Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis, it's characters and concepts belong to MGM and it's numerous affiliates. No infringement intended, no profit sought or acquired.

Summary: Set after 4x11. John Sheppard was not an easy man to deal with of late and Rodney discovers the truth about why. Shep/Weir.

Genre: Angst/General (Shep/Weir)

Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard.

Spoilers: First Strike/Adrfit/Lifeline, 4x05 - Travellers, 4x11 - Be All My Sins Remember'd.

Author's Note: Set after 4x11 - Be All My Sins Remember'd. There should have been a bigger deal made out of Elizabeth's loss than the show provided and I'm not just talking about the Sheppard/Weir angle - although that's what I'm adressing here. Review at your leisure.

Not Ready Yet

"You volunteered for the supply run to M4L-377 again?" Rodney demanded in a loud voice, his tone and stance accusatory as he loomed over an uncomfortable Lieutenant Colonel who looked up from his cup of jello.

"What?" John asked around a mouthful of desert.

"Mackenzie's little planet," McKay clarified boisterously, starting to draw the attention of the commissary, "What's there? A nudist colony? A tribe of hedonistic amazons, maybe?"

"McKay," John growled as he stood, abandoning his tray and walking towards the exit. McKay, just as John predicted, started to follow after him, his rant not yet complete so John snagged him by the elbow and shoved his hand into the middle of the scientist's back, propelling him out of the door just as the entire attention of the commissary came to rest on the two of them.

"What are you trying to do?" McKay howled, rubbing his elbow and rolling his shoulder, as the doors closed behind them, "Dislocated my spine by tearing my elbow out? It's going to bruise, isn't it? You know how easily I bruise! When Keller asks me about it I'm going to-"

"McKay! Shut up before I break my foot off in your ass!" John ground out and started walking in the direction of a more secluded area of the city, Rodney naturally following despite his outrage. His natural urge to meddle too strong avoid the danger he clearly couldn't sense.

"What's wrong with you?" McKay muttered, "You just tried to rip my arm off because of a legitimate question. You've been grumpy and nasty and plain pissed all the time the last couple of weeks and now you've ditched our mission to PC4 – 212 to 'run a supply mission'… is it really that important that you get your rocks off?"

"PC4 – 212?" John asked, stopping in his tracks and turning to look at Rodney who came to an abrupt halt, rubbing his aggrieved elbow absentmindedly.

"Lorne's team found an old outpost there," McKay explained in his normal scornful tone, "It was identical to the one in Antarctica, with a chair, drones and everything,"

John's utterly blank look led Rodney to the right conclusion.

"Come on! You were in Carter's office when I asked for the mission, remember?" McKay almost howled in disbelief, "I need you to run the chair while I compare the baseline functions for the chair here in Atlantis! This is the first time we've found a undamaged functional chair on a Pegasus world and I need to see if the differences between the one we have here and the Antarctica chair represent a significant redesign or a-"

"Sorry," John offered awkwardly, cutting Rodney off and subconsciously rubbing at the back of his neck, "I kind of forgot about it."

McKay snorted, "Forgot about it. Right, seriously, what happened last time you went there? A town orgy? A three for one sale at the brothel or was there some specific curvy trollop who wanted into your pants?"

John's face darkened with anger as he glared at Rodney, which had it's usual lack of effect on the oblivious scientist, before continued his direct route away from McKay and the populated centre of the city but he sensed the idiot follow after him again.

"What? Come on, what am I supposed to think? 'Little or no social inhibitions'," McKay muttered, still clearly wounded about the manhandling he'd received, "Not enough time to get skirt from all of the women? Or maybe it's time to go back and do it ag-"

"I didn't go there to see the natives… I went there to see Mackenzie," John bit out.

"Mackenzie?" Rodney replied, his voice slowly shifting from disbelief to surprise as his mind compared his apparently mistaken assumption with the reluctant look on John's face, "Seriously? Why the hell would you fly six hours in a jumper to see him? The man's an arrogant ass who gets on everyone's nerves."

John arched his eyebrow, "Because I don't get enough irritation from the arrogant ass who gets on my nerves here in Atlantis, of course! Why do you think?"

"Seriously, Sheppard, why? What's going on?"

John stopped again but couldn't hold McKay's questioning gaze, "Mackenzie was the SGC's shrink for six years before he shipped out here to the Pegasus Galaxy."

Rodney frowned, "What about Anderson. I mean he's not the best psychiatrist and he certainly has a lot of experience to make up before he'll even get close to what… Heightmeyer was but… what? You hate him or something? Did he try to get into your pants?"

"No," John snapped, "but if I talk to Anderson and he thinks something I say warrants medical action or therapy then it'll end up being reported to Colonel Carter and at the moment we really can't afford to have her doubting my respect for her command decisions. Because I do respect them, respect her… but I can't take that risk."

"That's stupid," Rodney blurted without hesitation, "You've never once done anything that even made it look like you didn't trust her. You military grunts are always jumping to, snapping salutes and eagerly obeying orders because of the chain of command. When Elizabeth was in charge you used to do something every other month that made her, made me, wonder if you had some sort of problem with who was in charge."

"Exactly," John sighed.

"W-what?" McKay stuttered in confusion, "I don't understand."

"I… I'm not handling it as well as I'd hoped, as well as I thought I would, Rodney. Every time we come home I expect to see her standing at the top of the stairs in the gate room or watching from the window in her office. Every time I see Carter standing on Elizabeth's balcony I flinch. Sometimes I get as far as eating breakfat before I remember that she'd gone. It's beginning to make me doubt myself and I can't afford that, not in our line of work."

"You're not getting closure," Rodney summarized, "You haven't gotten past the fact she's dead, let alone put perspective on it. I mean we weren't even sure if she was dead or still a prisoner or a hostage for a long, long time and you refused to give up on her. Plus, the only evidence we have that she is dead is that a Replicator duplicate of Elizabeth herself told you, which was in fact hearsay from another Replicator who may have been lying or lied to. I mean, I know it's hard to think she's dead, sometimes I find myself thinking about how she might be alive or what it would be like if we got her back… but it's different for you."

John shook his head, trying to ignore Rodney's needling, "You're going to shrink my head Rodney? What happened to medicine being voodoo or hocus-pocus? Psychology is an entirely different league of 'not really science' and then if that wasn't mad enough you're the one going to do it. This ought to be really fantastic, go ahead, tell John Sheppard how screwed up he is."

"It's different for you," Rodney continued, refusing to take the bait, his voice carry a not of something John thought for a moment might actually be sympathy, "because you didn't even get closure before we lost her, before you lost her."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You love her. Elizabeth, you were in love with her and you never got to say anything about it before... before she was gone and you couldn't."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say, McKay," John said, his voice heavy with conflicting emotions, his face twisted in a mixture of rage and grief, "You've said some enormously moronic things in your time but that one really takes the cake."

"Worse still you either haven't realized it or you're refusing to admit it to yourself," Rodney marvelled, fascinated by the situation like it was one of his science puzzle that deserved a modicum of his talented consideration, "You couldn't even admit you were in love with Elizabeth to yourself, let alone her and then all the sudden she's gone and you can't even grieve losing her because you don't know for sure if she's dead or not."

"You're talking out your ass McKay," John snarled and shoved Rodney into the wall, his anger powerful and the urge to physically belt the astrophysicist was nearly overwhelming. Instead he tore himself away and stalked up the hall, noting thankfully that McKay hadn't followed him.

He was stopped short by Rodney's voice reaching out to him from behind him.

"Don't give up hope, John."

Sheppard froze in his tracks and slowly turned to look at the scientist who was staring at him with genuine compassion, something John couldn't really ever remember seeing on the man's face, not like this.

"What?"

"It's what we live on out here, this far away from Earth," Rodney explianed, his voice abnormally quiet and yet the pitch carried it alone the long hall which they stood at opposite ends of, "Our hope, our friends and our wits. Don't give up hope and don't give up on Elizabeth, not if you're not ready to."

John trembled, conflicted feelings raged through him as Rodney continued.

"I understand and I'm sure Sam will too… just you know… go see that quack McKenzie, get back here so you can make yourself useful on real missions and don't get abducted by crazy space nomads again. I hate having to waste my lab time coming to rescue you. It's your job to save my ass, not the other way round," Rodney's voice was once again filled with his natural condescension and patronizing tone as he turned and walked away.

John stood absolutely still in the corridor, so still and for so long that the lights flickered off as the motion detectors decided that the hall was empty. Just like John felt.

"I love her," he whispered, to the empty corridor.

It felt right, it hurt terribly, it tore at him and he thought that maybe admitting he loved a woman he might never see again was just asking for more pain than he could handle at the moment… but it was the truth. He needed that if he was ever going to move on.

But he wasn't ready for that yet.