Disclaimer: I don't own anything… If I did Stargate Atlantis would still be on the air and there would be at least a movie out!

A/N: I wrote this for my friend Lizz (lizard971) cus we both love Shep whump and we miss the show I'm not sure if it was for her birthday or just some weird arrangement we had, anyways here it is! Love u Lizz ^^

This story is finished but I still don't know how often I'll be posting the chapters. So don't panic, it's not going to be discontinued.
Thanks to Amy (Aromene) for being my beta, she did an awesome job so whatever mistakes you find left they're all mine. Enjoy!

Healing is Not a Science

By: Laz

Chapter One

McKay and the other scientists had continued their exploration of the city, taking advantage of the quiet time Atlantis was currently enjoying. They found – yet again – another Ancient lab; it seemed that the main city center was surrounded by them. Not that Atlantis would ever be cataloged as normal, but secret labs kept popping up in every corner. The last one they checked looked extremely old; older than the average timeline of 10,000 years. The screens, the console and the devices looked as if they belonged to some sort of earlier generation. They didn't look that bad, especially considering the fact that the devices came from a highly evolved race, so they still looked rather impressive to any human.

Many long hours and even more power bars later, McKay decided to wrap things up, which elicited many relieved sighs all around the small lab. Not being able to put his job aside, he brought with him a couple of devices to study them further. He spent days doing so, but the problem was he couldn't even turn them on; they simply refused to power up with his artificial ATA. Finally when his scientific curiosity got the best of him, he swallowed his pride and decided to visit Sheppard.

McKay was walking towards Sheppard's office thinking of the right way to approach the subject without it sounding like he needed help. By the time it took him to reach the doorframe he still hadn't come up with the right sentence. He couldn't really see the Colonel from this angle but was pretty sure the spiky hair didn't belong to a stack of papers. He was about to knock when Sheppard's voice startled him.

"Something you needed McKay?"

"Me? No…umm… not really. Were you sleeping under there?"

"If I was sleeping I wouldn't have notice you standing there looking all nervous, would I?"

"I'm not nervous."

"Of course not, and you just happened to come here, visit me and see how I was doing because you're such a caring person."

"There's no need for the sarcasm Colonel."

"Then spit it out McKay!"

"Ok ok, there are these devices that we found in an Ancient lab in the southeast section..."

"Another one? Geez how many labs did these people have." Sheppard said, interrupting him.

"Many." McKay sighed and rolled his eyes. "As I was saying Colonel, we found some devices…"

"Do any of them still work?" He interrupted yet again.

"Umm… I don't know. You see…"

"Let me make it easy for you Rodney, I'll lend you my gene for a few hours." He said with a bright smile.

"Really?" – His face showed his excitement before confusion took over. – "Wait a minute, how did you know I was going to ask you that and why are you so damn cheerful about it?"

"Isn't it obvious?" – He looked at McKay, who had the would-I-ask-if-it-was look on his face. – "Your ego won't allow you to ask for help and I've had enough of this office."

"I could ask for help if the situation required it and don't you mean you had enough of the paperwork?"

"If you want to know what those gizmos of yours do any time soon, I suggest you shut up and walk."

"I'm a civilian scientist; you know you can't order me around."

"Like that ever stopped me, plus you're a member of my team so come on."

A couple of minutes later Sheppard reached the door to the science lab and McKay went straight to the work bench to arrange everything in order of importance. Or better said in the order they ranked on McKay's curiosity. John walked calmly, enjoying the time away from all the evaluations that were still on his desk and went directly to sit on the stool opposite to McKay. Like every other time he was McKay's guinea pig, it was part of their silent understanding.

"What are we working on?"

"I'll be working on figuring out these devices, you just need to power them up." – putting emphasis in the 'I' and the 'you' as if Sheppard was a four year old.

"Glad we cleared that up," he said sarcastically.

"Yes, well, you can start whenever you want."

"And by 'whenever' you mean now."

"And by 'want' I mean have to."

McKay handed him a small triangular object. It had a metallic look and branched out in small ripples from the center which came across the sides of it and what seemed to be small dark stones wedged on each corner. Sheppard held it on the palm of his hand and willed it to power up, but nothing happen.

"Are you even trying?"

"Yes Rodney I'm trying, but it must be dead."

"Give it another try but think harder this time."

John didn't say anything, instead he just humored him. He closed his hand around the device and thought it 'on'. The device began shaking softly in his hand.

"Whoa!"

"What is it?"

"It's shaking and it's increasing." – McKay made some annotations but stopped when he heard a low 'beep'. The energy readings were dropping.

"What the…"

"It stopped."

"That's because it died!"

"How disappointing"

"Yes…very…wait you were being sarcastic weren't you?" McKay's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Of course." - Sheppard gave him one of his boyish smile and how McKay hated it – "Now what's next?"

"You behave like a good Colonel while I file a report on this device. After that we'll move onto the next one."

The testing, pondering and annotations continued for several hours. Sheppard kept telling himself that being cooped up in a science lab was better than finishing off the military personal evaluations and the security reports and any other kind of paperwork Woolsey managed to send his way, but in the end he wasn't sure it was worth it. McKay had been typing on the computers, writing on a board and checking monitors most of the time. He didn't notice Sheppard had grabbed a device that was sitting in the far end of the workbench, until he heard a groan, but he quickly dismissed it. It was after the sound of an "Uh oh" that he got worried.

"What did you do?" Rodney asked accusingly, thinking Sheppard probably broke one of the devices when he started playing with them as soon as he turned his back. The Colonel was a child. Plain and simple as that: it didn't matter how hard Sheppard tried to convince him otherwise.

"Nothing…just picked up one of the gismos like we've been doing all day," replied Sheppard trying his best to look innocent.

"Which one?"

"This one…" - he said while showing the back of his hand to McKay.

The device was some sort of a flat disk with five protruding points. It reminded Rodney of a tiny Stargate except that this one had five silver spikes, one of which was trickling with blood as it had pierced through the palm side of Sheppard's left hand. As John peered at the back of his he could see that the other four spikes extended outwards on the corners of a crystal until they became bands that secured the device to the back of his hand. The two bands on the upper side of his hand had extended between his fingers. One between the pinkie and the ring finger and the other crossed between the index and middle finger. The remaining bands stretched across the palm and the other between the thumb and the index finger. In the center of his backhand was a small blue crystal full of Ancient letters that were scrolling like in the beginning of a Star Wars movie. Sheppard then attempted to clench his hand into a fist taking the movement in and noticed there was no pain. McKay asked Sheppard to turn the hand, that's when he saw that the spikes/bands fused together at the center of John's palm in a flawless union and that the wound had apparently sealed because his hand was no longer bleeding. The scientist snatched the hand rather roughly and began to examine it. He noticed there was no space between the skin and the device, so he tried separating it…the response was immediate when Sheppard cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain.

"Be careful, will ya?"

"Interesting"

"What is?"

"It's adhered to your skin"

"Really? You don't say. How do I get it off?"

"Don't you want to know what it does?"

Colonel Sheppard, please respond.

"This is Sheppard, come in."

We need to discuss a possible mission.

"Actually, we may need to discuss something else."

"McKay…"

What is it Dr. McKay?

"Mr. Woolsey I think you better come to my lab."

I'll be right there.

By the time Woolsey made it to McKay's lab, the Colonel and the scientist were caught up in one of their usual bickering matches, just not the on the usual subject. Woolsey had also brought with him Ronon and Teyla who were curious about what their teammates were up to.

"You had to pick up the puzzling device, didn't you?"

"How is it my fault?"

"What is it?" – asked Ronon in his usual confused-angry look.

"Did I not just use the word 'puzzling'?"

"Dr. McKay" – the warning came from Teyla.

"So you don't know what it is or what it does."

"Like always Sheppard, that was a brilliant deduction. Not to worry I'll get right on it." – Changing his tone a bit, he offered – "Look, I'm sure it's nothing dangerous. It looks harmless."

"Why am I not comforted?"

"Because we've encounter devices such as this in the past and they proved to be, how would you put it, 'a pain in the backside'?"

"It's 'in the ass' and that was a rhetorical question Teyla."

"And I was trying to be polite."

"Look, I suggest you let me figure out its purpose before you remove it."

"Because you've done such a bang up job at it!"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Look I don't need to know what it does; I just want it off of me."

"Can you think it off?"

"Like the personal force field thingy?"

"Yeah, like that." - Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Let's see." – John concentrated really hard on the device. Thinking of all the shutting off commands his mind could conjure up but none appeared to work. – "Guess not."

"Of course, because that would have been easy and you Sheppard, are too stubborn for that."

"Because Rodney McKay is such a fine example of things being easy!"

"Perhaps you two should stop fighting each other and work together to find a solution. After all you both got the Ancient device working."

"That's an excellent idea Teyla, which means I'll assign the mission to Major Lorne until this is resolved." – Upon seeing the expression on Sheppard's face, Woolsey explained himself. - "I'm sorry Colonel but I cannot have you traveling through the gate without knowing what that thing does or if it puts you in any harm."

"Thanks McKay."

"I'll trust you'll keep me informed of your progress?"

"Yeah."

McKay was almost scared to have them all leave. Being alone with a grounded Sheppard couldn't be good for one's health. Specially if said one was the cause of the grounding. He thought of offering a sympathetic 'sorry' but it wouldn't be honest, since all he really wanted to do was decipher what the device was capable of doing. It had been a while since something interesting happened in the science department.

A few hours passed; Sheppard was about to climb the walls from boredom. There was only so much McKay time he could take before going nuts. Today he was way past his quota. The scientist had been muttering stuff; going from one computer to another while he just stood there. He hoped that at least what he found would help him get the damn thing off of him. He'd never been a man who wore jewelry and he wasn't about to begin now.

"Please tell me you found something."

"I found something."

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

"McKay!"

"But I will."

"Today would be nice."

"Look I already have the data from the device and it's being converted as we speak, but I still need to sort out through the readings and that will take some time."

"How much time?"

"I don't know."

"You know, for a genius you don't know much," he said, deliberating throwing the bait.

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

McKay was so intrigued by the artifact that he didn't even mind the lure. He was holding the tablet close to his body while walking back and forth between laptops. So Sheppard, running out of things to do, sat on one of the stools and began rolling around the workbench like it was some kind of track. During his third lap he noticed that one of the devices on the table had a green light on. A green light that was blinking.

"Hey Rodney"

"Yes John?"

"Those are the gadgets you made me touch, right?"

"Yeah why?"

"Because one of them is blinking."

It was the triangular device he had first touched. He noticed now that the stones in each point were lights and that two of them were glowing a yellowish-green.

"What? Oh. "

"Good oh or bad oh?" - Just then the third light went on and all of them turned red.

"Bad, very bad!"

"Run!"

But the device exploded before they could safely reach the door.

TBC

A/N: #2

I know I don't deserve reviews because I left it on a cliffy but I honestly couldn't help myself!
Click that button and tell me to stop being mean and I'll upload the 2nd one soon. I promise!