zelenka's still

In the Still of the Night

0358 Atlantis Military Time

Boom!

The small explosion didn't really rock Atlantis, but it set off sirens through the powered up portions of the city briefly.  Control pinpointed the location as one of the disused labs one level down from the jumper bay. Sgt. Bates and three other Marines headed for the lab at a run to find whatever was behind it.

Major Sheppard arrived at the lab on Bates' heels. While Bates was in uniform, shaved and wide-awake, looking, in fact, as if he'd just been waiting for an emergency, Sheppard looked like he'd just rolled out of bed.

He had just rolled out of bed and felt fairly bitter that he'd only rolled into it a few short hours before, after finally giving in to Weir's nagging—which bore a suspicious resemblance to threats—and writing up all his mission reports for the last three months.

Since misery loves company and the explosion had happened in one of the labs, Sheppard had stopped along his way to roust McKay and drag him along.

McKay hopped on one foot as they came down the corridor, clutching Sheppard's shoulder with one hand and trying to get one of his boots on with the other without unlacing it. His cheek still had fading reddish keyboard impressions.

"You're just trying to get me killed, aren't you?" he accused between hops. "You couldn't give me time to find my socks? I'm going to have blisters. If a Wraith or some of the Genii don't jump out and kill us all, I'll still die of blood poisoning when they get infected."

"Killing you sounds better and better all the time," Sheppard remarked. He shrugged off McKay's hand. McKay immediately propped himself against the wall, still trying to wedge his foot into the stiff boot.

"You'd do it in a minute, wouldn't you?"

"In another one."

One of the Marines, Reynolds, snorted, muffling laughter. Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Corporal?" he drawled.

"Nothing, Sir."

The other two Marines, Hauser and Weinstein, were carefully keeping their expressions blank. Weinstein couldn't quite control the urge to slide his eyes to the side as McKay stamped his foot down into his boot finally.

Bates cleared his throat.

"Do we know what happened yet?" Sheppard asked casually. He eyed the closed lab door.

"Not yet, Major."

Sheppard nodded. "I guess we need to find out." He lifted his P90, drew in a breath and settled into his skin, telling himself he was ready for anything.

The Marines hefted their weapons a little higher and looked at the door to the lab apprehensively. No one moved. McKay looked at the collection of military hovering in the hallway and smirked.

"Well?" he asked. "Are we all waiting for whatever happened to announce itself telepathically?"

"Like that ever happens," Sheppard muttered. He took a deep breath. "Sergeant? Cover me."

Bates nodded.

With a thought, the door into the lab slid open. Sheppard stepped inside, flailed as his feet went out from under him and went down. The back of his head thumped against the floor just outside the door. The Marines gaped.

"Major?" Bates said.

"Are you okay, Sir?" Hauser asked.

Sheppard clutched the P90 to his chest and sighed. "Have you ever studied the ceilings here?"

"Uh, no, Sir."

Reynolds and Weinstein rolled their eyes.

"How hard did you hit your head?" McKay demanded.

"This is going to be one of those days," Sheppard said. He sat up and gestured toward the lab.

McKay and Bates peered inside.

The walls, the floors, even the ceiling of the lab, were all coated with a wet, dripping purplish mess. Pieces of glass and copper tubing were scattered everywhere. In the center of the lab, a massive kettle lay on its side, more of the purple glop oozing out of it.

In the center of the room, wringing his hands stood Dr. Zelenka.

"Radek?" McKay said. He edged cautiously into the lab, stepping over Sheppard's still sprawled body. Bates sidled after him, followed by the three Marines.

Sheppard remained on his back, studying the ceiling of the hallway as though it might hold the answer to why he'd been woken at four in the morning to slip on the Pegasus version of a banana peel. He half expected to see a scrolling neon marquee declaring in Ancient: Sucker! General O'Neill hadn't mentioned anything like this. He needed sleep.

"General O'Neill never said anything about mad Czech scientists blowing up stills," he said conversationally.

"Well, do you really think he would have?" McKay replied.

Sheppard sat up.

"Probably not," he agreed. He still had the P90. He could shoot them all and go back to bed.

Zelenka stared at McKay and Bates, then Sheppard on the floor, and finally the armed Marines. His hands flew up and he began babbling in rapid-fire Czech.

Fruit glop coated Zelenka from head to toe. It bore a strong resemblance to the stewed prunes everyone had studiously avoided in the mess the week before. A clump of it dropped out of his hair and onto the shoulder of his shirt.

Sheppard held up his hand.

"Okay, I think we know what happened here. Sergeant, why don't you take your men back to the ready room, in case we come under an attack from something worse than fermented fruit."

Bates looked around the lab, nodded and started backing away. His lips kept twitching. Sheppard frowned at him. He pointed a finger. "Not a word, Sergeant. Not a word."

"Yes, Sir."

A sound suspiciously like a giggle slipped past Hauser‘s lips.

"What do I tell Dr. Weir, Sir?"

Sheppard glanced back in the lab, where Zelenka was still babbling, but now clutching at McKay's shirtfront with both hands as well. As his voice climbed into near hysterics, the Czech scientist tried to shake McKay, to little effect. McKay was bigger than him and getting pretty fit after months of field missions.

"Rodney?" he called out.

"What?"

"Elizabeth is going to want to know what happened—"

Zelenka wailed something new and clutched his hair.

"—What do we tell her?"

McKay surveyed the remains of Zelenka's home distillery, hands resting on his hips. His lip curled on one side. "Well, obviously, not the truth."

"Obviously," Sheppard muttered under his breath. He wasn't in a hurry to describe falling on his ass.

"There was a—" McKay waved at the wreckage, "—a small equipment malfunction with a piece of activated Ancient machinery that overheated. Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about," Sheppard repeated skeptically. Right. Elizabeth would buy that. She'd have him writing another stinking report on it. Who would have thought you could go to another galaxy and still have paperwork?

McKay twitched.

"Theoretically."

Bates took the opportunity to escape, leading Hauser, Reynolds and Weinstein away before they all burst out laughing.

Sheppard was just cautiously getting to his feet when Ford bolted into the room. Ford ran right into him and the two of them did a wild two-step, trying to catch their balance.

"My God, he's not Kirk," McKay muttered. "He's the fourth Stooge."

Sheppard pulled away from Ford and glared. "Believe me, McKay, if I had a shaving cream pie, I know whose face would get it."

"Major, are you all right?' Ford asked. "Are we under attack?"

"No, but we can all look forward to a bout of DTs," McKay declared gloomily. "The still, she's gone."

"Hunh?

Sheppard muttered, "I could have stayed in Antarctica. There were penguins, damn it. I miss penguins." He ignored the looks Ford and McKay and even Zelenka gave him.

"And your sanity, apparently," McKay said.

Sheppard nodded solemnly, then looked at Ford. His eyebrow went up as he spotted the pajama top under Ford's gear vest.

"What took you so long, lieutenant?"

"Yes, and, please tell us," Rodney added, "are those choo-choo trains?"

Ford blushed. "They were a Christmas present from my gran."

The radio headset Sheppard wore crackled.

"Major Sheppard, what exactly is going on down there?" demanded Elizabeth Weir.

Zelenka looked at him beseechingly.

Sheppard sighed.

"There was a small equipment malfunction with one of the Ancient devices that was accidentally activated and left running," he lied like a dog.

Zelenka began nodding, mouthing, "Yes, yes, yes, malfunction, accident, very small." He mimed just how small.

"What?" Elizabeth asked, sounding suspicious even through the radio.

Sheppard said, "I'm going to give the radio to Rodney. He can explain so much better than I can," handed the headset to a stunned McKay with a saccharine smile and headed for the door. "I'm going back to bed. The next person to disturb me before there's coffee in the mess hall will be shot."

"Rodney?"

"Y—yes, Elizabeth?"

Grit Your Teeth and Bear It

0600 Atlantis Military Time

"I miss Fruit Loops."

McKay slapped his tray down opposite Sheppard, who grabbed at his coffee cup to keep any of the not-coffee in it from slopping over.

"You are a fruit loop," Sheppard grumbled.

Rodney began spooning the almost-honey they'd got from the Begelians over his oatmeal. Beside the bowl, he had a cup of some sort of gingery tea, two slices of Athosian bread slathered with the not-quite-butter the Athosians were making from the no-way-are-those-goats' milk. Sheppard eyed the bread skeptically and moved his tray a little further away. He'd had the unparalleled experience of flying a Jumper full of the goat things from their native planet up to an orbital gate, through Atlantis and over to the Athosians' colony on the landmass. They bit, they kicked, they expelled noxious fluids from orifices nothing on Earth even had. It had taken three days scrubbing and a trip into orbit to vent the rear compartment of the Jumper into vacuum to get the smell out. He wasn't touching anything made from them or their ‘milk'.

"Get out of bed on the wrong side this morning, Major?" McKay asked with false brightness. The glint in his blue eyes made Sheppard brace himself. Nothing good ever came of McKay in a playful mood, yet Sheppard could never resist going along. Just for that, he wasn't going to warn McKay about the oatmeal.

Sheppard edged out of spitting distance, sipped his not-coffee, and pretended he was alone at the table. McKay dove into his breakfast with frightening enthusiasm only to gag and choke.

"My God, I didn't know you could ruin oatmeal," he exclaimed once he'd recovered. He slurped down a generous swallow of his tea. "That's—that's vile. I mean, I knew you could burn it, but not … well whatever happened to this."

Sheppard nodded gloomily. The contents of his own tray were almost untouched. What he had touched and tasted, he still regretted.

"Dr. Pettiwitz pulled kitchen duty this rotation."

McKay physically shuddered, then lifted the bowl of oatmeal and set it on Sheppard's tray with the care of man handling a nuke. Sheppard almost smiled.

"Pettiwitz is a chemist, not a cook," McKay said.

"Elizabeth apparently thinks the skills are interchangeable."

"Uh, no."

Something crashed in the kitchen and a string of imaginative curses followed. Sheppard had never known scientists had that sort of vocabulary before becoming acquainted with Atlantis' scientists. Some of McKay's people, particularly Simpson, could make a Marine DI blush. Pettiwitz wasn't in that class, but he still managed an impressive volume. The key was creativity and avoiding repetition.

Ford backed out of the kitchen, holding his hands up in front of him. "I'm sorry, okay? I just said—"

Something that might have been a donut or a bagel—no one was sure what Poupadoupalus' efforts yesterday had actually been meant to be—whizzed out the kitchen door. Ford ducked fast and it landed with a gluttonous splash in the pot of oatmeal still sitting out on the warming table.

"—raisins aren't supposed to move!" Ford finished.

A wordless sound of rage echoed from the kitchen. Ford grinned and found himself a tray, loading it up with bread and not-honey and adding a tall glass of the ‘milk'. Sheppard glared at the glass and considered telling Ford he would have to sit elsewhere, but decided it wasn't worth explaining why to McKay, even though his stomach rolled at just the memory of the smell in the Jumper.

"Good morning, Sir," Ford declared with a smile. "Dr. McKay."

Sheppard gave him a jaundiced look.

"There's something good about it?"

"Of course," Ford said. "We're here in beautiful Atlantis, lost city of the Ancients, no one's shooting at us—"

"Yet," mumbled McKay. He'd recovered his appetite and had a mouthful of bread and butter-stuff. The two pieces of bread were disappearing quickly.

"—Nothing's gone drastically wrong with the city—"

"Yet."

"And Dr. Pettiwitz promised to make creamed beef on toast for dinner."

"Great. Shit on a shingle."

McKay's mouth dropped open, providing an unattractive view of another mouthful of half-chewed bread. He swallowed hard. "What!?"

"Come on, McKay, you've heard it before."

"You don't like it?" Ford asked, a little too innocently to be believed.

Sheppard looked at McKay.

"Shoot me now."

McKay rolled his eyes.

"I'm not kidding," Sheppard went on. "It's going to made with that disgusting stuff —" he gestured to Ford's glass, "—pretending to be milk. Pettiwitz is still hungover and any chance at the hair of the dog went boom a couple of hours ago. I predict projectile vomiting. The man can ruin oatmeal."

"Good thing I have some MREs stashed in my lab and my quarters," McKay said, looking complacent.

Sheppard leaned over the table. "Share and I'll be your friend forever."

"I don't know," McKay said.

Sheppard tried whining. "Rodney."

"Okay, okay, my God, watching you humiliate yourself is ruining my appetite."

"Can anything do that?"

"Remember who is feeding you tonight."

Ford had been watching them with a grin. He said, "So it's a date?"

Blue and hazel eyes turned death glares on him. "No!" they chorused.

"You sure? Because it sounded like—"

"Eat your breakfast, Ford," Sheppard interrupted.

McKay looked speculatively toward the warming table. "Is there anything else besides the toxic oatmeal?"

Ford shook his head. "I snagged the last of the bread. There may be some muffins, but stay away from the bagels."

"Those were bagels?"

"I guess."

"I think I'd give my little toe for a box of cereal and a banana right now," McKay said.

"Yeah, I know," Ford said. "I miss grits."

"Grits aren't food, Lieutenant."

"Of course, they are."

"They sound like something you shake out of your boot."

"Damn good with maple syrup on them."

McKay looked intrigued. "Real maple syrup? Canadian?"

"My gran wouldn't have anything else."

"Hunh."

"You should try them," Ford urged.

"Where the hell is he going to find grits or maple syrup in the Pegasus Galaxy?" Sheppard demanded.

McKay dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "Oh, you never know." He peered at Sheppard in mock concern. "You seem very surly this morning, Major. Still not feeling just the thing?"

Sheppard counted to ten. Then he calculated the approximate volume of oatmeal he could stuff up McKay's nose before Ford restrained him.

"It's the lack of Fruit Loops in my diet," he said flatly.

McKay nodded sagely.

"What were they thinking when they planned this expedition?"

Help Wanted

0700 Atlantis Military Time

"I just want you to know, gentlemen, that I don't believe a word of that story you tried to sell me this morning."

Side by side, Sheppard and McKay gave her identical, ingenious expressions. Sheppard even tried for a certain wounded, innocent quality, though he probably missed by a mile.  Elizabeth usually saw right through him.

"We have no idea what you're accusing us of," Rodney declared. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "Do we, Major?"

Sheppard tipped his head then shook it. "None."

Elizabeth gave them a both a hard look. "We'll table the matter for now."

That earned her a sunny smile from Sheppard. He started to get up. "Great."

"Hold it."

He settled back into the chair with obvious reluctance.

McKay was perfectly ready to abandon him, of course. "You know, I should get back to the lab. Zelenka had an experiment he wanted to run and he needs someone with the gene to activate the equipment. I'll just get out of your hair and let you and the Major handle whatever—"

Sheppard kicked McKay's ankle with side of his boot under the table, making him wince visibly.

"Of course, the Major's gene is much more powerful than what Carson gave me, it would probably be better if he came with me," McKay blurted. "For the good of, ah, Radek's experiment." He nodded decisively.

"Oh, no, Rodney, you both need to be here for this."

McKay swallowed hard.

"I do?"

"Dr. Kavanagh is a member of your staff," Elizabeth emphasized.

"Much to my regret."

Sheppard couldn't resist sharing a look with McKay even though they were under Elizabeth's eagle eye.

"There is the matter of his shampoo."

"Kavanagh's shampoo," Sheppard repeated, injecting just the right element of disbelief and bafflement.

"Someone broke into his quarters and added an orange dye to it," Elizabeth said. She looked from Sheppard to McKay, watching for a telltale flinch.

"I thought he was just going for a new and stupider look," McKay offered. He looked mildly peeved. "I wonder who did it? I'd give them a raise if we were actually getting paid anything here."

Sheppard merely shook his head with a grin. "That's juvenile even for some of the marines."

Elizabeth folded her hands together. "Your shared antipathy for the man is rather widely known."

McKay laughed. "Everyone knows I can't stand him because no one can stand him, Liz."  She gave him a look that had him backpedaling fast.  "I mean Elizabeth. Ah, yes, anyway. I don't think someone pulled a prank on him just to get on my good side. It's well known I don't have one."

Sheppard shrugged and slouched lower in his chair. "He's a weasel."

Rodney smirked and nodded his agreement.

"Do you have any suggestions about what we should do about this?"

"Laugh in his face?" Rodney offered.

At Elizabeth's disappointed headshake, Sheppard suggested, "Behind his back?"

"Everyone is going to do that anyway," Rodney pointed out.

"You're not going to be any help with this, are you?"

"What do you want? We can't exactly search the entire city for orange dye or bring in suspects for questioning with bright lights and rubber hoses," Sheppard said.

"No matter how tempting that might be," Elizabeth murmured with a look at both of them that said such techniques might be pioneered on them before anyone else if she had any say.

"So, are we done now?"

"Not quite. There is the question of maintenance duties. We need to make up a schedule assigning personnel to the upkeep of the parts of the city we're occupying."

"I'm not telling any of my people they have to get shot at and scrub floors, Elizabeth," Sheppard said flatly. "Figure out something else."

"If you think my staff is joining the mop and bucket crowd, think again," Rodney chimed in. "We're doing important work that takes all our time and more. If someone has to do it, better the jarheads —"

"Your eggheads probably couldn't figure out which end of mop went on the floor," Sheppard snarled.

"Like you aren't always threatening to make someone scrub out the toilets with a toothbrush!"

"It's a threat! It doesn't count if they have to do it anyway!"

"Actually," Elizabeth interrupted, "we don't have any mops or buckets."

"Great," Sheppard said. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I suppose that goes on the big list of things you want me to pick up the next time we run out to the store?"

Elizabeth smiled.

"Something like that."

The One That Got Away

0734 Atlantis Military Time

"What is that smell?" McKay exclaimed as they left— escaped—the conference room. He had his head bent over something book-sized with glowy lights that Sheppard couldn't even identify as they walked, plotting how to make sure he never was tapped for Atlantis-cleaning duties probably. Busy, busy, busy—saving the city, you know. He'd just better make sure whatever plan he came up with excused Sheppard, too.

Sheppard sniffed and grimaced.

"Fish?"

McKay wrinkled his nose. "Yes, I think you're right. This can't be good. Atlantis should not smell like fish."

"I'm not sure which is more disturbing," Sheppard observed idly, "you acknowledging I was right or that I'm smelling fish."

They proceeded up a short flight of stairs on a path to the second nearest transporter. The nearest transporter had developed an unnerving tendency to deliver people to unintended or unexpected locations at random intervals. Since no one had been able to spare the time to troubleshoot its problem, everyone had just begun avoiding it.

They turned the last corner in the hallway. The smell suddenly became overwhelming. Sheppard stopped without really thinking, not wanting to take one step closer. Smells like that got in your hair and stayed.

Of course, McKay didn't look up and walked right into Sheppard‘s back. That forced him forward several steps to keep himself upright, while McKay stumbled backwards.

"Ow, ow, my nose!"

Sheppard ended up several steps closer than he wanted to be with—he furtively tried to remember the young Marine's name—right, Corporal Stross.

Corporal Stross and the three-foot fish he was attempting to hide behind him.

Sheppard folded his arms over his chest.

"Corporal."

"Sir?"

"Oh, my God, it is a fish," McKay mumbled while clutching at his nose.

"Corporal Stross, weren't you on the roster to go through the gate with Sgt. Bates' team this morning?" Sheppard asked, deceptively quiet.

Stross blanched. The fish twitched, its tail sweeping over the floor. McKay jumped back a step. Sheppard didn't, but wanted to badly. The smell drifted toward them like a deadly cloud of gas.

"Stuffed up head, Sir. Sergeant Bates had me report to the infirmary," Stross blurted out. "Didn't want me starting an epidemic on some unknown planet."

"Explains why he can stand that thing," McKay muttered. He'd begun breathing through his mouth, out of self-defense Sheppard thought, suddenly grateful he hadn't eaten much at breakfast himself.

"But not where it came from," Sheppard replied. He did the eyebrow thing, throwing in a little ‘steely commander' look to go with it. He hoped that was the effect anyway. He'd always been better at the insubordinate smirk. "Corporal. Elucidate." He gestured at the fish.

"Well, Sir, Dr. Biro looked me over, said I had a cold and told me to get some rest and report back to the infirmary this evening. So I headed back to my quarters —"

"And found they'd been invaded by this piscine prodigy."

Sheppard shot McKay a disbelieving look, mouthing ‘piscine prodigy'. McKay shrugged at him and mouthed 'elucidate' right back at him. He grimaced. He was going to lose his grunt credentials if he kept slipping like that.

"Ah, no, Sir, Dr. McKay. I got a little antsy and figured I could rest down on the dock, maybe try out the fishing pole one of the Athosian kids showed me how to make. You know, lay back, get a little sun, take it easy …" Stross trailed off, looking back and forth between Sheppard and McKay, who were both glowering at him. "I never expected to catch anything, Major. The waters are swarming with them, though. I thought I'd give it to the cook."

"Not before it's been tested by the biologists," McKay yelled. "Are you trying to poison us all or did you think the smell would do the job all by itself?"

"Sir?" Stross appealed to Sheppard.

"Take it down to the biolab and let them examine it, Stross."

"Yes, Sir."

"If it's edible, you're in charge of catching enough of them to feed everyone tonight," he added.

"Yes, Sir."

"Also, cleaning and gutting. "

"Yes, Sir."

"And get rid of the smell somehow," Sheppard added.

Stross' expression had grown more doleful with each order. Now he looked depressed and slightly panicked.

"Smell, Sir?"

Sheppard pointed at the fish.

"Get it out of here, Corporal!"

Stross tried to salute, forgot which hand held the fish, and flipped its tail into Sheppard's face.The slightly slimy slap echoed in the silence that followed. With a look of utter horror, Stross clutched the fish to his chest and ran.

McKay laughed so hard he ended up sitting on his butt on the floor. "Really, Major, that was perfect. All you can expect from a cold fish is a slap in the face."

Slowly, methodically, Sheppard wiped wet slime off his cheek. Then he pounced on McKay and rubbed his hand all over the laughing scientist's face.

McKay quit laughing and started frantically trying to wipe his face with the arm of his long sleeved shirt. "Peww. That‘s awful." He glared up at Sheppard. "You have no sense of humor."

"Really? I thought that was very funny."

"Yeah, right, very funny."

McKay got up. Sheppard shrugged and smiled.

"Not as funny as dying Kavanagh's hair."

McKay's eyes widened.

"You didn't."

"I'm never telling."

"You fooled Elizabeth."

"McKay, I've been fooling my superior officers for years."

"Oh, wow. I want lessons."

"I'm not sure…"

"Major, I'm sure I could find some way to be sure your quarters never had hot water again."

And right this instant, Sheppard wanted nothing more than to wash the fish stink off.

"Okay. The first thing to remember is they can smell guilt on you. So never feel guilty—"

Perving for Science

0812 Atlantis Military Time

"Deep in the bowels—"

"Bowels?"

"Don't interrupt me. Deep in the depths of Atlantis, our intrepid heroes—well, one intrepid, one hypochondriac—continued their exploration of the mad scientists' lair—"

"I resent that. I am not a hypochondriac. I have allergies and a hypoglycemic condition. Also, deep in the depths?"

"You're harshing my vibe, McKay."

"I'm—what? Don't try to be cool, Major. It doesn't work."

"Fine." Sheppard pouted. "You're wrecking the mood."

"What mood? I'm trying to get some work done. You—you, I have no idea what you're doing, besides annoying me," McKay said. "Which I suppose means you're wrecking my mood."

Sheppard perched himself on a lab counter and looked at McKay innocently. After they had both retreated seperately  to their quarters to shower off the fish odor, he had reported to McKay's lab. He'd found McKay already intent on a problem and ignoring him. Which prompted him to start needling McKay, just for the fun of it.

"This place needs a couch."

"A cou—what?"

Nothing was better than that little frown of confusion McKay got when you surprised him.

"A couch. Sofa. Divan. Day bed, though those aren't really the same thing. But it would work."

"And my lab needs one, why?"

"So I can hide in here and take a nap," Sheppard replied promptly. He stretched, trying to shed some tension and tiredness. "Everyone knows where my quarters are, but no one would ever look for me down here. I could finally catch some sleep in between playing lab rat."

"Major—"

"Come on, McKay, I know you sleep down here half the time too. Passing out with your face on the keyboard is probably why you have a bad back."

McKay looked at him.

"I thought you didn't believe in my bad back."

"That was before I saw you sleeping in that chair."

"Hmph."

McKay went back to his typing. Sheppard waited. Yes. There it was, the two little vertical lines between McKay's eyebrows. The tapping stopped.

"Where would we get a couch?"

"One level up in the room we found two weeks ago. It isn't exactly a couch, it's like an Ancients' version of a futon, but it would work."

McKay gave him a skeptical look. "And, how, exactly, do you propose we relocate it to my lab?"

Sheppard returned the look incredulously. "Haven't you ever moved furniture before?"

"No, that's what movers are for."

"Well, Atlantis isn't equipped with a moving service, so we'd have to do it ourselves."

"No, I think not."

"McKay."

"Bad back."

"It's a couch, couch-thingy, not the Queen Elizabeth, McKay!"

McKay dismissed the thought.

"Get Ford to help you."

"Getting Ford would negate the whole purpose of setting up a couch down here in the first place, since he would tell everyone who asked. What's the use of a secret hideout that isn't secret?"

"You're really about seven years old, aren't you?"

"Rodney," Sheppard sing-songed.

"Fine, whatever. Couch, secret hideout. Just let me finish this and we'll go get whatever monstrosity you've found. Where should it go, anyway?"

Sheppard grinned and pointed.

"Right there, so no one can see it from the doorway."

Sometime later, they both sprawled on the Ancient's version of a couch, which proved to work like a mentally activated Lazy-Boy, rippling into the exact amount of recline and support its occupant needed. It also provided a toasty warmth and mild massage action. Getting it into the lab had about killed them both, but they'd done it. McKay complained that he'd broken his foot when Sheppard let it drop on the stairs and Sheppard's knuckles were bloody from scraping them against a narrow doorway, but it was worth it, because the couch was the single most hedonistic thing they'd found in the city yet. Sheppard had begun to suspect the Ancients were all some kind of monks who had sworn off worldly pleasures and comforts in favor of science and eventual existence as glowy energy squids.

They both stared up at the ceiling for a while.

Finally, McKay said, "This is…"

"Yeah," Sheppard agreed with a blissful sigh. "If you had cable, I'd move in here." It beat the hell out of the narrow, hard bed in his quarters.

"We should really get back to work."

"We should."

Neither of them moved.

"We're going to starve to death here, because we're too comfortable to get up," McKay declared. He didn't sound upset at the prospect.

"Probably," Sheppard agreed. He stretched and wriggled his feet. It would feel even better if he took off his boots, but that too would involve moving. McKay wasn't likely to say anything about foot gear on the furniture anyway. He was a geek, sure, but he was a guy first.

"I wonder if there's much of a future in career-napping."

"You think too much, McKay."

"Well, it's not like I can turn it off."

Sheppard glanced around the deserted lab.

"Where are your cowed minions, anyway?"

"In lab two. Simpson's running a series of experiments. The rest of them will interfere and get in the way, successfully keeping them away from me for the rest of the morning, at least. Zelenka should be here, though. He was supposed to be, until this morning."

"So he's off setting up again?"

McKay reluctantly levered himself upright. "Exactly. Atlantis runs on his bootleg Eastern European hooch." He looked at Sheppard scornfully. "Are you going to stay there forever?"

"Why not?"

McKay frowned, but didn't argue.

Instead, he seated himself at his desk and returned to his work. Sheppard let his eyes slip closed to the sound of McKay's fingers tapping on the laptop keyboard.

"Major."

"Mph?"

"Wake up."

"Nmm."

"Major." Getting snippy there, Sheppard noted drowsily.

Something light hit his nose. He swiped at it, eyes snapping open. "Did you just throw a paper ball at me?"

"Yes," McKay declared unrepentently.

Sheppard tossed the paper ball back at McKay.

"I was napping," he complained.

"And now you're not, get over it. I need you to activate this for me."

Sheppard got up and wandered over to the lab counter where McKay stood. He contemplated the device sitting there. About ten inches tall, smooth and black, five sided, wider at the base than the top, which held an irregular piece of crystal. The sides bore horizontal zebra stripes of some opaque material.

"What is it?" he asked curiously.

"Zelenka thinks it might be a recording device," McKay said. "I'm leaning toward mother-in-law gift."

Sheppard hmmned.

"Touch it."

"Where?"

McKay shrugged. "Try the crystal on top."

Sheppard put his hand on the crystal and thought ‘on'. A small glow lit the crystal, but nothing else happened.

McKay glared at the device and Sheppard indiscriminately, as though they were in league to frustrate him.

"What next?"

"Let me think."

"Maybe it's just one of those ugly things made to sit on a shelf and get dusty," Sheppard suggested.

"Hmnn." McKay peered at the device and poked a finger at one of the opaque bars. He wrinkled his nose.

Sheppard straightened up and sniffed suspiciously.

"I don't still smell like fish, do I?"

McKay rolled his eyes.

"For the sixty-eighth time, no."

Sheppard held up his hand and sniffed it. He was sure he detected a lingering hint of fish, despite McKay's present and earlier assurances.

"It's all in your head. Which is obviously a roomy place. Now touch this." McKay grabbed Sheppard's hand and guided it to the next opaque bar on the device.

"You know, I had a dream where Claudia Schiffer said that to me, but it was her—Hunh."

Sheppard stopped talking as the device clicked and a 3D, in living color, complete with motion and sound, image materialized in the middle of the lab. After a moment, he walked around and studied it from another vantage point. McKay just stared, blinking fast.

"Wow."

Sheppard circled the display again.

"McKay?"

"Wh—?"

"Breathe."

"Wh—yes. Right. Breathe. It's completely three dimensional, isn't it?" He still hadn't looked away.

"Yeah. Who knew the Ancients had porn?"

McKay suddenly grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Definitely not a mother-in-law gift, I guess."

"Not unless Ancient mother-in-laws were really different from Earth ones," Sheppard agreed. He kept looking back at the bodies moving over each other. Jesus, it had been a while since he'd gotten laid. Other than Teyla kicking his ass at stick practice, he hadn't got up close and personal with anyone female since leaving Antarctica. There was a sad commentary: he'd got more action at the South Pole. These days he was in a committed relationship with his right hand.

He cocked his head as two of the performers did something that made the Kama Sutra look like a beginner's manual. "Limber, too."

McKay stared and gulped.

"Yeah. I don‘t think human beings can actually bend that way."

The soundtrack had ratcheted up as matters progressed and now filled the lab with soft, wet sounds, breathy grunts and deep moans. Atlantis was soundproof, but Sheppard was starting to think they'd better find the volume control before someone passing in the hall got the wrong idea about what he and McKay were doing.

McKay let out a little moan of his own, then looked sheepish. "I have got to get laid. Soon."

Sheppard lifted his eyebrow.

The rap on the lab doors made both of them jump.

"Crap!" McKay exclaimed. He looked at the device. "Major. Shut it off."

Only half-regretful, Sheppard thought 'off' at it. He hoped that would work. After finding out exactly what it was, he wasn't eager to touch it again. Who knew what had been on the last hands to switch it on and off?

"Rodney, man, let me in!" Beckett's distinctive Scots brogue penetrated the doors.

The 3D image, the accompanying moans and the light in the little crystal all winked out.

"Oh, good," McKay said and went to the lab door. It opened immediately. "Carson, what do you—"

Beckett squeezed inside, casting a hunted look toward the corridor. "Close the door, Rodney," he hissed. "Right now."

Sheppard willed the doors shut.

Beckett tried to act nonchalant, strolling away from the door. "Just don't tell anyone I'm here, Rodney."

"When did my lab become the secret boy's club hangout?" McKay demanded, looking annoyed and put upon. "First the Major and now you?"

Beckett looked at him like he needed medication. McKay folded his arms and stuck out his chin. He had the high ground and the advantage and would use both ruthlessly.

Beckett folded like a bad play on Broadway.

"It's Nurse Racheed," he said miserably.

Nurse Ratchet, Sheppard had dubbed her.

"She has a bit of a, well, a crush on me," Beckett explained. "She keeps bringing me meals from the mess and offering me neck rubs and pulling the blinds then doing a striptease in my office." He flushed as Sheppard and McKay both stared at him. "She's insatiable."

Racheed had the personal qualities of Genghis Khan on a bad day, but she wasn't bad to look at, in a slightly horsey way. Considering everything in the context of his own recent reflections, Sheppard had zero sympathy. Insatiable? Beckett had a problem with that?

"So, you're hiding from her?" McKay asked.

"Just for a few hours," Beckett admitted. "I need a break, I'm starting to chafe."

No sympathy.

Sheppard and McKay shared a glance and a single thought. They moved as one, grabbing Beckett's arms and marching him through the lab doors rather violently. By God, as a man, Beckett had a responsibility to give his all in the place of all those who weren't getting any.

"Get out and stay out!" McKay shouted, drawing the attention of two Marines down the corridor.

Beckett sprawled on the floor, looking flummoxed and betrayed. "Remember who gives you your post mission exams—"

"Blackmail won't work this time," McKay sneered. "You're on your own, Carson."

"Major," Beckett appealed.

"I agree with McKay," Sheppard said stonily.

The two marines turned toward the sound of steps coming down a cross corridor. One of them helpfully said, "Yes, ma'am, Dr. Beckett just left Dr. McKay's lab. He's right down this way."

Beckett scrambled to his feet and ran.

When Racheed appeared, they pointed out the direction of his flight.

Back in the lab, with the doors thought-locked, Sheppard looked at the couch-thingy and then the zebra device.

McKay looked at the device and then the couch-thingy.

"So," Sheppard said. "Porn?"

McKay nodded.

"Porn."

"This doesn't mean anything," Sheppard said while removing his boots.

"Not a thing," McKay agreed. "We're just two red-blooded North American males perving on 10,000 year old alien erotica."

"And we're doing it for science," Sheppard declared, activating the device again.

"Precisely."

Going to Pot

1118 Atlantis Military Time

"You've been locked down in Dr. McKay's lab an awfully long time, Sir," Ford said delicately. He slanted a glance at Sheppard, who looked a good deal more relaxed than he had at breakfast.

"Science is an exacting pursuit," Sheppard said with a smirk.

McKay snickered.

"Dr. McKay is absolutely dedicated to it."

McKay punched Sheppard's arm.

"The Major is always good at turning things on."

Ford clapped his hand over his mouth.

Sheppard groaned. "McKay, you did not say that."

McKay beamed. "Oh, yes, I did."

"See if I activate anything else for you."

"I can get it to work without you now that I know what it is," McKay said, utterly self-satisfied. Sheppard gave him a mellow look that said clearly in other circumstances he'd never have got away with that statement without some razzing.

"If you don't share, I'm telling Elizabeth."

McKay stopped dead still in the corridor and stared at Sheppard in horror. "You wouldn't. Major. Think. I know the brain atrophies once you enter the military, but, still, try."

Sheppard grinned. "You're right, I wouldn't."

Ford looked at them curiously. "Sirs?"

"Don't worry about it, Ford," Sheppard said.

"Yes, Sir."

"Now what is it that I had to see?"

Ford led them down the corridor to a green door. "In here. I was just poking around, well, you'll see."

"Who knows what lies ‘behind the green door'," McKay sniggered.

Sheppard let a quiet snort of amusement escape. Ford just looked bewildered, which amused Sheppard further. For a twenty-five year old Marine, Ford seemed remarkably innocent and naïve sometimes. Either Ford's grandparents had been amazingly strict or the kid was jerking their chains some of the time.

Sheppard thought the door open and stepped into the room. Ford hadn't seemed worried by whatever he'd found so much as amused.

It was a solarium. Windows on two sides and a sloping overhead of glass. That the Ancients had had such didn't surprise Sheppard so much, the city had been littered with ten thousand year old dead plants, but the plants in the solarium were green and alive.

Familiar too, he thought with a grin, recognizing the distinct leaves on several of the plants.

McKay strolled in behind him, froze, then rocked back on his heels.

"Pot."

Sheppard nodded.

"Oh, this is good," McKay exclaimed. He darted into the room and began examining the plants. "Tomatoes, sage, basil, carrots, green beans, I don't even know what this is—"

"Onion," Sheppard identified.

"Onion," McKay almost moaned. He patted a green shoot with real fondness. "Real food. Fresh. Earth food."

"Don't forget the cannabis sativa." Sheppard nodded to the handsome green plants occupying pride of place. "It looks like sensimilla."

"Oh, how would you know, anyway?"

"I wasn't born in the Air Force."

Ford coughed, "Sir, maybe, I'd better go get Sgt. Bates."

"No need. I'll take care of this," Sheppard said. "If it goes to Bates, then we'll have to make a report to Dr. Weir, and the next thing she'll start wondering what you were doing down here. —What were you doing, anyway, Ford?"

Ford shuffled his feet.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow and outwaited him.

"He's blushing," McKay pointed out helpfully.

Ford shot him a glare.

"All right, all right, I was looking for a place Airman Brabant and I could have some privacy."

"Airman Brabant?" McKay said.

"Well, at least you're dating inter-service," Sheppard observed. "Of course, you're an officer and she's enlisted, but hey, it's the Pegasus Galaxy, regs are more like ‘suggestions', right?"

Even to himself, Sheppard sounded bitter. When had he become such a jerk? Right, when he inherited Sumner's job.

"Which one is Brabant?" McKay asked in an aside.

Thank God for McKay. The man kept Sheppard sane. Annoyed out of his mind most of the time, which should have been a contradiction of the former, but McKay balanced him out somehow. He liked to think he gave something back to McKay, too. Lately, he didn't think it had been much, but this morning had been good.

His lips quirked.

Ten thousand year old porn. That really did qualify as ancient.

He forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

"I think it would better if you were to forget your involvement in this discovery entirely, Lieutenant," Sheppard said. "You might consider checking the modified regs for this expedition, too."

Ford winced. "Yes, Sir."

That had distracted Ford from the garden, at least.

"Go on."

Ford exited, looking depressed.

"Brabant?" McKay prompted.

"Tall, redhead, Texas accent."

McKay frowned. "The one that looks like she can wrestle steers or the one with the freckles?"

"The one who looks like she walked off the front cover of Vogue, if they did an issue with fatigues."

"Oh."

McKay looked at the pot and grinned. "Soooo, Major, what are you going to do about this?"

Sheppard widened his eyes.

"About what, Dr. McKay?"

McKay's smile got wider. "You know this is prime blackmail material?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"How much weed did you do in high school?"

Sheppard shook his head. "None." He held up his hand. "I wanted to fly. That meant getting into the Air Force Academy. I didn't even hang with the dopers back then."

"Hunh. I always had you figured for one of the cool kids."

Sheppard rolled his eyes.

"McKay, you've seen me dance."

"Yes, that was frightening. I thought you were having a seizure."

"Whatever. So, who do you figure is our gardener?"

"Oh, Massingham and Chu from botany. Massingham probably hid the seeds in his Fu Manchu."

"Come on, let's get out of here," Sheppard said, gesturing for McKay to leave ahead of him. He cast a last appreciative glance at the vegetables. "We need to visit the botany lab and have a chat."

"Just to make sure they understand how wrong it is to grow pot," McKay said. He sounded depressed at the thought.

"Hell, no, we're going to make sure we get some of those vegetables. I'm thinking of posting a couple of Marines as guards outside the door. I don't care who smokes what, as long as it's off duty."

"Sometimes, you surprise me, Major."

Sheppard grinned.

"It‘s not like it's illegal here, we're not even on Earth."

Something Rotten in Denmark or Norway or Someplace Scandinavian

1200 Atlantis Military Time

The mess hall was packed. Sheppard and McKay had staked out a table toward the back where they could watch everyone come and go.

"It's very, very wrong of me to imagine her in a Heidi outfit, with the pigtails and the little embroidered straps, isn't it?" McKay said, while staring at one of the Swedish mathematicians.

Sheppard looked up from his tray. His eyebrows climbed up toward the hair.

"Pigtails?"

Inga, or possibly it was Elke or even Gudrun—McKay had never bothered learning the difference between her and the Norwegian in Linguistics—had that milk blonde thing going on, supermodel legs and looked like someone had spray-painted her blue science pullover on. The hair was currently in a ponytail pulled high on her head. She was smart, two inches taller than McKay, and could kick his ass into next week.

It could have been love if she'd known he existed beyond being the expedition's Chief Scientist and he could have remembered her name.  Which Sheppard thought was Gudrun, but he tried to avoid her, since she wanted to test his math skills every time they crossed paths.  He was all for six-foot-tall blondes, but not ones that spoke solely in equations.

"You like ‘em in schoolgirl outfits, don't you?" Sheppard teased.

McKay gave him a sour look before returning his attention to Inga-maybe-Elke-maybe-Gudrun.

"Only if they're over eighteen."

Sheppard examined his food, poking warily at the deep-fried purple vegetables. Next to them lay a slab of something pale and suspiciously fishy looking. He sniffed. Grease. Check. Fish. Damn.

"I think we're eating Corporal Stross' friend," he said.

McKay glanced at his plate.

"Or one his friend's friends."

Sheppard pushed the fish around his plate. McKay shared his skeptical look.

"I guess it checked out all right."

"Or they're using the first lunch shift as guinea pigs."

"Well, that is possible. Biologists are sort of shifty, in my opinion," McKay said.

Deciding delay wasn't helping, Sheppard braved the vegetable. Not too bad, he concluded. Sort of like fried potatoes. If the potatoes were purple. That still threw him.

He was still picking moodily at the fish when Zelenka arrived at their table.

"Move over, Rodney," Zelenka said.

Rodney hitched his chair to the side. "Are you hiding?"

Zelenka set his tray down. "Yes. Is very good way to hide to sit with two best known people in Atlantis in public."

A furtive glance proved that they were being watched by numerous people in the mess.

Up close, Zelenka still had purple streaks in his hair.

McKay leaned forward and asked, "Any luck setting up again?"

"New equipment is set up on Level Seven, two doors down from the freight transporter."

"Oh, good thinking," McKay praised.

Zelenka nodded and started on his meal.

"So when—"

"Supplies are a problem."

"Supplies? Okay, no, you don't want to brew up anything from what comes out of the mess, do you?"

"Elizabeth has everything inventoried down to a toothpick," Sheppard said. "If there were toothpicks."

Zelenka shoveled in another mouthful of fish. He ate with the same intensity McKay did, as if his body, too often ignored, meant to make the most of any opportunity to fuel up.

Still chewing, he pulled a slip of paper with a gate address scrawled on it from his pocket and slid it across the table to Sheppard.

"Hurry it up, hurry it up, Teyla's on her way over here," McKay urged.

Zelenka swallowed hard, before he was ready, and choked. McKay thumped his back with perhaps a shade more enthusiasm than was called for. Sheppard slipped the paper into his pocket.

"Please, no more help, Rodney," Zelenka wheezed between gasps.

"Sorry." McKay held his hands up.

Zelenka looked at him suspiciously, took a deep breath and said, "Address is for a planet the Athosians get fruit from."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Dorrin. Their brewer. Is secret, of course," Zelenka said. "Dorrin only revealed this to me after three bottles." He blinked behind his glasses. "Most impressive."

"Funny Teyla hasn't suggested it—"

"Suggested what, Major?" she asked as she arrived.

Zelenka mimed zipped lips.

"Suggested flying with us over to the mainland for an hour or two while Selig checks out those mushrooms your people have found," Sheppard said promptly. He checked his watch. "Interested?"

Teyla nodded. "Yes, thank you."

"Okay, meet us in the Jumper Bay at 1300."

He pushed the fish around a little more, ate the purple pseudo potatoes and thought about the morning briefing. Elizabeth couldn't seriously want to set up a schedule with everyone sweeping and mopping and polishing, could she? Sheppard peered around the mess hall. It looked pretty good. Maybe there was a little dirt pushed off in the corners … and the windows were sort of water-spotted after that last storm, but he could live with it if the alternative was dangling outside one the towers with a squeegee.

"Do you ever wonder who did all the windows in this place?" Sheppard asked abruptly.

Zelenka, McKay and Teyla all stared at him. Sheppard winced at the combined stare power.

"Forget I said anything."

"No, no, this is an interesting question," Zelenka said. "There must be some— " he waved his hands, "—maintenance measures we have not come across."

"Being just a little preoccupied with discovering some way of defending ourselves against life-sucking alien vampires," McKay commented.

Zelenka just nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly." His eyes gleamed behind his glasses as he thought about the Ancients' house cleaning methods.

McKay's eyes did the same thing. Hell, Sheppard had even seen that bright, intense look on Kavanagh's face a few times. If the rest of the military didn't get why Sheppard spent so much time with an arrogant ass like McKay, well, at least he understood it himself. McKay and the rest of the scientists, the geeks, were committed, in love with what they did. There was something fascinating and engaging about watching them dive into a problem or deconstruct some new Ancient toy. Sheppard felt that way about flying. He was more comfortable with McKay or Zelenka than he was even with Ford. Ford didn't understand that scientists flew, too.

"Polarizing field perhaps?" Zelenka said.

"Nanobots?" McKay offered.

Teyla had her eyebrows raised.

"Possibly," Zelenka conceded. Quite without thinking, he pulled John's tray over and started to eat the fish. "The Ancients were not fond of biological constructs or robotics, I think. Very good with cybernetics."

"But the whole recognize the enzymes et cetera from the ATA gene, that's biological science, isn't it?" Sheppard couldn't help asking.

Zelenka pointed at him with his fork, nearly stabbing Sheppard with a hunk of fish. "Yes! Right. Is easy to think in ruts. Maybe the Ancients do not see any difference between sciences, yes?"

"Maybe," Rodney said and jerked Sheppard's tray away from in front of Zelenka. "Leave his food alone, Radek. Rule Three."

"Rule Three?" Sheppard inquired.

McKay, Teyla and Zelenka shared an uncomfortable look.

"Rule Three."

Teyla finally answered. "Rule Three is to make sure Major Sheppard eats three times a day."

"Really, Major, you get any skinnier, you won't need the jumper to float away," McKay added.

"I'm not skinny," Sheppard protested.

Zelenka laughed, the bastard.

"Just eat the damned fish, Major," McKay snapped.

"I hate fish."

"Eat it anyway and I'll let you pick which MRE you want tonight," McKay promised.

Sheppard looked at him suspiciously. "You probably only have one kind."

"But I'll still let you pick."

Bastard.

Sheppard grimaced at the fish and began eating. He'd had sheep's eyes in the Middle East. Alien fish couldn't be any worse than that.

It was close, though.

The Rules

1312 Atlantis Military Time

"So, tell me about the Rules," Sheppard said as he piloted the Jumper up out of the Bay.

It was another beautiful afternoon on the planet, peach clouded blue sky, endless miles of azure water, flashing reflections of the bright sun off the waves and the city's spires. The Ancients had picked a pretty place to set up housekeeping at least. No one had discovered what the Ancients had called the planet beyond its gate address, but Sheppard and most of expedition were settling for calling it Atlantea.

McKay gave him a sidelong look from the co-pilot's seat.

"The Rules?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, well, they're nothing important, just something Teyla and Ford and I were joking about ..."

"Well, you know me, I'm always up for a good joke."

Sheppard swooped the jumper down to the wave tops, skimming through spray at shrieking speed. From the corner of his eye, he saw McKay's hand clench on the arm rest, but there was a half smile on his face, too. Something sinuous and silvery leaped along the wave tops, trying to parallel them before falling behind. Sheppard was reminded of dolphins surfing ahead of ships. It had been significantly bigger than a dolphin however—more like a blue whale—so he angled the Jumper up to a safer altitude regretfully.

"Even if it's on me."

"Right, sure, we all know that," McKay replied sardonically.

Sheppard flashed him a conspiratorial grin.

"The Rules?"

"Oh, all right. Rule One is one of yours. Lt. Ford is not allowed to name anything. Ever."

Sheppard nodded. "Okay."

"Rule Two is for Teyla. Teyla is not allowed to kick Sgt. Bates' ass."

Sheppard chuckled.

"Yes, yes, I know, some day she's going to break it."

"And Rule Three is ...?"

McKay rolled his eyes. "Rule Three is 'Make sure Maj. Sheppard eats something before Dr. McKay gets it all.'"

"Aw, I'm touched."

"I'm insulted, but you are kind of scrawny."

The dark line of the landmass lifted out of the sea on the horizon, rushing toward them. Sheppard let the Jumper climb so they could clear the high cliffs and breakwaters. He angled their course southeast toward the Athosian settlement.

McKay thought the position display on and checked their course. An optimum flight plan overlaid Sheppard's path precisely.

"I don't understand how you can fly through space and maintain a perfect course and still get turned around every time you set foot on a planet."

Sheppard dodged the Jumper through a series of mountain passes. He could have taken the Jumper over the range entirely, but this was much more fun.

"I need a little distance so I can see where I'm going is all," he said with a slight shrug. "Things get complicated down on the ground."

McKay gave him a long look and didn't say anything else for the rest of the flight.

"So, any other Rules?" Sheppard asked while they lounged in the shade of a large, blue-leafed tree within sight of the Jumper. Selig had taken off with Cpl. Weinstein tagging along to get samples of the tasty fungus the Athosians had found growing in some the cooler, shadowy river gorges.

"A few," McKay admitted.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow.

McKay waved his hand and grinned.

"Well?"

"Rule Four: Don't diss the hair."

Sheppard's hand went to his head and McKay cracked up. "Got you."

"No building nuclear devices for crazed fanatics?" Sheppard offered.

McKay nodded. "And the Beckett variation, no brewing up lethal viruses for crazy local governments."

Sheppard shook his head. "Well, that's just obvious."

"Rule Seven," McKay said. "No trading team members away for coffee and or chocolate."

"Hard one."

"I know, I know, but Ford insisted. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'd be happy to see Stackhouse replace him on the team if it meant a good cup of mocha chino was in the offing."

"And?"

"I'd have to think about it."

Sheppard grinned companionably at him.

"You know you wouldn't."

"Don't underestimate the power of coffee, Major."

"Oh, I don't, I've seen the way you eye the packets in my MREs. It's a good thing there's a Rule Three."

McKay leaned back against the tree trunk.

"Any ideas how we can get Elizabeth to authorize a trip to that gate address Zelenka got off Dorrin?"

"I got nothing," Sheppard admitted.

"Damn."

Sheppard stared up at the sky through the lattice of leaves overhead. The leaves were indigo colored on their undersides, each in the shape of an arrowhead. They rustled pleasantly when the limbs of the tree moved with the faint breeze.

"I say we just say 'fresh fruit'," he said at last.

McKay cocked his head back, thinking about it. "Okay, yes, simple. Don't arouse her suspicions. That could work."

"What suspicions? McKay, we want to go to a planet the Athosians have told us has fresh fruit. Just because it also is apparently well suited to being turned into good booze is no reason to pass on a mission."

"Oh, you're good, Major. Very good," McKay said.

"Yeah, I know."

"Watch it or you'll be in competition with me for biggest ego in Atlantis."

"Nah, I know when I'm beat, McKay."

"Damn straight."

Sheppard sat up and touched his radio transmitter. "Weinstein, this is Sheppard. Status?"

"On our way back now, Sir."

"ETA?"

"Ten minutes on the outside, Sir. Dr. Selig has some of the Athosians carrying samples."

Sheppard frowned slightly.

"Samples?"

"Yes, Sir. Baskets of them."

"This isn't going to stink up my Jumper again, is it?"

"No, Sir. It's just some big, orange mushrooms. The Athosians say they're great eating."

"We'll be waiting, Corporal. Sheppard, out."

Sheppard rose and gave McKay a hand up.

"Giant mushrooms," McKay muttered. "Why do I think those would be a bad thing?"

Sheppard shook off the funny feeling that gave him. "No idea, McKay. Looks like we're getting out of here as soon as Selig gets back."

"Can I fly back?"

Reluctantly, Sheppard nodded. "No detours."

"Oh, of course not."

Sheppard tapped his radio activator again. "Teyla?"

"Yes, Major?"

"We're about ready to go."

"I am on my way, Major."

"Did you talk to Halling?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, he mentioned this planet a while back. Said there was great fruit there, I've got the gate address, I thought he might have asked if we'd got there yet."

"No, he said nothing."

"Oh, well, that's a shame. He said he liked the veena fruit."

"Perhaps we can convince Dr. Weir such a mission would be useful."

"Do you really think so?"

"Of course."

"Hey, maybe you could talk Dr. Weir into it," Sheppard said.

McKay was silently clapping.

"If you would like, Major."

He grinned at McKay.

"Sure, when we get back to Atlantis."

He spotted Dr. Selig approaching, followed by several Athosians carrying baskets. Weinstein hiked along at the end of the line and waved when he caught sight of Sheppard and McKay.

"We're just waiting on you, Teyla," he said into the radio.

"I am on my way, Major."

"Sheppard, out."

McKay bowed.

"I'd say this mission is a lock," Sheppard said.

"Rule Eight: Never trust John Sheppard when he looks innocent," McKay declared.

Sheppard flashed him another toothy grin.

Space Bimbos

1500 Atlantis Military Time

"Take care," Elizabeth called out as they headed through the gate.

Sheppard swung around and tossed off a wave, smiling sunnily. "Will do."

He was pretty sure he heard her say, "No, Peter, that's a sucker's bet," as he stepped through the wormhole and wondered what the hell that was about.

He stepped out the Stargate with a slight frown into an early morning—well, he thought it was early morning, the air felt like morning and dew glistened on the grass—on the planet. A breath full of air smelled like … strawberries? Blue sky, fluffy clouds, sunshine, green grass and big blue and yellow flowers in a landscaped glade that surrounded the Stargate Just beyond the danger zone of the opening Stargate stood a pretty little white stone gazebo.

"Cool," he said.

McKay was looking around with a smile. "Very. Think there's some shortcake around here, too?"

Sheppard glanced up and saw several natives approaching them. He gave a respectful nod toward them. Well, at least, he didn't actually leer. Leering was just tacky and he'd found it got him exactly nowhere with the leer-ee.

"Would you settle for cheesecake?" he muttered in an aside.

McKay looked. "Yes, yes, that would do nicely."

"Holy—wow," Ford commented.

Even Teyla looked … appreciative.

The day was definitely looking up.

The first two natives were blonde, built like Playboy Bunnies and wearing wraparound skirts and bandeau tops in primary colors. If they'd had blue eye shadow and beehives, they could have passed for classic Trek characters.

Behind them came three redheads, four brunettes, two blond boys, one muscled character the color of caramel, and a serenely smiling fellow in a blue robe and white hair.

The two blondes attached themselves to McKay on each side. A redhead and brunette headed for Sheppard and the rest gathered around Teyla and Ford. Something for everyone, Sheppard thought.

"Welcome, welcome to Veneana," the older guy declared. He spread his hands wide. "It has been two seasons since anyone has visited us through the Stargate. I am Delluy."

Teyla stepped forward, slipping free of Caramel Guy and the two surfer boys. She smiled and did the head bob bow.

"I am Teyla Emmagen."

"I recognize the voice of an Athosian," Delluy said with an answering smile. His eyes glittered a little too brightly, but it was probably just the sun, Sheppard told himself. The redhead kept petting his arm, which was distracting, though not as distracting as the brunette trying to slip her hand under his belt. He lifted her hand away with a tight smile and stepped forward.

"I'm Major Sheppard." He gestured to McKay and then Ford. "Dr. McKay and Lt. Ford."

Delluy gave a little bow.

"We take great pleasure in your visit."

"Yeah, I'm, ah, getting that idea," Sheppard said, snatching the redhead's hand away from his belt buckle. McKay was doing a similar fending off the octopus dance a few feet away. Ford's admirers weren't quite as amorous yet or they'd got the idea he wasn't interested from the way he clutched at his P90 and tried to back away.

"Milladuafanna! Lillamoradora!" Delluy called. "Some decorum, please."

The redhead and the brunette backed off about three inches. So did McKay's blondes. Caramel guy and the surfers were already keeping their distance from Teyla, one of them bent over and cupping himself in the universal sign for ‘she really did mean no.' Teyla's smile looked just a little smug.

"Please excuse their enthusiasm, Major," Delluy added with another bright, bright, slightly freaky smile.

"Sure, sure," Sheppard said. That smile was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Either something really nasty was about to pop up and whack them all or this guy was doing some serious pharmaceuticals.

"We've come in hope of trading for fresh fruit and produce, if you have any to spare," Teyla said.

Delluy bobbed his head.

"Of course, of course, as I said, it has been two years since anyone came to trade with us. We have many crops to offer." He eyed Teyla. "The veenas were much prized by your people, I remember."

"I am not familiar with it," Teyla said.

"Perhaps in another form or by a different name," Delluy said knowingly.

He looked at Sheppard. "We have annimiths, too. You would much enjoy them, I think."

"Well, we might."

Delluy rubbed his hands together.

"Well, then, come, come with me. We will speak to the counsel and make arrangements. Many will be happy to help you gather."

"Ooookay," Sheppard drawled.

He let Teyla take lead, flanked by Caramel Guy and the surfer boy who could still walk straight, and fell back to speak in a low tone with McKay and Ford.

"Stay on your toes, guys," he said. "Either this is the easiest mission we've ever been on or something's about to bite us in the ass."

McKay eyed one of the blondes swaying just a head of them on the path.

"Yeah."

"This is incredible, Sir," Ford said.

Sheppard's redhead—Milladuafanna—swung around long enough to give him a come-hither smile.

"Either I'm in heaven or we're in a Star Trek episode," McKay said.

"Don't start with the Kirk jokes," Sheppard hissed.

"Don't worry about it, Major, this looks like the episode where everyone gets some."

The Veneanan counsel turned out to be all just like Delluy, older men and women in blue robes who seemed enraptured with just the idea of new people. By the time they'd agreed to let them harvest samples of the fruit still on the trees in their orchards, Sheppard felt as nervous as a tap dancer in a minefield. He could see McKay felt the same way. Of course, the real giveaway was the little chant under his breath: "Too freaky, too freaky, too freaky."

Milladuafanna and Lillamoradora insisted on leading the team to the orchards. Along the way they collected a cart and an Obordge to haul it.

McKay took one look and stated, "Okay, that thing is just plain ugly."

"I hope it doesn't get mad," Ford said. One hand tightened on his P90.

Sheppard thought that was just too optimistic. It would take at least a grenade to stop an Obordge; the thing was the size of an Asian elephant, equipped with a ruff and spinal line of foot long porcupine quills. More needle sharp, white quills hung from its belly, fine and nasty as nettles. Its long tail ended in spiked ball like a mace. The massive, wrinkled gray head resembled a three-way cross between a moose, a manatee and a boar hog.

The Obordge's nostrils quivered as it was harnessed to the cart. Then it tossed its head up and bellowed.

Sheppard clapped his hands to his ears and stumbled back. "Jesus!"

McKay dodged behind Ford and Sheppard didn't blame him. The Obordge was dragging the empty cart straight for him, its beady blue eyes shining with either rage or true love. Sheppard mourned the fact the he had neither grenades nor video camera, along with the sad fact that Atlantis was about to lose its chief scientist. With a sigh, he lifted his P90. They would have to come up with a new ranking military officer too, unless Ford made it back.

It was crying shame; they were going to die because Zelenka blew up his still.

Lillamorawhat-the-fuck ever was waving her hands and squealing, while Milladuafanna and Caramel Guy ran up beside the Obordge and grabbed its ears, just going limp and hanging on them. McKay kept backpedaling.

The Obordge stopped with its wet, snotty nose pressed into McKay's crotch. It whuffled and rooted at him.

McKay looked horrified and squeaked, "Help," in a small, desperate voice.

Sheppard relaxed his grip on his P90.

"Well, that never happened on Star Trek."

"Major," McKay said, "do something."

Ford began laughing. "Man, it's just like this dog our neighbor had when I was growing up."

"Yes, yes, very funny." McKay tried to kill Ford with just the force of his glare, but kept flinching as the Obordge goosed him again.

After five minutes, the Obordge was lured away from McKay by dint of trailing around a lady Obordge, or possibly a studly Obordge, Sheppard could see no way of knowing which was which, though the Obordge happily seemed to have no difficulties beyond mistaking McKay for one of their own.  The two blondes from when they arrived through the Stargate showed up and showered the scientist with sympathetic cooing that he lapped up.  

"It's very peculiar," Milladuafanna told him as they hiked down the path to the orchard.

"Oh?"

She flicked a tress of red hair over her bare shoulder. "The Obordge are bad tempered and dislike each other most of the time. I've never seen one drawn to a human being before."

"Well, that explains it right there. You pretty much just described McKay. There are plenty of people, most of whom work with him, who will argue he isn't human, either," Sheppard told her, smiling his best smile at her. She swayed just an inch closer as they walked and smiled back, a wicked glint in her eyes.

McKay mumbled, "I heard that," but his two blondes were back and insisting on holding his hands as they walked on either side of him. Sheppard thought their names were Lamitenni and Rayellodi.  He was pretty sure they were going to eat McKay alive.  He was pretty sure McKay wasn't going to mind.

Milladuafanna reached over and took Sheppard's hand off his P90 and held it. He raised his eyebrows. She squeezed his fingers.

"You don't believe in wasting any time, do you?"

"Our people know the Wraith, too. But we are not fighters. We live and play while we can, Major Sheppard," she said quietly.

It wasn't Sheppard's way, but he understood. He tightened his hand around hers. Eat, drink and be merry, right?

"I have never had this fruit before," Teyla said as they arrived in the orchard. She picked a plump, pink globe off the ground where it had fallen. It looked a little like a neon-colored peach, with just a hint of fuzz and a suggestive cleft.

"It was always the men of Athos who came to us for the veena fruit," Milladuafanna said. She pulled another ripe fruit from the tree and offered it to Sheppard. He accepted it, but set it into a basket rather than taking a bite. Milladuafanna just plucked another veena and bit into it. The flesh was wet and red and juice ran down her chin. She wiped it off with a finger and traced it onto Sheppard's lips, very delicately along the edges, watching him with another smile, until he licked automatically, just catching the pad of her fingertip with his tongue.

Sweet juice, warm finger, cool air on his lips.  He blinked slowly and smiled back at her.

Carpe diem.  

"Ahem!"

McKay.  Sheppard resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  Couldn't the man shut up for a while?  Porn wasn't nearly as satisfying as the real thing.  

"Major."

"Get to work, McKay," he growled.

Sheppard dipped his head closer to Milladuafanna, maintaining eye contact.  He liked her, maybe not in the 'wanted to spend the rest of his life hitched to her' way, but he liked her and she was sending out all the right signals.  She offered him a veena again and he bit into it, imagining he could taste where her lips had been.

 "I choose you, Major Sheppard."

"John," he told her.

She rested her finger on his lower lip.  "Dua. Choose me.  Just for today."

McKay cleared his throat loudly.  Again.  "I didn't come to the Pegasus galaxy to make like a farm worker, so if I'm doing picking fruit, Major, so are you."

Damn it.  

He shrugged and smiled boyishly at Milladuafanna.  "Gotta get to work."

"Later," she said.

"Just for today?" Sheppard murmured.

Milladuafanna nodded.  

McKay and Ford were both watching. So were Lamitenni and Rayellodi and Caramel Guy, as though whatever Sheppard decided would set the tone for what they would do. Sheppard took the veena from Milladuafanna and took another bite. Everyone relaxed.

Teyla raised her eyebrows at him, but smiled. He shrugged at her. "Tastes good.  Really, it does."

"Seriously?" McKay asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, finally.  It's about time we found something in this galaxy that tastes good."

Sheppard shook his head and went to work gathering fruit into the baskets they'd brought along with the cart, watching from the corner of his eye as McKay accepted a veena from Lamitenni and actually closed his eyes in bliss over the taste.

"These are really great," was Ford's judgment.

That left Teyla.

She considered the veena she held and then took a bite. A wide smile broke over her face.

After that, Sheppard busied himself harvesting more fruit, though he did notice Teyla eating several more veena. She seemed to favor the ripest ones that had fallen to the ground.  Milladuafanna worked next to him, stretching to reach the highest fruit, brushing against him, leaning, smiling at him from the corner of her eye the whole time.  "If you lift me, I can reach the fruit higher in the tree," she teased and Sheppard found himself with his hands locked onto a small waist and the smooth swell of a woman's hips for the first time in much, much too long.  She was tiny and easy to lift and he had to smother a groan at the way it felt to hold her.

After an hour or so of picking, they had the Obordge's cart filled with baskets of fruit from the trees that drooped with the heavy crop dependent from their limbs. Ford kept teasing McKay about his new 'girlfriend'. Sheppard chose the better part of valor, shut his mouth and concentrated on flirting with the lovely Milladuafanna. Acting dumb wasn't the same as being dumb and he had a healthy respect for McKay's grudge holding abilities. Sooner or later, Ford would pay and no one would ever be able to prove McKay had been behind it. McKay would smile smugly and everyone would once again cringe before his scientific might and that big, belligerent brain..

He was watching for it and Sheppard was still never quite sure how McKay achieved the first part of his maneuver. The first he knew was a loud curse from Ford as the young lieutenant tripped on something and fell face first into a steaming lake of Obordge manure. Ford slipped twice trying to lever himself up, liberally coating himself from the top of his head to his boots in the viscous, neon-pink colored sludge.

It could have been worse. Obordge manure didn't smell anything like what came out of a camel or a water buffalo, for instance. It didn't smell like anything on Earth, in fact. Instead, it smelled like flowers. Lilacs, but incredibly, offensively strong ones, Sheppard thought. Pretty much like what his grandfather, the first colonel, would have characterized as 'just like a French bordello'.

That made him snicker to himself, earning him a wounded look from Ford and a victory grin from McKay. Since Ford was his subordinate and McKay was McKay, Sheppard decided to remove himself from the field of battle. Ford was finally staggering to his feet anyway, futilely swiping at the slime covering him everywhere.

McKay sniffed. "New aftershave, Lieutenant?"

Ford glared.

"Pink suits you."

Ford growled.

Milladuafanna giggled and tugged at Sheppard's arm.

McKay beamed at his blondes. "Come along, my dears. And watch where you step."

Ford's hands clenched and he took one step toward McKay.

"Ford," Sheppard said. Ford stopped. "Good boy."

"Sir," Ford appealed.

"Sorry, Lieutenant, you know the only one who gets to shoot him is me."

"I don't want to shoot him, Sir. Just beat the snot out of him."

"Can't let you do that."

Ford sighed. "Yes, Sir." He looked pitiful.

"Go get cleaned up."  Sheppard didn't add 'If you can'.

Ford nodded and trudged off.  

Sheppard glanced around and realized McKay and his blondes had disappeared, though he could still hear high pitched giggles and McKay's voice. "Hey, hey, watch the ribs, I'm ticklish—"

Milladuafanna tugged his arm again.  "I know a quiet spot," she promised, "where no one will bother us."

Sheppard wondered if he wasn't going to regret this.  At least O'Neill had been serious about not knocking anyone up. Everyone who went through the Stargate had a condom in their pack. What the hell. The cart was full of veena, McKay was going to be insufferable and Teyla ... He looked around and spotted Teyla lying in the shade. She was juggling veena and giggling to herself.  He frowned.  He'd never seen it before, but he'd swear Teyla looked drunk.

He asked Milladuafanna, "The veena, does it ever get people ..."

"Drunk?" she finished for him.  She nodded.  "That's why we feed the windfall fruits to the Obordge.  It keeps them docile."

"Hunh. I wonder if that would work on McKay?"

Milladuafanna gave him a strange look.

"Right.  Probably not." McKay was a lot tougher and nastier than any old Obordge.

He looked back at Teyla.  She'd dropped her veenas and gone to sleep.  

"She will be all right," Milladuafanna promised.  She placed her hands on his shoulder and tipped her pretty face up to him.  Her lips were stained dark from the veena.  They were just parted.  Sheppard took the hint and kissed her.  Really, he wasn't a genius like McKay, but he wasn't stupid.

Writing up this mission was going to be challenging:  Teyla got drunk, McKay and I got laid, and Ford got coated in pink poop. He was going to have to do some editing or Elizabeth would have his head.  Milladuafanna slipped her hand inside his shirt and Sheppard decided it would be worth it.

"Let's go."

Meep!

1734 Atlantis Military Time

Walking back through the gate with that 'just fucked' look probably wasn't the brightest thing he and McKay had ever done, but Sheppard figured between Ford being pink and flowery and Teyla deciding to serenade them between soppy declarations that she loved them, they might get away with it.  He was pretty sure that his T-shirt was on inside out and McKay had grass in his hair, but if they just kept up a good front ...

"Sir?" Ford said as McKay leaned against the DHD with one hand and activated symbols with the other.  

"Ford," Sheppard said, bracing himself against Teyla's nearly limp weight.  She was singing something Athosian that he couldn't understand, between hiccups and giggles, but it sounded raunchy.  

Ford gestured at his pink stained fatigues.  "Could you not mention what this is?  Maybe?"

"Why, lieutenant, the major could do that," McKay declared happily as the wormhole formed with a comforting kawoosh. He grinned in high good humor and Sheppard nearly recoiled. Even getting laid didn't make McKay forget a grudge. He filed that away.  It did calm down the jittery hand waving.  He'd never seen McKay look quite so relaxed and graceful. "If it wouldn't contradict my own version of events."

Oh, that glitter in those bright blue eyes was bad. Sheppard grabbed Teyla's belt as she started to slide down and thanked a variety of deities he wasn't Ford.

Ford was getting the idea.  "Okay, okay.  What do I have to do, McKay?"

"I haven't decided yet, Lieutenant, but when I do... you will do exactly what I tell you to.  The major is our witness.   A little respect to begin with wouldn't hurt."

Sheppard grimaced.  "Sorry, Ford."

Ford was tough; he was a Marine.  He'd probably survive whatever McKay had in mind. Sheppard had long since figured out his own priorities and not pissing off McKay too much was right up there with getting rid of the Wraith and getting back to Earth.  It actually came in ahead of getting back to Earth, since if they didn't, he had to live in the same city with McKay. Not that he hadn't done his part to make McKay miserable sometimes. After all, what were friends for?  But he didn't want to get on any of the science team's bad sides.  They were an imaginative and vindictive bunch and McKay wasn't their king because they loved him.

"Yes, Sir," Ford acknowledged stoically.

Sheppard opened radio communications.  "Atlantis, this Sheppard."

Peter Grodin's calm, always cool voice answered immediately.

"Go ahead, Major."

"We've got a cartload of fruit and an invitation to send through as many folks as we want to harvest more.  The Veneanans had a bumper crop this year and are delighted to share.  They like company."  Well, that was one way of putting it.  

"Sounds good." Grodin suddenly paused and an odd sound like 'meepmeepmeep' filtered through Sheppard's earpiece.  Then Grodin was back, his voice over-riding the other sound.  Someone had begun yelling. "No problems?"

"Not really," he hedged.  "We're going to push the cart through to the gate room, then gate it back here once we've unloaded it."

"That's good.  All right, Major.  Just brace yourselves.  Sgt. Bates' team brought back some things that are supposed to be like chicken apparently.  Some of them have escaped the cages and—-what?  Duck?  Somebody do something about—No, no,  my God, put the gun down—"

>Sheppard held his breath but didn't hear any gunshots.

"Peter?"

"Just come home, Major," Grodin said wearily. "It's just another day in Atlantis."

"Right."

He looked at McKay and Ford.  "Ready?"

McKay rolled his eyes.  "Let's just do this."

Ford nodded.

Teyla giggled.

"Okay, Teyla," Sheppard said,  "Upsy-daisy."  He took hold of her waist and boosted her onto the precarious seat at the front of the cart.  "Just stay there."

"You could come up, too," Teyla said.  

"I could, but I don't think Ford and McKay would thank me."

"Tell you what, Teyla, you can steer," Ford said.

"Steer what?" McKay asked.

"Forward!"

Teyla lifted her arm imperiously, then swayed alarmingly, before grabbing onto the edge of the seat with both hands. Her eyes were wide. Sheppard thought she was starting to look a little green around the mouth.  Time to get home. He was all about being a good team leader, but he really hoped he didn't end up holding her hair out of her face while she emptied her stomach. He had a touchy stomach himself and tended to suffer sympathy gagging. Which would just be ammo in McKay's hands.

The three of them put their shoulders to it and pushed the cart through the wormhole, almost falling on their faces as it finally rolled out onto the gate room floor.

Teyla waved at everyone happily.  "Wheee!"

"Oh, God, I think I pulled something," McKay said.

Something blue and furry flew straight at them.  Like the hardened, combat experienced gate travelers they were, Sheppard and McKay dived under the cart.  McKay shrieked like a girl, but the sound was lost in the flutter of furry wings and the chorus of Meep meep meep meep meep meep filling the gate room.  Teyla screamed too and leaped off the cart onto Ford, sending them both to the floor.

Sheppard got his back to one of the cart's wheels and fingered his P90, while McKay yelled, "Bats! Bats! Giant blue bats! Bats! Get'em away from me!"

"Jesus, McKay, get hold of yourself, this isn't fear and loathing in Atlantis."

Meanwhile, the furry, blue things swooped and fluttered everywhere, uttering their nearly ultrasonic meeps.

"I hate you," McKay said flatly.

Ford was still trying to untangle himself from Teyla, who was hugging him and declaring, "I love you, Aiden.  I love you and the major and Doctor McKay and everyone.  I really, really love you all.  I do.  You are all so silly."

Sheppard blinked at that and shared a glance with McKay. 'Silly?' he mouthed.  McKay smiled like a shark and pointed at his hair.  Sheppard narrowed his eyes.  "Fine, stay here," he said, then crawled out from under the cart and stood up, though he immediately had to duck another dive bombing Meep.

A plop of something that distinctly didn't smell like flowers hit the floor by his boot and bubbled.  

"Jesus, what the hell are those things?" Sheppard yelled.

Everyone but the meeps froze for a second. Bates gave him a wall-eyed look from where he was crouched on the floor, wrestling one of the things into a rattan cage.

"Flying platypuses?" McKay offered as he peeked out.

"Meeps?" Stackhouse called from the shelter of a computer console. Sheppard always had thought Stackhouse had more brains than he let on.

Meep meep meep meep the blue things called.

He caught Elizabeth's eye through the glass of her office. She looked nonplussed. Sheppard had the feeling that his team's lack of involvement in this 'Meep' incident and successful acquisition of fresh fruit and a new trading partner had utterly surprised her.

"Well, somebody catch them," he said tiredly. "And then someone can get the fruit down to the mess hall, too."

He headed for the transporters.

"I need a shower."

Teyla had rolled onto her back and begun singing again.

"Sir?" Ford called out.

"Yes, Ford, for all our sakes, take a shower, too. But first get Teyla back to her quarters."

It was kind of nice the way the doors swept open for him without being touched, he thought.

"Wait for me!" McKay yelled.

He scuttled in while waving his hands over his head wildly.  

"Thanks."

"No problem, Rodney."

The doors slid shut just as something blue hit them with a distinct thud.

McKay looked at Sheppard and said, "Meep."

Pie-Eyed

2000 Atlantis Military Time

Everybody loved pie.

Everybody loved pie made with veena fruit, apparently. Or so it seemed to Sheppard, as he and McKay edged into the mess after sneaking what they thought was the last basket of veena fruit down to Zelenka's new distillery. The music blasting from Corrigan's karaoke machine was their first clue something was ... different. One of the engineers had wired it into the citywide speaker system and the sound was everywhere.

Different. Yes. Someone was singing, creditably in fact, but Sheppard still shuddered and didn't duck away when McKay took one look, totally stepped into Sheppard's space and whimpered, "I'm frightened. Hold me."

"Bite me."

"Another time, Major. Oh God. That's Elizabeth."

It was Elizabeth. She was standing on one of the tables. Crooning. Sheppard was pretty sure he couldn't have been more frightened if it had been a Wraith-queen doing a striptease. Maybe. Hell, it was a toss up.

Elizabeth did a snaky move and sang a sultry, "Nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you try ..." She waved at them and smiled.

They waved back nervously.

Really delicious smells were coming from the warming tables.

"It's so unfair," McKay whined.

"What?"

"It smells so good and we don't dare eat any of it and I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"Your point?"

Sheppard shrugged.

"It's got to be the pie, right? The rest of the food should be safe enough..." He trailed off as he spotted Bates, passed out face down on one of the tables, his BDUs around his ankles, red polka-dotted boxers thankfully still in place.

"Gah," McKay exclaimed incoherently. "My eyes, my eyes."

Sheppard manfully resisted the urge to turn and run. He was really hungry. Milladuafanna had been...energetic.

Sheppard didn't let himself look again and said, "Bread, maybe..."

"Are you ready to gamble on that?" McKay asked.

"I'm hungry."

"And you think I have a food fixation."

Sheppard just kept making his cautious way into the mess. His hand hovered over his sidearm, just in case. McKay was plastered so close behind him someone was going to think they were dating.

It got worse as he kept seeing new, frightening developments. Simpson, Biro and Zelenka were playing cards with some of the Marines. They appeared to be using items of clothing as money. Stackhouse and Simpson were both shirtless. A black lace bra was the current ante. He so didn't want to know what Stackhouse meant to use to raise and call.

Zelenka looked up from his cards and smiled like the minion of evil he clearly was. "Join us, Major?"

"No, don't think so," Sheppard said. He waved at the warming tables. "Just here to get something to eat."

Elizabeth segued into a Cole Porter tune. She really wasn't half bad.

"Somehow, I know this is all your fault," McKay muttered from behind Sheppard.

"You better be talking about Zelenka."

"Of course, I'm talking about Zelenka. Though with your record and Kirk-like tendencies, I can see that you might naturally automatically feel guilty—"

"What have I said about the Kirk jokes, Rodney?" Sheppard growled. "It's not like I didn't see you sneak off with those two blondes today."

"Oh, yes." He could hear the fatuous smile on McKay's face at the memory.

"Blondes?" Zelenka asked.

Sheppard shot him a suspicious look. Zelenka seemed, what was the word, soberer than anyone else in the mess. Suspiciously so. McKay was right. This had to be Zelenka's fault. Somehow. He sure wasn't letting Elizabeth think it was his, whenever she sobered up.

"Never mind," Sheppard said repressively.

He sidled past the poker table and picked up a tray. This was probably a terrible, terrible mistake, but his stomach was growling fiercely, and McKay's was practically yodeling. Food was an imperative. He was pretty sure McKay wasn't a cannibal, but pretty sure wasn't good enough.

A close examination of the offerings led to choosing the chicken-ish looking—Meeps—stuff, some mashed tuber things—purple again—and bread. He passed on the sauted mushrooms, even if the Athosians had raved over them, the fish, and the pie. The pie did get a wistful look until McKay rapped the back of his hand with a spoon.

"No pie, Major, unless you want end up like him."

Sheppard followed McKay's nod and spotted Kavanagh standing in a corner in earnest conversation with thin air. He kept nodding and gesturing. His bright orange-dyed hair had come out of the ubiquitous ponytail and flew around his face.

"God, no," Sheppard mumbled.

McKay followed him with a similarly loaded tray to a table in a dim corner, where they could eat with their backs to the wall and a wary eye on the other people in the mess.

Heightmeyer appeared to be doing the Charleston, Miko was waltzing with Markham, and Gudrun was stalking the room in a distinctly predatory fashion. Sheppard's bite of fricasseed Meep lodged in his throat when her bright, dilated blue eyes settled on him. She headed straight for them, followed by Heightmeyer.

"Rodney?" Sheppard whispered, while sliding his chair back from the table.

McKay looked up from shoveling his food in his face as fast as possible. His blue eyes widened. "Grrk."

"I think I'm done, how about you?"

McKay's fork rattled down on his half empty tray. He nodded emphatically. Sheppard could see white all around his irises, like a spooked horse.

"Get ready to run," Sheppard told him out of the side of his mouth.

McKay swallowed hard.

"Right in front of you, Major."

Sheppard snorted back laughter. Gudrun was taller than him and Heightmeyer was a shrink. This was every man for himself and his legs were longer than McKay's.

"Major Sheppard, Doctor McKay," Gudrun growled in a throaty voice that promised lots of rolling around on polar bear rugs and probably fingernail gouges. "I wish to discuss—"

"Got to go," McKay blurted out.

Sheppard shot to his feet. "Sorry, important military stuff to see to, got to run," he said fast and dodged her hand. McKay, the sneak, was already half way to the mess door and leaving smoking rubber tracks behind him.

Sheppard slid out from under Gudrun's grasp with a move he'd perfected against the Wraith and beat feet after his gutless scientific team-mate.

Elizabeth was still singing.

Out into the corridor and the two of them barreled around a corner and into Ford, sending the lieutenant to the floor, and just barely saving themselves from a similar fate.

After looking over their shoulders to make sure they hadn't been pursued, they helped Ford to his feet.

"Sir? Are you and Doctor McKay feeling all right?" he asked them.

"Fine, fine, why wouldn't we be? Just fine," McKay said immediately. "Right, Major?"

Sheppard was still watching their six and answered absently. "I'm going to have flashbacks. The worst thing is, I'll be expected to go to Heightmeyer and how can you take your shrink seriously when you've seen her switching her hands over her knees?"

"Sir, maybe you ought to go to the infirmary," Ford said gently.

He started to take Sheppard's arm, preparatory to steering him toward Beckett's domain. Sheppard grabbed his hand and lifted it away. "Don't make me break it," he said. "We're not crazy, we're just traumatized."

"Nobody should ever see Sgt. Bates' boxers," McKay added. Then he sniffed.

"What?" Sheppard snapped. "I do not still smell like fish!"

"No, but the lieutenant still smells very ... floral."

"Man, I took two showers!" Ford exclaimed. He held his arm to his nose and inhaled. "Do I really?" He appealed to Sheppard.

Sheppard took a deep breath and nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, you do, Ford. Just a little. Just don't tell anyone what it really is and everything'll be fine. It's not like anyone in the mess is in any state to notice."

"Okay, you two are scaring me now."

Sheppard rubbed the back of his neck. "Just...stay away from the pie and Gudrun and Zelenka's poker game and you'll be okay, Ford."

"Sure, Sir. Whatever you say." Ford looked suspicious. "Say, maybe you can get Teyla to come out of her room. I couldn't. She's still pretty bugged—"

"Don't say 'bugged'," Sheppard muttered.

"—about this afternoon. She yelled something about making a fool of herself through the door."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Ford shrugged. "Yeah."

"She should take a look at everyone in the mess hall," McKay said.

"You know, Rodney," Sheppard said, grinning at him, "sometimes I really do think you're a genius."

"Of course, I am." McKay preened for a moment, then frowned. "Only sometimes?"

Doctor My Eyes

2041 Atlantis Military Time

"We should really—"

"Because Carson will—"

"So infirmary first, then—"

"Teyla's room, right," Sheppard agreed. They took the first transporter and McKay activated it, touching their destination on the screen when it slid open and displayed a schematic of the city.

"We should really be careful, though," Sheppard added as they approached the infirmary's doors.

McKay paused. "Why?"

"This morning?" Sheppard hinted. "Throwing him to the wolves. You know, Nurse Ratchet."

"Hmn."

Suddenly, Sheppard found himself striding in front of McKay.

"Coward," he muttered.

"Proud and alive because of it," McKay replied.

Sheppard shook his head, sucked in a deep breath and thought the doors to the infirmary open. He stepped inside cautiously. Infirmaries were notoriously hard spots to escape. The best escape routes were often guarded by imposing male nurses. He was pretty sure that the largest and most imposing of them all, Ivan the Terrible, had a thing for him.

The infirmary seemed empty beyond a light shining from inside Beckett's office.

Squaring his shoulders, Sheppard went in.

Carson was at his desk, a laptop open but pushed slightly to the side. A tray of food, including a partially demolished slice of pie, sat before him. A piece balanced on the fork frozen halfway to his mouth. "Major Sheppard, what can I do for you?" His pale eyes strayed past Sheppard's shoulder. "And you, Rodney?"

"Oh, uhm, well..."

Sheppard stared at the pie. McKay babbled. With a sigh, Sheppard turned and slapped his hand over McKay's mouth. "He means we came to apologize for the incident in the lab," he said. He glared meaningfully at McKay. "Isn't that right, Rodney?"

McKay blinked and nodded. "Mmmphmm."

Sheppard pulled his hand away.

"Very, very sorry, Carson. Sleep deprivation, you know. No excuse for being rude, of course, but you know how much of a bastard I can be."

Beckett waved the forkful of pie. "Yes, yes, very well, Rodney. You're forgiven. You too, Major."

"Great," Sheppard said and began backing away.

"Have you had any of this pie Pettiwitz made from that fruit you brought back today?" Beckett asked. He slipped the fork into his mouth and closed his eyes in almost pornographic enjoyment. Once he had swallowed he added, "Racheed brought me a slice to eat while I finish my reports for Dr. Weir's briefing tomorrow."

"Oh."

Beckett contemplated the small portion of pie left. "The mushrooms weren't bad either, but the pie...even my mother doesn't make a pie that tastes like this. I think I'll head for the mess and see if there's any more."

"Well, maybe we'll see you there," Sheppard said.

"Right, just carry on, enjoy the pie," McKay added.

They fled.

Cinnamon Girl

2055 Atlantis Military Time

"Teyla, Teyla, Teyla," McKay repeated, shaking his head all the while.

Sheppard considered hitting him if he said her name one more time. He wondered even more why Teyla didn't hit him.

"Teyla—"

"McKay."

McKay shut up and Sheppard stopped walking. He looked at the wall water conduit and considered the possibilities. He had maybe suddenly gone completely deaf, his ear drums burnt out and given up after too much McKay exposure. Or McKay had just died. His heart rate sped up because that actually sounded slightly more likely than the last possibility, that McKay had actually shut up.

"Major, are you coming or are you going to stare at the pretty bubbles the rest of the night?" McKay asked impatiently.

McKay or pretty bubbles.

Decisions, decisions.

But that pretty much put paid to the first two possibilities, didn't it? So reality was bending at the waist again. Maybe veena fruit pie could effect you just from close proximity?

"Major?" Teyla asked.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he said.

"Well, just wait one minute and look over, ah, there," McKay said.

Sheppard turned around and followed McKay's pointing finger to one of the alcoves that occurred randomly along the city halls. Two figures were entwined on one of the low couches. The light was low, but he could see scientist blue and command red and dark hair that looked a lot like E—

Teyla jerked him down the hall by his jacket collar.

"Come along, Major."

"Was that Grodin?" he asked McKay.

"Hair was too long."

"Never mind, Major," Teyla interrupted.

Sheppard sped his steps and detached Teyla's fingers from his jacket. He had a feeling he was lucky she hadn't grabbed his ear and dragged him along like a nun with a misbehaving student. Being taller probably helped.

"It could have been Peter," McKay muttered. "Looked like El—"

"Now you must tell me why you think there is something wrong in the mess hall—" Teyla interrupted again before stopping. They'd reached the mess and the doors had opened, letting out a wave of sound. Her mouth dropped open.

Cautiously, remembering Gudrun, Sheppard and McKay peered over her shoulders.

The mess was packed tighter than before, a mixture of scientists and marines, most of them stripped to their undershirts, if not their underwear. Most of them dancing. Or necking. Or both at the same time and in a fascinating variety of pairings. Sheppard felt his eyes going round.

Stackhouse and Markham?

"Don't ask, don't tell, don't look," he muttered. Not that he hadn't had his suspicions, but they'd been discreet before. It was all okay, though, because O'Neill had briefed Sheppard on the special SGC amendments to DADT. Nothing anyone did to anyone counted as a breach of military protocol if they were under the influence of aliens, sex pollen, marooned on another planet, living in another galaxy, drugged, hypnotized, possessed, stressed, suffering from amnesia, being threatened with death or one or both parties had recently died and just been resurrected. Also, all sorts of incorporeal glowy alien energy squid sex didn't count. O'Neill's last words had been, "Remember, your scientist is your best friend, no matter what happens, and try not to knock anyone up."
At the time, he'd thought the general was either a few fruit loops short of a box or kidding him. Now he knew better.

"I could have lived without seeing that," McKay commented.

"What?"

"Carson."

Sheppard looked and shuddered. Carson was stripped to his skivvies, dancing in place and playing DJ with Corrigan's karaoke machine. His hair stuck out in horizontal tufts over his ears and Nurse Ratchet was twisting her fingers through it.

"What has happened to everybody?" Teyla asked quietly.

Somehow, her voice carried through the small vale of silence between songs. Carson looked up and spotted the three of them. He grinned widely.

"TEYLA!"

Sheppard and McKay twitched because he'd shouted into the microphone in his hand.

"Dr. Beckett?" she murmured, still looking wide-eyed and shocked.

"This next song is dedicated to the gorgeous Teyla Emmagen," Beckett announced. Then he began to sing.

"Van Morrison?" Sheppard asked McKay.

McKay shrugged. "Who knew?"

"Could be worse."

They listened for a moment. The brogue did strange things to 'Brown-Eyed Girl'.

Sheppard looked at the crowd, sighed and decided the hell with it. Elizabeth was going to ream him and McKay royally come morning. He'd at least like to get some fun out of it.  Well, some more fun, because Milladuafanna had definitely been the highlight of this day.

"Rodney? Want a piece of pie?"

"Are you whacked?"

"Not yet, but I'm working on it."

Ford waltzed up and grabbed Teyla's arm. "Hey, great, you got her here!" His eyes looked a little too bright. "Come on, Teyla, let's show these people how to really dance."

"Ford, I told you not to eat any pie."

Ford looked at him innocently. "I didn't, Sir. Just some Meep and those fantastic mushrooms."

Teyla let him drag her away with a single, startled glance back at Sheppard and McKay. Sheppard just smiled at her and thought mushrooms?

Mushrooms?

Then McKay distracted him.

"You're not really going to eat any of that pie, are you?" McKay asked. "Who knows what effect it might have, particularly with your ATA gene. You could have the entire city in seizures."

"You really know how to wreck a mood, don't you?" He sighed. "If we don't partake, someone is going wonder if we didn't know about the effects."

"I'd love a piece of pie. Or two."

"I thought so."

As they made their way through the crowd, they noticed Kavanagh curled up on the floor in his corner. Someone had added green stripes to his hair and drawn a happy face on his shirt.

"If only he would stay like that," McKay commented.

"Orange and green?"

"Unconscious."

Sheppard snorted and then laughed under his breath as they observed Zelenka crawl over on his hands and knees, whip a Sharpie out of his pants' pocket and draw a perfect Snidely Whiplash mustache on Kavanagh's upper lip.

"Blackmail material, blackmail material," McKay said happily.

"That is perfect," Sheppard agreed.

Zelenka then crawled through the forest of legs until reaching them. He blinked up at them through his glasses and smiled.

"You've gotten very tall, Rodney." McKay reached down and pulled Zelenka to his feet. Zelenka giggled and muttered in Czech. "Ah, now I am tall too." He looked around. "Everybody is tall."

"He's going to be utterly useless in the lab tomorrow," McKay informed Sheppard.

Ford had taken the stage, which consisted of two tables shoved together. He began singing 'Cinnamon Girl'. Teyla was staring at him, looking mortified and flushed. There was a slight smile tugging at her mouth, however. Sheppard figured she wouldn't be feeling too embarrassed in front of everybody come morning. Not after seeing the Atlantis crew fried on pie.

When he finished, Ford zeroed in on McKay and Sheppard.

"Major! Doctor McKay! You've got to sing, too."

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no," McKay muttered.

Sheppard thought about it for a minute, had an evil brainstorm, and slung his arm around McKay's neck. "Come on. I know just the song."

"I'm so making you pay for this. Some how, some day, Major, you will pay," McKay promised as Sheppard led him to the karaoke machine and checked to see if the song he was wanted was available.

"Oh, yeah," he said as he found it. "This is going to be good."

"Oh, no," McKay said.

Sheppard vaulted onto the table, pulled McKay up by main force—with Ford's help—took the microphone and grinned at Teyla.

"Are you drunk, Major?" she asked.

He justed smiled and shook his head as Clapton's guitar kicked in. McKay gaped at him for a second, muttered, "You're twisted, Major," and began a mock back-up singer's dance that Ford joined in, too.

Sheppard began singing, barely hitting the notes because he wanted to laugh so bad. It wasn't hard to switch the song around, though. All he had to do was change the name as he sang.

And the crowd went wild, well everyone who hadn't already passed out.

"Teyla, you've got me on my knees..."

Dead Men Talking

0327 Atlantis Military Time

"That's the last of them," Sheppard said as they let Zelenka's door close behind them. It had taken hours, but they had safely delivered everyone from the mess hall to their quarters.

"Oh, thank God," McKay said, sinking down to the floor. The only thing holding him up was the wall. Bloodshot blue eyes glared at Sheppard, who was still humming and singing under his breath. "We're dead men, you know. When Elizabeth comes around and figures out about the veena fruit and Zelenka's still ..."

Sheppard propped himself against the wall, then slid down so that he was facing McKay over his knees. He nodded. "I know."

"What's your plan?"

"Why do I always have to have a plan?" Sheppard asked. He was afraid it sounded more like a whine. In fact, it sounded quite a bit like McKay.

"Because you're the ranking military officer on Atlantis and you always have a plan; they're just never any good."

"Thank you, Rodney, for that vote of confidence."

McKay waved his hand in dismissal. "It's not like anyone else ever thinks of anything."

Sheppard stared at the ceiling for a while. It looked exactly like the ceiling he'd been looking at this morning. Maybe he'd hit his head harder than he thought and the entire day had been a hallucination brought on by head trauma. If only he'd videotaped Beckett earlier, he could have blackmailed the doctor into backing him up.

"Well?" McKay demanded.

"We can take a puddlejumper and go on the lam now or we can hope the Wraith attack."

McKay closed his eyes.

"I'm too tired to go on the lam."

"Well, I guess the Wraith will have to save us."

"As long as you've got a plan," McKay muttered before slumping down further and falling abruptly asleep.

Sheppard decided McKay had the right idea, curled on his side, and went to sleep in the hallway to the always present lap of the waves Atlantis rode and McKay's quiet snores.

And, as it sometimes happens, the veena fruit was not at fault after all, for Beckett discovered the real culprit was the Athosians' mushrooms, and nothing was ever said about Zelenka's still.




8.8.05
Posted 8.11.05