sacrificial drift

Day One
MX8499
McKay


Green sky. Dust puffed up under their feet and settled on their boots. Normal-colored dust. The sun heated their dark uniforms unmercifully. Typical, yellow-white, too-bright-to-look-at-directly sun.

Rodney stopped and took a sip from his water bottle, then carefully applied chapstick to his lips. The skin over his nose and cheekbones had that tight, hot feeling. He was getting a sunburn. How utterly perfect.

"Move it, McKay," Sheppard said impatiently.

A stone rolled under Rodney's boot and he narrowly avoided a wrenched ankle.

"Do you think we could ever visit some place that has pavement or maybe mass transit some time? Air conditioning?"

"Sure, Rodney. I'll mention it to Dr. Weir at the next mission briefing."

"Because my sinuses may never recover from this dust and if I have to walk with a pack in this heat much longer I'm going to die of heatstroke." They could have been in a puddle jumper, which would have had the benefits of flying instead of walking, and environmental controls. Sweat was running down his back, soaking the waistband of his pants. Antarctica and Siberia both sucked, but not like this; he had never done well in the heat, he was Canadian for crying out loud.

He didn't need to see Sheppard's face to know he was rolling his eyes behind the black aviator glasses.
"We're all carrying the same gear, Dr. McKay," Ford said.

Rodney held up his hand. "Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Lieutenant," he said. "In addition to everything the major has deemed mandatory, I'm carrying critical equipment necessary to detect an energy source or a weapon useful against the Wraith."

"Right, that would be a laptop, an LSD and an energy sensor," Sheppard pointed out. "Backbreaking weight."

"Don't forget the extra Powerbars," Ford said.

"You wouldn't laugh if you were hungry."

"No, I'd cry, because those things don't qualify as food," Sheppard replied.

"All the more for me," Rodney said. "And my laptop weighs exactly four kilograms. Eight point eight pounds to your backward Americans. Try carrying it all the time."

The road from the Stargate took them to the top of a low hill, then split. One fork twisted up into the foothills they'd glimpsed from the Stargate, eventually lost to sight amid the brush and scrubby trees that dotted the land. The other followed a nearly straight line down into a small river valley. Checkered green squares of cultivation marked a delta where two rivers met. Smoke rose from the town built into the curve of the larger river.

Sheppard pulled his binoculars out of a vest pocket and scanned the valley, pausing when he found people out in the fields. "They're using animals to pull the plows," he commented. He handed the binoculars to Ford, carefully sliding his fingers away before they could touch. It was always the same now. Sheppard never touched anyone unless forced to, hadn't since they came out of quarantine. It had to be something left over from the connection they'd all shared on MX9-M41. That or the way they'd all been treated afterward. The weeks they'd spent in the iso bay after returning had marked all of them and not in a good way.

"Well, it all looks fairly bucolic, doesn't it?" Rodney said. He pulled out the energy sensor and checked the readings. Nothing and nothing. The Stargate registered and that was it. Something in the atmosphere interfered with even that reading, diffusing it slightly.

Ford finished looking and passed the binoculars to Teyla, while Sheppard watched Rodney silently.

"They appear to be a simple, peaceful people," Teyla said, yet she didn't sound certain. "Much like my own people." She lowered the binoculars. Her expression was troubled. "But it may be an illusion."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. He was probably thinking of the Genii. Rodney was and he'd bet Teyla and Ford were, too.

"If they've got anything more sophisticated than a waterwheel down there," Rodney commented, "I'll eat my shorts."

"None of us wants to see that," Sheppard drawled. He sighed and looked tired for a moment. "Let's hope they're friendly."

"Let's hope they're still friendly after meeting us," Rodney muttered, eliciting a snigger from Ford as they started down the road to the town.

Sheppard chuckled. "Teyla, you better do the talking."

She handed him the binoculars back and he stowed them as they started down the road into the valley.

They were all trying so hard to act normal. Mostly they were. Mostly. Rodney wished Sheppard could let go of that tight, awful control he'd exerted since they returned from MX9-M41, but he'd never slipped since the night they got drunk in the Jumper bay. He acted the same as he had before, did it so smoothly that no one outside the team saw anything different, but he kept his distance even from them. They let him do it. Not much choice when he had to hide a flinch every time one of them came too close.

Sometimes any touch was too much, too bitter a reminder that flesh was a prison they were locked into until death. Sometimes it was a connection words couldn't offer and Rodney wished Sheppard would allow himself to find some comfort in it, if not with one of the team then with someone else.

That connection would never be, though. Carson might not have found any genetic differences in them, but they were still changed. They would always be set apart from everyone else. All they would ever have was each other and the memory of unity. Of course, that was the whole problem: they'd all been much too close. They knew too much and couldn't say any of it to each other.

It wasn't enough, but it seemed to be all they had.

He hoped these people turned out to be what they seemed to be. They needed the break.

Sheppard was watching him, curious and patient. "Thinking, McKay?"

"Obviously."

Sheppard nodded. "I've been doing that myself," he said cryptically.

"Don't hurt yourself."

"Another pearl from the wit and wisdom of Rodney McKay. Let me write that down. It's almost as good as 'Get as far away from the nuclear explosion as possible '."

Rodney swung into step with Sheppard unconsciously. "Feeble."

"Maybe I'm tired."

Rodney stumbled. Sheppard never admitted things like that. Alarmed, he studied him covertly. He looked all right.

"Quit it, McKay."

"Oh, ah, sorry."

"I do get tired," Sheppard said. "You know that." Even that oblique reference was more than he'd offered before. He scanned the sky, something Rodney realized was a pilot's habit. Sheppard was always monitoring the weather. "Why sorry, anyway?"

"What? Oh. Just what you're expected to say, isn't it?"

"You never do anything because it's expected, McKay. It's what I like about you."

Rodney suppressed a smile. "Well, I'm a likeable person."

Ford laughed behind them. "Go on believing that, Doc."

Back to normal for now. The team had been noticed and a greeting party approached from the village. Sheppard smiled and stepped forward to stand beside Teyla, his hand resting casually on his P90. Rodney ran another sensor reading and Ford watched their backs.

Night One
MX849
Sheppard


"So far, so good," John said. "Nice food, nice people, nice enough place."

The last was stated less than enthusiastically as he surveyed the room he'd be sharing with McKay in the town guesthouse. Stone walls with torch sconces, a fireplace, a large bed, and windows made of tanned hides stretched thin over wooden frames and waxed. Patterns like Celtic knotwork were painted on the semi-opaque leather. Fur rugs stretched over the worn stone floor.

The windows were open, the late sunset filling the room with bars of heavy light. Particles hung in the air, simple matter turned for an instant into magic dust.

McKay sneered and stifled a sneeze.

"If you consider indoor plumbing optional." He pointed at the screen and chamber pot in the corner.

John grimaced. "You've got a point."

"Of course, I have a point. I always have a point."

John held up his hand, "And you're always right, verse and chorus, repeat."

That earned him another dirty look from the unhappy, sunburned scientist. A strip of skin over the bridge of McKay's nose had already begun to peel.

"Why didn't you use some sunscreen, anyway?" John demanded, frowning at McKay.

"Because no one saw fit to issue us any!"

John walked over to where he'd dropped his pack on the bed and groped through it, finding the tiny emergency first aid kit he carried. He opened it and found a tube of burn ointment.

"What are you doing?"

"Here, let me put this on," he said.

McKay batted at his hand as John squeezed some of the greasy salve onto his fingers then reached for his face.

"Just hold still, damn it."

"Oh—okay."

He dabbed the salve onto McKay's nose. McKay's eyes crossed, watching. The light caught in them, translucent and startling blue around the pupil. John's hand stilled involuntarily as he watched McKay's pupils dilate suddenly. He had to steady his own breathing. A fragment of something, maybe a memory, maybe a fantasy, stirred in his mind, of a hand stroking idly through his hair and then callused fingers on his—someone's—mouth.

McKay closed his eyes.

John paused, realizing his fingers were resting on McKay's skin, the skin slick with ointment and hot with sunburn fever. McKay's eyelashes were remarkably thick. Without thinking about it, he stroked his thumb over McKay's mouth, back and forth, mesmerized by the texture.

He stopped himself, a bubble of panic lodging somewhere between his stomach and his throat.

McKay had opened his eyes again and was watching him.

"Major?"

John swallowed hard and smoothed the salve onto McKay's skin swiftly and efficiently, snatching his hand back afterward. His fingertips tingled. He blamed it on the burn ointment and wiped them against his fatigues.

John clumsily handed him the tube of ointment. "Here."

"Thank you."

He'd been fine up until the telepathic link between the four of them. He'd got along with Ford, admired Teyla, and kept that essential distance between himself and Rodney that let him repress any wayward thoughts about the astrophysicist. Friendship had been sufficient.

Everything had gotten so mixed up afterward. He knew how much Teyla doubted herself sometimes and how lonely Ford felt. But he didn't know if the feelings he had now were his or Rodney's, if they were left over or if they were new. Had he wanted Rodney before or was it Rodney who had wanted him? Memories were all that had been left, but memories lied, twisted into what you wanted them to mean. He couldn't trust what he knew. He couldn't deal with being wrong.

He'd done everything he could to avoid thinking about it. But he had.

McKay took the tube and just held it, looking down. John pulled his hand back. Thinking was one thing, but doing, even something as small as brushing McKay's palm with his fingers as he handed him the burn ointment, that was much more than he wanted to deal with yet. Maybe ever.

The shared memories from MX9-M41 had mostly faded, but not enough to forget what they'd both known since then. Never enough to make him forget the impersonal touch of Beckett and the other doctors and nurses in their HazMat suits and gloves or the way they all flinched away from even an accidental touch, until John schooled himself to never forget or reach out.

John shoved the emergency kit back inside his pack. He kept his back to McKay. He felt awkward and stupid. What the hell had he just been doing? McKay should have punched him. Maybe he still would. That had been out of line.

"One bed, Major," McKay said in a strangely flat voice.

John registered the fact for the first time. Five minutes ago it hadn't mattered. A minute ago he hadn't touched McKay. He squeezed his eyes shut. Shit. He couldn't do this. He could not. Not allowed, not allowed. He couldn't let himself go.

"Don't worry about it, I'll take the floor."

"Don't be any stupider than you have to be, Major."

"Fine," he snapped. "You take the floor. If that's not good enough, I'm sure Teyla would switch with me." He'd bunk with Ford. That would be safe. He'd never thought about Ford's mouth. If he could get some sleep, then he'd be fine; he wouldn't want what he couldn't let himself have. He wouldn't even have to admit to himself that he wanted anything.

That almost made him laugh. He had to get better at lying to himself.

McKay's hand closed on his shoulder and pulled John around to face him. He could have balked but he didn't. This was all wrong, he was slipping, he didn't want to think about it, but he was, despite himself. He wasn't supposed to want anything. Not from McKay, not from anyone, never mind that he'd felt cold and broken inside since before he'd sat down in that damned chair, never mind that the cold had gone away when the team merged with the entity on MX9-M41. He couldn't let himself want things…people…that connection.

Wanting, needing, they were so close and needing always hurt.

"That's not what I want at all," McKay said quietly.

He was standing so close John could pick out the tiny lines around his eyes and the sweat-dampened darkness in his hair at the temples. He could feel the warm wash of his breath with each word. He was shockingly aware of McKay's body just inches away, broader at the shoulder, solid and surprisingly strong.

He held John's gaze. His hand, so warm, tightened on John's shoulder.

John wanted to lean into the touch, just that touch, and let it soak in, because no one touched him anymore. He didn't let them. His throat was too tight to say anything.

"I want," McKay declared, "to find out what you want."

Don't you know?

"Come on, Sheppard, say something." McKay looked sad. "You have to want something."

Of course he wanted things…

"Atlantis safe, my people, everyone, from the Wraith," John said, hoarse and low. "The Wraith stopped. A way back to Earth."

…an end to his nightmares, to the sense of separation that had grown since he learned about the gene. Since before that even, he'd always felt out of synch. Each time a door opened or a light came on in the city, even when he used the jumpers that he loved, he felt the distance between him and everyone else widening. He was so hollow inside.

"That's it? That's all? There's nothing—"

"What?" John swallowed. He couldn't say anything else. How could he admit any of it out loud? "I can't—I don't—"

"—even know, do you?" McKay shook his head. "I thought you—" He released John's shoulder and stepped back.

John knew he was waiting for a correction, for John to tell him that what he thought John felt was real, that what he remembered wasn't some phantom wish-fulfilment. Something to take away the loneliness.

He didn't let himself answer and hated the fear that stopped him.

McKay stumbled, trying to get away from John so fast one of the furs on the floor slipped under his boot.

"My mistake. I—I think I'll leave now. Yes, leaving, now."

John tried to find something to say. Except he didn't know, because everything was too jumbled in his head, everything suddenly out of control, thoughts and feelings he'd never examined pushing their way to the front. He'd touched McKay. He'd wanted to touch him. Wanted…McKay. That wasn't something he'd let himself know. Except he'd always known it and locked it up because it wasn't part of who he was supposed to be: colonel’s son, Air Force officer.

He wanted someone to see him. Not the face, not the math freak, not the rank, not, please God, the second coming of the Ancients or a weapon against the Wraith, just John Sheppard. McKay saw him. McKay never saw anything else.

He needed that and he'd give up whatever it took to keep it. He just had to ask for what he wanted. That was what McKay wanted.

McKay was walking toward the door.

Just admit it.

"McKay," John croaked.

He felt breathless and panicky. McKay paused and looked back, wearing that dismissive expression reserved for everyone he deemed too slow to keep up on his face. He had to wipe that look away, that look and all the things behind it, all that he still knew even now though the link was gone.

John began shucking out of his clothes. He dropped his gear vest and thigh holster by the bed and pulled his T-shirt over his head. His fingers fumbled at the fastening of his belt, but he kept moving, stripping down to bare skin. He stretched out on the bed; the quilted coverlet felt soft under his skin. He wasn't really ready for this, but if he lost his courage now, he'd never find it again.

McKay just stared at him and John couldn't take it after a moment. A flush started at his chest and swept up, warming his face. He'd been wrong. Again. He'd thought McKay wanted this. Wanted this too.

"Okay, this was a mistake," he said. He couldn't look at McKay and the blank expression he had on. He sat up and fumbled for his fatigues. He didn't know what the hell he'd done with his boxers. Jesus, his hands were shaking.

The bed sank under McKay's weight as he sat down next to John. John tipped toward him before stiffening and drawing himself back.

"You're insane, aren't you?" McKay asked.

John stared at his hands, still clutching his fatigues and trembling.

"I think so," he whispered.

McKay pulled the crumpled fatigues out of his fingers and let them drop to the floor. He touched John's face lightly, turning it towards his own. He locked his gaze with John's and waited. His hand stayed on John's face, barely there and so gentle it made him ache. The shaking slowly eased.

"You look like a deer in the headlights."

"Yeah?" John said. "I feel like I already got run down."

That earned him a lopsided smile that morphed into a familiar, smug expression. John relaxed infinitesimally.

"You're definitely not roadkill, Major. " McKay was breathing a little fast too, a sheen of perspiration on his upper lip. "I'm not hallucinating, am I? You're really... naked. Carson's drugs are never this good. No, no, this is a little too awkward to be a good hallucination." The babbling ground to a stop as McKay's eyes took on a sly gleam. "Lie back again."

John froze once more, until McKay's palm skated up his arm, disturbing the hairs and making him shudder in an entirely different, pleasant way. "I just want to look at you before the light goes."

"Am I going to be the only one naked here?" John asked. He hadn't made a mistake. He could breathe again. His voice was still uneven, but it was all right.

Better than all right as McKay's hand slid the rest of the way up his arm to his shoulder again. This time he let himself lean into it.

"Naked is a good look on you, Major."

He took refuge in the familiar rhythm of bantering back, trying to hide how uncomfortable he still was. "So? I'm still the only one without clothes. Could you maybe join me? Or do you just want to look?"

A little snort of nervous laugher escaped McKay. "So much for your bout of nerves. I hope your recovery time is as impressive in other respects too."

John blinked at him, then couldn't help laughing.

He watched curiously as McKay stripped off his clothes. Nothing he hadn't seen before, but he'd never admitted to paying attention before, never looked with intent. The man wasn't half as soft and bulky as he looked in the cream and blue science uniforms. He looked good. Imperfect and real and male, so that John started cataloguing the differences, angles and muscles different from a woman, but weirdly pleasing. He liked McKay's collarbones and his Adam's apple and the sharp points of his elbows. He'd grabbed McKay's wrist more than once in a combat situation, dragging him toward cover, but now he wanted to skim his fingers over the knob of bone on the outside, mouth the soft skin inside, the tender hollow of an armpit, the round cap of his shoulder.

It should have been frightening, the sudden rush of want, but it was still McKay. He could trust in that, even if everything else changed.

McKay settled on the bed next him and looked at John until John wanted to squirm. What was there to see anyway? He was lanky and a little hairy with knobby ankles and that ugly scar from Afghanistan that ran down his right thigh. Funny, he'd never been shy before. He moved closer to McKay, tasted the corner of that long, narrow mouth, and lost himself in a series of long, languid kisses.

McKay's lips tasted like chapstick. John curved one hand round the back of his neck and let the other wander. McKay's hands framed his face, stroking over his eyebrows and his temples. God, McKay had a big mouth; it was easy to just let his tongue slip inside and play. He pressed closer. Warm. He'd known McKay would kiss like this, talented and intent.

"Major—"

"John."

"John," McKay repeated, his lips moving against John's.

He made a sound, just some wordless low sound full of need, in response. Rodney, he thought, this was Rodney, and so much better than he'd anticipated. Everything, everything was so much better and he let it all go, all the regret, all the doubt and denial he'd lived with for so long. This— Rodney—was worth anything.

Languor gave way to urgency, to pressing close, legs tangled and hips moving and Rodney's big hands all over him. Solid weight holding him down against the bed. Skin and touch and closeness; it was almost what they'd had on MX9-M41. Nothing studied, nothing controlled, moving against each other and needing more. A thigh between his, fingers on a nipple, the brush of arm and leg hair different but good, making him shiver with arousal. Beard stubble rubbed against his lips as he licked his way down Rodney's neck, tasting skin and sweat and a fading ghost of soap. He groaned when Rodney closed his hand around his erection and began stroking. Rodney's thumb brushed over the head of his cock and he flexed back against the mattress, pushing back with his shoulders and lifting his hips.

"John," Rodney murmured. His eyes were wide open, watching John's face. Dark and blue and huge. "You." Wide open as the connection had left them on MX9-M41. Maybe they didn't need telepathy, maybe they never had, because this connection had been there from the beginning. This wasn't something he had ever wanted with Teyla or Ford or ever would. But he would never have faced up to it without knowing McKay felt the same things.

John couldn't close his eyes, couldn't look away, couldn't maintain that one step back he'd always felt before. He didn't want to, with Rodney. One hand closed on a crumpled fold of coverlet beside his hip as the sensation built. The other found Rodney's hand between them. Rodney's hand never stopped its rhythm.

He bit back a yell when he came, too much, too good, breath coming in fast, shallow pants afterward, the room flooded with gold.

"Rodney," he said. He held his hand against Rodney's cheek, brushing his thumb over the skin the way he had earlier.

Rodney gave him a strained look. "John—"

John smiled at him. "Let me."

"Yes, please." Rodney shuddered all over as John slid down and took him in hand. "Please."

John licked his lips and heard Rodney groan. "Oh God."

He flicked his eyes upward. "This may not be great," he warned Rodney. "I've never actually…"

"Yes, well, a bad blowjob is still a blowjob," Rodney said breathlessly. "Just watch the teeth."

"I'll keep that in mind."

He bent his head and licked. Yeah, he could do this, was amazed by how turned on he was just by the heat and weight of Rodney's cock and the way it tasted. He slid his hands up the inside of Rodney's thighs, feeling the muscles quiver. It was easy, yet part of him still wondered how he would feel about it later.  He pushed that part to the back of his thoughts.

For now, all he wanted was to make Rodney feel as good as he had made John feel.

~~~~~

The room had gone dusk-blue and dim when John opened his eyes again. He was sweaty and sticky. The room smelled like sex and Rodney was draped over him, one arm heavy over his waist. He blinked up at the ceiling.

He'd just had sex with a guy. They'd done almost everything and if they'd liked it, they had done it again. The wrong side of thirty-five and he'd just tossed out his whole sexual orientation. Never mind whether he'd considered it before, he'd never acted on it. He was an Air Force officer and while he'd disobeyed orders more than once, he'd always tried to live up to the oath he took, which meant living by the military's rules. None of which included anything on bisexuality other than the unspoken: don't. As if that wasn't enough, he'd done all that while on a mission on an alien planet.

He'd fucked up this time.

This had to rank with the stupidest decisions he'd ever made, with nearly getting court martialed in Afghanistan and flipping a coin to decide whether to take a one way trip to another galaxy. To add to the idiocy, he'd had sex with a teammate.

With Rodney.

Sex with Rodney. Really good, roll-his-eyes-back-in-his-head sex.

With Rodney.

Why Rodney, of all people, he asked himself. He listened to the sound of Rodney breathing beside him and acknowledged it wouldn't have happened with anyone else. God. He didn't want anyone else. He hadn't wanted anyone since the mission to MX9-M41—he'd thought about it, tried to feel even an attraction for someone else, anyone, but they were all strangers, unreal compared to his teammates.

The four of them would always know each other better than anyone else ever could.

Casual sex with a friendly acquaintance was no longer an option. That left him with three choices: Teyla, Ford and McKay. Ford wasn't an option for a multitude of reasons beginning with John being Ford's superior officer, a teammate, in the military, older, and ending with the simple fact that Ford was straight as a ruler. Teyla was more complicated, because neither of them would say no to the other, but it would be for comfort not passion. He'd never once woken up from a sweaty dream about Teyla.

No, when he couldn't sleep at night, it was Rodney he went and found—usually in his lab—not Teyla or Ford. Had been from the first. He knew Rodney felt the same unrelenting pressure to save Atlantis that he did. They'd never had to talk about that or any of the really important things. It had been better not to. They stood too close, they sniped and snarked and stood up for each other, but by unspoken agreement they had never spoken of anything else between them but friendship—not that they admitted even that much to anyone else.

John squeezed his eyes shut. He'd crossed the line tonight.

He'd slipped up, let himself want, and Rodney had seen it. Lying after that, even to himself, would have been useless. Worse, because he would have been hurting Rodney right along with himself. He couldn't do that. He wasn't going to hate himself, either.

What did it matter, anyway? He didn't think they were going to make it back to Earth. He didn't even think they were going to survive the Wraith. So why not take the risk and to hell with the rules and the regulations?

It had been so easy and so good. It wasn't just a one-time thing, he had to face that. This was going to happen again. He wouldn't waste any more time on questioning it.

But they were going to have to hide it.

Rodney tightened his arm and grumbled sleepily. John curled closer to him. "We're so fucked up," he whispered.

Night Two
MX8499
Teyla


Candles on long poles and torches in walls sconces lit the Nsheen's great banquet hall with warm yellows and oranges, the distant corners of the room flickering in shadow. The walls were dressed and carved stone quarried in the hills to the west; tiny flecks of quartz crystal in the matrix glittered in the uneven light. Flutes and drums and a stringed instrument provided music, a heartbeat rhythm accompanied by atonal strings that plucked at the nerves. Even so, the music was almost lost under the babble of voices from those at the long feast table.

The Nsheen apparently appreciated an excuse for a celebration. Their harvests had been rich. The opportunity to trade their surplus for medical supplies and knowledge pleased them.

The Atlantis team were seated in the places of honor, high up the table with Loram, the Nsheen's leader, and his two wives.

Narrow banners of burgundy cloth hung from ceiling to floor, shifting with every breath of air, silver-embroidered designs glittering. Unfortunately, they were rather still and the room simmered with the combined heat of the torches, two hearths and at least forty people packed together. One pleasant aspect of Nsheen society was in evidence; the Nsheen used their public baths regularly and had arranged private ones for the Atlanteans.

Loram sat at the head of the table, flanked by his wives Elmé and Miran. Elmé was the senior wife; Major Sheppard had the seat next to her. Teyla sat next to him. On the other side of the table, Dr. McKay sat between Miran and Ford.

The conversation had begun with Elmé inquiring of Teyla whether she and Ford had enjoyed their tour of the Halls of the Protectors, while Loram waxed enthusiastic over the prospect of new techniques to keep their herd beasts from picking up internal parasites. Then he'd talked about his five children, which Teyla and the others preferred to the parasite monologue.

Miran wanted to know if Major Sheppard or Dr. McKay had second wives yet, which made Ford choke on his wine.

"Not me," McKay said, amused. He eyed Sheppard across the table. "The major might have a couple of exes."

Sheppard smirked back. "Not even one."

"Girl in every port?"

Laughter bubbled under McKay's teasing words. Teyla caught the equally amused light in Sheppard's hazel eyes. Sheppard was all loose limbs and charm tonight. He just shrugged and sipped his wine.

Something was different about both men tonight, the major more than McKay, something that felt good. The smile he flashed around was real, no longer forced. Teyla studied him, trying to guess what changed.

Sheppard looked the same, ridiculously handsome and mostly oblivious to it. He'd taken the time to shave sometime during the day; the nearly perpetual shadow of stubble was missing, making him look younger. He looked relaxed and happy. Red highlights gleamed off his dark hair. Teyla knew the man didn't really believe in his attractiveness, though he'd learned to use it quite effectively, but he drew the eye of every woman and many of the men in the room.

Dr. McKay looked slightly flushed and the color deepened when his gaze strayed to the major. His eyes dilated when they rested on Sheppard's face or his hands.

She watched Sheppard notice McKay's gaze and waited for the inevitable return of the tension that had ridden him since before MX9-M41. It didn't come. Sheppard looked away, then swallowed hard and licked his lips. His fingers slid up and down the stem of his wine glass.

"You are not married?" Miran asked.

Loram looked intrigued. "Do your people lack women?"

"No, it's not that," Sheppard replied. "It's just that among our people we try to only marry once, so some of us take our time picking out the right person." He shrugged. "I'm not saying we succeed, but that's the ideal."

"That's very important," McKay agreed.

"You're a romantic, Doc," Ford said lightly. He grinned at the major. "What about you, sir? Are you waiting for true love? Find the right girl, two point five kids and a golden retriever, happily ever after?"

Sheppard's eyes did flicker this time, a darker expression revealing itself briefly. "I don't think that's in the cards, Lieutenant," he said blandly.

Dr. McKay stabbed a vegetable with his eating prong. "No one's starting a family while we're here," he snapped. He bit into the vegetable and chewed, looking truculent.

"Oh, I know, but we're going to get back, Dr. McKay," Ford said. Teyla didn't know if he was missing the undercurrents between Sheppard and McKay or deliberately ignoring them. He could be rather willful. "Don't you want to pass on all those supergenius genes of yours? What about Col. Carter? You talk about her—"

"The last I heard, Col. Carter was engaged," McKay interrupted. He glared at Ford. "Should you be speculating about a superior officer, anyway?"

Ford widened his eyes obviously. "No harm done, Doctor. Come on."

"Drop it, Lieutenant," Sheppard advised, steel underlying his casual words.

Ford nodded and spooned up some of his meal.

Sheppard looked as relaxed as before, but Teyla could feel the tension thrumming through him. She brushed her elbow against his arm. A small test and a distraction. He didn't flinch or tense. Something had changed, indeed, and for the better.

"Sorry," she murmured when his eyes slanted her way. She offered a small smile.

He considered her for a brief instant then inclined his head a degree in acknowledgement.

Loram and Elmé had been listening interestedly. Elmé caught Teyla's eye and smoothly steered the conversation toward calmer waters.

There was dancing after the feast. The Atlantis team claimed honest ignorance of the intricate steps and turns and stood to the side watching the Nsheen, applauding afterward. Two of the younger women bent their wiles on Ford, persuading him to join them on the dance floor. Sheppard gestured for him to go on and Ford flashed a wide, white grin before following them away.

Teyla politely turned down a couple of invitations, two to dance and one for something more. The Nsheen accepted the refusals gracefully.

The main hall was hot, filled with moving bodies in brightly colored clothes; the music had grown louder. Teyla sipped from her cup of grisch, the eye-wateringly strong distilled wine Loram had broken out after the feast. It did nothing to clear her head; instead, she broke into a sweat. She caught a glimpse of Ford in the crowd: he'd stripped off his jacket and his bare arms gleamed.

She swayed a little to the music, enjoying herself. She liked the Nsheen. They'd strung dried flowers from the rafters. The dry scent mingled with the torch smoke and tallow candles, the musty smells of stone and earth and warm bodies.

The major and Dr. McKay were standing next to each other, elbows bumping when the crowded joggled them, always subtly turned toward each other.

Loram threw his arms over Sheppard and McKay's shoulders. "Tomorrow, my friends, I shall take you to the Hall of Protectors myself!" He spoke a little loudly and Dr. McKay winced, but Sheppard just nodded. Loram had been indulging in the grisch too. Teyla could smell it on his breath from where she stood, and admired the way her teammates endured stoically.

"It is a very handsome temple," she told Major Sheppard as they finally made their way to the guesthouse. Ford was stumbling beside them, humming something between mumbled words. Apparently his dance partners had persuaded him into drinking several more cups of grisch. Teyla hoped he didn't pass out before they reached their rooms. Dr. McKay paralleled him, ready to catch the Lieutenant if he fell.

"Parts of it appear to be very old, but any damage incurred during the cullings has been repaired."

"Did anyone talk much about the Wraith to you today?" Sheppard asked. He slowed his stride to walk beside her. Ahead of them, Ford and McKay had already reached the main door. Ford stumbled in without waiting.

"They know the Wraith, but they believe that if they are devout enough, their gods, the Protectors, will—"

"Protect them," Sheppard finished for her.

McKay overheard.

"Fat chance," he muttered. "Funny thing about gods, they never show up when they're needed."

"They have no other protection against the Wraith," Teyla said. "If their faith gives them comfort, what is the harm?"

"The harm?" McKay echoed. His hands gestured at the town asleep around them. "The harm is that they never do anything to save themselves if they're relying on some woo-woo pie-in-the-sky gods to take care of them!"

"Easy, Rodney."

"But it's stupid!" McKay protested. "They could be doing something to save themselves or at least fight. Say what you like about the Hoffans or even the Genii, but at least they aren't serving themselves to the Wraith on a platter."

Sheppard set one hand on McKay's arm. Teyla hadn't seen him touch anyone without deliberate thought in so long it startled her. It calmed McKay immediately. McKay's eyes were on the long fingers resting on his sleeve, his whole face softened and alight.

"Fine, fine, it's none of our business," he grumbled. "Their religion makes them feel better. So would drugs."

Teyla caught her breath, recognizing what had changed.

"Oh."

As they all stepped inside, they heard Ford singing to himself. Someone had been kind enough to light the torches along the hallway. A door swung shut with an audible clunk. Ford had found their room.

They walked along the corridor silently. Sheppard stopped at the door to the room he was sharing with McKay. He said, "Teyla?" and McKay was watching her too, eyes dark in the dim hallway, expression uncertain.

"Major," she said steadily, smiling at them. She set her hands on his shoulders and he mimicked her, looking serious. "I am pleased for you."

"You know—" McKay blurted then stopped, looking horrified. His eyes flashed to Sheppard, apology and panic plain to see. "Not good, not good, so not good. You're going to freak out now, aren't you? I mean, I'm freaking out here—"

Sheppard's hands on her shoulders were a little tighter than was comfortable and he was breathing slightly fast. He inclined his head. "Teyla, if anyone on Atlantis finds out, there could be… problems." The way he said that told her Sheppard was understating the situation. But she knew the Atlanteans had strange taboos.

"Problems?" McKay echoed. "He means half the base would hate us just for what we were doing, Weir would probably break up the team, and his career would be over. If we were lucky we'd get slapped into the infirmary and tested for whatever alien influence made us go insane. Really, really, you cannot say anything about this, Teyla. They could court martial him."

Sheppard closed his eyes.

"McKay, it's not that bad."

"Yes, yes, it is. You may not care what happens to you, but I do and Teyla does and—"

"Do we have to do this in the hallway?" Sheppard asked tiredly.

"What—? No. Damn it. Look, Teyla, you just don't understand the risk he's taking—"

"It's worth the risk," Sheppard interrupted.

McKay stared at him, mouth open, silent.

"It's worth it," Sheppard repeated. "I appreciate your worry, but I made my decision last night."

Teyla looked at McKay.

"Dr. McKay. Rodney."

He looked startled. She hadn't used his first name since returning from MX9-M41. They had all been more formal with each since then, using titles and ranks as distancing mechanisms.

"I would do nothing to harm you or the major."

McKay made a helpless, fluttering sort of motion with his hands. "I know, not on purpose…"

"I will speak of this to no one else. On my father's name, I swear this."

"Teyla, you don't need to promise us anything," Sheppard protested.

"We are friends," she said.

She dipped her head. After a heartbeat, Sheppard bowed and rested his forehead against hers, his hands loose and gentle once more on her shoulders, the tension slowly draining away from the muscles under her hands.

He smiled at her as he stepped back. The major had many, many smiles and most of them were masks, but she'd never seen this one, open, uncomplicated and sweetly happy.

She moved to McKay. He was wringing his hands unconsciously, his eyes on Sheppard, as obviously caught by that smile as she had been, but still worried.

Teyla took his hands and set them on her shoulders.

"What—Oh."

McKay waited until her hands were on his shoulders, then bent and touched his forehead to hers.

Softly, she said, "We will guard his back."

McKay smiled, one side of his mouth lower than the other. "Even though he makes it almost impossible?"

"I am still here, you know?" Sheppard complained lightly.

They both stepped back.

"Yes." She grinned at McKay. "You are very much alike."

"Hey, I think I'm insulted."

"Shut up, McKay, she just complimented you."

"No, I don't think so."

Teyla turned to finish the journey to the other guest room. "Good night," she said.

"Good night, Teyla," Sheppard said. McKay offered a smile and a wave of one of his hands.

She heard their door open as she reached her own. Half turned, she saw their shadows thrown dark against the stone wall by the candles burning inside the room. The two forms slid together just before the door shut quietly.

She stood in the hallway, her fingers resting against the wooden door, until a cold draft reminded her the night was slipping away. One of the torches had guttered out and Ford was snoring inside. She sighed and opened the door with a last look back down the hall. No light gleamed from beneath the other room's door.

She wished them well.

She wished for someone to know her and hold her through the night the way she imagined they would hold each other.

It was a precious thing, to be known. She missed it.

Day Three
MX8499
Ford


He had a hangover from hell, so of course everything went south the next day. Around mid-morning, while Teyla was examining some of the items the Nsheen were willing to trade, while he leaned against a cool wall and dreamed of aspirin, Ford's radio earpiece crackled to life.

Teyla's head snapped up; she'd heard too.

"Ford, Teyla, get to the crossroads," Major Sheppard's clipped voice sounded through a crush of static. Ford realized it wasn't static. That was the racket of a P90 on auto fire. "Now!"

"Sir, where are you?" Ford asked, as he and Teyla bolted out of the town hall, abandoning the Nsheen at the table, pushing past Miran and Elmé just outside the main doors.

"Just get there," Sheppard rasped. "I'll meet you."

Teyla had her P90 at the ready even as they sprinted out of town, ignoring the startled faces of the townspeople.

They reached the three-way crossroads five minutes later. One dirt road led back the way they'd come, the second had brought them from where the Stargate stood. The last road, Ford knew, led to the Halls of the Protectors, the Nsheen's temple, almost hidden in the foothills. Loram had taken Dr. McKay and the major up there after breakfast.

Ford scanned the surroundings for any threats. A trickle of sweat slid down his throat into his T-shirt collar. There was little cover, only a few brushy trees shading the roads, then wide expanses of knee-high, dry summer grass. The sky was a hot, cloudless green—that kept throwing him. Dr. McKay had explained it—something about refraction and ozone and the visible spectrum—but the major was probably the only one who had understood.

Everything had been going well for once. The Nsheen were good people and threw a hell of a party. Grisch needed to come with a warning label, but no one had made him drink it. The day before, he and Teyla had visited the Temple while the major and Dr. McKay talked to Loram. Everything had been cool.

"Damn it," Ford muttered, spotting the dark figure running up the road. The major had McKay slung over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. The effort that must have taken had Ford wincing.

"It's the major," he told Teyla. "Dr. McKay must be hurt bad."

Teyla swung around, looking for any threats following. No one else appeared behind Sheppard, just dust roiling up from the dry road. Her eyes looked worried, but otherwise she had her game face on.

"Sir," Ford called, moving up the Temple road to meet Sheppard. "What's going on—?"

"Ford," Sheppard gasped as they met. Barely pausing, he dropped his shoulder and pushed McKay's limp body into Ford's arms. "Get him back to Atlantis now!"

Ford grabbed onto McKay's arms, shocked to feel slick, warm blood under his palms. The smell of it reeked off Sheppard and McKay. A scarlet smear of it painted the side of Sheppard's face and stains ran black down his shoulder and chest. It pattered down into the dirt under their boots, scarlet then black.

Oh, Jesus, he thought. Not good, not good.

"Are you—"

"Major, what happened?" Teyla asked. She was watching the road, searching for signs of pursuit, seeing none.

"Not now. Get outta here!" Sheppard snapped. The words came between harsh, panting breaths.

"Sir—"

"Don't argue with me, just fucking go!" He wrested Ford's P90 loose with a blood and dirt smeared hand. "That's an order, Lieutenant!"

"Yes, sir!"

Sheppard's eyes dropped to McKay's body then he turned and sprinted back up the Temple road. Teyla took three steps after him.

Ford hesitated only as long as it took to feel the warmth of McKay's blood soaking into his uniform.

"Teyla," he said, "get to the gate and dial it. I'll be right behind you."

She stopped. He could see she wanted to race after the major.

Instead, she nodded once, "I will radio Atlantis to have Dr. Beckett on hand," and took off like a hare before the hounds. Hellhounds. Ford didn't want to think what the major would do if they didn't get McKay back through the gate in time.

He shifted McKay over his shoulder, absently noting the makeshift bandages knotted around the scientist's limp arms, then began a heavy run after Teyla.

It was all downhill from there, dust catching in his throat, his shoulders aching in protest, McKay's knee knocking into him with each stride, until he could see the cool circle of blue inside the ring, Teyla hovering at the DHD, weapon in hand. A deafening whump from the hills behind them scoured the sky white as Ford reached the Stargate. The wind that followed pushed him through the event horizon like a huge, hot hand at his back.

Day Five
Atlantis
Weir


"It's the major's code."

Weir nodded to Grodin.

"Let him through."

She walked to the balcony overlook and waited, looking down into the gate room. Like crack-crazed ice, the shield melted off the surface of the event horizon inside the ring.

One beat, one breath, then another. She curled her hands around the railing, feeling the metal warm reluctantly under her damp palms. She'd begun to believe Major Sheppard was dead or taken captive and prayed that he wasn't suffering the same treatment Rodney had. The frustration had eaten away at her all night, because they had been helpless. A new facet of Atlantis' Stargate had unveiled itself when they attempted to send a rescue team to MX8499. The wormhole disengaged within a second once they dialed, while the Ancients' computers reported the target address possessed a shielding mechanism similar to their own. Each time they tried again, the city's failsafes shut the wormhole down immediately.

Sheppard stepped out of the watery ripple of the wormhole and stopped. He swayed on his feet and stared almost disinterestedly at the Marines stationed around the room as a precaution. His face was a mask of dried blood, dirt and soot. He still held a P90 in one hand, seemingly forgotten.

"Stand your men down, Sgt. Bates," Weir called out.

Bates nodded, commanding quietly, "At ease." The Marines on guard relaxed and displaced the aim of their weapons from Sheppard and the wormhole to the floor. Safeties were snapped on.

Sheppard's eyes flickered over them then went unfocussed. In an utterly uncharacteristic move, his hand opened and the P90 fell to the floor.

Weir headed for the stairs while Bates slowly approached him.

"Major Sheppard?"

Sheppard made an obvious effort and pulled himself together as Weir reached them. He straightened his shoulders and raised his head. Hazel eyes locked on her.

"McKay?" he rasped out.

"Is going to be all right. Carson was forced to give him a third transfusion last night, but he'll heal."

Sheppard blinked and let out a sighing breath.

"Major—"

Up close, he reeked of old blood, sweat and smoke. She couldn't see any obvious wounds. Nothing like what had been done to Rodney. But something wasn't right with him.

"Major, Lt. Ford wasn't able to tell us what happened and Rodney hasn't recovered consciousness yet—"

She reached for his arm, hoping to draw his attention back from wherever he was. Sheppard twitched away with a startled jump, stumbling into Bates, who caught and steadied him.

"Sir, maybe we better get you down to the infirmary, too," Bates said. He kept his hand on Sheppard's shoulder, apparently unaffected by the little flakes of dried blood and char that crumpled off under his fingers. He looked at Weir past Sheppard's shoulder. "Ma'am?"

When Sheppard didn't protest, she nodded to Bates.

Sheppard let the sergeant guide him out of the gate room.

Night Five
Atlantis
Beckett


Carson checked Rodney again, then looked at the major in the next bed. Sheppard was curled on his side, turned toward Rodney's bed. He'd gone to sleep just watching.

There had been nothing wrong with him when Carson examined him. Some scrapes and bruising, a few burns that might have come from a hot P90's barrel, and an obvious case of exhaustion and shock. Despite that, Carson was as worried for him as for Rodney.

The major had been too compliant during the exam, with the exception of answering Carson's questions. That, he hadn't done. He hadn't, in fact, spoken once in Carson's hearing. Only Bates' assurance that Sheppard had asked after Rodney in the gate room convinced Carson he could.

Once he'd been cleaned up a little, Sheppard had sat and just watched Rodney in the next bed, his eyes tracing over the bandages winding up Rodney's arms and throat.

Exhaustion had eventually overcome him without Carson forcing anything and he'd stretched out on the bed. He'd still kept his eyes on Rodney, as though if he looked away, Rodney would disappear.

Carson hadn't pushed. Stitching up the hundreds of slashes that had been inflicted on his friend had been bad enough. He'd known he was doing something to help. He didn't want to imagine how desperate the major must have felt on the Nsheen planet, whether he'd found Rodney in that state or been forced to watch the cuts as they were made.

The cuts weren't terribly deep, but something had been administered to Rodney to inhibit normal coagulation. He just kept bleeding and bleeding. By the time Ford carried him through the gate he'd been in hypovolemic shock, heading toward organ and brain damage. Even now, fresh red stains seeped through the bandages and his lips were bluish, despite the medication Carson had pumped into him along with pint after pint of blood.

It was wearing off. He reminded himself of that.

Rodney would recover. So would the major. Both of them. A small voice whispered, Lose one, lose the other. Carson told himself to stop being melodramatic.

Carson straightened the blanket so it covered the major's bare feet. The man slept on, too exhausted for the small disturbance to rouse him.

Night Five
Atlantis
Bates


Bates carefully cleaned the P90 Major Sheppard had dropped after arriving back in Atlantis. It was Ford's, the one the Lieutenant reported the major had appropriated before sending the rest of his team back to the Stargate.

He thought about the expression in Major Sheppard's eyes as he'd come through the gate.

Whatever had happened, Weir wasn't going to like it.

Bates had seen that look in plenty of soldiers' eyes.

It was the look of a man who couldn't accept what he'd just done.

Didn't mean the major had committed some atrocity, but Bates had been on enough battlefields to recognize the smell of burnt flesh that had clung to the man.

Day Six
Atlantis
Teyla


Teyla sat beside the bed. The infirmary lights were turned down and privacy curtains had been pulled around the area. She resisted the urge to reach over and smooth Major Sheppard's wild hair away from his face or hitch the thin blanket higher over his shoulder where the red scrub top was exposed—he was no little boy to be soothed by promises or motherly touches. Instead, she simply stayed and kept watch over him as she had done the night before for Dr. McKay.

She watched him wake slowly. A fine tension touched his form first, resulting in a stillness that only mimicked sleep. He was listening, identifying his environment before revealing consciousness.

His eyes slitted open. First they flicked to the bed with Dr. McKay, then around the infirmary, coming to rest on Teyla.

She smiled tentatively. "Good morning, Major."

"Teyla," he drawled in response, his voice light but a little rough, lifting on the last syllable.

Her smile became a little more real. She had worried for him as much as for Dr. McKay since he'd left them at the crossroads.

Sheppard sat up a little stiffly, letting the waffle-weave blanket Beckett had covered him with slip off. One hand rubbed lazily over his stubbled face, up then down, wiping sleep from his eyes. Even after a night's rest, he still looked exhausted, bruised and hollow-eyed.

His gaze strayed to Dr. McKay's bed again.

"He is recovering," she assured him.

His face revealed little, but Teyla knew him. Despite the distance he'd maintained between himself and the team since their experience with telepathy, she knew he needed more reassurance than words. He wanted to touch McKay, feel that he was still alive, and wouldn't let himself. She slipped closer and sat next to him on the bed.

"He will be well."

He glanced sidelong at her, offering a halfhearted smile. "Of course, he will. He's McKay," he said.

Teyla smiled and lifted his hand off the carelessly bunched blanket, lacing their fingers together. Sheppard tensed for one breath then relaxed. His hazel eyes meet her gaze intently and she wished once again for the knowing that they'd all shared. Words were so weak and easily twisted. If she tried to say anything about what she remembered from his memories, Sheppard would only withdraw, because on some level he would always see that experience as an invasion. She could acknowledge nothing of what had passed on Nsheen out loud, that would be a betrayal of the two men's trust, too. She tightened her grip on his hand instead. It would suffice.

"And you, Major," she asked. "Are you well?"

"Sure," he said so fast she knew it for a lie and not one he even expected her to believe. He hadn't let go of her hand. His eyes returned to Dr. McKay and stayed there, the worry clear to Teyla despite his lack of expression.

They sat together like that, listening to the monitors hooked up to Dr. McKay, until Dr. Beckett poked his head past the privacy curtains. Beckett's pale eyes widened a little at the hand-holding, but he held his tongue.

Teyla resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The Atlanteans had a disconcerting habit of equating all physical contact with sex. She knew enough about their taboos to realize telling Beckett that she wasn't the teammate the major wanted to touch that way would be a dangerous mistake, even if she hadn't promised Dr. McKay she would be silent. Let the doctor add to the gossip that said she was sleeping with the major instead. It offered them both a small protection, something she was glad to provide.

Sheppard hadn't looked up. Teyla squeezed his hand gently. He returned the pressure.

"Thanks," he said very quietly.

"Major," Beckett said as he stepped through the curtains. "Feeling a bit better with some sleep?"

Sheppard looked up, head tilting slightly back, his lips curling into that smile Teyla knew was more front than fact. One eyebrow rose faintly, adding to the expression of quizzical amusement.

"Much better."

"Then you can get out of here. Dr. Weir wants to speak with you as soon as you're out of my care."

"Sure she does," Sheppard said easily, still smiling.

Teyla felt him flinch.

Beckett looked at their clasped hands again, smiled and went to check on Dr. McKay. Satisfied, he glanced at Sheppard and Teyla again. "I'll let Elizabeth know you're awake." He left for his office, not quite getting the curtains pulled closed again. A gap opened into the rest of the infirmary and offered a glimpse of Beckett's office door.

Sheppard looked down and slowly unlaced his fingers from hers, expression solemn and intent. He slid off the bed afterward and went to McKay's side. A quick look around reassured him no one was watching through the curtain gap. He brushed his fingers over McKay's forehead, then into the short strands of his hair, smoothing it. His hand slipped down and he rested his palm along McKay's stubbled jaw.

His mouth shaped Rodney silently.

The hand at his side curled into a white knuckled fist.

His eyes moved over the red tainted bandages. "He's still bleeding?" His voice rose on the last word in disbelief as he turned to Teyla. He pointed at the stains.

"Dr. Beckett believes an anti-coagulant was administered before the cutting began," Teyla told him carefully. "Not all of it is out of his system yet."

Sheppard nodded, abstracted, and murmured, "Yeah. The Nsheen probably did that."

"The Nsheen—"

The look he'd reserved for only the Wraith and the Genii before settled over his features. "Fuck the Nsheen. —Look, I have to get a fresh uniform and debrief for Weir." His gaze warmed when he glanced down at McKay again. "Stay with him?"

"Of course."

His hand drifted over the reddened bandages on McKay's arm.

"I'll come back," he promised. "I will. Just be here."

Teyla knew he didn't mean her.

Day Six
Atlantis
Weir


Elizabeth found herself wishing she didn't have to find out what had happened on Nsheen.

Sheppard looked better, but not good, when he walked into her office. His hair was still wet from a shower and the uniform was fresh, yet she imagined he still carried the scent of smoke.

"John," she said, rising from her desk chair.

"Dr. Weir."

He stood at near attention in the doorway, saying nothing. Elizabeth frowned. Half the control room staff were watching surreptitiously. The others simply stared.

"Let's do this in the conference room." With the doors closed, they would have privacy. It would be easier, too, without the unforgiving morning light pouring through the windows of the control room.

Sheppard nodded once and followed her.

"Are you all right?" she asked once they were sealed away from prying eyes.

He shook his head, but didn't look at her, instead taking his usual seat at the table, with none of his usual grace.

"John—"

He laid his arms down on the conference table and hid his face against them. The slump of his shoulders betrayed more than just exhaustion.

"Sorry," he said without lifting his head. "I thought he was dead. I thought I was too late."

His voice was muffled, cracking, and Elizabeth was suddenly grateful she couldn't see John's face. She didn't want to know what went with the soft, broken words bursting forth. One hand had curled into a fist, the knuckles white under his skin. He pressed it down with terrible, leashed force against the polished surface of the table.

She circled the table and set her hand on his back. John flinched. His muscles trembled under her fingers. Instinctively, she rubbed her fingers in a gentle circle, trying to soothe away the tension.

"We went up to the Nsheen's temple, the same one Ford and Teyla visited the day before. They didn't have any problems."

He shuddered again. "Loram took us. I liked him. Liked his wives and his kids."

"Lt. Ford and Teyla both described all the Nsheen as very likeable."

"I was talking to Loram about boats." His clenched fist hit the table. "Jesus, boats." Outrage at the banality of it rang in his voice. He unfolded his arms and brought his hands up to cover his face. Through them, he said, "Rodney went inside ahead of me. With the priests. I should never have let them separate us."

Elizabeth didn't know what to say. He'd had no reason to suspect anything, but as commanding officer that wouldn't be enough for him.

Up close he smelled of soap, not soot, but his voice was full of ashes.

"When I found him, they had him hung up over their altar, bleeding out."

Elizabeth squeezed her own eyes shut, imagining the scene.

"Why?"

"I didn't stop to ask," John snapped. "I shot the sonovabitch with the knife, told the rest of them to get him down, and got us both the hell out of there. I shot Loram. Some of the priests." He frowned. "A lot of the priests."

"How many—?"

"I wasn't counting, Dr. Weir."

"Were they armed? Did they try to stop you?"

He looked at her incredulously.

"They tried to kill Rodney!"

"John—"

"Knives, spears, crossbows," he recited, dull and flat. "Yes, they tried to stop me." He closed his eyes and repeated, "I was just trying to get out of there." He slid out from under her hand and paced across the conference room, stopping at the wall, one hand braced against it.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, I'm not accusing you of anything."

But there was more. There was much more. Ford had described an explosion from the direction of the temple just before he came through the gate.

John sighed and turned, looking at her briefly, then past her.

"You turned Rodney over to Ford and Teyla and went back," Elizabeth said. "Why? What did you do?"

Sheppard paled, slumping back against the wall to support himself.

"John."

He didn't answer.

"Major."

"I—" He swallowed, Adam's apple moving up and down the column of his throat.

"You have to trust me, John."

"I trust you," he said swiftly. Dark brows moved together in a quick frown. He had such an expressive face, when it wasn't locked down into an officer's mask. Yet it was an illusion, because John wasn't really open at all.

"Do you really?"

He looked at Elizabeth and she held her breath, only exhaling as his eyes widened faintly and he shook his head almost against his will. Honest for the moment, surprising both of them. He was still very off balance.

"You don't trust me." She'd wanted a different answer, but she'd known about this problem since the nanovirus incident. This was the crux of it. John didn't trust anyone to know better than he did—rather like Rodney—but he was too self aware to believe he was always right. Elizabeth had accepted that she would make mistakes, all leaders did. John hadn't. She said, "I don't think you really trust anyone but yourself, John."

"Who says I trust myself?" he muttered. One hand made an abortive motion toward the back of his neck. Unable to hold her gaze, he looked away and admitted, "I don't remember."

He looked tired and unhappy and she hated doing this to him, but she had no choice.

"You don't remember?"

"Not really, no."

"What do you remember?"

He came to attention, eyes locked on something just beyond her shoulder. "Wanting to make sure they never did it again. Going back to the temple… there was something I had to do. Probably blow it up. I'm not sure. I kind of remember dialing the Stargate."

Elizabeth stared at him. He'd lost an entire day. Why hadn't Beckett picked this up? Because John hadn't said anything, of course. He'd saved this bombshell for her. What did he think he'd blown up the temple with, she wondered? He hadn't had any explosives with him. Ford had confirmed that during debrief.

He pushed away from the wall. "I'm going back to the infirmary. Do whatever you have to do."

She still didn't know what had happened on Nsheen. Instead, there were more questions. What had happened after Ford and Teyla brought Rodney to the gate and why didn't John remember? If he didn't remember. No, she didn't think he'd lie to her. Either something had happened to him or he was suppressing the memory.

She activated her radio.

"Sgt. Bates, this is Weir. Would you join me in the conference room ASAP?"

If Sheppard wouldn't or couldn't explain what had happened on Nsheen, another team would have to go through the gate and investigate.

Day Six
MX8499
Stackhouse


Two jumpers went through the gate, carrying four combat teams of four men each, in full battlefield kit, plus the pilots and Lt. Ford. Sgt. Bates wasn't taking any chances.

Stackhouse glanced at Lt. Ford.

The Lieutenant might have the rank, but he wasn't in charge of this mission. He was only along to act as a guide. Dr. Weir had put Sgt. Bates in charge. Ford had gone blank-faced, but his hands kept moving over his P90—the one Sgt. Bates had handed him in the gate room. He stared out the front port of the jumper.

"Follow the road to the top of that hill," he directed. "Then turn toward the hills. That's where the temple is."

Where the temple was, Ford should have said. Five minutes later they were staring at the smoking black ruins of the Halls of the Protectors.

"What the hell did the major do?" someone mumbled.

"Guess he really taught 'em a lesson about messing with his team," another Marine remarked, but his voice wasn't as gung-ho as his words. Everyone was staring, wide-eyed.

"Set down," Sgt. Bates instructed over the radio.

Stackhouse followed Lt. Ford out of the jumper. The smell hit them first. The closest thing Stackhouse could compare it to was way the volcano on MS9986 had smelled, like the air and even the rocks had been burnt. Swathes of black smoke still drifted through the wreckage, rising and dissipating like fading bruises against the disturbing green sky.

The dirt under his boots was black and crumbly. Heat waves shimmered over it. He wondered if it wasn't still hot enough to melt his rubber boot-soles.

"No one did this with C4," Markham said very quietly from beside him.

Stackhouse nodded. He slanted a look at Lt. Ford, but Major Sheppard's 2iC showed no reaction.

"Somebody better get out a rad meter."

Markham shook his head and radioed, "The jumper would have warned us if the site was hot."

"Everybody keep an eye on your dosimeters anyway," Sgt. Bates ordered.

Stackhouse glanced at the strip of film clipped to his collar. Still in the green. Good. He preferred relying on Earth gear. The guys with the ATA gene like Markham were just too confident in the Ancient technology.

"Fan out," Sgt. Bates instructed. "Stackhouse, you and Markham and Kuichi, with me. Your team, too, Owens. Kelso, set up a perimeter with your men. Miller, your team stays on guard with the jumpers."

"Roger that, Sarge," Kelso's voice came over the radio push.

Owens nodded, a slide of light gleaming over his dark, shaven skull, then silently gestured for his men to follow.

Stackhouse shared a glance with Markham before catching the grim look on Kuichi's face. The tall soldier didn't say anything, but he hefted his weapon higher, jacking the clip out then back in. They followed Sgt. Bates up the shattered remnants of a set of wide steps. On one side a massive column had come down, snapped in three places. The bulk had shielded a tiny portion of the steps from the blast that had seared everything else.

Stackhouse sort of wished he hadn't noticed that, because he noticed the body—part of a body—trapped under the stone too. Parts of it were just gone, but he glimpsed blackened bone, and his stomach lurched.

"Don't puke," Markham muttered at him. "Or everyone will."

Sgt. Bates glared at them.

Stackhouse stared straight ahead and got to the top of the steps.

Parts of the ruined temple still towered over their heads. It had been huge, even the blast that seared the earth beyond it hadn't brought it down completely. His shoulder brushed against what might have been a door jamb and heat conducted through his uniform, enough to make him step away fast.

"Everyone needs to wear gloves, sir," he said to the Sergeant. "Unless we want to get burned."

Sgt. Bates keyed his radio.

"Did everyone hear that? Use your gloves, watch out for hot spots."

They side stepped over broken stonework and drifts of white-speckled ash. The initial heat must have been incredible. In places the stone had taken on a runny, glass-like sheen. Nothing except the stone had survived. Clouds of fine black ash billowed up with every step, settling over their uniforms, their hands, faces, and hair. Stackhouse could taste it at the back of his throat.

"This is bad, this is so bad," Markham muttered, low enough only Stackhouse heard. He had to agree.

Sgt. Bates kept them moving forward toward the center of the blast.

"Careful," he said as they came around chunk of wall leaning precariously outward. A piece of stone tumbled to the floor and cracked apart. "Watch your heads. Everything's unstable."

"Yeah, could have used our helmets," Markham remarked.

Sgt. Bates held up his hand.

"It looks like the roof is down from here on," he said.

Yeah, because blasts didn't just move out, they moved up and down, which had Stackhouse wondering how secure their footing was. Whatever foundations the temple had had, they would have taken damage, too.

He turned the last corner after Sgt. Bates, comfortingly aware of Markham at his side and Kuichi just behind him, followed by Owens' team.

"Oh shit," he murmured.

Markham bumped his shoulder.

"Wow."

Stackhouse walked forward slowly, then moved to the side, giving the others room to enter what had probably been the main section of the temple. Whatever happened, he did not want to get shoved forward into that shimmering red haze that surrounded the rubbled remains of the Nsheen's altar and the reclined, active control chair that had obviously been hidden within.

"Like a force field," Markham said.

Everything inside the domed red haze was untouched by the firestorm. There was damage, including bodies—Stackhouse counted seven—and scoring where bullets had hit the stone and carved wood, but the Ancient equipment looked pristine. Only the Nsheen-made decorations were marked. There were bullet scars, holes, torn altar-clothes stained dark with what had to be blood, and carved screens smashed and broken on the floor. Most of the blood had puddled and dried under the bodies, but a pool of it had dried up in a huge bowl set under a broken rack made to suspend a human body.

Pretty good bet the rack was where the Nsheen priests had had Dr. McKay, which meant the blood in the bowl… No wonder Major Sheppard had been pissed.

Sgt. Bates studied the scene.

"Markham, can you get through that?"

"What, me?"

Sgt. Bates looked at Markham, dark eyes and no patience at all; the sergeant had a personality like a Rottweiler.

"You've got the gene."

Markham sidled forward and extended his hand toward the red haze. Five inches away the haze sparkled all over and electricity arced between it and Markham's hand. He cried out and fell back two steps.

He clutched his hand to his chest and gave Sgt. Bates a hangdog look. "That would be a no, sir."

Sgt. Bates nodded. "Takida," he addressed one of Owens' men. "Get out the video camera and get all of this recorded. You see anything with writing on it, get multiple views."

Sgt. Bates turned back to the red dome and the control chair inside. It was empty, but a P90—Major Sheppard's—lay abandoned on the floor beside it.

Day Seven
Atlantis
Ford


He didn't mean to walk in on them.

He didn't know they were—that there was anything to walk in on. Not that they were doing anything really obvious when he palmed the lock control and walked into Dr. McKay's room, his mouth already on autopilot.

"Hey, Doc, I know Beckett told you to get some more rest, but Dr. Weir wants you and the major in the conference room for the debrief. It looks like there was Ancient technology on Nsheen after all. So, do you know where Major Shep—"

Major Sheppard was on the bed with Dr. McKay. No big deal, the only chair in the room had a pile of manuals, CDs, dirty clothes and something like an Ancient egg beater on it and the floor wasn't much better. No place else for him to be, really.

But the way Major was curled against Dr. McKay's side really careful because of the bandages everywhere, his face hidden in the crook of the Doc's neck and shoulder, that was a big deal. That was something Ford hadn't thought he'd see—thought about seeing. Their hands were laced together and just resting on Dr. McKay's T-shirt covered stomach. Ford couldn't even see Major Sheppard's face from the doorway, just his hair sticking up every which-way and the lean, long line of his body. His black shirt had ridden up, exposing bare, smooth skin at the small of his back. He was barefoot, his feet tucked against McKay's; his boots were sitting, one on its side, half under the bed next to Dr. McKay's trainers.

"—pard is?"

His brain caught up about then and he snapped his mouth shut because Major Sheppard had moved and he was staring into the muzzle of the major's Beretta.

"Were you raised in an outhouse, Lieutenant?" McKay snapped. Ford's eyes flicked from the Beretta aimed at him to Dr. McKay's blue eyes. McKay sat up with a series of small groans, looking irritated and disgusted, then just stopped once his feet were on the floor, catching his breath. "Try knocking or better yet, try not bothering the sick man when he's trying to get some much needed rest!"

The major had sat up too. He uncocked the Beretta and rested his arm on an upraised knee, but he was still watching Ford the way he watched any potential threat in the field. His hazel eyes were hard as stone and it wasn't such a stretch to think he'd done whatever had been done on Nsheen.

Ford spread his hands a little further from his sides. No threat here.

"Sorry, Doc," Ford said stiffly.

McKay flapped a hand at him. "Whatever. What did you want?"

Major Sheppard just watched Ford, expressionless and tense as a drawn wire. The major was usually so relaxed on the surface, seeing him not told Ford a lot, though he hadn't said a word.

"Oh, yeah, Dr. Weir wants both of you at the mission debrief. We've got video of what's left of the temple."

"What did you say about Ancient technology?" McKay's brain was snapping into gear. He was still moving carefully, though, thinking through every move before making it, bracing himself for it to hurt. Not at the top of his game. He obviously hadn't thought about what Ford had seen. Or maybe he was such a science geek that he didn't think it mattered.

Well, it mattered, Ford thought darkly. The military was better than that, even Air Force nancies. Major Sheppard was supposed to be better than that.

"There's a control chair in what's left of the temple."

"A control chair?" McKay exclaimed, excited and already focused on the information. "You said there's video?" He swayed, then nodded sharply. "I've got to—" he waved toward the washroom.

Ford nodded understanding and waited as McKay staggered through the doorway.

The major came off the bed like a coil of smoke, fishing up his thigh holster from the floor next to his boots and slipping the Beretta in. "What's left?" he repeated.

"Something blew it up," Ford said. He crossed his arms. "Sir."

He was pissed. They shouldn't have been doing that. It was against the regs and it was just selfish. The major could have any woman on Atlantis, he could have Teyla or even Dr. Weir, so why did he have to be with McKay? It just made Ford mad.

"Lieutenant," the major said quietly. It was a warning.

Ford lifted his chin. "Sir."

Don't pull rank on me when you're the one breaking regs.

Major Sheppard scooped his radio headset off the table beside McKay's bed and fitted it on. He activated the transmitter with a touch. "Dr. Weir? This is Sheppard. McKay and I will be there in ten."

"Thirty minutes, Major. Dr. Zelenka is dealing with a ventilation system glitch in Lab 4 and I want him present too. Please stay in radio contact from now on."

"Roger that. Sheppard, out."

He toggled off the radio.

"You shouldn't be doing—"

Major Sheppard narrowed his eyes. "Don't go there, Ford."

"It's just—you're going to mess up the team, sir!"

He took two steps toward Ford. "Lieutenant, you're dismissed. I suggest you reevaluate your attitude. If you still have a problem afterward, you can be reassigned to another team."

Ford felt his eyes widen. That hurt more than finding out the major and McKay were whatever they were. Lovers. He'd known how Dr. McKay felt about the major, but he hadn't believed anything would ever come of it. The major wouldn't let it, he'd thought. It was against the rules. He hadn't thought the major would put McKay above his duty, whatever he felt. Ford didn't break the rules and somehow, despite everything he knew about the major, he'd never believed Sheppard would either. It felt like shit, finding out he'd been wrong, finding out he was on the outside on his own team, maybe not even still being on the team. He drew himself up and threw off a textbook salute before spinning on his heel and stalking out of Dr. McKay's quarters.

He was still fuming when he almost walked into Sgt. Bates in the corridor.

Bates braced to attention while Ford was still recovering his balance.

"Lt. Ford, sir."

Now that they were back on Atlantis, the sergeant was deferring to Ford's rank again, even though everyone on the base knew the sergeant had more authority than Ford ever would. Sgt. Bates was the senior Marine left from Col. Sumner's company, while Ford, even though he was a Marine too, was one of the SGC officers assigned, like the major, to the expedition. Even the two sticks of SAS commandos and the Japanese counter-terrorist unit that had been included in the expedition's military contingent as a sop to 'international cooperation' had started answering to Bates once Dr. Weir and Major Sheppard tapped him as head of base security.

"Sergeant," he said, intending to find a quiet place to think until the debriefing began. He stopped and considered Bates. "I need to talk to you about Major Sheppard, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir," Bates said. His expression betrayed nothing as he gestured toward one of Atlantis' balconies. He touched the manual control that opened the stained-glass doors.

There were clouds darkening on the horizon, another storm on its way, nothing like what the planet had shown it could throw at them, but rain soon and certain. The wind hit Ford's face like a cold slap and he realized just how hot his cheeks were, but he wasn't going to let embarrassment stop him now.

"Lieutenant?" Bates sounded cautious.

"The major and Dr. McKay are sleeping together," Ford blurted out.

Bates stared at him and he waited, waited for the Sergeant to say something. Anything. Anything to take away the sick sinking ball of wrong in Ford's guts, because, God, what had he just done? He wanted to moan, or hide his face, even run away, and he really, really thought he might have to lean over the balcony rail and empty his stomach.

Spots of rain were darkening the arms and shoulders of Bates' uniform. Ford thought his upper lip curled just a little. The wind rose, lost and moaning through the towers, spattering their sides with sea spray, smelling of salt.

Bates finally spoke.

"Lieutenant Ford."

"Sergeant?" Ford's voice cracked humiliatingly on the first syllable.

Bates gave him a look of sheer disgust.

"This conversation never happened. Sir."

Ford was still gaping, torn between disbelief and relief, as Bates swung about and left him on the balcony. He watched the sergeant march inside and come to a stop before Teyla. A knot formed in his throat as they spoke, tense and hostile as ever with each other. The doors were still open and he heard the final words of their conversation as their voices rose.

"—it is not a matter within your authority."

"Someone better muzzle the puppy."

"What are you talking about?"

He thought he'd have to go back inside and separate them before Teyla lost her temper, but Bates took a long step back and pointed right at Ford.

"The lieutenant has a big mouth."

Teyla's brown eyes widened and her mouth thinned into a hard line. "And you, Sergeant?"

"Know how to keep mine shut, but I can't give orders to a lieutenant and he isn't going to listen to Sheppard. That leaves you. Don't think I like it or you."

"I understand, Sergeant." She gave a sharp nod to Bates, which Bates returned; they parted, in accord despite their mutual dislike. She continued to the doorway onto the balcony and stopped there.

The rain started coming down harder, soaking through the shoulders of Ford's uniform jacket. He backed up and braced his hands against the balcony railing.

"You will never speak of Major Sheppard and Dr. McKay as you did today again," she declared. "If you do, I will make it known that you are a liar."

The wind whipped her hair across her face but she ignored it.

"Teyla, I—"

"Be silent. I do not know you," she said. "You are a stranger to me."

"Teyla!"

She was already walking away and the words were echoing in Ford's memories, memories that were Teyla's, formal words the Athosians used to dissolve the bonds between families and peoples, words of divorcement and exile. You are not of my people; I do not know you. You are not of my blood, you are not of my body, you are not of my choice; I do not know you. You are none of mine; I do not know you. You are not my friend; you are a stranger to me. Do not come to me again.

Teyla had just written him off completely. He'd known she could be harsh, her memories made that clear. He'd never anticipated that she might react the way she just had, but he would never have predicted what he'd just done, either. Union was just a memory, he realized; the four of them had already changed too much to rely on the knowledge it had left. Ultimately, humans were always alone, wasn't that the lesson they'd learned when they returned from MX9-M41? Maybe that was why the major had broken and reached for what McKay offered.

Ford arrived at the debriefing last. He'd stayed on the balcony as long as he could and been forced to return to his quarters and find a dry uniform before reporting to the conference room.

He'd figured some things out. Teyla was just as alone as he was, separated from the rest of the Athosians; the team meant as much to her as it did to him, they were her family now. He'd betrayed her along with the major and McKay by speaking to anyone outside the team, and that it had been to Bates, Teyla's personal enemy, made it worse. She was angry and all the things that he could have used as an excuse for his reaction were foreign to her, not a part of Athosian culture. The thing that made her angriest was that she'd been in his head, she knew he didn't believe any of that homophobic shit anyway, not really; she knew his reaction had really been blind, ugly envy. For that, she would honestly call him a liar.

He tried to speak to her before the meeting, but she looked him up and down with palpable scorn.

"Teyla, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"Do not apologize to me, Lieutenant," she replied. Her voice remained low but very angry.

"Lt. Ford," Dr. Weir said. "Now that you're here, I'd like to begin."

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

They were using the weird, triangular table that split apart for when they needed more seating; it didn't have a head, but Dr. Weir sat at one of the points and everyone looked at her. The scrawny Czech scientist, Zelenka, then Dr. Beckett and the blonde shrink were seated down one side of the triangle. Dr. McKay, Major Sheppard and Teyla were opposite them on the second side. That left Sgt. Bates and Ford next to him on the third side, facing everybody.

On the opposite side, it felt like.

Dr. Weir kept her hands folded neatly before her, sitting up straight, through Sgt. Bates' report and then Ford's version, never looking more than politely interested.

They'd already looked at Takida's video of the temple site. Twice. Sgt. Bates had pointed out the P90 lying within the red-shaded shield.

"Yours, Major?"

The major shrugged, expressionless.

"Looks like it."

Dr. McKay looked at the image of the rack and the big bowl full of blood and turned sort of green-white. He was still pretty pale. Ford didn't blame him. Frankly, Dr. McKay didn't look like he should have been out of the infirmary. White bandages peeped out from under his sleeves at the wrists and at the neck of his blue shirt. There had to be plenty more underneath too. Dr. McKay probably wasn't up to doing anything more than lying on his bed, he was still hurt, but he and the major had been touching too intimately before for it to be anything but what Ford had thought. That thought and the images that it prompted made Ford's stomach twist again.

"And you still don't remember anything about this," Dr. Weir asked the major.

He shrugged.

"Sorry."

He didn't sound in the least sorry. He slouched down and didn't look at either the video or Dr. McKay. His eyes swept over Ford and met Bates' gaze. Ford couldn't look to the side to read the sergeant's face, but he glimpsed Bates' short nod peripherally. Dr. McKay didn't register it, no one else but Teyla did, but the major's hand, resting on the table, half curled closed, loosened and opened.

Dr. McKay was staring at the control chair in the video image, the line between his brows deeper than usual. He rubbed his hands together. Ford imagined McKay wanted to get his hands on it. He lived to take apart Ancient doohickies, put them together so they worked again and brag that no one else could have done it. Which was just barely tolerable because it was true. The guy had pulled their fat out of the fire more than once, Ford had to admit that. He just couldn't understand how the major could want McKay.

He sounded like a jealous high-school kid, he realized, disgusted with himself. Like one of the jerks who could never get why a good-looking girl was dating the debate team captain instead of a dumb jock.

"This is incredible," Dr. McKay said. "Elizabeth, do you realize what this means? It's powered up, generating a defensive field around the chair and control consoles. We can't even initialize the control chair in the city because the naquadah generators don't provide enough power." McKay leaned forward, wincing but ignoring it. "We have to go back. Either it was deactivated or shielded before, but there must be a power source there. Possibly a ZPM."

"Major Sheppard?" Dr. Weir asked.

The major shrugged again.

"Do you think you can get through that shield?"

"Won't know 'til we're there," he said. He frowned. "I think so."

"Excellent, then when can we go?" McKay exclaimed. A broad smile made him look years younger and healthier. A kid at the candy store.

"You're not going," Major Sheppard snapped, turning to glare at McKay.

McKay glared back, lifting his chin. He sneered, "Don't think you can stop me, Major."

"Watch me."

"No, no, no. You don't get to decide what I do. That's not the way it works."

"I'm not picking you up when you fall down before we even make it through the gate," Major Sheppard said.

"We'll take a jumper. You need me to figure out what this installation does, Major."

"I think it's pretty clear what it does, Rodney."

"You think? Are you sure that's what you're doing, because obviously you've never done it before," McKay sniped.

Major Sheppard looked around the table. "Somebody remind me again why I don't just shoot him?"

"Because you can't get along without me," McKay said smugly, sitting back with his arms folded like he'd won the argument.

The major smirked and crossed his arms too. "Right," he drawled. "Fine. I'm not carrying your ass back to the gate again."

"You didn't last time, that was Lt. Ford, I believe," McKay couldn't resist going for another dig. "You were off playing Rambo, apparently."

"Rambo?" Major Sheppard's eyebrows went up. "That's low, Rodney."

"Hmn. Maybe."

"Gentlemen," Dr. Weir said. Her mouth twitched like she wanted to smile at them, but wouldn't let herself. "If you've settled your differences?"

They glanced at each other and both shrugged then nodded, wordlessly communicating. It made Ford look away. They'd all had that on MX9-M41 when they were telepathically linked. Now he was on the outside. The major and Dr. McKay were still connected, maybe not the same way, but they were together and it left him feeling cut off and alone. Worse than when they first came back after being severed from the entity.

Selfishly, he'd wanted the others to feel as lonely as he did. It irritated him that Teyla had obviously known about them too, when he hadn't, petty though that was.

His gran's voice whispered to him the same thing she'd said when his girlfriend dumped him for Dave Hostedt. Love wants happiness, lust just wants, Aiden. He figured his gran would have hit him over the head by now, if she'd heard the things he was thinking.

He tried to focus on what Dr. Weir was saying.

"Major, I want you and AR-1 to return to Nsheen accompanied by AR-2."

"I'll be coming along too," Beckett spoke up. He nodded toward McKay, who had an elbow on the table, supporting his forehead against the back of his hand. His eyes were closed. "I want to keep a close eye on Rodney and the major, just in case. I'll want everyone down to the infirmary for a pre-mission exam anyway."

"Is that it?" Major Sheppard asked. He was watching McKay, too, concern clear if unspoken. He glanced at Beckett and jerked his head at McKay questioningly.

"Best get him back to his room," Beckett said.

Major Sheppard nodded.

"Bates," he said, ignoring Ford, "can you put together the mission specs and have everything ready for tomorrow?"

Sgt. Bates didn't blink. "Yes, sir."

Major Sheppard turned back to Dr. Weir. "It's a go for tomorrow."

"Agreed," she said.

"Great, great, why go now, why not wait until who knows what will happen?" McKay muttered.

"Rodney, if you can stand up out of that chair by yourself, we'll go today," Major Sheppard said.

Dr. Weir made a noise of protest.

McKay set his hands on the tabletop and started to push himself to his feet, then grunted quietly and sank back down. "Ow."

"Tomorrow."

"Okay, okay," McKay gave in. He looked at the major pitifully. "Give me a hand up?"

Major Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Sure."

He rose and took one of McKay's hands, then drew him to his feet steadily.

McKay smirked at him. "You know, I think I need someone to make sure I make it back to my room, Major. And I could use something to eat. You'll need to stop in the mess and get something for me."

The major tugged him unceremoniously toward the doors. "Don't milk this too far, McKay," he said.

Teyla stood up and nodded toward Dr. Weir. "Perhaps I should go with them, in case Major Sheppard forgets they are friends and decides to shoot Dr. McKay after all."

"Good idea, Teyla," Dr. Weir said with a small smile.

Ford watched her go and wondered if she meant to tell the major and Dr. McKay that he'd outed them to Sgt. Bates.

Dr. Heightmeyer was watching him.

"Lt. Ford?" she asked. "Is everything all right?"

Ford faked a smile.

"Sure."

He got up and nodded toward the door.

"I should go check my gear."

"Good idea, Lieutenant," Sgt. Bates said expressionlessly.

He felt several pairs of eyes on him as he left.

Day Eight
MX8499
Sheppard


"Forgive us," Loram said and John didn't; didn't answer, didn't forgive him or anyone, didn't stop moving out from under Loram's hand, elbow jamming into the other man's face. No, no, no, no beat through his brain to the stutter of his P90 firing.

The priest with the knife dropped.

John aimed at the one that had been next to him.

"Get him down."

When he hesitated, John shot him and aimed at the next man.

"Now."

"Major?"

The hand on his shoulder snapped him back to the present, because it was Rodney's hand, not Loram's, and the voice sounded worried. John blinked the memory away and settled the jumper to the ground. He didn't look at Rodney while he did it and Rodney didn't say anything else until they were outside.

Stackhouse's team stayed in the second, cloaked jumper. Beckett complained, wanting to be on the ground with them. Zelenka muttered in Czech, then fell silent.

Enough time had passed; the Nsheen were on the temple site, trying to excavate it with hands and shovels.

The scene was too familiar, innocents and enemies all tangled together in the bombed out ruin of some Afghani village or Pegasus galaxy temple, digging for bodies. It made John shudder, past and present sliding together, until he didn't know where he was, or when.

"Forgive us," Loram had said, and John didn't understand at first. Loram tightened his hand on John's shoulder as they approached the temple, but then he saw Rodney hanging like animal ready to be gutted, blood raining in a steady patter into a beaten copper bowl beneath him. Torchlight and computer telltales reflected off the polished rim of the bowl.

The knife in the priest's hand was bronze, the Nsheen didn't even have steel, but it still sliced another line from Rodney's shoulder to wrist. Rodney didn't twitch; his head hanging, neck limp, more blood from a head blow running in red, red rivulets over his face to drip into that obscenely deep bowl.

One of the women straightened and stared at them as they filed toward the temple steps. Chin-length gray hair hung lank and loose around her face. She wiped at it and left a heavy streak of dirt on her cheek.

Elmé.

She took a step toward them, then stopped as Bates' team leveled their weapons at her and the group she'd been laboring beside. He saw Miran kneeling in the ashes. Shiny tear tracks ran pale over her dirty face. Like Elmé, and too many of the other men and women, all her long braids were chopped off. She saw them and cried out, the rest of the Nsheen echoing her.

A stone arced toward them; a gunshot followed, throwing up dust before the feet of one of the closest men.

"Cease fire!" John shouted. "Damn it, no one do anything stupid."

He stared at Elmé and his throat closed up. He couldn't talk with these people. "Sgt. Bates," he said hoarsely. "Explain to them. We're not here to hurt them."

Miran pointed at him.

"But we will, if they make us."

"Yes, sir."

John's heartbeat filled his ears; he couldn't hear what Bates was saying to the Nsheen. He shook his head, but it didn't clear. It sounded like the rotors of the second chopper hovering over the ville outside Kabul where Dex and Mitch died, rotor wash throwing filthy grit in his face as he ducked out of the Blackhawk. He'd left his co-pilot in the bird and went out with the door-gunners, going through the chopper's wreckage, trying to find enough of the bodies to identify. All they'd brought back was the dead weight of dogtags.

He wanted to clap his hands over his ears. The Nsheen were muttering among themselves, many of them pointing at Rodney and him. Rodney had his hand locked on John's bicep, pulling him toward the blackened, cracked steps into the temple. John didn't want to go inside, but Rodney kept tugging him forward, muttering, "Would you just come on, let's just do this before more of them show and decide a re-enactment is a good idea. Why did I agree to come back here again? Oh, yes, control chair. Frankly, this is not looking like one of my best ideas."

John didn't say anything.

He wanted to tell Rodney everything was all re-enacting in his head already, but he coughed on the too familiar reek of death the intermittent wind carried instead, and his eyes locked with Elmé's. He thought she knew, somehow, she could see it written on his skin. A bloodstain.

"Through here," Bates directed them, but John already knew the way.

He'd come up the steps beside Loram, impressed by the size of the temple. Two huge columns framed a doorway three times his height. Hieroglyphic carvings covered every inch.

"Wow," he'd commented, then stumbled and peered at the stone before the doors. It was carved too, much faded and worn away, but distinctly familiar. It was Ancient; he could almost read it. He knelt without thought and brushed his hand over the obscure, barely distinguishable symbols.

"The prophecies of the Protectors," Loram said.

John looked up. "The Protectors?"

The stones were cracked and uneven, catching the tread of his boots. One of the great doors was gone, the other twisted and pinned open in a parody of welcome. He shrugged off Rodney's hand and walked through ahead of the team.

A flick of a finger lit the targeting light mounted with the scope over the P90's barrel. He played the light over the floor to check the footing, then raised the stock to his shoulder and began working his way inside the temple.

"Sir," Ford protested in a whisper, "there's no one left in here."

John didn't spare him a glance. "If the Nsheen are out there, more could have moved inside," he said.

He knew without looking that Bates' team had already been locked and loaded, quartering their surroundings for any threats. Broken pools of daylight interspersed the darkness of the temple, particles hanging thick in the comparatively brilliant light, almost glowing. The contrast hid too much in the shadows, making the Marines nervous.

He looked at the inscription again and toggled his radio. Rodney would want to look at this, because he'd lay money the Nsheen's Protectors were the Ancients. "McKay? McKay, this is Sheppard."

Nothing. John frowned. He was getting dead air. He started up to his feet.

"Rodney," he said and Loram took hold of his shoulder.

"Major Sheppard."

"Forgive us."

He couldn't, John thought. He wouldn't, not if anything had happened to Rodney. He shrugged free and crossed the temple's threshold at a run.

"Rodney!"

He hit the radio toggle again.

"Rodney, god damn it, answer me!"

Nothing but static as he brushed past a startled priest in blood-red vestments, careening around a corner, running toward something he could feel inside now, a hum of familiar power reverberating in the back of his head.

Loram was yelling at him, running after him.

He switched frequencies.

"Ford! Teyla! Come in!"

Static. Something in the temple was jamming their comms.

"Damn it."

He skidded into the main hall of the temple.

"Major Sheppard."

Torches and candles, smoky air filled with a scent like sandalwood and green sap burning that rose from the incense in a dozen intricate braziers. Painted, gilt screens of geometrically filigreed stone had been laboriously pushed to the sides of the main altar, revealing a bank of Ancient technology, a control chair, and Rodney suspended, unconscious or dead, while a flock of robed priests surrounded him, chanting, bleeding him. Everything was red, red, red. John snapped the P90 to his shoulder and fired, the knife falling from the first priest's hand, darker red blooming over the chest of his scarlet robes. Rodney's head lolled over the catch bowl, while something howled and clawed inside John.

The hum deepened, running through his skin, through his bones, and singing in his cells, ready, ready, ready, year on year of power leashed and waiting for release. The displays on the console behind the control chair cycled into ever more intense greens, and banks of data and circuit crystals glowed blue-white.

"The Blood of the Protectors will be our Shield."

He stepped into the wreckage of the main hall, past rubble that had been screens of carved stone, past the melted remains of a brazier, past a bundle of seared bones he had to turn away from. The power was still there, as entrancing as before, waiting beyond the red.

"Major. Major Sheppard. John."

He managed to look away and found Rodney staring at him, pupils constricted in the light pouring through the opening where the roof had been, mouth thinned to a single, worried line. Rodney's eyes were too blue, too clear, everything had a diamond sharp, surreal edge. John could count every eyelash from the shadow it threw.

He swallowed hard and almost reached out to touch him.

He was kneeling in Rodney's blood, desperately tying anything he could find over the ever-bleeding wounds, god, the blood of the protectors, it was the gene. It was the gene initializing everything, the gene in Rodney's blood, the gene that came from John… Rage and despair twisted around each other inside. 'This is what happens, this is what you get, if you get what you want, someone has to pay, someone always has to pay.'

"Rodney…," he breathed

"John, I don't know where your head is, but come back, okay?" Rodney looked scared. "If you can't remember, that's fine, just stay with us here. Are you hearing me?"

He took a step closer, intent on Rodney to the exclusion of everything else.

"Are you real?"

"Of course I'm real, you idiot," Rodney snapped. "Are you high? No, you're not high, it's something here or a flashback, and we need to have Beckett look at you—"

"I thought I'd killed you," John said.

"I—wha—?"

Rodney frowned at him, head going back, chin up, confusion and worry and irritation flitting over his face. John watched hungrily.

"They did it because you had the gene, you activated the consoles," John said. He waved at the control chair and computers beyond the wavering red haze. "It's a shield."

"I can see that, Major," Rodney interrupted impatiently.

"It could cover the entire continent, maybe the planet, if it's activated and has enough power," John went on. "It'll knock out any kind of higher technology, even Ancient tech like the jumpers." He swayed a little. His P90, the one he'd had on the mission, lay on the floor next to the control chair. He'd dropped it after emptying the last clip. Too many layers, conflicting, he'd had Ford's later and requisitioned the one in his hands from the armory this morning.

"Fine, wonderful, we're all thrilled for the Nsheen," Rodney said. He looked at the control consoles and chair with a certain acquisitiveness, then shook it off and grabbed John's shoulders instead. "That doesn't explain how you thought you'd killed me. It was the damned priests who knocked me over the head and made like third rate vampires in a bad Roger Corman film. Not that I remember that part, since I was, thankfully, unconscious."

"The Blood of the Protectors will be our Shield," John recited. He didn't care if Rodney kept shaking him. It felt real. Some invisible wall he'd had inside was coming apart, so that he knew where he was and what had happened. Rodney's hands anchored him into the here and now, heavy and warm and holding on tight. Rodney wouldn't let go, wouldn't let John get lost in the hum calling him from the control chair. "That's what the Nsheen thought the prophecy said, but they have it all wrong, they needed the bloodline, someone with the Ancients' gene to activate the defenses, and instead they sacrificed everyone who could have saved them from the Wraith."

"That's what they tried to do to Dr. McKay?" Ford asked.

John blinked and realized his team and Bates were all watching him. He'd forgotten them, lost in the whipsaw blur of now and before. They were worried: concerned for him. It made him ache. He was supposed to look out for them, all of them.

"Yeah, they marched you and Teyla through too, but you didn't light anything up."

"But I did," Rodney said.

"Because Beckett gave you the artificial gene."

John closed his eyes, but that was no good, when he did—

—the blood was seeping through his fingers, seeping through the bandages and the priests had crossbows aimed at him. Loram came up to the altar, cupping his hand to his bleeding nose.

He pressed a bandage to Rodney's throat and brought the P90 up with the other, glaring at them.

"The Wraith are coming, Major Sheppard, you told us this yourself," Loram said, calm and apologetic and refusing to stay back. "One sacrifice, one man, surely you understand why we must do this, to save all our people, to bring back the shield. You are a soldier, ready to give your life for your people."

"To give, my choice. Rodney didn't agree to this, even if you were right," he replied, groping for some way to explain that they'd misinterpreted their prophecy, that blood wasn't blood, it was genetics. He liked Loram, damn it. "It's not his blood you need, it's him or anyone with the ATA gene."

"We take no joy in this, Major."

"Well, I feel better knowing that, but when Rodney dies, you still won't have a shield, because the Ancient defenses won't operate without someone descended from them to initialize everything—someone of their blood—that's what your prophecy means."

Loram shook his head, long gray braids brushing over his shoulder. "You wish to save him; what you say cannot change what we must do. I am sorry."

The blood was still slick between his fingers and the already soaked bandage wanted to slip off; the blood wouldn't stop, so much it wasn't even drying normally.

"If Rodney dies…"

"He must—"

He still liked Loram, he even understood how the Nsheen thought this was necessary, but Loram had to understand this was Rodney and no way in hell was John letting him die without taking everything down with them. He wasn't walking away, no one was walking away from this. He had thrown his career down the toilet for a special ops team he'd never met; he brought his own home, because that was what was right. There wasn't much of anything he wouldn't do to take care of his team. He'd always known this about himself, it was a fault in an officer, but he'd never been objective and this was Rodney.

Because John knew better, knew what he was like, but he let himself love just this once and now Rodney was more important than saving the Nsheen from themselves or the Wraith, more important than John getting out of this alive, or even Teyla and Ford, more important even than Atlantis and Earth put together. He knew it was wrong to be willing to trade one life for millions and fiercely didn't care. He was getting Rodney out of this. If he died—and John already thought that would be the end of this, death was always the end of everything, winter was always coming—-if Rodney died, then John would retaliate.

He wouldn't need Atlantis or a jumper or even any guns to do it; all the power and destruction he'd need was in the chair, waiting for him.

He finished tying the last bandage one-handed.

"Get out of my way."

Loram shook his head and the priests raised their crossbows.

"The sacrifice must be finished."

John laughed. A point of agreement, Elizabeth would say, that's what all negotiations need. Here they had one.

"You're right," he said.

He shot the three men with crossbows first, because they were distance weapons that could get to him despite the P90. Then the priests with the pikes or spears when they tried to stop him dragging Rodney away from the altar. The farther they got from the consoles, the quieter the hum in his head became; when the lights died, he could hear the hiss of the radio carrier wave in his earpiece again.

Loram picked up one of the spears.

John kept the P90 aimed at him while hefting Rodney awkwardly onto his shoulder.

"Ford, Teyla, get to the crossroads."

The weight threw his balance and aiming one-handed never worked well. It worked well enough; he emptied the clip. Loram was the last person between him and the doors. Loram wasn't going to stop him.

"Now!"

Or ever get up from the floor, his blood spilling over the stones. One arm flopped to the side, hitting a brazier and knocking it over. Coals and incense spilled over the gray stone, onto Loram's body.

"Sir, where are you?"

"Just get there. I'll meet you."

He dropped the empty P90 so he could balance Rodney's body on his shoulders and ran.

"John. John. John."

He opened his eyes and looked past Rodney to the seared black bones lying next to a melted brazier.

"I think we should get the Major out of here," Teyla said. She was holding his arm, bracing him on one side. Ford was on his other side. Rodney was staring at him with suspiciously wet-looking eyes, his mouth open just a little.

John blinked at him and said, "Beckett used my gene for the first therapy, the one he gave you, so if you died because you had it, I killed you."

Rodney glared at him. "Okay. Officially? You're insane. You didn't kill me because (a) I didn't die, (b) you saved me, (c) it was the Nsheen who tried to kill me, and (d) that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." He shoved his fist toward John's face, making him jerk back in surprise. Ford and Teyla's hands tightened on his arms. "If you say it again, I'm going to hit you. You see what you've done? You've reduced me to your military, mindless, hit-it-until-it-shuts-up attitude. I've probably been losing brain cells since the moment I met you and now it's too late. I swear, I'm going to hit you."

"Wow, you'll lose your Canadian citizenship," John blurted out.

Ford snickered and Rodney blinked at him.

"That's—that's—"

John tried for a smirk, but didn't quite succeed. Rodney's expression softened anyway.

"Are you tracking again?"

John looked at the red shield. He'd left it activated without any thought before walking out of the temple.

"For the moment," he said. He looked back at Rodney. "We have to go in there."

"Because there's a ZPM we can take back to Atlantis?" Rodney asked, only mock hopeful. Rodney could read John better than anyone, even before; he knew they wouldn't be bringing anything back to Atlantis but another set of nightmares.

John shook his head.

"I have to turn on the Nsheen's shield."

It was something he knew; he couldn't question it.

"You can do that?"

"I can do that."

John slipped free of Teyla and Ford, nodded to Bates, and walked into the force field. It folded around him with a buzzing sigh.

Halfway inside, he stopped and stretched arm back through the red haze. "Rodney? Come on."

Rodney sighed theatrically, took John's hand and let himself be pulled through. Immediately, he began rubbing his hands over his arms and twitching, then whimpering and cursing every time his hands encountered a bandage. "Ow. Ow. Like bugs crawling all over me. Ow."

"Stop," John told him.

"Right, right." He didn't stop, however, so John caught Rodney's hands and pulled them away from his arms. Rodney glared at him until he let go. John smiled and held up his hands, a mime of 'I'm not touching'.

Rodney's hands twitched toward his arms again, but he stopped this time and went for the computer consoles instead. John watched him fondly for a moment, before the movements of the others beyond the shield drew his eye.

Ford was waving semaphore big, while Bates tapped his radio headset. Teyla waited just beyond the force field. Ford and Bates were both talking, but no sound came through the red haze between them.

John toggled the transmitter on his headset. "Sgt. Bates?"

Nothing but static again.

"Ford? Teyla?"

Nothing.

He tried the frequency for Jumper Two.

"Stackhouse? Markham? Beckett?"

The same as last time. The installation or the force field generated a jamming wave that shut down their radio comms. John shrugged and mimed that they were cut off. He tapped his watch then opened and closed his hand thrice: fifteen minutes.

Bates nodded and Ford backed off. Teyla retained her place, waiting patiently. John smiled at her.

Rodney was humming, muttering things under his breath, hands moving over crystals, bouncing from console to console. "This is amazing. It's wonderful. Everything is—it's pristine! There's power, it's not a ZPM, but there's enough power here to run Atlantis for ten years! If I can find some way to duplicate what's been done here—John, you can't believe what they did! The green sky, that's artificial, it interacts with—anyway, the Ancients came up with a way to literally turn the upper atmosphere into a shield!" He leaned his shoulders forward, hands moving in choppy motions, telegraphing the intensity of his enthusiasm when words couldn't keep up.

John went with deliberately casual, knowing it would wind Rodney up. "So… impressive?"

Rodney gave him the look, amusement and condescension, rolling his eyes. "Oh, just slightly."

John smiled.

His smile faded as Rodney stepped around the body of the head priest. The bronze knife lay on the floor within a few inches of the corpse's slack hand. Rodney saw where he was looking and grimaced.

"You, ah—getting me out of here?"

"Yeah."

"Did I say thanks?"

"No, but you were unconscious."

Rodney looked at the knife once more and swallowed audibly. "Yeah." He edged away from body and knife both, then pulled out his laptop.

"I need to interface into the system, download whatever I can. I don't think this installation has anything we can remove—even if Elizabeth would authorize it—but it looks like the Ancients did something different here." One hand pointed toward the nonexistent roof. "Besides the whole atmospheric thing. Which—wow."

His pack came off and he pulled out cables and connectors specially made for interfacing their technology with the Ancients. Intent on his job, Rodney barely paid attention to the bodies after that. John watched him another minute, content because Rodney was in his element.

"So, what exactly did you do?" Rodney asked without looking. His fingers were blurring over the keyboard, his eyes on the screen, he didn't even slant a glance toward John. "It would help for one thing if I understood what commands had been input through the system in the last week."

"I—"

"And another thing, why did the force field let you and me through but not Markham yesterday? He's got the gene."

John blinked and thought about it. Oh.

"I keyed it to me only. It only let you through because we were in contact."

Rodney twisted his neck to the side and stared at John, narrow eyed.

"You told it to."

John shrugged.

"I think."

"You know how much I hate that you can do that, right? Even though I've got the gene now—which, considering it's yours should be just as effective, don't think I missed that earlier, when you were insane—I can just get things to open or initialize and everything Ancient still rolls over for you like a puppy wanting its tummy rubbed."

John raised an eyebrow. "A puppy?" he drawled.

"Whatever." Rodney looked irritated and then concerned. "John."

"What?"

"Don't sit down in the chair yet."

John had his hand on the arm, the thrum running up through his fingers into the core of him. He hadn't even noticed approaching the chair. Reluctantly, he lifted his hand and took a step away, though it made his chest go tight.

"You were about to sit down, weren't you?" Rodney accused.

"Yeah, I need to if I'm going to activate their shield," John replied mildly. Something told him he needed to do it soon. The headache he'd been vaguely aware of since passing through the Stargate had grown worse. His hands were sweating, too.

"And you know this because you used it before."

He drew out his reply into two syllables, "Yes?"

Rodney swung his arm out to indicate the temple.

"Notice something that happened last time you took a seat? What if that happens again? Lt. Ford and Teyla and Bates and his team are right out there."

John swallowed hard. He hadn't even thought… But he wouldn't… The chair hadn't done that on automatic, he'd had to trigger the defense systems. He'd… He spun on his heel, looking at the wreckage of the temple.

He'd done that. He'd killed everyone within the blast radius of whatever he'd triggered. Done it knowingly. Rodney thought he might sit down and unleash the same devastation on the others. John cringed inside, realizing that wouldn't happen, because it hadn't been an accident.

A stab of agony ran through his temple, then spread over his skull, sinking into his head. Bile burned up his throat. He pressed his arm over his stomach and clutched at the back of the control chair with his other hand. Everything was red.

He pushed Rodney's limp body into Ford's arms, snatched his weapon and went back, not caring what happened because he didn't think Rodney would make it to the gate. He'd thought Rodney had stopped breathing before he reached the crossroads; he'd been afraid to check. It felt like being flayed, being hollowed out and filled with boiling acid; he'd never experienced so much anger, such a bitter desire to strike back.

Sick. He was going to be sick. His head was pounding, it felt like it might explode, while his mouth flooded with saliva. The chair had lit up again, the power throbbing up through his palm in unison with his heartbeat, while his knees folded and hit the stone floor, cracking against it.

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Ford and Teyla and even Bates standing as close to the barrier as they could.

Rodney plucked his hand off the chair and that was better; still bad, but better.

"Okay, John, keep your head down and just breathe, one, two, like that," Rodney said. He sank down beside John, his knee nudging against John's thigh. A warm, slightly sweaty palm settled on the nape of John's neck.

John squeezed his eyes shut and nodded faintly. He breathed in and out while Rodney began gently rubbing his neck. A hot wave of embarrassment added to his discomfort; what the hell was wrong with him? He was folding up like a piece of wet paper. He swallowed hard, trying to control the nausea. He really wasn't sure if this was a reaction to what he'd remembered or something genuinely going wrong with his body; he couldn't tell. He just tried to stop thinking and concentrate on Rodney's hand moving in tiny circles over the vertebrae where his neck met his back.

"If you're going to be sick, just aim for the handy-dandy catch bowl we've got right here," Rodney said lightly.

John couldn't believe he was joking about that. The damn thing was still full of Rodney's blood, dark and crusted, serum yellow bordering the dried edge. John's stomach twisted again, because now he thought about it he could smell the old blood reek thick on the air. He made an unpleasant sound, gulping and gagging in turns, but nothing came up.

John turned his head enough to look and squinted one eye open. "Don't joke."

"Hey, I almost bled to death, plus I have a concussion and a headache that won't quit, do you see me joking?" Rodney shook his head. "I just don't want you puking on my boots. We can't exactly run down to Foot Locker for replacements. You should know that if you weren't about to fall over, I would be very busy freaking out now, because that's my blood in there. So if you could stop worrying me, that would be really good, too."

He found that irritating and amusing enough to slightly distract him from the headache and the nausea. The smug look in Rodney's eyes told him that had been the idea. John glared with the eye he had open. Arrogant, know-it-all geek bastard. He sucked in a breath to call Rodney on it and felt his stomach protest again. Not much, just enough that he could taste it.

Rodney stared at him intently. "Any better?"

The smugness was there. So was the shiny-bright, wide look Rodney's eyes held when he was scared out of his mind.

"Not really," he admitted, swallowing more saliva between the words. Not good. He should have spit instead.

"What is it?"

"Head. Stomach."

"Can you key the field to let Carson in?"

He didn't dare shake his head. "No."

"Flashback?" Rodney asked tentatively. "Or something else?"

John let his head hang and forced the words out.

"Wasn't an accident."

Rodney's hand stilled on his neck. John waited for him to take it away, to back off, to look at him with disgust for losing control, for answering pain with atrocity, because he deserved it. He deserved to lose Rodney. He hadn't known he had that much rage in him, hadn't ever hurt so much, though this was coming a close second. Yet, he could lose Rodney, as long as he knew Rodney was still alive. That was bearable. Not like the pain that had clawed him to shreds inside and left behind only something animal and angry and hurting too much to think beyond striking back.

"What wasn't an accident?" Rodney asked after a moment.

John made a motion that encompassed the wrecked temple.

Rodney raised his face and took in the destruction surrounding them. The force field painted his face red.

"You did this on purpose?"

Purpose was too conscious a word; John hadn't thought about it. There had been no interval between the anger and the impulse and the action. But it had all been him.

There were no excuses.

He said, simply, "Yes."

Rodney closed his eyes. John held his breath and watched as all expression erased itself from Rodney's face, everything but the down turn of his mouth and two lines scored to frame it. He lifted his hand off John's neck.

"Well, you're human. Humans… do these sorts of things." He watched John warily now. "Right. The military trains you to act, doesn't it?"

Not really, John wanted to say. The military taught control. But Rodney was groping for some rationalization of what John had just confessed. He remembered to breathe, swallowed again and tasted salt and copper.

The warm hand on his neck was gone. He thought maybe much more was gone.

"I, ah, I don't know what to—look, I don't think we can talk about this here and now," Rodney said. His hands washed each other compulsively.

"Okay," he croaked. What else could he say?

"John?"

His head still throbbed unmercifully. It was the chair, he realized, almost demanding he use it. He lifted his head enough to look at it and shuddered. His mind rebelled against using it again, while his body responded to the demanding throb of power pushing the limits of containment and told him he had no choice.

"Can you check," he waved a hand toward the consoles, "the power levels?" He brought his hand to his face and pressed the heel to the orbit of his left eye. "I think I screwed something up."

Rodney stared at him another instant, then he was gone. John swallowed back the words that wanted to spill out. You knew what was in me. You still know me. I thought you saw me. Because that was the problem, wasn't it? He'd always been frightened of what was inside him. Now Rodney was too.

"Yes, all right, it looks like there's some kind of charge build-up since you activated the system," Rodney said. "I'm trying—there should be, yes, okay, that's it."

Rodney stopped talking.

John got his head up, still trying to press the pain away with his hand. When Rodney stopped talking something was always wrong. He watched as Rodney's shoulders tightened and drew forward. Bad, that was bad, he knew that body language by now and Rodney was still staring at the screen.

"Damn it," he muttered. He hated that sick, punched-in-the-gut, betrayed by the laws of the universe look Rodney got when faced with something he didn't know how to fix. He really hated that he was actually familiar with that look, too.

"This is not good. Not good," Rodney said finally, slow, but then his words picked up speed as he typed commands and read the numbers scrolling over laptop's screen. "So not good, as in really, really bad."

John levered himself to his feet, carefully not touching the control chair. "Define bad."

"Bad bad."

"We're going to die here bad?"

"We're going to die here and blow up the planet bad," Rodney corrected him.

"Crap."

"Succinctly, yeah." Rodney kept typing and reading. "There's got to be a way, the Ancients weren't stupid, they put this system together, there should be failsafes, shut-down protocols, if I can just find a way to access—damn it, John, you've keyed everything to your DNA signature!"

"Because I was trying to kill us all," John snapped. Because I was trying to kill them all. He pressed both hands to his eyes now, and thought beating his head against one of the still standing walls would be a stellar plan. Or pulling his Beretta from the holster at his thigh and taking a permanent, nine-millimeter painkiller. He couldn't stand the pain shoving through his skull much longer. Halos of yellow and orange were surrounding the outlines of things, while his vision narrowed. He dropped his hands to his sides and swayed in place, waiting, locking his teeth on the flesh inside his lip.

"Good job," Rodney replied. Then he looked horrified, staring at John.

"Rodney," he said.

Rodney turned away.

"Just—okay," Rodney froze the screen and read through it again. "You were right. You need to get in the chair. Now."

"I was right?"

"You were right. Happy? You have to use the chair and activate the planetary shield; that's what the power build-up is for, it's been charging since you activated the system days ago."

John squinted at him, wondering if he was hallucinating. Rodney folded his arms over his chest and tapped his foot. "You want me to do what you told me not to do?" he asked carefully.

"Essentially."

He looked at the chair, then sat, moving carefully.

Rodney said, "Think about the shield—"

Power at his fingertips, the sick feeling sliding away on the rush of it locking him into the system. It almost dragged him under. John drew in a deep breath and spread his fingers over the control surfaces on the chair arms.

"Okay," he said again and concentrated on sending all that power into the atmosphere, triggering a chain reaction. He kept his eyes open, watching Rodney looking at him, and remembered.

He stalked through the temple with Ford's P90 at the ready, but no one met him, no one tried to stop his return. He didn't encounter anyone until he reached the main hall, where three priests and another man he recognized from the town were kneeling by Loram's body.

The priests were all young; baby-faced kids with stubble-dark shaven heads, wearing those damn red robes. John was really starting to hate that color. The fourth man had long braids like Loram's, but dark, and wore brown and green. Someone—wife, daughter, lover?—had embroidered a leaf design along the collar of his shirt. His eyes widened when he saw John silhouetted in the doorway and he groped for the crossbow on the floor beside him.

John snapped the P90 to his shoulder and fired. The bullet hit the stock of the crossbow, splintering it and sending it skidding across the floor.

"Don't," he gritted out. "Just don't or you die like everyone else here."

"Why are you here?" the dark haired man asked. He held his hands away from his body while glaring at John. "Haven't you done enough, killed enough of us? You've stopped the sacrifice. When the Wraith come we will all die."

"Unless you find another sacrifice, right?" John sneered. He itched to pull the trigger and kill everyone in the room. It seemed like they should hear the roar he heard in his head, the storm surge of rage filling him. He wasn't cold or in control now, he was riding a tsunami of rage. If he wavered or lost his balance it would drag him under and he would drown in it. Whatever made him John Sheppard, whatever kindness and compassion he had in him, would be gone, swept away. He'd glimpsed it when he thought Kolya had killed Elizabeth, but now it carried him along, without mercy or quarter.

"If the Protectors are merciful."

John laughed bitterly.

"They're not. The ones who didn't die don't give a damn about the rest of us."

"What do you know of the Protectors?" one of the younger priests asked indignantly.

I thought I was one, but I'm no better at it than the Ancients. People keep dying on my watch. My people.

John ignored him and gestured with the muzzle of the P90. "Get up and get out."

One of the priests ran, but the other two and the dark haired man stayed.

John picked his way toward the altar and the control chair beyond it. "Fine."

One of the priests gasped as the telltales lit across the console faces.

"You don't even know," John said as he reached the chair. He set one hand on the back. It responded, lighting up, more light pouring up from beneath the stones of the temple floor as the rest of the Ancient installation, buried deep beneath, came to life. Fresh anger and fear fill him, because Rodney would see this and flip between being thrilled and frustrated at light speed if he wasn't— bleeding to death—through the gate—dead, the pessimist John had always ignored before whispered.

He walked around to the front of the control chair.

"The throne wakes for him," the youngest looking priest said.

"Just get out," John said again.

He thought: no more temple, no more sacrifices, no more damned control chair and Ancient technology promising them everything and giving them fuck-all, like the damned Ascended and the Ancients that left this thing here without making it actually work. He was going to blow it all up.

"We have to finish the sacrifice," one priest said. He stood and started toward John.

"Belwen, don't," the dark haired man cautioned.

John watched the priest coming closer and closer with a vicious satisfaction. He wanted an excuse and here it was about to be given to him.

The dark haired man grabbed the other priest's arm and drew him up and away. John nodded as they disappeared out the door.

Belwen bent and picked up a spear from the floor.

Perfect.

John didn't think about using the P90. He dropped it to the floor and sat down instead. The chair reclined immediately, every system online and ready. The power surged up, answering John's emotions, responding to what he wanted before it even became thought. The system ran through every option available and instituted the one closest to John's intent instantly.

The reactive defense parameters included a force field around the chair and control consoles, meant to protect the operator. Belwen screamed when the red haze snapped up around the chair, catching him before he could reach John. The shaft of the spear burned first, then Belwen's robes, and he jerked and twitched, arcs of electricity running over his body.

John closed his eyes, remembering Rodney hanging over the catch bowl. His hands curled into fists. He found the active defense system and triggered it. The temple shook. He concentrated and pushed at the system, telling it to draw on all the power it could. It responded, faster and stronger than the control chair in Antarctica had, no cautions, no failsafes, no pause for reflection between intention and its response.

He wanted the temple destroyed; the chair acted.

The blast whited out the world, but he had a last moment of consciousness to understand what he'd done and begun before it overloaded his senses. He went down into the deep gratefully, wanting to forget everything.

With the last memory there, everything slotted together. He'd walked away from the Nsheen when he came to, dazed with the knowledge that if he did nothing, the power build -up meant to enable the shield would eventually destroy their planet.

And he'd gone through the Stargate.

He looked away from Rodney and thought about the shield, the ingenious, magnificent shield that would guard the Nsheen's planet from the Wraith. It was a simple matter to bring it online, though a huge power drain. It would deplete the installation, but once established, this shield was self-sustaining.

He had only to think it on.

The temple groaned and stones tumbled aside in the main courtyard. A massive array telescoped upwards from the earth.

Rodney bent over his laptop watching the read-out. The force field around the chair disengaged. Rodney held up one hand as Ford and Teyla started toward them, exclaiming. "Not now," he snapped. "Except, yes, it would be a good idea if the jumpers were back through the gate before the shield is in operation. Otherwise we'll have to abandon them or try to drag them back using brute force."

Ford slapped his hand over the radio activator. "This is Lt. Ford. Jumper Two, head back to the Stargate and return to Atlantis ASAP." He turned back to Bates' team and pointed at Miller. "Get back to Jumper One and get it out of here, too."

Miller glanced at Bates first, but he nodded and Miller left at a run.

"How long have we got?" Bates asked.

"They can have five minutes," John declared. He could give them that long without overloading the control circuits.

"Three," Rodney snapped.

John didn't roll his eyes.

"Five," he said.

"Four minutes forty-five seconds," Rodney corrected.

The defense system sensors registered the Stargate activating. It was a cool frisson over his skin, lifting the hair on his forearms. It tasted like mint.

"Wormhole's open," he commented.

Rodney looked fascinated. "You can tell?" He tapped another command into his computer.

John nodded.

"Did the chair in Antarctica give you feedback too?"

"No."

"Jumper Two going through now, sir," Stackhouse radioed. "Jumper Two, out."

"Acknowledged," Bates replied.

"Jumper One, ETA to gate, one minute fifty seconds," Miller reported in the pause that followed. John followed its progress. A display lit illustrating Jumper One's course and time to target. Miller added as he piloted the jumper forward, "Proceeding through the gate. Over and out."

John met Rodney's gaze and swallowed. "Okay," he drawled. "Here goes."

Intention and action as one. John flinched as the feedback scoured his nerves with the raw power roaring upward into the sky, a column of shimmering green fire that reached for the furthest, most attenuated edges of the atmosphere before flowering open. It was amazing, overwhelming, and a little frightening. He had to pull himself away from it as the self-sustaining generation of power began.

As he withdrew, he felt the chair powering down, the systems shutting down forever, burnt out, energy depleted. The installation had done its job; it had never been meant to operate beyond that point.

The telltales blinked out one by one until finally John was sitting in a supremely uncomfortable straight chair, the metal lattice digging into his shoulderblades. He lifted his hands away from the arms and looked around.

His stomach still felt iffy, but the pressure against his thoughts that he'd been unconsciously aware of since coming back through the Stargate was gone.

"You okay, sir?" Ford asked. Real concern lit his face.

John stood and wobbled at the knees briefly. "Sure," he said, elaborately casual. He didn't let his eyes stray to Rodney, who was slowly unhooking his computer from the console, his back to them all. God, John thought, and the nausea returned. I did it for you, he wanted to yell at Rodney, but it was no excuse, no reason, and not even true. He did it because he was blind with pain, because he hurt.

Leaving the Nsheen to be destroyed by the machine they'd essentially worshipped, the thing that had been meant to save them, wouldn't have done a damn thing to help or save Rodney. It certainly couldn't have provided satisfaction to a dead man. That had all been John and the killer streak he'd always tried to deny in himself.

Teyla brushed past Ford wordlessly, rocking him on his feet, and wrapped an arm around John's waist to brace him.

"We should leave this place now," she said.

John leaned against her and wondered if she would walk away from him if she knew. He wondered what he'd see in Aiden Ford's eyes if he knew how close John had come to killing everyone on this world—something much worse than the shock and confusion finding John in bed with Rodney had brought to the fore, certainly. And Bates, what the hell would he think of his commanding officer? Even less than he already did.

He couldn't even contemplate what Elizabeth, who embodied an integrity he'd never imagined finding in a superior, would think.

"I think you're right," he said.

Leave and never come back.

"Yes, there's nothing left for us to do here, is there?" Rodney commented, causing John to flinch.

Teyla looked at him curiously. John turned his face away, because he didn't think his masks were working anymore. He felt cut to the bone. Nothing left. He'd deal with it because he had to and because he had no one to blame but himself. He still had a responsibility to Atlantis, so he had to pull himself together.

It looked like he'd destroyed whatever he had with Rodney along with the Halls of the Protectors.

"Sir?" Bates asked.

John swallowed against a renewed bout of nausea and met Bates' dark eyes. "Sergeant," he said. "We're ready to go. The Nsheen now have a lovely, planet-wide shield against the Wraith, but I doubt they'll thank us for it."

Bates nodded. "We'll have to walk back to the Stargate, sir."

John shrugged. "I know. It's not a problem." That garnered him a doubtful look, but Bates let it pass. He was starting to appreciate Bates. At least Bates understood necessity.

He slid free of Teyla's arm, picked up the empty P90 he'd abandoned before, then strolled toward the dark hallways that would lead them out.

He summoned a smirk and turned at the doorways. Bates and his team were ready. Ford was halfway to the doorway, while Teyla waited near the dead control chair, her eyes full of questions. Rodney was stuffing his laptop into his pack, every motion stiff as though now that his excitement over the Ancient installation had faded he'd become aware of his wounds under the bandages again. He wasn't complaining, not even talking, so it was bad.

John ignored the pang he felt. "Coming, McKay?" he called.

Rodney's head jerked up. His hands froze on the pack. Then his chin pushed forward and he finished closing the pack. "Of course, Major," he drawled. "It's not like I have such wonderful memories of this place that I'd want to stay any longer than necessary."

"Right," John said flatly.

"Yes, you really had the right idea from the beginning," Rodney went on as he walked past John, "we really should just forget the whole thing."

John didn't bother responding.

Teyla passed him with a sympathetic glance he knew he didn't deserve and followed Rodney. John shrugged for the benefit of Bates' Marines and started after them.

Halfway out, he ended up on his knees, finally bringing up everything in his stomach. Ford gave him a hand up afterward and steadied him, then offered his water bottle. John took it gratefully.

"Are you okay, sir?" Ford asked again.

John swished the water around his mouth then spat. "Peachy," he said hoarsely. He evaded saying anything more by trying another sip and swallowing this time. Without another word, he handed the bottle back and began walking again.

They stepped through the warped doors to the outside and came to an abrupt stop. The Nsheen were arrayed in a half circle facing the temple steps. Beyond them, the column of green energy still climbed into the sky, winds spiraling veils of black ashes around it. The sky itself had changed: it had been green as a Granny Smith, green with a chrome sheen; now the dome of the sky sparkled and shimmered, gold dusted azure. Some of the Nsheen stared up at it, their mouths open, but most of them were intent on the Atlanteans on the temple steps.

Some of them held spears, others had knives or stones. Only one had a crossbow. After a moment, John recognized him: the dark-braided man from the temple.

So he had gotten out.

"Major?" Rodney said quietly. "Do something?"

"What do you suggest, McKay?" John snapped. "How about I explain to them again that sacrificing you won't do them any good? Would that make you happy? Tell you what, whatever they decide to do to you, I promise that this time I won't let it make me angry. I wouldn't want to do anything you find distasteful."

John stalked past him and down the steps.

"Sir," Ford protested and grabbed for his arm. He shrugged him off and ignored Bates' disgusted, "Major Sheppard, you can't—"

He noticed as he approached that Elmé stood next to the man with the crossbow. Miran stood on his other side, glaring. She'd hacked off all her lustrous dark hair and smeared her face with soot. A muscle in John's cheek twitched; he was sure they knew he'd killed Loram. He inclined his head toward Elmé when he realized she was looking back at him. The crossbow bolt was pointed right at his chest and he didn't give a damn.

Elmé placed her hand on the man's arm.

"What have you done?" he demanded.

John pushed closer. The bronze arrow point scraped against his gear vest. Special Forces used crossbows; the Nsheen's weapons probably weren't as accurate as theirs, but this one didn't need to be. This close, the bolt would go right through him.

"Shan," Elmé said.

"What has happened?" Shan insisted.

"What do you think?"

"Kill him, Shan," Miran snapped. "You're my brother, it is your duty to avenge my husband."

John's studied her and Shan, seeing the resemblance. Miran simmered with hatred.

"Miran," Elmé said firmly. "Enough. Enough. You are not the only widow standing here."

Shan prodded John's chest with the crossbow. "You have changed the sky."

"That's your shield," John drawled. He stepped back and raised his voice. "It's over! No more cullings, no more Wraith, no more sacrifices."

The Nsheen were all staring at John now.

"But the sacrifice wasn't complete!" someone shouted from the rear of the crowd.

John jerked his head toward the temple. "Sacrifice enough," he said quietly. He faced Elmé. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, it's too late for that on both sides."

He took another step back.

"Loram said you took no joy in what you did." John swallowed and held up his hands. "That's all I can say. I did what I did, just like Loram, and I'm sorry it worked out the way it did."

"Loram was my friend," Shan said.

"McKay's mine," John replied. He felt too tired to explain the utter futility of what they'd been doing for centuries to the Nsheen.

Elmé pushed Shan's crossbow aside. "The Wraith will come no more?"

"Not here," John said.

She nodded and her lips firmed, then she turned back to Shan and the rest of the Nsheen. "Let them pass!"

"But Loram—" Shan protested.

"Died to save us from the Wraith," Elmé declared. "His was the sacrifice the Protectors demanded."

"Yeah, right," Rodney muttered somewhere behind John.

"You need to shut up, Dr. McKay," Ford told him.

She turned back to John and nodded. "Please, go."

John couldn't find anything else to say to her. Finally, he nodded.

"Do not return here again," Shan warned as John passed him.

"So not a problem, believe me," Rodney commented.

The crowd stepped back, opening a path away from the temple. John began walking. He didn't recognize Miran until she rushed toward him from between two men. The flash of something in her hand had barely registered when she hit him. He staggered back, pushing her away with the empty P90, then letting it drop. She fell back to the ground and he grunted, feeling the impact where she'd hit him just under the ribs.

"Major—" Ford yelled.

Miran was screaming that he'd killed Loram and had to die. Two of the Nsheen men had taken hold of her arms and drawn her to her feet. They kept hold of her as she fought.

Bates managed only, "Sir—"

John laid his hand over his side. Bright pain spread through him from where Miran had hit him. He hadn't felt the knife slide in, but he wasn't surprised to feel wetness slither through his fingers or to spy the knife lying in the dirt at Miran's feet. The P90 lay only inches away from the bronze blade.

He pulled his hand away from his side and stared at the blood dripping off his fingers.

The impulse to just sit down and laugh almost won out. Except he hurt too much; he didn't think he'd get up.

Every Marine had his weapon aimed at the crowd. He heard the click click click of the safeties coming off, the barely audible sound of the triggers hitting their first detent. Even Rodney was there, Beretta in his hands aimed right at Miran's forehead. It crossed John's mind that Rodney's hands never shook or wavered under pressure.

"No," Elmé cried out, and ran between the guns and Miran.

"I've got it," Bates said, moving up beside Rodney, P90 leveled somewhere between Elmé and Miran.

John made a sound of protest and felt the knife wound as a piercing pain that radiated through his side into his chest. He gasped and closed his eyes, but the pain was there too, a white-hot light behind his eyelids.

"Major," Rodney said, abruptly at John's side, his eyes cast down to the growing blood stain running down John's side, "Oh, Jesus, John…"

"Sir?" Bates asked. Asking for permission, asking for orders, just asking for the sound of John's voice so he'd know his commanding officer wasn't down. Thank God every member of the expedition, especially the Marines, had been screened; John himself was the only impulsive wildcard in the deck. Bates wasn't trigger-happy. This wasn't going to end up in a massacre.

John looked at his red-stained hand, then at Elmé and the squirming, screaming woman behind her. "No," he said. "No more."

"Yes, sir."

The Marines didn't lower their P90s, but somehow drew back, still watchful yet not as threatening.

Rodney had one hand at John's back, supporting him. With the other, he tore open one of the pockets on his gear vest and pulled out a field dressing. "You're bleeding like a damned spigot. Teyla? Teyla, I need your help here. Help me get this stopped."

"I'm okay," John muttered.

"Teyla—"

Teyla arrived and calmly pushed John's vest aside, then peeled up his T-shirt, exposing the knife wound. It was a puncture, an inch wide, the skin around it already darkening, while scarlet blood ran from it. His blood was soaking into the waist of his BDUs. He flinched as Teyla's fingers brushed over the torn flesh.

"It appears to be fairly deep," she said. "We should get back to Atlantis as soon as possible. Dr. McKay, would you please hand me the bandage?"

Ford sidled over and glanced at the wound. "That doesn't look good, Major. Teyla and the Doc are right."

"I said I'm okay," John said.

"We're not listening to you," Rodney snapped. He handed Teyla the field dressing and helped wind it around John's torso after she had the pad placed over the wound. "You idiot! Do you want to die?" He leaned closer on the pretext of handing off the bandage to Teyla and lowered his voice. "Don't. Just don't."

"I'm not going to die," John said matter of factly. If the knife had found a major artery, he'd already be down. The blood was too dark to be arterial anyway, he thought, and if Miran's knife had reached his lung, he'd be drowning by now. He was feeling lightheaded enough to list sideways though, relishing Rodney's solid support.

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Rodney agreed.

Teyla finished tying off the bandage. She stayed between John and the Nsheen. He noticed Ford had stationed himself to cover their other flank while Rodney stayed at his side with John's arm over his shoulder.

"Let's go," John said.

Elmé stepped forward, holding up her hand. Ford aimed his P90 at her.

"Please," she said.

"Please, what?" Rodney demanded. "Haven't you done enough? You've got your shield, we're leaving, what do you want? How much more blood do you need?"

"No," she said. "Please." She looked at John and gestured to Miran. "Please, forgive her."

John stared at Miran, who hung panting and tear stained between two men. "He killed Loram!" she spat.

Forgive her? He was the one that needed forgiveness. Miran and he weren't that different, except she'd settle for putting him in the ground and he'd wanted… He didn't know what he'd wanted. To make it all stop, and the power had been there, in the barrel of his P90 and the control chair with its defense systems. Death put a stop to everything. He'd been out of his mind.

He leaned into Rodney's warmth, trying to memorize the feeling of support. It wouldn't last.

"I did kill him," he said. "I'm sorry for it, but I did it." He switched his gaze back to Elmé, noticing for the first time that her eyes were dark brown. He tipped his head toward Rodney, silently trying to convey to her why. He'd killed Loram getting Rodney out of the temple; he would do that part again. "Can you forgive that?"

Elmé studied him.

"Our people wronged you by taking your friend as our sacrifice," she declared. "You exacted a steep price for our desperation."

John nodded. "I was wrong, too."

"Yet we have the shield the Protectors promised us," she said. "Loram would gladly have offered his life for that. We would have offered all the lives you took for that."

He kept forgetting that the peoples of Pegasus didn't blink at dying; they'd lived all their lives in the shadow of the Wraith. Even the most horrific casualties were nothing compared to a culling.

She made a complicated gesture, something he thought might be religious in nature and nodded.

"Any debt between our peoples is paid."

John bowed his head. "Thank you," he said creakily.

"Major, we need to go now," Rodney insisted. "You're losing a lot of blood."

"And Miran?" Elmé asked. "Do you forgive her?"

Miran kicked at one her captors. "I'll never forgive him!" she yelled.

The pain in his side seemed less than a fair trade for what John knew Miran felt. He wondered if Elmé didn't feel the same. She had to be in mourning, too. But Elmé seemed to speak for the Nsheen; she couldn't give in to anger and grief. She was like Elizabeth. A better leader than John would ever be.

"I—Yes," he said. "I have to." He did, because he understood Miran. He forgave her and Loram and all the Nsheen before them. It was the only way he could ever forgive himself.

"Blessings of the Protectors upon you, Major Sheppard," Elmé replied.

John let Rodney pull him along, unresisting; passing Elmé, Miran and her captors, Shan and the rest of the Nsheen.

Determination and bloody-mindedness kept him on his feet at first, but he was hanging on Ford and Rodney by the time they reached the Stargate, his vision graying and narrowed to the ground beneath his boots; his consciousness constricted to his next step and the white-hot pain stabbing through his side.

The whoosh of the Stargate's energy splash had never sounded more welcome. The event horizon rippled over him and the next thing he was aware of was Elizabeth and Rodney's voices.

"What happened?"

"He's been stabbed. Just get Carson here, will you?"

Then the louder sound of the citywide comm system.

"Medical emergency in the gate room. Medical team to the gate room ASAP."

John let them lower him to the floor without protest. Shock from blood loss, he thought distantly. The floor felt cool beneath him, cool enough to make him shiver. Everything in Atlantis felt cold, as though the sun could never warm it all the way through after so long in the dark deep.

Rodney knelt beside him. John turned his head to look at him. "Sorry," he murmured and again, voice rasping, "Sorry."

He tried to read what Rodney was thinking and feeling, but the bright hot ache spreading from his side wouldn't let up enough to guess what the expressions chasing themselves over Rodney's features meant. He'd held a gun to Miran's face, but that didn't mean he could accept what John had admitted doing. He'd helped bandage John's side and drag him back to the Stargate, but Rodney, despite his complaints, would have done that for any of them. John just didn't know.

The cold was seeping through him, making him shake.

"Hey, stay with us," Rodney said. "Carson's on his way."

"'s cold."

"You're going into shock," Rodney told him. He stripped his jacket off and draped it over John's chest. For a brief second, his hand rested on John's shoulder, but it was gone too soon.

Elizabeth was leaning over him then, tucking something under his head. "I thought I told you to be safe," she scolded.

John was fading fast, and he let his eyes close, but he had to respond to that. "Guess I should've stayed on Earth."

He heard Ford laugh along with the rattle of a gurney's wheels.

"It's about time, Carson. Did you stop for tea and crumpets along the way or maybe to chant and dance in a circle and give each other pedicures first? The major could be dying here—"

"Out of the way, lad."

"Oh, now you're in a hurry. That's just great, that's just fine. Try not to get lost on the way back to the infirmary!"

Then Beckett was there, peeling away the soaked field dressing and Rodney was pushed aside, his voice fading as John was lifted onto the gurney and wheeled away.

Day Ten
Atlantis
McKay


"That's it, Elizabeth," he said, snapping his laptop shut and rising from his chair at the conference table. He didn't look anyone directly in the eye, not Teyla, not Ford or Bates, nor Elizabeth or Carson. None of them knew what he'd left out of the report, but he'd never been good at subterfuge of any sort. "No trade agreement, no defense we can use against the Wraith and no ZPM. Everything I was able to download before the facility burnt out indicates the Ancients designed the Nsheen planetary shield to take advantage of a unique facet of planet's magnetic field. Major Sheppard will confirm what I've told you, once he's conscious again." He nodded at Carson. "Carson will have to tell you when that will be."

He wasn't worried their stories would contradict each other. He knew exactly what John would tell and what he would hold back. He even knew why John would hold parts of it back. John wouldn't say he'd gone back to avenge Rodney, because that might raise questions about their relationship and John wouldn't let that out. Not when it might rebound on Rodney's reputation. John would keep his guilt to himself to safeguard Rodney. Rodney knew it without thinking about it, any more than he'd thought about protecting John by concealing what might have happened if they hadn't gone back to Nsheen.

He would live with the guilt. It could join all the other regrets he'd accumulated since arriving in Atlantis.

"Carson?" Elizabeth asked.

"The major will be in the infirmary for another week. I don't trust him to take care of himself right," Carson reported. "I don't like it at all that he was sick before the lass stuck a knife in him."

"It was a reaction to the power build-up in the Ancients' system," Rodney said, dismissing it. "A failsafe." He sneered. "The only one they bothered with, apparently. I'd guess they didn't think it needed their typical multiple redundancies when it was only meant to operate temporarily."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that, Rodney," Carson said. "But with a little time, the major will be as good as new."

He rubbed his fingers together, remembering the tacky feel of John's blood drying between them. It had settled into the lines on his palms, stained his fingertips and left a dark line underneath his nails he couldn't scrub out. He'd washed until his hands were swollen, pink and raw. He still saw it there.

Nothing was the same, or would be.

"It doesn't matter now." He looked at Elizabeth. "If we're done here, I have a lab full of scientists who can't seem to finish a project without someone reminding them they're not here for the chance to play Freecell on the government's dime."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "All right. Try not to reduce them to tears this time."

"It was just Buzinsky. One time."

"He's still seeing Dr. Heightmeyer."

He picked up his laptop then headed for the doors. "You'd think the man would have a nervous breakdown over impending doom from a Wraith attack or fatal nanovirus outbreak, but no, he wets his pants because I yelled at him."

"Over a decimal point," Elizabeth said reasonably.

"Yes, about that," Rodney said. "That decimal point could have blown out half the power conduits in the city. I'd expect better from a trained monkey. No, an untrained monkey. Does anyone besides me grasp the utter seriousness of our position in this galaxy? We can't afford to make stupid mistakes with decimal places!"

"Calm down, Rodney."

"Calm," he said. "Fine." Then, in an undertone as he walked out, "Monkeys."

He spent the next two hours terrorizing his scientists, until Buzinsky began sniffling and he had to admit they were accomplishing less with him present than not. He wasn't getting anything done himself, so he pointed a finger at Zelenka and snapped, "You're in charge until I come back. Try to restrain your vocal glee until I'm actually out of hearing distance."

Zelenka looked at him solemnly. "Walk fast."

Rodney suppressed a snarl and stomped out of the lab. The flickering banks of vertical stacked lights irritated him, barely illuminating the corridor. They needed more power from something and soon; the naquadah generators couldn't run nonstop without service, plus they'd already lost too many of them. If he'd just been able to adapt the long-term charging effect the Ancients had used on Nsheen, well, it would have been nice but not particularly useful since they didn't have several centuries to wait while a planet-sized battery charged.

He was distracted enough to walk right into Ford. "Wha—"

Ford caught him as he bounced back. "Doc, what are you doing here?"

"Existentially speaking or in this corridor?" Rodney asked, ineffectually trying to jerk free of Ford's grip on his arms. The healing cuts still stung under pressure.

"You should be in the infirmary," Ford said.

Rodney peered at him. Ford had his cap on again; the bill shaded his eyes very well in the dim corridor. Only a skim of blue-white light limned his cheek and jaw. "It's very kind of you to be so concerned for my health, Lieutenant, but I assure you Carson released me. There's no need for me to spend any more time lounging about in his little dungeon, now that my blood is clotting again."

A look of disbelief was Ford's response.

"You should be with the major."

"What?"

He curled his hands closed, digging his nails into his palms. Of course Ford knew; he'd walked into Rodney's room like he owned it and found them, hadn't he? He cleared his throat. "I'm sure Carson is taking perfectly adequate care of Major Sheppard. If you'll excuse me?"

The disbelief became disapproval. "No."

Ford had been a perfect jerk about it according to John, who had spoken to him while Rodney was in the washroom. Plus he'd managed to piss off Teyla, not something Rodney ever wanted to do. Now he was trying to tell Rodney what to do?

"No?" Rodney narrowed his eyes and took a step toward Ford. "Listen to me, Lieutenant, whatever you think—"

Ford leaned closer, too, and spoke in a clipped tone very different from his usual voice. "What I think is you're scared, Dr. McKay."

"I am not—"

"I don't know if you're scared of someone finding out and acting like an asshole like I did or that the major is going to run out of luck or something I can't even guess, but I know you're scared. You don't like taking risks."

That was entirely true, Rodney admitted. But only to himself. He glared at Ford, angry and frustrated.

"This is none of your business."

"I beg to differ, Doc. This is exactly why team members shouldn't get involved, but it's way too late for that and it was before you and the major got together. We're all too close and we just have to work with it. If you aren't there for the major when he wakes up? You're the one screwing everything up and Teyla and I are going to be the ones trying to put it all together again." Ford ducked his head. "You know, Doc, the same way I do, the same way Teyla does, the same way the major would."

"The major's a big boy now," Rodney said. He wouldn't acknowledge Ford's reference to the merge. "He can look out for himself."

He'd taken care of himself just fine on Nsheen, hadn't he? Killed all those people, saved Rodney, saved himself, without… Rodney wasn't that good at lying to himself. He knew John hadn't been unaffected. He just didn't know how to deal with really understanding how ruthless John could be or that it had been in some sense triggered by their relationship.

"You know the major," Ford said. "He's good at looking out for everyone but himself."

Rodney stared at the lighting bar. He knew. The one thing John didn't do well was take care of himself. But Rodney didn't know how to do it either.

Ford backed up two paces. "You're really pissing me off, Doc."

"By now you must know exactly how good I am at doing just that," Rodney replied.

"Yeah, but I kind of thought you'd be different when it came to…"

"I'd say you thought wrong, but that would giving credit where it isn't due, since I really doubt you thought at all." If Ford popped him, he would be proved right again and it would give him an excuse to visit the infirmary.

Ford shook his head.

"It's sad."

"What?"

"You. You won't even go see if he's all right. That's pathetic and I'm sorry Major Sheppard ever took a chance on you," Ford declared. "You aren't worth it."

"Are you through?" Rodney asked flatly.

"Yeah, I am," Ford answered. He stepped out of Rodney's path.

"Good," he snapped and walked away, maybe a little too fast, feeling Ford's eyes on his back until he turned a corner where one of the green-lit water conduits bubbled away. There he stopped and leaned a hand against the wall. Little blobs of light ran over the back of that hand and he watched them, deliberately blanking his mind.

When his pulse no longer thundered in his ears and his knees were solid under him again, he finished the walk to his room.

Where he froze, staring at the disordered bed where John had curled against him only the day before; warm breath against his collar bone, soft hair brushing his jaw, one leg wrapped over his own.

His door slid shut behind him and Rodney let himself slide down against it, still staring at the bed, too upset to think the privacy lock on.

Two perfect nights on Nsheen, two nights spent in exhausted sleep in his quarters on Atlantis. That had to be a personal record for short-lived relationships. His blue blanket was shoved down to the foot of the bed, the way he'd left it when he woke. John had already left by then, off to his own quarters to find fresh clothes and gear for the mission. They'd thought there would be other mornings.

He sat, knees bent sharply, arms resting on them, until his joints ached, before pushing himself to his feet and walking into the washroom. He wanted a shower and didn't care if opened all the slices Carson had carefully stitched closed. He was bleeding inside anyway.

He peeled away bandages under the stinging needles of hot water and dropped them onto the flattened drainage grate beneath his feet. The soap stung and opened more than one wound, but he scrubbed anyway, the blood diluting to pink and running off him. Atlantis provided unlimited hot water and he could have gone on until his entire body wrinkled and went red; he had to force himself out.

The sudden cool air on his body combined with being overheated and anemic nearly landed him on the floor.

The Atlanteans hadn't gone in for towels any more than they had bed clothes. The air dryers switched on automatically, a whisk of warmed wind around him that left him almost dry within a moment. Out of habit, he wrapped the single towel he'd brought in his kit from Earth around his waist.

He stopped as he came through the door.

Teyla frowned at him.

"Dr. Beckett will not be pleased," she said.

They'd all seen each other in various stages of undress. If Teyla wanted to let herself into his room, she could endure his skin and his scars-to-be. Even so, Rodney still tightened his hand on the towel as he walked on into the room. It wasn't much of a sop to his dignity, but he had to take what he could get.

She frowned at him. "You should go to the infirmary."

"Yes, yes," he said, "I already had this lecture from Lt. Ford, by the way."

Her brows arched. "From Lt. Ford?"

"Exactly. So you can save the 'don't be a jerk, you should be by your lover's side' monologue and move on."

"I had meant that Dr. Beckett would clean and bandage your wounds again," she said.

"Oh."

Teyla touched his arm, fingers resting between two stitched lines. "Dr. McKay? Something has happened, has it not? Even before, you would have been in the infirmary, waiting for the major to wake. Are you worried that someone will question your reasons?"

His arm was pasty pale in contrast to her hand, the hairs dark and still matted with a little moisture from the shower. The stitches were black and coarse against angry red lines running from his wrist to the inside of his elbow in a spiral pattern. Beads of blood welled in spots. Rodney swallowed hard.

What were his reasons?

"Look, Teyla, it's complicated," he said. He had to close his eyes. "It's—"

He rubbed at his face.

"Much more happened on Nsheen than you told Dr. Weir," Teyla stated.

He nodded.

"And Lt. Ford has told you you should be with the major, though he does not approve of this, yes?"

"Yes," he admitted.

Teyla looked thoughtful, tipping her head, then slowly smiled. She had a smile to make the Mona Lisa jealous. He wondered why John hadn't fallen for her. Wondered what she'd think if her lover had wiped out a temple full of priests and nearly a world for her. Was he ungrateful? There was a dark thrill to knowing John cared that much, had hurt that much, but it was horrifying, too, and frightening to realize he had that much power over anyone.

He really wasn't sure he trusted himself to have that sort of power over John. John should be untouchable, impervious to harm.

Invulnerable.

He sat down on the edge of the bed with a thud. Was that what he wanted from John? For John? Because invulnerability carried its price, too. Did he want John to slowly die inside because no one could ever really touch him? John, who leaned into every touch like he was starving for it.

Who was he to judge John?

He'd wanted to kill Miran in that instant before he'd known whether her knife had done what none of the other Nsheen had, when for a breath he'd thought they'd lost John. He'd been one heartbeat from pulling the trigger and emptying the clip into her face. That wasn't something he'd known he had inside himself. He was a scientist, not a soldier, and he didn't like the changes in himself, the revelations of what he was capable of doing.

But that wasn't John's fault, was it?

Ford had been right. He was scared. He was a coward. But he didn't have to be.

He lifted his head.

"Teyla? You want to get out of here? I've got to get dressed and down to the infirmary."

Her smile widened into something brilliant. "I will wait for you and we will both go," she said.

"You just want to make sure I go," he accused.

She just smiled some more.

"You're not going to leave, are you?"

Teyla shook her head.

"At least turn around," Rodney appealed.

She chuckled, a rich, affectionate sound that went with her wide, amused smile, and ostentatiously turned her back to him. Rodney smiled helplessly at her, then snatched up clean clothes and jerked them on as fast he could. Teyla had turned back to him as he pulled the tail of one of his long-sleeved shirts down.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go."

She looked pointedly at his feet. Rodney grimaced and jammed his feet, sockless, into a pair of trainers. Finding socks would have just taken too long. Maybe that explained John's consistently bare ankles.

~~~~~

"What did I tell you about showering, Rodney?" Carson fussed.

"I have no idea," Rodney told him.

"Why do I even bother?"

"How is the major?" Teyla asked.

Carson looked at her and twinkled—that was the only word for it, Rodney thought sourly. Of course Carson was a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. Obviously, Carson thought Teyla and John were involved. Despite himself, he snorted under his breath.

"Much better," Carson told her.

"May we visit him?"

"Of course, lass."

"Am I suddenly invisible or something?" Rodney asked. He waved his hand from side to side. "Right here, you know."

"You can visit him, too," Carson said, finishing applying new bandages over Rodney's right arm. "I suppose." He applied a last strip of tape over the gauze.

"Oh, thank you so much."

Carson gave him a quelling look.

"Are you done, Doctor?" Teyla asked.

"Aye." He stepped back from Rodney and began cleaning up. "Don't get these wet this time."

"Yes, mother."

A clatter and two raised voices came from the other end of the infirmary. Carson frowned and looked in the direction of the disturbance. One of the nurses hurried in.

"Ellis' survey team ran into trouble. Flood damage. A stairway collapsed under Corporal Mendez," she reported. "They're on their way in with him now. Private Wells radioed that it looks like he has some crushing injuries below the knee and a possible fracture."

"Thank you, Helen," Carson said. "Will you go ahead and set up the X-ray, then?"

"Of course," she said with a small smile and hurried out.

"I've got to set up," Carson said. "Teyla, Rodney, don't tire the major out too much. And don't let him convince you to help him back to his room. I don't want him left alone yet."

"Of course," Teyla agreed.

Rodney pretended to be busy finding his shirt. Carson huffed out a breath before hurrying away.

Teyla handed Rodney his shirt. He hid a wince and pulled it back on. She took his hand and pulled him to his feet.

They left Carson to his business and ducked into the curtained-off portion of the infirmary.

Rodney stopped at the foot of John's bed and just looked at him. An IV line threaded into the back of John's hand, lying limp along his side. The beige blanket was pulled up to his waist and he had on one of the bizarre red scrub tops. The bag hanging from the pole at the bed's side held a clear fluid. He didn't look innocent, Rodney decided; he looked defenseless and weary. Even in sleep his brows were drawn together and stubble darkened his jaw.

Their presence seemed enough to wake him. He stirred uncomfortably, wincing when he moved. One hand moved instinctively toward his side.

Teyla moved closer and caught John's hand before he could press against the bandage over the knife wound. He made a questioning, protesting sound.

Rodney opened his mouth to speak and stopped, shocked silent with what he finally understood. All he had to do was look. John was just a man; just, God help them, flesh and blood. John had sacrificed his honor for Rodney—he'd crossed his own lines because of him.

He really hadn't understood that night on Nsheen just how difficult it would be. John had touched him and all his patience and good intentions—not that he'd ever had much, but he'd tried not to push too far too fast with John—had run out. He'd forced John into admitting his feelings, without understanding everything that made John hesitate. He should have known John was too reckless to care about being labeled gay. John had been scared of losing control.

Maybe he'd been scared Rodney would back out on him, too. Looks and charm hadn't taken John through life unscathed. John had been burned before, until he found it safer to live a carefully detached life at the bottom of the world.

Rodney was the fool. John gave his heart away the way he risked his life: without stops. He should have realized what the consequences could be.

He glanced at Teyla. She bent and touched her forehead to John's, then stepped away and smiled at Rodney. As he walked past her, she patted his shoulder, before taking up a station near the curtain that would let her act as a look-out for them.

John's eyes were slitted open, dark under the shade of his lashes. He watched Rodney uncertainly.

"Hey," Rodney said awkwardly.

John blinked at him slowly enough that Rodney wondered if the IV had something more than replacement fluids in it. Then his face went still and even paler. Damn it. Rodney leaned over John.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?" John asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Blaming yourself for everything. None of this would have happened this way if I hadn't walked into that temple by myself, which was strictly my choice; you're not my nanny and I knew we shouldn't get separated."

"Well, when you put it like that." John's words were light but he was still watching Rodney intently, braced for whatever came next.

More voices from beyond the curtain as the survey team brought in Mendez. His voice rose above the rest, a breathless litany of Puerto Rican curses that sounded like he'd be all right. John's eyebrow rose.

"Don't worry about it," Rodney assured him. "Just an accident."

"Dr. Beckett will take care of it," Teyla told him calmly.

John relaxed minutely. "Oh. Good."

"You're not responsible for everything," Rodney said and gave in to the impulse to rest his hand on John's shoulder. John didn't move, in fact he went utterly still when Rodney touched him, but he still seemed to press closer to Rodney's hand. A shivery breath slipped from his parted lips. Rodney flexed his fingers against flesh and bone that was strong, but still terrifyingly fragile in the greater scheme of things. He said, "Believe me."

John looked at him, eyes looking dark and too damned vulnerable. Rodney watched him lick his lips before saying, "I believe you."

"Good." He checked with Teyla silently and she nodded, then he bent and brushed his lips over John's. No pressure, just a promise. "I'm always right, you know."

Teyla choked off a sound, but John didn't even chuckle.

"I could have—"

"We've got too many problems just surviving here to torture ourselves over what didn't happen," Rodney said. "You went back."

"I didn't think you'd understand."

Rodney met his eyes.

"I understood," he said. "That's why I was angry." He smiled, knowing it was lopsided and not too pretty. "It was just easier to be angry with you than myself."

"Oh."

He wrapped his hand around John's and squeezed. John's fingers tightened around his almost desperately. Rodney bent close again and rested his forehead against John's, letting his eyes close then. He could have lost him. It had been so very, very close. Not to the knife wound, bad as it had been. If they hadn't returned to Nsheen in time, if the Ancients' great batteries of energy had overloaded and devastated the planet, when John found out, he would have been destroyed.

Finally, reluctantly, he straightened as Teyla coughed a warning. "I have to get back to the lab," he said as Helen the nurse ducked her head through the curtains. "Kavanagh will be planning a putsch against Radek's interim leadership by now."

"Dr. Beckett says you should go and let the major rest," Helen told Rodney and Teyla disapprovingly.

"Helen!" Carson shouted. The curtain quivered as she abandoned them in response.

John gave Rodney a plaintive look.

"Take me with you," he whispered.

Rodney chuckled. "Not until you can walk out of here on your own," he whispered back. "Carson would have my guts for haggis."

"I'm making a break for it tomorrow."

"Major," Teyla said in reproof.

Rodney considered and nodded. "You can hide out in my lab."

John smiled. Rodney couldn't look away from the relief and happiness in that smile. For that smile, he'd forgive anything, give anything, do anything and that was terrifying. But he'd rather be scared with John than safe without him.

"Dr. McKay." Teyla didn't manage to sound as disapproving as she might have.

"I'm holding you to that," John said, then closed his eyes. Rodney had to make himself leave because he wanted to stay and watch John fall asleep now that the frown line between his brows had eased. The smile still played at the corners of his mouth.

Night Eleven
Atlantis
McKay


Zelenka took in the man sleeping curled on his side on the lab bench, a jacket tossed over his shoulders, and raised his eyebrows at Rodney. Rodney shrugged at him. It was late in Atlantis' night and the lab was empty except for them; the other scientists were more than willing to obey the Keep Out sign he'd taped beside the door control.

"I thought the major was still in the infirmary," Zelenka said quietly.

"Mmm." Rodney paid more attention to the schematic on his laptop screen than the other scientist.

"No?"

"Obviously."

Zelenka didn't respond and Rodney went back to the interface couplings. With a little tweaking he could up the efficiency of the draw on the generators by another thirty-five percent. The universal connections they'd brought with them to adapt Ancient technology did the job but were losing a ridiculous amount of power doing it. Given time they'd literally build new, purpose dedicated connectors, but for now he could improve things dramatically with just a few modifications.

Zelenka went about his own business quietly, using only a small desk lamp that left the rest of the lab powered down and dim, typing into his own laptop and checking an experiment he'd left running earlier.

"Why is he here?"

"Too noisy in the infirmary, I imagine. He showed up here just after lunch. The egg things Bates' team brought back from MS7745 gave everyone on first shift ptomaine or something like," Rodney explained casually.

He peered at a manufacturing blueprint. They could machine a much tighter connection.

"Why not his rooms?" Zelenka asked.

"Carson'll look for him there."

"Ah."

Rodney didn't look up again until he lifted his coffee cup to his lips and found it empty of whatever they were currently substituting for coffee.

Zelenka was watching him as he set it down in disgust. Telltale lights from the constantly running equipment glinted off his glasses, hiding his eyes. He was as stubbly and tired looking as Rodney felt. At the last second, Rodney set the cup down quietly rather than with a clatter. Zelenka noticed.

Rodney felt suddenly stupid, knowing Zelenka saw the way he looked to John, still sleeping in a loose bundle on the bench, Rodney's jacket over his shoulders. The maple leaf patch almost glowed.

"There's still a pot in the mess," Zelenka said. "Would you like me to get it?"

"Ah." Rodney didn't know what to say. "Yes. That would be—I'd appreciate it."

Zelenka nodded. He saved his own work and closed the laptop before rising from the stool he'd been using. As he passed the lab bench, he slowed and studied John, who had his face half hidden by the jacket and an arm pressed protectively against his bandaged side. Really all that showed was a shock of wild dark hair and his empty hand, the fingers loosely curled into his palm.

Zelenka's glasses glinted as he looked back at Rodney again. He pulled them off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"Radek—"

"You must be very, very careful, Rodney," he said.

Rodney swallowed.

"I know."

"There are already rumors," Zelenka told him. He pursed his mouth in distaste. "Jokes, yes? But if some thought they were more than that, it would be ugly." He shook his head.

"Believe me, we do both know," Rodney said.

Zelenka regarded him with remarkable kindness and concern. Rodney had no idea how to respond. Default sarcasm wouldn't do and he hadn't John's skill at deflecting attention with a charming remark or easy joke. He could only blink at Zelenka while his stomach did slow barrel rolls at the thought of everything that could happen if he and John were discovered by someone who couldn't be trusted.

Because Atlantis couldn't protect them from their fellow human beings and, in the end, the things humans could do to each other were as frightening as the Wraith.

That was why Zelenka was warning him.

John went on sleeping. Rodney looked at him then back to Zelenka.

"It's worth the risk." That was what John told Teyla, and he had more to lose than Rodney. Of course, John didn't have any sense, but Rodney had known that from the first.

Zelenka nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Better to love than be wise."

Rodney raised his eyebrows. Zelenka shrugged and smiled. "I am a romantic."

"I never guessed."

Zelenka chuckled and walked out. "I will get tea." He grimaced over the last word.

"Get a bottle of that juice, too," Rodney called after him. Zelenka paused. He shrugged. "John likes it."

Rodney finished his report on improving the interface couplings, saved it and shut down the laptop. He sat with his arms crossed over the lid of the laptop. He should get John up and back to his quarters. Not Rodney's. And it wouldn't be wise at all to stay in John's when Carson might barge in searching for him.

Surely Carson could be trusted, but still. Be careful, be wise. Better to never take the chance he was wrong. What if he reacted the way Ford had, or worse?

He sighed.

Nothing about this was going to be easy and despite what he'd told Zelenka, he wondered if it was worth it. Did they have a right to be this selfish when everyone on Atlantis relied on them? All it took were rumors. They were under fire in the field so often, all it would take was one hesitation by someone who disapproved, cover fire that didn't come quite as fast as was needed or the gate shield left up a moment too long. There were more ways than the Wraith to die in Pegasus.

But if they ended it now, that would just be another way, a way to die slowly inside.

He got up and stretched before walking over to the lab bench, sinking down in a crouch beside it. John's eyelashes were dark fans against his skin. Sharp, almost narrow features and a lush mouth in contrast. He was a ridiculously pretty man. Rodney just wanted to hold him.

It was amazing to think he had the power to break John. John had given it to him. It was almost too much. Rodney closed his eyes. He didn't want to hurt John. He wanted to hold him until they had nothing left to fear.

John's eyes were wide and watching him when Rodney opened his eyes again. Up close they were surprisingly clear, amber and green, and wasn't hazel supposed to be a plain color?

"Zelenka went for coffee," Rodney murmured then leaned in and kissed him. Much, much too soon he had to pull away, though John's mouth was sweet and open. John made a noise of complaint. "He says we must be careful." He chuckled despite the thread of fear inside. "This isn't careful."

"Who says?" John asked.

"Zelenka."

John smiled drowsily. "He's a good guy."

"Uhm."

John, sleepy and warm and flushed, was too much. Rodney kissed him again, scraping his lower lip with his teeth then licking it. John's hand found the back of his neck, then moved up to the back of his head.

John ended the kiss this time.

"Careful," he said.

His eyes were brighter, wide awake. He sat up cautiously, favoring his side, and patted the cleared spot on the bench. Rodney settled there.

He looked at his hands resting on his thighs.

"I never meant to hurt you."

John nodded.

"It was just too much."

John looked toward the door to the lab. Looking for an escape or Zelenka's return? His smile had turned a little wooden. "Yeah."

"I wish—" Rodney shook his head. "I'm not a perfect person. I'm difficult. I know that. You should know that."

John raised his eyebrow. "I didn't know that, McKay. You're not perfect?"

Rodney crossed his arms. "Very funny. You're not exactly simple."

The smile again, the one that made something in Rodney flip-flop until he had to catch his breath.

"But you'd get bored with simple."

Rodney smiled back.

"I suppose I would."

"You know Ford told Bates?"

"What?"

John laughed at him. "Calm down."

"I'm going to kill—wait, Bates?" Rodney exclaimed. He looked at John, unable to imagine why he was grinning. Smirking.

John nodded, still grinning.

"He came into the infirmary and told me that if he had had a conversation with Lt. Ford, which he hadn't, he wouldn't care about what he was told."

"You're serious?"

"Yes." John ducked his head, chuckling. He waggled his eyebrows. "He even blushed. I never guessed he could be so circuitous, either. He has unexpected depths, Bates."

"Apparently," Rodney agreed. "But Ford—that little jerk had the nerve to lecture me after pulling that?"

"I don't know about lecturing you, but believe me, Ford's going to be getting every shit detail Atlantis has to offer, until he gets his head out of his ass."

"I think he has, actually. He told me I should be with you."

"Maybe not every detail."

John scooted closer, until they sat thigh to thigh and his shoulders nudged Rodney's. He looped his arm over Rodney's shoulder and leaned against him.

"So that's why Teyla's so ticked off at Ford," Rodney said, putting the pieces together.

"Mmm." John kissed his jaw, just below his ear, hot moist breath, soft lips, the tickling touch of a tongue. Then the vibration of an almost silent chuckle tickled against his jaw.

"What?"

"You need a shave."

Rodney rubbed his cheek against John's and whiskers rasped. "I hate to tell you, major, but in the five o'clock shadow race, you come in first. We both need to shave if we're not going to get beard burn."

John snickered and Rodney smiled.

"So is this how we do it?" he asked.

John nodded. "Carefully."

"You're about as careful as I am subtle," Rodney accused fondly.

John pulled back and looked at him earnestly. "I'll learn."

"Good." He shook his head. "Bates. Really. Blushed?"

They were still laughing when Zelenka returned.