Soft Sciences, Hard Choices

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: R
Warnings: bad language, m/m sex
Archived: Please ask first
Email: kungfunurse@visi.com

Author's note: Once again thanks for a lightning fast and meticulous beta by Arnie1967. If any of you are under the mistaken impression that I know what I'm doing, it's all because of her. *G*

This story is sort of a sequel, sort of a companion piece to Military Options. Enjoy!

*_*_*


"We can't go in there, Major!  Whatever is happening to them will happen to us.  We can't help them like that!"

"You are coming with me to turn off the machine. Are you with me, Rodney?  Rodney!"

"Yes," he gasped, like always, like it always happened, he nodded and followed John's slim, deadly silhouette into hell.  John, who never turned back, John, who just walked away from him and left him, stranded, flailing, helpless.  Alone. 

"You left me, oh god you left me, I trusted you and you left!" he screamed after the retreating form-

-and then bolted up in bed, sweating, shaking, muscles sore from fighting the demons in his head.

"Lights, please," he croaked, and squinted into the slowly brightening room.  He'd had his brand new, shiny ATA gene for almost 48 hours now, and he still had a hard time turning the damn lights on and off.  If he were forced to rate his gene's IQ based on the ability to operate complex equipment, well, his was going to need help to get past the Iowa Basics.

Maybe the Major's gene held special, late night tutoring sessions?  He managed a sour grin at that thought, struggled with the sweaty, twisted, gross sheets and staggered to the shower.  It was only four a.m., Earth time, but Rodney knew that the time for sleep was most definitely over.  Besides, time and genius waited for no man, and if they waited for any woman, only Sam Carter would know.

Or something.

He needed to get his head in the game, here.  Coffee, he needed coffee.  Moaning in agony at the dangerously low caffeine load circulating in his body, he slapped his hand against the shower wall.

And did it again.

"Water," he snapped waspishly, and he was certain the Major didn't have to talk to the appliances to make them work.  Rodney had spent an excruciating hour and a half working with Grodin to create a subroutine that would enable the non-gene bearing members of the expedition to access the facilities in their rooms, but he'd be damned if he was going to revert back to using it.

Even if it did work on the first time, every time. 

"Water, please," he snarled through clenched teeth, and Atlantis merrily rained perfectly warmed, scented, pleasantly invigorating water down on his head.  And he was nevertelling anyone, not even his long-dead grandmother, that he'd finally found someone who made him mind his manners.  If word got out he'd never get an ounce of respect, ever again.

*_*_*

Two hours later, Rodney was elbow deep in the electronics of Atlantis' biological waste recycling center, and he didn't care if the whole galaxy could hear him begging.  The Czech guy, Zelenka, lasted longer than any of the others, but even he staggered out half an hour ago, green and pasty and choking back this morning's breakfast.

Lightweights, he snorted, then oh god in heaven he wished he hadn't, because his nose hairs felt like they were curling up and dying in there.  What kind of sadistic, under-educated excuse for a village idiot set up a waste reclamation system without allowing for automated redundancies?

"Please," he whispered desperately, "please just activate the air filters and I promise I'll do anything you want."

Air whooshed around his head and for a second he thought it had actually worked, until he heard gagging behind him and realized it was just the door.

"Jesus Christ, Rodney, what the hell is going on down here?"

"Sheppard, thank god.  Think air!  Think crisp arctic breezes, think-"

"I'm thinking I'm going to hurl on your shoes!  Beckett sent me down here because half the science staff is throwing up in his infirmary.  How much longer until you get this fixed?"

"I would work much faster if there was at least as much oxygen as methane gas in the air for my brain to work with.  Think about the air filters!"

"Gaah, I can't, I can't think about anything except... oh god...."

Rodney grit his teeth and breathed shallowly.  He wouldn't lose it now, he wouldn't, sympathy heaves aside he was just not going to let this machine humiliate him any further.

"Get over here, Major," he snapped, and held out a tub of menthol to the crawling, pasty faced, sweaty man of his dreams.  Or well, he would be the man of his dreams if they could stop having life-threatening crises every ten minutes and Rodney could actually get some non-nightmare infested sleep.

Sheppard returned the menthol with a shaky hand, his warm bulk pressed up against Rodney's back.  "Beckett's?"

"Yeah.  He said he threw up for almost a week after he dissected his first alien in Antarctica.  Something about nonhuman-standard bacterial decay and-"

"Shit, Rodney, shut your goddamn mouth before I throw up again," Sheppard gasped weakly.  Rodney felt Sheppard's ribs heave once, again, against his back and then settle as he got control.

"Fine, I have two words for you.  Think about the fucking air filtration units!"

"Rodney, language!  Besides that was more than-"

"Please!" he begged, and fabulous, first Atlantis, that fickle laughing harlot, and now Sheppard.  Rodney could only hope that the deadly levels of stink in the room had shorted out the security feeds.

"Right, clean, fresh air.  Nice, warm smells.  Fresh laundry."

Rodney looked at his hands, all but paralyzed on the console, desperately waiting for the faintest breath of air.

"Major, nothing's happening."

"Really?  Maybe that's because all I can think about is how much I want to throw up again!"

"Say please," Rodney gasped, giving up on the console and turning around to bury his face in Sheppard's neck.

"Rodney, now's really not the time, and you're getting menthol all over my shirt."

"Major!  Say please, she likes that.  Honest, just ask her nicely for the love of god before I die of hyperputrescence!"

"I don't think that's actually a word - okay, okay!  It's all right, you don't have to take it that hard."

Rodney was <i>not</i> sobbing in frustration into his commander's very nice t-shirt.  He wasn't.  He was gasping.  Yes, gasping for any fresh air pockets that Sheppard might have hidden down his front.  He did it some more, just to make sure Sheppard wasn't holding out on him.

"Atlantis, this is John," he heard rumbling above his head.  And hey, Sheppard's voice was very nice and buzzy down here on his chest.  He worked a little snuggle in with all the gasping, just on general principles.

"My, um, Rodney, is trying really hard to help you out right now, and he'd, well, honestly we'd all like it if you could, um-"

"Air filters!"

"Right, could we please have the air filters back?  Pretty please?"

"Oh for, look, you're not trying to get her to take you on a date, it's just... oh."

Clean, ocean scented air blasted down on them like the breath of God, and Rodney moaned in relief, holding on tightly to Sheppard and tipping his face up to the sun as the domed roof spiraled open above them.

"Well, that was your problem," Sheppard murmured, his lips suspiciously close to Rodney's earlobe.  "No air filters."

"Yes, thank you, I got that."  And he was not, really not going to start feeling Sheppard up right here in the waste reclamation plant.  He wasn't.  Well, okay, his fingers might be running up and down John's back in a light, sort of suggestive manner, but that was just, well, friendly concern. 

"Rodney," Sheppard hummed, his lips just below Rodney's ear, the menthol on his upper lip leaving a deliciously cool streak against the sensitive skin.

"Hmm?"

"Weren't you, ah, doing something?  Before?"

"Oh, uh, yes.  I suppose, well."  He leaned back and realized he'd glommed onto Sheppard, had wrapped himself around the man like some crazed octopus.  "I just, I was thinking, we haven't even, er..."

"Major, this is Elizabeth.  How goes it down there?"

Rodney scrubbed his hands through his hair in frustration, and watched as Sheppard tapped his earpiece.  "Rodney assures me he can have the problem fixed in no time.  Half an hour, max."  He nodded hopefully to Rodney, who snorted disdainfully.  He'd have this thing doing the hula for him in the next ten minutes, now that his brain had some M-class atmosphere to breathe again.

"Good, glad to hear it.  We've got a lot of, um, desperate people up here if you know what I mean."

"Tell them to use a bucket, my men are not the housekeepers.  Rodney will have the septic system up and running shortly.  Sheppard out."

By this time Rodney was back to work, muttering under his breath, twisting wires and comparing schematics in his head.  If he took some of the energy from the non-functional (and completely useless, what were the Ancients thinking!) ocean temperature gauges and rerouted through the third and seventh electrical conduit relays from the nearest grounding station...

"Rodney!" Sheppard barked, and Rodney was belatedly aware this wasn't the first time he'd heard his name called.

"Hm?"

"I said I've got to go.  I've got a ton of stuff to do."

"Oh, yes.  Bye!" he waved brightly, more than half his mind still working on how to avoid overloading the surge protectors from the concentrated electrical feed.

"You haven't heard a word I said, have you?" and now Rodney froze, because this was how it always started.  He got distracted and tied up in his work and suddenly his relationships were going down in flames around him and he hadn't even heard the fire trucks and-

"Hey, hey, relax."  Warm hands soothed his tense shoulders from behind, and a soft, menthol-scented voice murmured in his ear.  "I'm not angry.  Hey, you knew that, right?"

"Oh.  Of course!  Honestly, you couldn't be breaking up with me.  Even I knew that, and any way it's not like we've even done anything that could be considered something to break up from and-"

John sighed, and Rodney found his back pulled against a firm, warm chest, strong arms wrapped around him, and he just gave up the pretense and let his head drop back on John's shoulder.

"I said, you dope, that I'd like to continue where we were going, with all the breathing and the touching, but I don't want our first kiss to taste like, well, you know."

And eww, good point.  "Yes, I'm thinking we could both do with a shower and a good tooth scrubbing before we go, ah, any further."

"Scrubbing?  You really are Canadian, aren't you?"

Rodney hoped the elbow in his ribs was sufficient to convince John not to disrespect his glorious Canadian heritage.

John dropped a kiss on the top of Rodney's head on the way out the door, and suddenly Rodney was in such a good mood that he almost didn't care that he was grimy, smelly, and still sitting on the floor of the most advanced septic system in two galaxies.

*_*_*

"Rodney... Rodney!  There is something I wish to discuss with you.  You are still alive under there, yes?"

Rodney snorted, jumped, and smacked his head on the underside of the new science lab's main computer bay. 

"What?  I'm awake, I was just, er, adjusting this power strip.  All better now."  He bounced up, rubbing his hands together briskly. 

"Sure, sure.  I know this old 'adjusting power strip' ploy.  Often I have used same strategy to survive nights when wife made staying at lab more pleasant than returning home."

"Zelim, Zelarmo?" Rodney asked weakly, snapping his fingers.

"Zelenka.  Is not difficult, even for Americans to say.  You may call me Radek, though, as there are two 'Czech guys' and Machajewski is not qualified to wash my dishes, let alone run the labs.

"I run the labs, thank you very much, and I am not American," Rodney snapped, booting up the nearest computer to run the power consumption numbers.  "Huh, we're coming in four percent under expected.  I wonder what's not running that should be?"

"Four percent is reasonable margin of error, and you are rude enough to be two Americans."

"That doesn't even make sense!  And besides, four percent could potentially be the difference between getting the shield up for just long enough to deflect a lethal attack or letting us all get blown to little bits!"

"Four percent is hardly enough to run coffee machine!  And I make sense, it is you who are senseless!"

"What are you on about?" Rodney snapped, still searching for the electronic culprit.  The problem was not in his equations, no way would he need a four percent margin of error on his worst day.

"I mean necking with Major Sheppard in full view of camera like teenager!  That is what I am 'on about'!"

Rodney was facing away from Radek and could feel his eyes bug out, a cold, desperate sweat all over his body.  "I have no idea what you're talking about," and his voice had never been so steely and merciless.  "You're a fool if you think I would ever-"

"You are fool!" Radek hissed, and barged in front of Rodney.  "Kavanagh has tape?  Yes?  He has already brought to the Major and Dr Weir.  Next he comes for you!  For your job, you see?"

"He can't, it won't change anything," Rodney said numbly, disasters spinning out in full detail in his mind.  "I haven't done anything wrong, he can't..."

"To you?  No.  But the Major?  You are man!  He is man!  Do you need a diagram?  Kavanagh will use this as lever!  He is smart man, he will take credit again and again for your work, soon you will be working for him!"

"Not so much, I'm thinking," drawled from behind them, and they spun to find Major Sheppard leaning against the doorframe, hip cocked and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. 

"Major, I, you um, probably shouldn't be here-"

"Relax, Rodney," and Rodney was not in the least fooled by that easy, nasal twang.  He could see in Sheppard's eyes the steel that lay underneath, and for a second he was afraid.  What kind of man was he getting involved with?

Sheppard smirked at the room at large, completely comfortable in his skin.  "Turns out that Grodin is a fair hand at hacking the security tapes, and not too bad at the old espionage thing.  Who knew that he had a past with MI-6?"

"You mean, you, we-" he just couldn't get the words out.  This frightening, deadly, beautiful man wanted him, wanted him, and Rodney was constantly this close to losing him.  How could this ever work?

"We're safe, Rodney."  Sheppard slouched his way across the lab and ended up with his hands on Rodney's shoulders, foreheads almost touching in an Athosian greeting.  "And even if we weren't, there's no way in this galaxy or any other that I'd let politicking slime like that get between us.  You read me, McKay?"

Rodney nodded.  Oh.  That's how it kept working. 

"Good," Sheppard smirked again, then threw a wink at Radek and slouched back towards the door.  "Cards in my room tonight?  2100 sound good?"

"I refuse to play anything with the word 'strip' in it," Rodney shot back, determined to get his verbal feet under him.  "I have a little more dignity than that."

"Don't worry, I'll still make it worth your while."  And with another smirk he was gone.

"You are sleeping with that?"

"Well, almost," Rodney breathed.  "Yeah."

"We have saying.  When sleeping with tigers, do not be surprised if you are scratched."

"You do not have that saying.  No one has that saying!  I swear you just make this stuff up to irritate me."

"Is true!"

"Oh shut up and help me track down whatever's not initializing."

"Is only four percent, Rodney!"

"It's an important four percent!  Focus!"

*_*_*

After narrowing the problem down to medical imaging scanners that were more efficient than anticipated (1.3 percent) and a military mindset that was big on turning off lights to save power (0.7 percent), Rodney was forced to call it a night.  Two percent margin of error was still grating, but not as heinous as an entire four. 

The Major would be expecting him in another hour, but before that Rodney needed some time to himself.  He absently went down the line at the mess, paying only enough attention to make sure nothing deadly got slopped on his tray. 

Sheppard.  His whole day had been about the man.  He was in his dreams, his nightmares, in every corner of his waking and sleeping world.  Maybe it was time to just give in and think about him.  Think about what the hell he was doing.

Did he want him?  First question, and yeah, maybe that was an obvious one, but assumptions made for crappy results.  So, did he want to be with John Sheppard?

Rodney thought back to his first impressions of the man, remembered how he looked in the Gate room of the SGC.  Sullen, antagonistic, with a feral look in his eyes that Rodney had seen before.  That was the look of genius that had never been nurtured, that had been beaten down and turned back in on itself, forced to grow in secret under all that hair.

Rodney had known a few men in his time (and for some reason, it was always men) whose genius had been forced to curl up inside their heads like a plant that never got to see the sun.  It made them crazy sometimes, unpredictable.  Dangerous.

Add that to Sheppard's military exposure and a career of violence and loss, and Rodney guessed Sheppard's genius probably looked a lot like some mutated alligator from a toxic waste dump, emerging only now, in Atlantis, as a terrifyingly unique and powerful creature.

Did he trust himself to get close to that?

On the other hand, how could he possibly keep away?  John burned like a supernova, luminous and able to outshine an entire galaxy.  And as if just existing, just being wasn't miracle enough, John got Rodney.  Understood him, kept pace with him, at times even took the most impossible jigsaw turns that made Rodney struggle to keep up with him.  How long had it been since he'd been with someone like that?  And had it ever been with someone who cared?  Who used that mind to amuse and delight Rodney, not to cut him down? 

Had there ever been anyone like John?

Ok, so.  Question one answered.  He definitely wanted him.

But what about Kavanagh?  Or others like him?  If he cared for John, and he had to admit that he really, really did, how could he justify getting involved like this? 

Oh, he knew that he was a self-centered, egotistical megalomaniac.  Him and everyone else who'd advanced to this level in his field.  But even he knew a little bit about basic human kindness, if only because he'd been shown so fucking little of it.  Could he do this to John?  To anyone he cared about?  How unfair was it that John could lose everything because of Rodney, and Rodney would continue on here at Atlantis, untouched.

Huh, untouched.

He turned that word over in his head, tasting it in his mouth, feeling the sharp edges and grimacing at the bitter stink.  Untouched.  No, he didn't think he want to be... no, he wanted... for John, he wanted...

Mind made up, he stood and strode towards the residential quarters, leaving his food behind him.

*_*_*

"Kavanagh!  I know you're in there, I've got the life-signs detector.  Open up!"

The door wheezed open and a tall, rumpled, and annoyed looking man scowled out from it.

"I'm fairly sure that use of Ancient technology to spy on private quarters is a violation of some sort," he said coolly, adjusting his lopsided ponytail.

"Oh give it up, Kavanagh," Rodney snapped, pushing past him into the room.  "You don't have a moral leg to stand on after the stunt you tried to pull today."

"Me?  What I did?  Oh, that's rich coming from the man who's maintaining his position as Chief Science Officer by sleeping his way to the top!"

Rodney gaped at him.  "Oh my god, are you actually this stupid?  How did you ever get cleared for this mission?  Elizabeth runs the expedition, not Sheppard-"

"And Dr Weir does whatever the Major tells her to do.  We've all seen the way she fawns after him.  She's too emotionally invested to make clear, logical decisions," Kavanagh said derisively.  "She's a liability to the mission."

"A what?  Are you out of your mind?  You must be, because it's either you or me, and I have more than enough of a mind left to know that you're insane.  Elizabeth, a liability?"

"See, you're doing it too.  Elizabeth.  Not Dr Weir, Elizabeth!  Radek, Carson, who else?  Who else is part of this little cabal of yours?"

"Kavanagh, you have seriously lost it.  But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about.  Besides which," he insisted, unable to leave it alone, "don't you think that we have enough problems with the Wraith to not go searching for monsters in our own closets?"

"And who woke them up?  Let me ask you that?  Who is responsible for putting us all in danger?  Your boyfriend, that's who.  With Dr Weir's full backing and cooperation he's endangered all of us-"

"Shut up, shut up, you just shut the hell up!" Rodney yelled, pushing himself up on his toes and into Kavanagh's face.  "Don't you ever imply that Sheppard intended to endanger us or-"

"The path to hell, Doctor McKay!" Kavanagh sneered.  "Honestly, I don't know why I'm bothering.  It's not like you can even hear me.  You're as lost as he is, as they all are."

Rodney backed up a step, then another.  There was something seriously... odd... going on here.  "Look, I came for one thing only.  Leave Major Sheppard alone.  I don't want to see you near him, I don't want to hear his name leave your mouth.  Nothing.  Zero contact, ever."

"Or what?  You can't touch me, McKay!  I'm just as smart, just as connected in all the right circles as you are.  More, really, since I didn't get sent to Siberia for pissing off a general.  No, no," Kavanagh, chuckled, "if there's even a hint of professional interference on your part towards me, I can make certain that you will never, ever get that Nobel Prize you're always whining about."

Rodney looked into Kavanagh's cold, sneering face, looked and for once in his life he understood.  He'd seen that face, or one very much like it, in a freezing cold room in a water-damaged part of this very city.  And he knew, with everything in him, what lay under it.

"Fine," he said.  His voice shook only the tiniest bit, and he prided himself that he could keep it so steady. 

"Fine, fine what?  You, wait.  You're not serious," and the face cracked just a bit, and Rodney had to look away from what he saw under it, because it was so close, so close to what he could've been before Atlantis. 

Before Sheppard.

"He's worth it," Rodney ground out, and he didn't know if he was talking to Kavanagh or himself, but it was still true.  In a lifetime of forcing unpleasant truths on people, this was maybe the truest thing he'd ever said.

"You don't, you can't... well fine!  Fine!  Throw your career away for him.  More for those of us who actually deserve the chance!"

"No, you don't get it," Rodney said flatly, turning to face him again.  "You touch him, you try to hurt him and I'll take you down.  I don't care what the cost is to myself, I will take you with me.  There will be no winners.  Mutually assured destruction.  I promise you."

He walked out, stopped, and walked back.  "And there's no way you're anywhere near as intelligent as me!"

Then he left Kavanagh staring and alone in his room, with his rumpled shirt and sideways ponytail.  Left him alone, as he'd probably always been alone, and went to find John.

*_*_*_*

Rodney breezed through John's door, unsurprised that John didn't even have to get off the bed to answer it. 

"Ready for cards?  I know poker, poker, and oh-"

"I just gave up the Nobel Prize."

John flipped the cards on the bed, polite interest shining from all over him.  If polite interest were a physical substance, it would be oozing down the bed and dripping on the floor.

"Really?"  One eyebrow went up.  Insane, or just drunk? it asked.

Rodney nodded frantically.  "Uh huh.  Gone.  Poof.  My genius will forever remain unrecognized."  And really, it was a crying shame, a loss to all of humanity.  They would never know how truly gifted they'd been to have him walk amongst them.  He pitied everyone he'd ever met, from his grade school piano teacher on up.  Truly.

"And what, was the, er, mechanism?  For, you know..."

"Giving up the only thing in the entire galaxy that would make my life have even a semblance of meaning?"

John nodded slowly.  "Yes.  That."

Rodney slumped against the far wall, the full magnitude of it all finally crashing down on him.  "You," he said weakly, "I did it for you."

"Oh no, no no no, c'mon Rodney, 'fess up.  What did you do..." and the teasing look slid off John's face, maybe to join the puddle of polite interest on the floor.  "Oh shit, you're serious! Rodney what did you do?"

"I just, it wasn't, it wasn't fair!" he flailed with his hands, trying to show the magnitude of unfairness.  "There you were, and I would have been, just, untouched by it all, and John, I wanted to be touched!  Do you understand, I just needed to be touched by it, by you, I just needed-"

And John, it seemed, did understand because then he was being touched.  John was stroking his hair, John's long lean form was pushing Rodney up against the wall, John's warm hands sliding up and down his sides.

"You idiot, this is about Kavanagh, isn't it?" John murmured, sliding his lips across Rodney's jaw, fitting his hips against Rodney's thigh.

"New rule," Rodney gasped, sliding his own hands across John's chest, breathing in his scent.  "Never, never say his name when I'm hard, again.  I swear it'll scar me for life.  You'll have to shut me in an attic and have the servants feed me by moonlight."

"Deal," John breathed, then brushed his lips over Rodney's, feather-light and teasing.  Rodney moved with the almost kiss, desperate for more. 

"I want, please John, I want-"

"Yeah, I know what you want," John whispered, then finally, finally pressed his lips to Rodney's, wet and soft and strong all at once.  Rodney curled his hand up behind John's neck, whimpering as John took him, took his mouth and poured himself into the kiss.

"Rodney?" John asked, and he realized that his face was wet with tears, and he shook his head and pushed John back to the bed. 

"Just touch me, please just don't stop," he begged, and John seemed to accept this because he skimmed Rodney's shirt off, then his own, and then they were tumbling on the bed, mouths hungry on each other, cards slippery and skittering every which way under them.   

Then, in absolute proof of his genius, John ground his hips down on Rodney, and he had to throw his head back and buck up against that delicious pressure. 

"God yes, John, oh please," and it was embarrassing how needy he sounded, but he didn't care, because yeah, oh, that felt good.  "Pants!" he suggested, and then decided fuck it, grabbed John's ass and ground them together again, because he needed to get inside, to get hot and sweaty and dirty, to be touched and moved and fucking disarranged by John.

"Fuck, Rodney, you say the best things," John moaned into his mouth, and Rodney realized that everything in his head was spilling out his mouth and he didn't care, didn't care because he needed to fuck John, fuck him now.

"Yeah, yeah, do it," John ground out, and then attacked his mouth again, nasty, open-mouthed kisses, grunting harsh and hot into him.  "Hold on, Rodney, let me get, oh fuck-" John gasped as Rodney sank his teeth into John's shoulder.  John moaned, his hips stuttering over Rodney's in agonized pleasure. 

"God, your mouth Rodney, don't stop, don't, don't - oh!" John groaned, deep and sweet as Rodney's hand finally made it down the back of his ass, hot and huge against his cheeks, blunt fingers grabbing and kneading, pressing him harder and harder.

John's hands were working their zippers, shaking, frantic, and then it was skin and skin and god it was so fucking sweet, hard, frantic dicks rubbing together, and they bucked and writhed and fucked against each other, so good, so, oh god, oh!

When Rodney finally came back to himself, he was sweaty, come smeared, smashed down into John's mattress and utterly wrecked.  Thank the fucking lord.

"You okay down there?" John asked weakly, butt muscles clenching randomly under his hands. 

"Not sure.  The initial data is pretty... pretty good.  But further study, you know."

John slid off to one side, leaned in and took Rodney's mouth with his own.  "Better stick around then," he murmured between kisses, "to validate the data.  You know, repeatability and all."

"God, you're sexy when you talk geek," Rodney growled, rolled them over and started exploring John with his hands, mouth, tongue.  He was going to do this all night, and the next night, and as long as he could possibly convince John to let him get away with it.

The rest of forever sounded like a pretty solid plan.

"Rodney," John gasped, already squirming under him.

"What?"

"Get the lights."

"You get them, it's your room."

"Yeah but you're... oh fuck, yeah... the one on top."

"Fine.  Lights out, please," he announced as the room obediently darkened.  "Oh what, what now?" he asked, as John sniggered against Rodney's neck.

"It's just... you're so damn Canadian!"

Rodney decided not to dignify that with a reply.  Besides, he'd worked his way down to John's hips, and suddenly he had better things do to with his mouth.

"Ohhhh yeah," John sighed.

*_*_*

**Personal log, Dr Ben Kavanagh, Lantean time 2712, Day ten of our exile from Earth.**

As per my previous observations, the change in behavior among those of the expedition having undergone Dr Beckett's gene therapy has become increasingly marked.  Did we learn nothing from the Goa'uld? 

I watch them as they walk down the hall, as they eat in the mess or perform research in the lab.  Do they recognize each other?  Is there an alien consciousness growing inside them, or are they merely reacting to some subliminal message that this city is sending them?

I have tried to bring my concerns to Dr Weir, but as per this recording I am afraid that she can no longer be trusted to have a clear view of the situation.  She is so infatuated with the Ancients that she cannot see the harm we've caused ourselves by corrupting the very thing that make us human.

I alone, among the science staff, have refused to undergo the gene therapy. Who can say what damage, what alien foothold has been achieved, even for those one whom the therapy "didn't take"?

I must work in secret, striving with all my intellect to find a way to return to Earth and report the situation to the proper authorities.  With luck, Weir, Sheppard, McKay, and all the rest who have been influenced or infected by Beckett's experimentation will be removed, and Atlantis will finally be in the hands of those who can safely utilize its secrets.  Until that day comes, I must be patient, and I must wait.


*_*_*

Sheppard sat across from Bates and Ford, watching as they finished Kavanagh's journal entry. 

"Wow, sir.  Excuse me, but he's gone over the deep end!"

"I agree," Bates scowled, rubbing his chin and studying the laptop.  "Situational paranoia, brought on by extreme pressure, fear, and isolation from his normal coping mechanisms.  In his case, a sister left behind in the States.  He'll need watching."

"Do it," Sheppard ordered, knowing that Bates would subtly but effectively corral and contain the scientist.  Siccing Bates on Kavanagh would hopefully keep them both out of Sheppard's hair for a while.

"The only time he's to be left alone," Sheppard continued, "is when he's in his quarters at night.  I'll coordinate with McKay and Zelenka, make sure that he's not to be placed on any dangerous or sensitive research."

"I'd like to suggest, sir," Ford added, "that he also be restricted in his access to the jumpers.  He might just flip out and take a runner off to the mainland one day."

"And how would he do that if he doesn't have the gene, sir?" Bates pointed out, his voice on the edge of insolence, yet again.

"Cut it out, you two.  Ford, it's a good thought to restrict his access.  He can't fly the jumpers by himself, but if he does flip he may be able to sabotage the controls in some way."

Bates scowled, and Sheppard suppressed a smile.  He didn't like the man, and Bates was never going to be a member of the Sheppard fan club, but at least he was following orders, for now.

"I want this done quietly, gentlemen," Sheppard added.  "I'll give Dr Weir a heads-up, but otherwise Kavanagh is not to suspect he's under surveillance."

With a final nod, Sheppard dismissed them and called up a private file of his own.

**Disaster planning: last updated 14.5 hours ago.  Welcome Major Sheppard.** 

Sheppard grimaced and rubbed his face.  It was going to be another long night.

-fin?


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