyrant, and an all around petty jerk, but he is brilliant at what he does and motivates his underlings better than Rod himself could.
The old axiom about vinegar and honey doesn't quite apply; perhaps the one about talking softly and carrying a big stick is more appropriate.
Sumner's first glance at Sheppard tells Rod exactly what the man thinks of new doc. Dorky black framed glasses, wild mad-scientist hair, boots that look like they are perpetually untied, and a list of equations scrawled on the back of Sheppard's hand in blue biro, the man isn't exactly Hollywood material. But Rod knows Sheppard is brilliant, Rod's read the theoretical proofs.
Sumner will never know, never appreciate that Sheppard is a man who almost without any additional input from outside his own little lab at Berkley that travel via stable wormhole is possible. Sheppard is literally months away from inventing his own damn Stargate.
Rod got a big fat mancrush on Sheppard's brain way before he got to ogle the body, and
Rod is very pleased that they seem to compliment each other.
More than that, Laura has extrapolated from her research on genetic lineages that Sheppard probably has the ATA gene. Possibly, he is an even stronger carrier than Dr. O'Neill, but that remains to be tested.
"Right, fine, on the chair," Sumner snaps, and Sheppard draws himself up to snap right back.
"Don't bother wasting your breath with Sumner," Rod whispers into Sheppard's ear, and Rod does his best to make it a warm, inviting sound. Sheppard's shoulders tense, but he clicks his mouth shut, still too off kilter from the near-death experience and confused by Rod's flirting to make a good argument.
Get him used to Ancient technology and the labs, Rod surmises, and there will be shouting matches echoing all over the continent.
Sheppard obligingly stomps over to the platform, his untied books clomping and scraping along in an ungainly manner that makes his gait awkward, and plops down into the chair with what is dangerously close to a pout.
The second his (very nice) arse hits the seat, the pout vanishes, replaced with a shining expression of Christmas morning awe. The Chair glows such a bright blue that Rod is temped to shade his eyes. He doesn't. He can't miss this. It snaps back and Sheppard automatically puts his hands over the sensor pads without prompting. Laura jumps up and down with giddy joy.
"Think of where we are in the solar system," Rod prompts gently from the bottom of the stairs. The sentence has scarcely passed his lips when the most detailed and beautiful hologram of Sol Rod has ever seen springs into existence above Sheppard's head.
"I did that," Sheppard says with a smug grin.
There is no time for celebration. At that exact moment, Dr. O'Neill barrels around the corner, waving his datapad. "I found it!" he screeches with joy, "The eighth chevron! I have it! We're going!"
"Hey!" General Jackson shouts back, mock affronted. "Only if I give you the ZPM!"
His annoyed but affectionate remark is drowned out by the sudden, riotous yells of the soldiers and scientists around them. The whole Outpost cheers.
Sheppard sits back up. He wriggles out of his puffy coat to reveal a slim, toned body wrapped in a thick black sweater that makes Rod's neck warm.
Sumner is looking too, and suddenly his eyes spark. "Hey, kid," he says, sauntering over to the chair and cocking his hips obscenely against the arm rest. Sheppard pulls his hand away discreetly. "Wanna go to Atlantis?"
"At-atlantis?"
Rod closes his eyes and counts to ten.
When he is finished, the red wash of rage has subsided, and he turns and grins at O'Neill, takes a step into the group hug. Rod ignores Sumner as he leans over Sheppard in the chair, leering.
Sheppard is a big boy; he can make his own choices.
He'll walk away or he won't, and that has nothing to do with Rod.
***
The packing and the hiring and the preparations keep Rod busy in Nevada and Area 51 for the next month, so he doesn't see Sheppard again until Embarkation Day. Thinks about him a bit, sure, but Sheppard has his number and never calls and Rod isn't exactly the sort to go panting. Still, he's looking forward to another meeting.
If nothing else, the papers Sheppard has produced in his short time have been incredible-he's taken his own theories of how wormholes should work, applied it to the way they do, and seems mere years away from figuring out how to make a ZPM of their very own.
But instead of the cocky, robust man Rod is expecting, he meets with a much more diminished and exhausted version. Laura assures Rod that Sheppard is just tired-he's stayed at the Mountain the whole time, devouring every file and mission report SG-1 ever produced, tinkering in the labs, rewriting Colonel Carter's gate dialling algorithms and generally driving everyone insane with his boastfulness. He's also had a few tumbles, Laura confides-once in a parking lot, scraping up knees and palms; another, running into the low hanging cabinets in his office. Sheppard, she says, is a bit of a klutz.
Rod tells her that the next time Sheppard darkens the infirmary doorway, she should tell him to tie up his damn shoelaces.
Rod doesn't give it much more thought than that. Sheppard's pack is huge, practically bursting the seams, and it looks like it weighs a ton. The man probably hasn't slept for the excitement, and is being weighed down by his books. He'll look better after some rest.
Rod notices with grim satisfaction that Sheppard makes a point of staying on the opposite side of the Gate Room as Sumner during the whole pre-departure madhouse. Rod hopes that if anything has happened between them, it has already ended. Then he'll get his shot at Sheppard.
It is a mean, petty thought, so Rod pushes it away. Rod doesn't like feeling mean and petty; it makes him cranky and angry at himself. Nothing is going to spoil today; nothing, not even his awful temper.
***
All hell brakes loose about twenty four hours after they get to Atlantis.
The first day is fine; the wormhole engages, everyone and all their stuff gets through, and Dr. O'Neill is even thoughtful enough to roll along a bottle of champagne. The city lights up and rolls over like a slut for Beckett, Sheppard, Cadman, and the other ATA positive members of the expedition.
They verify that the 'Gate room and dialling platform are safe and secure, and then people are shuffled away into nooks and crannies like playing cards. They put the infirmary one floor below Stargate Ops, where the technology experts guess the lingering pieces of equipment are medical in nature. The commissary goes one floor above, where there's some food-prep looking tools and a great view of the swirling teal and green that hugs close on the bottom of the ocean.
Nobody's sure how they're going to charge up the things that require plugging in-Heightmeyer's hairdryer, Chuck's iPod, Zelenka's unbelievably annoying robotic pigeon alarm clock-but there are holes in the walls with grounded power currents that could be outlets, once Rod has a team determine how to regulate the flow to match what ever voltage specifications are required. This is also good because it means the naquadah generator that had been brought along with the battery recharging dock-for laptops and radios-can be set aside and saved for another use.
Once all the closet-sized living quarters on the floors below the impromptu infirmary and above the Mess are cleared, people drag their bags into some and flop down on beds. Sheppard takes the shoebox closest to what appears to be an Ancient astrophysics lab, and Rod takes one near the new Mess to be sociable. Sumner is somewhere near Sheppard, but Rod doesn't like to linger on that thought, so doesn't.
They find spaceships a few hours after Rod tries out his own new bed, and he's up and off again, trying to keep Ford from nick naming them "Naquadah Twinkies". They settle on "Gateships" for now.
It isn't until Sgt. Weir has her laptop connected to the dialling console and is running a diagnostic on their new, more advanced 'Gate systems, that they realize the city's ZedPMs are reaching their limit and the shield that is protecting them from the crushing weight of the gorgeous ocean is about to fail.
Even with all the naquadah generators they have, it isn't enough.
There's no time to scout out an Alpha site. They just grab what they can and hit the automatic dial on the first 'Gate address in the Ancient database marked "friendly" and go.
It's Ford who finds the Athosians. Or rather, it's Jinto and Wex who find the Expedition.
Sumner doesn't trust them, but he's not in charge, for which Rod is eternally grateful. They've only been in the Pegasus galaxy two days and he already regrets not replacing Sumner with Dr. Stackhouse.
Dr. Grodin, the leader of the Expedition, gets on smashingly with Tegan Emmagen, the patriarch of Athos. It seems that if they've lost Atlantis, then at least they've gained allies and a different base world.
Sheppard, still mourning the loss of Atlantis, is eager to join the scouting party that is going to figure out if the abandoned Ancient city on the edge of the Athosian encampment would be habitable. Rod approves, they need an ATA carrier to go. Teyla, Tegan's only daughter, volunteers to guide Col. Zelenka and Sheppard there. Rod would dearly love to go himself, but he's needed by Grodin's side in order to work out the new treaty that the Earthlings and Athosians are inevitably going to have to make.
Sumner wants to go too, claiming that he's needed to check out the soundness of the city's structures, but he leers suggestively at Sheppard, and Sheppard turns his face away, presumably to hide his blush.
Rod doesn't need to count to ten this time.
Instead he goes inside and indulges in a very bracing tea and small chat with Tegan and the other elders of the tribe, all of whom are very genial and help to take his mind off of the thought of Sheppard and Sumner working out their theoretical disputes in sweaty, sticky ways.
Rod is an adult. Rod can deal with the fact that he's missed his chance at Sheppard. Hell, Weir was eyeing him that morning, and so was one of the airforce guys on KP. Rod doesn't anticipate a dry spell any time in the future-Rod is rarely without company if he wants it - but none of these people give him the 'one-two' that Sheppard did.
Sex is sex, but Sheppard is something else.
Rod is a patient, gentle man, he reminds himself. Maybe tables will turn in his favour. Maybe they won't. Either way, Rod has a job to do and he's got to do it. So he settles himself down on one of the lush seats around the wooden table and eagerly takes in Tegan's tales of the 'Ancestors'.
The strange high pitched whine of incoming aircraft is both new and gut-wrenchingly familiar. Rod immediately thinks of Death Gliders and Replicators. Grodin, who, bless him, is a wonderful diplomat but a shitty soldier, stands there and gawps at the tent ceiling as the Athosians all slither down trap doors, screaming for their children and hauling down Expedition members at the same time.
Rod turns back for Grodin, who has stupidly gone outside to stare up at the sky, and that's when they see the strange, mirage-like beam sweep towards them. Then there's nothing.
***
Rod wakes with the biggest headache he's ever remembered having, and panics. Rod hasn't had a blackout in years, years, and he's so sure, so sure he had it under control. It takes him a few minutes of wracking his brain and rubbing his temples and listening to the sounds of people waking up around him to realize that he hasn't had another episode, he was just knocked unconscious.
Oh, thank god.
The last thing he needed was to get shipped back to Earth because his little secret got out and caused people to question his sanity. It's only belatedly that Rod realizes that the only 'Gate with the ability to dial Earth is crushed at the bottom of the ocean on Lantea, and he feels guilty for the vicious pleasure that gives him.
They can't get rid of him.
Grodin is beside Rod, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand, and Tegan and a few of the slower, older Athosians are there too. No more Expedition members, again thank god, but Rod feels slightly angry on behalf of the elders. Rod has no idea where they are, but it looks like a cell and by the reactions of the Athosians, a cell in a Very Bad Place. He's mad that the younger clan members left the elders to this fate.
What ever "This Fate" is.
That's when the Neo wannabie overgrown smurf shows up and Rod can't help but smack his own forehead and say, "Of course, of course" out loud, which makes Neo single him out.
Rod goes quietly with the guards, because there's no point in causing a ruckus that might get people killed until he knows where they are, and how to escape.
What he expected was Gu'aould boasting and torturous hand devices, and other forms of information extraction that he encountered during his time on SG-3. Instead he is lead to a room with honeycomb walls in 80s colours and a long medieval style banquet table, appropriately laden, and a Marilyn Manson smurf.
"Hello," he says amiably, because sometimes politeness works best, and offers his hand to shake.
The woman comes forward and lifts her own hand in response and Rod recoils as soon as he sees the toothy mouth in the palm.
"Oh," he says, and she laughs.
"Where are you from?" she asks. She has one of their guns on the table, and a radio. "This technology-it is not of this world."
"Um, no," Rod says, and decides to leave it at that. The less the smurfs know about the Expedition, probably the better.
"Where?"
"Nowhere," Rod offers, back straight and stiff, ready for the inevitable slap across the face. System Lords like to slap, Rod has learned. Instead his mind is buffeted with hers and he sways, falls to his knees and scowls, clapping his hands to the side of his head.
This is bad, this is very very bad.
Rod has spent years very carefully constructing his various mental barriers, created tight little niches and winding labyrinths to keep the episodes minimal, to stay in control, to make himself pleasant and personable and ... and the smurf is crashing through each wall, tearing down each maze, rending carelessly, and the Other inside of Rod is laughing. He is stretching and smiling and waking up from the ten year sleep Rod has imposed on him.
Rod can feel the smurf in there, cold and slimy and searching. Searching for... for the name... the place... Earth. Billions of prey.
No! Rod howls back. He can feel the blackness welling up, the onset of an episode, the terrifying familiarity of loosing control, and at first he shoves it back, frantically scrabbling to retain power. Rod hates nothing more than being powerless. Nothing.
The Other shoves forward eagerly. Then Rod thinks, Hell, why not? It would serve them right. So he closes his eyes and spreads open his arms and lets go.
***
When Rod wakes up, there is sapphire blood on his hands and bile in this throat. He is standing, swaying on the spot, and there's some sort of klaxon blazing. Silhouettes in the honeycombs are writhing, backlit by the awful 80s ambient lighting.
Col. Zelenka has his hand on Rod's shoulder, and it's not shaking. Rod suspects that it's only because Zelenka is so very good at making himself stony.
"I hear you have bad temper," Zelenka offers in his stilted Czech accent. That's all he says, and for that Rod is grateful. He wipes the blood off on the smurf's dress, grabs the gun and radio, and follows Zelenka out to the waiting 'Twinkie', where the rest of the Athosians and Grodin are being herded aboard. Rod takes the time to stand on the ramp and savour the left over adrenaline and the sight of the smurf ship being blown all to hell.
***
It turns out that Atlantis hadn't really been crushed after all. In a vain hope that they could maybe swim to the spaceships, Weir had tried dialling Atlantis and had found out about the failsafe. The Athosians agreed to migrate to Atlantis with the Expedition; the Wraith-the smurfs-now knew where their settlement was and they would never have peace if they did not move.
So instead of living on Athosian turf, the Athosians are stuck on theirs.
Rod gets on with the business of sorting out his staff, learning more about his Athosian neighbours, educating them about clocks and meal times and Ancient-style showers. From them, Rod learns how to make tuttleroot soup and eat with too-long spoons, how to pray to the Ancestors, and most important, how to meditate. Rod uses his time in meditation to carefully reconstruct the walls that the Wraith Queen had torn through. The Other howls, annoyed to be back behind bars, even if they are flimsy bars for now, and does not go willingly.
Every thought Rod has, it comments on. Every doubt that plagues Rod, it amplifies. Every time Rod sees Sheppard the Other growls want. It's like being sixteen again, awkward and uncertain and hormone driven, but nightmarishly worse.
Rod clamps tightly only his self control and becomes even more pleasant and accommodating to try to make up for it and hopes that no one notices. He takes turns eating with different groups of people in the mess hall, one morning with marines, the next with botanists, an evening with Athosians, a mid-day meal with people who are old-school SGC, and another with the noobs.
He spends two memorable, futile meals sitting opposite Sheppard and trying to engage in small talk. The first time, Sheppard ignores him utterly in favour of scribbling as he jams a turkey sandwich into his mouth ungracefully. Rod does not look at his lips.
The second time Sheppard is too busy looking over his shoulder for Sumner to pay any attention. When Sumner does arrive, he stands beside Sheppard and scowls. Sheppard darts wide and perhaps slightly scared eyes at Rod. Then he gets up and follows Sumner silently, all the manic energy simply gone.
Rod wonders why Sheppard doesn't seem happy to be going off to bed with his lover, but figures it's really not any of his business. Maybe they're in the middle of a row and that's why Sheppard looks less than pleased.
Rod spends the rest of his admittedly busy schedule putting together a 'Gate team.
Teyla, who has handled herself more than admirably in the sparring matches she's had with the marines, is his first choice. She's a native of this galaxy, and if Rod's group is going to be the First Contact team, he needs a face that everyone they meet will trust. Agent Beckett is his second-the man is MI5 special ops and damn scary with garrotte wire-but the last position is harder to fill. Ford is nice enough but too entrenched in the chain of command to want to be led by a civilian. Weir is needed on base. Kusanagi is a black belt three times over, but she is thinking of requesting her own team.
Eventually, the fourth finds him.
It's been a week, and Rod is working in his office, mapping out a labs-use share chart, when the door chimes. Rod rather likes the soft tinkle of the midi-style bells. They are less abrasive than a knock. "Come in," he says, resisting the geeky urge to leave it just at 'come', like they do on Star Trek.
Dr. Sheppard shuffles tentatively over the threshold and stops so close to the door that Rod is mildly worried that his ass will get cut off when it closes. Sheppard's marvellous rear seems safe, so Rod pushes his laptop aside, folds his hands, and gives Sheppard his full attention.
It's odd; whenever he sees Sheppard in the mess, the man is alone, furiously scribbling on notepaper or typing on his own standard issue laptop. When he is around other people-the Mensa group that has started up on base, for instance-he is loud and brash and wholly obnoxious. But here, now, Sheppard is quiet, withdrawn, and hunted looking. He looks sacked.
"Doctor?" Rod prompts, waving at the chair opposite him.
Sheppard shakes his head, twists his fingers, licks his lips, then nods and plonks down into the chair. "I-" he starts, then shakes his head again and says, "I don't know who else to talk to. No one else likes me."
"That's a bit harsh," Rod says gently.
It's not true either-Rod likes him well enough, Weir finds him amusing, and the anthropologists have a pool going on how long it will take Sheppard to rig up a still. Sheppard hasn't won any friends with his attitude, but nobody in Atlantis is stupid, and they know their best bet for survival is this man. That makes them willing to try, and once they do, they'll see how good Sheppard is-vulnerable and geeky and covering up with bravado.
"No it's true, I ..." He looks down, fidgets with his sleeves and holds himself stiff, as if something hurts. "This was stupid. Never mind," he decides, and stands up again.
Rod smiles patiently. The Other wants out and Rod shoves it back. "I'm sure it's not stupid," Rod says. "Please, Doctor," using Sheppard's title to mollify him. And who doesn't like being rewarded for all their hard work?
"I want..." Sheppard starts again, and presses his glasses up his nose, bringing Rod's attention back to those clear hazel eyes. "I want off-off..."
"Offworld?" Rod guesses, a bit taken aback. "Seriously?"
Sheppard blinks, processes, and a small smile twitches at the side of his mouth, "Yeah," he says, then "yes. Yes, I want to go offworld. I want a team."
Rod very heroically doesn't make a face. "I think your adventurous spirit is admirable, Dr. Sheppard, but I'm not sure there's any place for-"
"I'll take a fit test!" Sheppard shouts, standing suddenly and gripping the side of Rod's desk with white fingers. "I'll do gun training. Anything I have to do! Just get me away from..." He stops himself and looks down.
"From?"
"From... the labs," Sheppard finishes lamely.
"The labs," Rod repeats dubiously, raising an eyebrow.
"All the good tech is out there," Sheppard says, waving his hand at the window behind Rod's head. "And I'm stuck here."
Rod thinks it over while Sheppard sinks back down into his chair. Well, Rod's team needs a fourth, and he is pretty sure that between Teyla and Beckett, they can keep an eye on one clumsy scientist.
"Okay," Rod says, and something inside him clenches and gets warm when he sees Sheppard's posture straighten, his eyes sparkle with hope. "On one condition."
"What?" Sheppard asks, and his tone says anything, anything you want. Rod really wishes Sheppard was naked and in bed and looking at him like that, instead of clothed and on the other side of the desk and obviously in a relationship with someone else.
"Do up your shoelaces," Rod says, face pulled into a mock frown.
Sheppard beams at him and it's the best feeling in the world.
***
Sumner is not too eager to let his best scientist-and Rod assumes, lover-out into the field. There is a bitter, silent battle between the two in the middle of the primary lab until Rod steps in and summarily makes the decision as the Head of Science.
"I came to him," Rod lies. "He has the strongest ATA gene in Atlantis. He should be out in the field using it."
"No," Sumner says.
"Excuse me?" Rod shoots back. He feels the anger, the red wash slide up his face and shoves it back down. Ever since he let it loose on the Wraith ship it had been bubbling far too close to the surface for Rod's own good, too accessible, too easy to let slip despite his meditation and rebuilding. "Who made you his mother? It's not your choice."
"I make my own choices, you can't tell me what to do," Sheppard adds from behind the safety of Beckett and Rod.
Sumner glares, face puce with fury, through Rod and straight at Sheppard. Then he turns on his heel and stalks away. Sheppard lets out a sigh of relief, sags for a second, then straightens to his normal hyper-perfect posture and begins blustering. Beckett rolls his eyes, fingers his gun, and smirks. Beckett likes Sheppard too.
Their first team battle.
Not bad, as far as wins go, Rod thinks.
***
The second battle isn't as smooth.
It's their first trading mission. Teyla says that the natives of the planet are peaceful, but wary of strangers, which Rod thinks is fair enough in a galaxy filled with people who want to eat you. The Athosians always make camp at the outer edge of the village and stay the night so the residents become used to them first.
So they pitch their tents and set a bonfire, and go about sharing out MREs and trading tales of childhood jobs. Rod tells stories of early piano recitals. Beckett is the youngest of seven children, Rod is surprised to learn, every single one of them a sheep farmer before him.
"I couldna stand the smell," Beckett explains, "so I got out of there the only way a lad from a family like mine could-I joined the national reserve."
Sheppard leans around the fire to try to steal Teyla's pudding cup, and that's when Rod notices the dark bruises around his wrists. Sheppard has his cuffs rolled up to keep them out of the stew.
"What's this?" Rod asks, grabbing Sheppard's arm by the sleeve.
Sheppard yanks back faster than Rod thought Sheppard was capable of moving, and shoves his sleeves so far down they cover his knuckles. "Nothing," he says. "Just a... an accident in the lab. It's nothing. I'm clumsy."
It's a lie. It's probably the worst lie Rod's ever heard, and Rod's niece and nephews tell whoppers. Rod and Beckett and even Teyla know it's a lie, but Sheppard's eyes go tight and his face white, so nobody presses it.
Things start to click into place and Rod has to take several deep breaths to keep the Other in check. Focus on the mission, he tells himself. Focus on the mission first, then sort out what needs sorting. Beckett's hand is on the butt of his berretta, apparently thinking the same thing.
"Would you like my pud-ding, Doctor Sheppard?" Teyla asks. "I have not acquired a taste for it and would hate for it to go to waste."
Another bold-faced lie. Rod has seen her stockpiling the deserts under her bed-she loves chocolate as much as the next woman - but Sheppard takes the pudding cup and digs in and everybody lets it slide.
Rod turns his attention to his own pudding cup, and says nothing.
It's in this tight, tense silence that the unmistakable whine that already features heavily in Rod's nightmares rents the sky. Beckett reacts first, firing a spray of bullets from his P90 at the dart that sweeps over their heads. Teyla shoves Beckett out of the path of the transporter beam, but Sheppard is too slow and Rod isn't about to leave a man behind.
***
For the second time in as many weeks, Rod wakes up in a strange 1980s themed cell that looks like it could be made out of blueberry bubblegum. Beside him, Sheppard is sprawled across the cold floor, grey and lax. There are dark bruises under his eyes, bruises that Rod hadn't noticed before in the soft glow of the fire, which speak volumes about how much sleep Sheppard has been getting lately. Probably been up fighting with Sumner about whether he could go on missions.
No, not fighting with, Rod thinks, remembering the bruises on Sheppard's wrists.
Rod's going to have to have a word with Sumner when he gets back. Lover or not, he's far too controlling for Sheppard's own good. Maybe Rod will bring Beckett with him. Maybe he'll just let Teyla go alone.
Sheppard is team now and that means he gets looked after.
Sheppard's bony wrists poke out of the bottom of his sleeves, lurid with purple bruises as well, and Rod reaches out slowly and pushes one sleeve up. The pattern of the bruise is the exact shape of a man's fingers, overlaid on top of paler, yellow green marks in the same shape.
Rod sits back on his heels and counts to ten.
Okay, maybe Rod is getting it all wrong. This could mean anything, really. Maybe Sheppard likes it rough. It is none of Rod's business.
The Other inside Rod stirs, whispering yes yes, he likes it, do it, and Rod shoves it back, down, away. He counts to ten again before opening his eyes. He looks at Sheppard, really looks. Sheppard's shirt has ridden up over a tight, lightly haired belly that is so pale Rod wonders if it has ever seen the sun. Sheppard's ribs stand out in stark contrast and Rod realizes for the first time how much weight Sheppard has actually lost since they'd come to Atlantis.
Far too much in far too short a time.
Worry can do that to a person. So can all-nighters in the lab, and last minute emergency aversions. And nights of hot sex, Rod thinks a bit bitterly. He hasn't been without, as he predicted, but none of them had been... well, none of them had been Sheppard.
Rod likes his acerbic comments, his biting wit. He likes everything about Sheppard that makes him annoying to everyone else, maybe because Rod wishes that he could be that caustic, that honest. But Rod can't afford to affront people-he is the leader, he is supposed to care and be thoughtful and take charge and delegate, and not scream at people for their stupidity and threaten to beat them with their own keyboards. Rod takes vicarious pleasure in Sheppard's hissy fits.
Rod reaches out, lets his fingers drift across the pained crease in Sheppard's forehead. The man is clammy and too pale. The touch rouses Sheppard and Rod snaps his hand back guiltily. Really, pawing another man's boyfriend. What has Rod become?
I'm getting to be like him, Rod thinks with a shudder. I shouldn't have let him out. It was a mistake and now look where we are.
Self pity has to wait, because the moment Sheppard is sitting up and trying very hard not to vomit out of pain and fear, the Wraith guards-one still looking like Neo, though Rod is sure that first one had been blown up with its hive-are there and dragging them both along a corridor and to another grandiose, overblown audience chamber. They are made to kneel at the feet of another Goth Smurf and Rod tries very hard not to chuckle when Sheppard makes an irritated remark about her stylist and Alice Cooper.
Rod stops chuckling when the Wraith Queen slaps her palm against Sheppard's chest and begins to suck out his life.
The red wash slides up and the blackness comes, and this time Rod doesn't fight it.
When he comes to, Sheppard is huddled behind the throne, mouth wet and swollen and his eyes tight with fear. There is Wraith blood, a sickly thick blue, on Rod's hands, and handprints all over Sheppard, on Sheppard's shoulders. There is a knife that Rod doesn't remember packing in his hand. It's the same blueberry bubblegum colour and feels gross and squishy in his hand. But it's his only weapon, so Rod wipes it, and then his hands meticulously on the coat of the decapitated Neo wraith. He tucks the knife into the back of his belt.
This is getting to be a bit too Bruce Banner for Rod's liking.
"R-Rod?" Sheppard says, when Rod takes a step towards him. "What...? How did you-?"
"Never mind," Rod interrupts. "We have to get out of here." He finds and sheathes his gun beside the strange knife, and smiles comfortingly at Sheppard, who uncurls himself tentatively. "Which way to the dart bay and how do I fly one?"
With a task to occupy him, Sheppard's fear falls away, his ego takes over, and in no time they are back on Atlantis and in the infirmary. While they had been gone, Bates had discovered that Teyla's necklace, the one that Sheppard had found for her in the city, was a homing beacon, designed to bring the Wraith to the Ancients.
There is tentative talk to use the homing signal as a trap, and then everyone is sent away to let Sheppard and Rod sleep. Sheppard regards Rod grimly, then turns his back to Rod and burrows under the standard-issue sheets. An attempt at conversation is clearly unwelcome, and not wanting to intrude, Rod decides it can wait until morning.
Knowing full well that Sheppard was probably terrified by what he had seen, yet grateful that Sheppard hadn't spilled the beans to Laura, or the psychiatrist Dr. Parrish, Rod turns away, too, a semblance of privacy in the open ward, and tries to get some rest.
In the middle of the night, Rod cracks an eyelid when he hears the doors woosh open. Sheppard, of course, doesn't budge, mouth hanging open and snoring slighty. Rod tracks the sound of footsteps across the floor, to where they stop just beside Sheppard's bed.
"John," Sumner hisses under his breath.
There is the sharp intake of breath of Sheppard waking. "Sumner," Sheppard says and Rod wishes that he could see their faces. On a last name basis with his own lover? Was Sheppard really that frigid?
Rod wants to jump out of bed right that second and strangle the bastard. But what if he's wrong? So he stays still and listens.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Sumner hisses. "This-I didn't give you this bruise. And the handprint on your jacket."
"N-no," Sheppard whispers. "I didn't... I didn't do anything. I wouldn't-"
"You're damn right you won't!" Sumner snarls, and Rod is amazed at how angry a whisper can sound. "Your ass is mine, do you understand that?"
"N-no," Sheppard says again, "No, I'm not. I don't want-" The rest of the sentence is interrupted by the sound of a stinging slap. Rod tenses all over, gripping his sheet and biting hard on his lower lip. Sheppard makes a high, soft sound of pain, and says, "Yes. Yes."
"Yes what?" Sumner demands.
"Yes, I... I'm yours."
"You better remember that," Sumner says. "If you want to keep your job playing with the pretty ancient tech and going offworld, you better fucking remember that. One word to Zelenka and you'd be sent right back to Earth, you stupid fag, you got that?"
"Yes, yes," Sheppard whispers. His voice sounds damp. "I'm yours, I promise, it was just the Wraith. That was it."
"Good," Sumner says, and Sheppard makes another high sound, but this time it's muffled by the wet, slick sound of a kiss. "You come straight to my quarters when you're out of here. I'm gonna tan your ass for being dumb enough to get caught."
Sheppard says nothing, but the rustle of fabric suggests nodding.
Sumner tiptoes back out of the room. Sheppard sucks on a quiet, desperate little sob, and then goes quiet.
Rod lays very, very still, and counts to ten.
***
The moment he is released, Rod goes to Grodin. "I want Sumner outta here," he says. "I don't care where you have to send him-botony for all I care-I just want him as far away from Sheppard as possible."
Grodin closes his laptop and looks at Rod seriously. "Why?"
"Don't ask," Rod intones. "I can't tell."
Grodin goes a bit pale. "I see." He looked down at his hands briefly, then said, "How's the Alpha site? We need some structures put up. There should be an engineer to oversee it."
Rod feels the surge of the Other press against his mouth and lets the grin slip out. "That's perfect."
***
Over the next few weeks, Sheppard begins to look happier than Rod has ever remembered seeing him. They use the necklace as a lure and capture a Wraith that Ford nicknames 'Bubbles'. (Ford is forthwith banned from ever naming anything ever again). Sheppard pulls his own weight on the mission, and his terror does not overcome the orders he's been given. Rod thinks there is hope for Sheppard yet.
The bags under Sheppard's eyes vanish, the colour comes back to his skin, and the bruises fade. Sheppard starts to look less skeletal, and joins Rod, Beckett, and Teyla in the mornings for breakfast-usually looking like he's just come straight from the lab instead of his bed. But Sheppard still jumps at shadows and panics and fires at birds, so Rod makes up some crock about every team needing required time with Dr. Parrish. He pulls them off active duty for a while with the excuse that Teyla has familial obligations with the Athosians for the next month, and hopes that Sheppard is taking his therapy sessions more seriously than Rod himself is.
Rod spends the time steadfastly sidestepping every question.
"Let's talk about your emotions," Parrish starts in, yet again, to no effect. "It says in your file that you've had past problems with anger management. Would you like to talk about it?"
Rod smiles amiably and says, "I'd rather talk about my sex life. Aren't all you psychologists supposed to be obsessed with penises and complexes?" Rod waggles his eyebrows. "You know Katie Brown? The Marine? Hot. Fantastic in the sack. And she's been trying to get you to notice her."
Parrish goes red, but this time he isn't deterred. He holds onto his own question like a terrier. "I haven't mentioned it before now, but I'm concerned about some of your actions offworld, Rod," he says. "I know you're everyone's buddy on the surface, but-"
Rod feels his face go cold.
"No," Rod says, "I don't want to talk about it."
He gets up and walks out.
He thinks about going to spar, or to mediate, or for a jog, or to shoot things down at the practice range. He goes instead to the commissary and, declining the waves and the invitations, feels the need to sit alone with this revelation for a while. He grabs a cup of his favourite Athosian tea and slides down into a chair that overlooks the ocean and sips.
Somebody told Parrish. Clearly Parrish hasn't told Grodin yet, or Rod would have been on the Alpha site himself by now. Rod has to give Parrish grudging respect for that, for giving Rod the opportunity to try to work out his own issues before going above his head. But Parrish doesn't understand-this isn't something Rod can just make... go away.
And what about Zelenka and Sheppard? As far as Rod knows, they are the only ones who could have seen, who would have met...
In his mind, Rod hears Sumner say, "Whose bruises are these?" He remembers the way Sheppard had looked at him, the way his mouth had been kiss bruised and wet. Rod remembers the bloody handprints on Sheppard's jacket, hand prints that had lacked the indentation from a palm-mouth, now that Rod thinks about it.
Shit, Rod thinks, and very carefully sets his cold tea down on the table. He pelts towards Sheppard's lab and pauses only when he gets to the closed door to catch his breath. He waves his hand over the keypad and Sheppard says "Who is it?" where most people said 'come in', which says a lot about the man. That he needs to verify.
"Sheppard?" Rod says. "It's... it's me. Rod."
"Rod?" Sheppard repeats, his voice coming closer to the door. "Are you sure?"
"Why wouldn't I be sure?" Rod says back. "Let me in, I don't want to have this conversation in the hall."
"You're Rod," Sheppard says again.
"Who the hell else would I be?" Rod asks, getting frustrated.
The door swooshes open, and Rod is faced with a grim and mildly nervous Sheppard. "Meredith," Sheppard says.
Rod feels all the colour fall out of his face. "He told you his name?"
Part Two