Title: Mr. Fixit
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay

Summary: He can fix almost any machine, but people... He's never been able to fix people. But now he thinks he might have a way.
Disclaimers: I do not own the characters or the concepts of Stargate in any of its forms.
Warning: Vague references to Sunday and the majority of Season 4. Spoilers for Kindred Part 1 & 2.

*---*---*---*---*

He's always considered medicine to be voodoo; too many variables and systems interacting with each other, leading to the messiest kind of scientific experiments ever postulated so that on any two individuals the results of the same experiment can't be duplicated.

And now his best friend is dying for the second time, all because medicine is exactly what he's been calling it for his entire life; voodoo, magic, the farthest thing from science that it's almost *faith*.

He knows enough about faith to know that just believing that there is a cure doesn't necessarily mean there is one. Thank you, Schrödinger.

Medicine is perhaps the one science -- technically -- that, even if he had devoted his genius mind to it for all his life, he'd never understand it; like some people can't seem to understand mathematics.

That's not to say he doesn't know something about it; he's a genius after all, a person that can't help but know almost everything about almost everything. But what he knows is only enough to make him scared that anyone around him could just drop dead for what appears outwardly to be no reason, to think about all the various ugly, slow, painful ways he himself could die.

So even though he wants with all his being to *help* Carson, he doesn't have the knowledge and the understanding to be of any use.

He can fix almost any machine, but people... He's never been able to fix people.

Wait, wait! What had he just thought again?

Maybe... Maybe he *did* have a way, after all. A branch of Medicine that *was* actual science that he knew enough about to manipulate.

Hell, it worked once before. The circumstances were a bit different, but it could still *work*. He had the materials, he had the samples, and he had the research.

But the others, they hadn't liked it the last time, and he doubted they'd like it now. Maybe he shouldn't --

No. This was *Carson*, for all that the body was born two years ago.

He'd lost him once. He wasn't going to lose him again.

He'd ask for their forgiveness later.

*---*---*---*

It's not until his head tips back, lips parted, and the expected rush of black liquid heaven fails to engage his tongue that he blinks out of his fugue state and takes in the world outside of his data and research once more.

It takes his brain approximately 3.2 seconds to shift gears and state the reason for its interruption: He's out of coffee.

Oh, and John's sleeping across the lab bench from him, hunched with his head using the nest of his arms as a pillow.

While either state mutually exclusive of each other wouldn't normally influence him while working, combined they are apparently a deadly force that wrecks havoc on his subconscious.

Not to mention the guilt factor of being the reason John's going to have a stiff back for a few hours. Especially as he was fairly sure John had been expecting *Rodney* to be the one aching somewhere tomorrow -- oh, wait, computer says it's morning, so that's actually supposed to be today.

He sighs and with one last glance at his empty coffee mug, starts the process of saving and shutting down. Watches as the lines of programming white out from his screen, the blueprints for the tiniest machines ever built shrink and disappear.

He honestly wants to keep going; with all his other work and duties, he just doesn't get enough time to work on this project of his. While technically Carson has all the time in the world now -- ten million years, and isn't that a fun thought? -- he remembers how shaken Carson had been to all the changes that had happened in the two years the Doctor remembered as being captured. He doesn't want to leave Carson in there any longer than he absolutely has to.

But then, he also knows Carson won't begrudge him a few more days, if it means he's keeping himself and John healthy.

Flipping his laptop closed and rounding the table to wake John up with a kiss, he can't help but smile at all the healthy things he can think of the two of them getting up to back in his quarters.

John kisses him back, slow and languid while still on the verge of sleep. He makes a happy humming noise in the back of his throat, and incrementally shifts his weight backwards. Teases John into following the kiss upwards and off the stool.

When the kiss ends and John smiles that soft, warm smile of John's, the one reserved especially for him, he can't help but flash back to the last time he did this with Elizabeth, and how angry at him John had been. Wonders once again if he's doing the right thing.

Carson better not begrudge him these few extra days, especially as he gets the feeling he's going to end up in the proverbial dog house when John finds out what he's been doing so late in his lab since they put Carson in stasis.

But John will forgive him, eventually.

John always does.

--Fin.