The usual legalities here: I don't own any part of Stargate Atlantis…MGM does.

This fic was born from the Beer Challenge at the Unwavering McKeller community. Between real life and a vacation I wasn't able to get my contribution finished before the deadline. Oh well. Here it is though.

I haven't bothered anyone to beta it, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

I'd appreciate any feedback you're inclined to give and thanks for reading.

-0-0-

"You know this stuff seems sort of familiar," commented Sheppard as he leaned back in the hard wooden chair- which in reality was an upright piece of log that had a seat chiseled out of it- and stretched his legs out in front of him underneath the table. "Have we had this before?"

From the other side of the table Ronon shrugged his shoulders at the Colonel and picked up his wooden goblet, which he had largely ignored since sitting down. He brought the cup up his nose and took a tentative sniff. His brow wrinkled in thought for a moment, and then he lowered the cup to his mouth and took a generous sip. After the liquid was gone out of his mouth Ronon sat for a moment in silent contemplation before saying, "No." He sniffed at the drink again and added, "You're right though. It smells like something we've had before."

"Has Rodney not returned from repairing the device?" asked a familiar voice from over Sheppard's shoulder. He turned his head around enough to follow the last couple of feet of Teyla's walk towards them. She settled into the chair next to him and looked back and forth between him and Ronon, waiting for an answer to the question she had asked.

"No," Sheppard replied as he reached forward and picked up a glass of drink from the table. He sat back and carefully passed the glass over to Teyla, who took it from his hand as one might remove a bomb from its resting place. "Try that and tell me if it tastes familiar."

Teyla quirked an eyebrow at him and raised the glass to her lips. It didn't escape her attention that both her teammates were watching her intently, so she prepared herself for anything and was determined not to show any outward signs of any discomfort that the drink might cause. Keeping her eyes locked onto John's, she tipped the glass so that the golden liquid inside touched her lips. She slowly parted her lips and allowed some of the drink into her mouth and was surprised to find that it was actually rather good. She lowered the glass and placed it on the table, gave Ronon an amused glance and looked to Sheppard.

"I believe it is similar to," she closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to remember the name of the beverage that had been introduced to her a while ago, "beer, I believe you call it."

Sheppard gave her a double take and then looked to his glass on the table. "Beer? It's not like any beer I've ever tasted."

Teyla's brows wrinkled in confusion. "I thought you did not drink beer."

"I don't," replied Sheppard. He smiled at her and added, "But that doesn't mean that I haven't before."

"I think she's right," interjected Ronon. They both looked to the bigger man as he took a gulp from his glass. "It tastes like beer, but not that stuff you gave me."

"That was beer!" said Sheppard somewhat indignantly.

Ronon gave Sheppard a smirk. "It's like the beer Major," he looked to Teyla, "that guy with the funny voice, Major…?"

Teyla thought for a moment and then said hesitantly, "Major… Baconbaner?"

Ronon shook his head. "Bricanbracker."

Sheppard looked back and forth between Teyla and Ronon, then focused on Teyla as he said, "You mean Major Beckerbauer?"

"Yes, I believe that is it," Teyla responded with a slight nod.

"Beckerbauer," repeated Ronon, who shrugged his shoulders in agreement. "Anyway, he gave some to us one time when you and McKay were at the SGC. He called it beer."

Realization dawned on the team leader. "You're saying this is like German beer!"

Ronon and Teyla looked at each other, then to him. "There are different types of beer?" asked Teyla.

"Oh yes," said Sheppard with a smile. "Many."

"I'm parched," complained a voice from off to the right. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon never even had the chance to turn towards the voice before Rodney marched up to the table like a man on a mission. As he reached down and grabbed the jug off the table and poured himself a drink he said, "I've been out there in forty degree heat and you've been sitting here all comfy in the shade doing nothing!" he slammed the jug down on the table, and as he lifted the glass to his lips he muttered, "Typical."

The others watched in amused silence as Rodney took gulp after gulp after gulp of his drink until it was all gone and he placed the empty glass on the table next to the jug. He looked at the three of them and demanded, "What!"

"Easy, Rodney," drawled Sheppard. "We've only been here a few minutes. Did you get the thing fixed?"

Rodney gave Sheppard a betrayed look. "Of course I got it fixed. Why, did you think I couldn't fix it?"

Ronon looked at Rodney and said, "You said you mightn't be able to fix it."

"Yes, well I did," said Rodney, only mildly chagrinned. He reached down and poured himself another glass of drink and took a more modest sip. "This stuff tastes familiar. Have we had this before?"

Sheppard laughed at the eerily familiar question. "Teyla and Ronon say it's like German beer."

Ronon, Teyla and Sheppard all leaned back quickly to avoid the intense spray of drink that erupted from Rodney's mouth like lava from Vesuvius. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked at Sheppard.

He looked mortified.

"Beer? I can't drink beer. I mean I can drink beer, but I'm not allowed to drink beer!" exclaimed Rodney. "It does things, that is, things happen when I drink beer, strange things that I can't explain and don't want to really because it's none of your business…"

"Rodney!" exclaimed Sheppard. "Calm down. It's only beer; you've had beer before, I was there."

A rosiness that the three of them very seldom saw crept into Rodney's cheeks as he crossed his arms across his chest.

"Yes, I've had beer before, but not since…" He stopped suddenly and stiffened, obviously remembering that he wasn't supposed to tell what he was about to tell or that it was embarrassing.

That just made Sheppard curious as hell.

"Rodney," Sheppard said slowly. "What?"

"Nothing." At his friend's disbelieving look Rodney shook his head. "It's nothing. It's just…weird things happen when I drink beer."

Sheppard smiled and cast a quick glance to Ronon as he said with laughter in his voice, "Weird things are supposed to happen to you when you drink beer, Rodney."

"Very funny, Colonel," said Rodney in a tone of voice that said the opposite was true. "I don't mean I experience drunken bliss. Weird things happen."

"I don't get it, Rodney," said Sheppard. "Why don't you give us an example?"

"What! No! It isn't that important. I just prefer not to drink beer," said Rodney, and as Sheppard opened his mouth to say something Rodney added forcefully, "or any facsimile of it."

"Rodney…"

Rodney rolled his eyes and glanced to the heavens before taking in the table at large. "Look, is it really anyone's business if I say I don't want to drink beer? Hmn? Is it?" He waited for a response and was pleased when he got none. "Now can we please go home?"

Sheppard shook his head, then reached into his tac vest pocket and retrieved his sunglasses. As he placed them over his eyes he said, "The Doc isn't finished yet."

"The Doc?" repeated Rodney with a squeaky voice. He lowered his arms to his sides, cleared his throat and said, "Dr. Keller? She's here?"

Sheppard nodded his head and reached over to grab a piece of fruit off the table. He'd had some already and it reminded him of pineapple. "The elder asked if we had any healers that could take a look at some people. Seeing as how we're trying to make friends and you said that you might be a while, I sent for the Doc."

"Well, I'm done," he announced sharply. "I'm going home."

He turned around and managed to take one step before Sheppard's voice called out to him. He stopped and sighed.

"Have a seat, Rodney," Sheppard said with a slow precision that told Rodney it wasn't a request.

While Rodney wasn't exactly keen about taking orders from Sheppard, there were times when the Colonel managed to make it abundantly clear that he was in charge.

This was one of those times.

He huffed loudly and took the step necessary to stand in front of the nearest chair. He gave Sheppard one more look and was rewarded with a nod, and then he began to lower himself down into the chair. His weary ass just barely touched the hard wooden seat when a nauseatingly cheerful voice boomed, "All done!" from behind him, causing him to jump up and bump the table with his legs, which in turn caused three glasses, two jugs and four flower filled vases to fall and break on the table and surrounding ground.

McKay watched the carnage with a mixture of regret and anger, for while he was sorry for making the mess he knew something was going to happen because beer had touched his lips. And when Sheppard slowly turned to him, Rodney made sure to affix the Colonel with an appropriately scathing 'I told you so' look.

Sheppard shrugged his shoulders in response and Rodney sighed in frustration, knowing that he next had to face the person responsible for his little display of fright induced clumsiness.

He turned to face her, and when he finally did he was fairly certain that the look of sympathetic regret on her face was genuine.

"I'm so sorry, Rodney," she said, her hands still outstretched towards the table as though she had been trying through some magical abilities she didn't have to keep the scene from playing out the way it had. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Startle me?" tried Rodney with what everyone knew was a false sense of bravado. "Hardly. I was just- eager- yes, eager to get going."

"Of course," said Jennifer with a nod of her head. She adjusted the medical bag she had slung over her right shoulder and smiled innocently as she added, "I'm glad that I didn't startle you then." She looked past Rodney to Sheppard. "I'm all done."

Sheppard nodded and got up out of his chair, followed in rapid succession by Teyla and Ronon.

Rodney started towards the gate, taking exaggerated care to step around Keller along the way.

Sheppard let the scientist get a few feet away before saying to the group, "Rodney and I will go and say bye to our hosts." Rodney whirled around and opened his mouth to argue but Sheppard gave his friend a warning look and forged on. "Doc, Teyla and Ronon- you guys go on ahead and open the front door. We'll be along in a few minutes."

Teyla and Ronon moved immediately in the direction of the gate, but for reasons that Sheppard couldn't even begin to guess at Keller seemed to hesitate. It was only for an instant, and if he hadn't been looking directly at her he wouldn't have even noticed.

He turned and headed towards the village center where the village elders were doing whatever it was that village elders did, and he was mildly surprised to hear Rodney rush to catch up with him and then fall into step beside him.

When they reached the village center the elders were busy talking to people from a nearby village, so Sheppard stopped and waved to the elder with whom he had been talking to earlier to indicate that they were leaving.

As the older man nodded back to him, Sheppard leaned over slightly and whispered to McKay, "What gives, Rodney? Since when are you afraid to drink beer?"

Though Sheppard kept his eyes on the happenings before him, his mind's eye could easily see Rodney's scowl.

"I never said I was afraid to drink it," Rodney said harshly, but quietly. "I just said that I shouldn't because…"

"Weird things happen, I know," finished Sheppard. "What happened, Rodney?"

Rodney sighed. "The last few times I drank beer," he whispered, "things happened."

It was Sheppard's turn to sigh, though unlike Rodney's sigh of discomfort his was a sigh of frustration. "That much I got, McKay. What happened?"

McKay shifted his feet and edged a little closer to Sheppard, though anyone who might have wanted to hear what he was about to say was either on Atlantis or on their way to the gate. "You know after the mine thing Jennifer asked me out for a beer after, right?"

Sheppard nodded, as it was common knowledge. Well, not common as such, but it wasn't exactly a secret.

"Well, you see, she was…the thing is I think…I'm pretty sure that she was sort of flirting with me and the next…"

"You're not exactly brimming with confidence there Rodney," teased Sheppard, ignoring the contemptuous look Rodney gave him for interrupting. "Either she was or she wasn't. It's usually pretty easy to tell when a beautiful woman is flirting with you."

"Hello," said McKay in a loud whisper and with a wave of his hand. "Genius not exactly known for his people skills over here."

McKay lowered his hand quickly when the elder Sheppard had waved to earlier, mistaking McKay's wave as being meant for him, waved back at him.

"Of course," said Sheppard with a grin. "What was I thinking?"

McKay looked away for a second and then turned and fixed Sheppard with a knowing look. "See this is why no one ever runs to you with their personal problems or issues."

Sheppard smirked but otherwise ignored the verbal jab. "There has to be more."

Again McKay sighed, but he relented a moment later. "A few weeks later I was in the lab working late, trying to find a way to find Teyla. I thought I was really onto something trying to determine the subspace signature of Michael's ship and…"

"Rodney."

"Hmn? Oh…right. Anyway, Jennifer said Zelenka told her that I had been in there all day and night, so she decided to check up on me."

"So?"

"She came in with two beers. We talked for a while- actually I talked about what I was trying to do and she listened- and then she kissed my cheek and left. A few minutes later…"

Sheppard leaned over another inch and asked, "What did you just say she did?"

"She kissed my cheek before she left."

"You're right," said Sheppard, "that is weird." Sheppard gave Rodney an amused look and said, "Come on, Rodney. Getting kissed by a girl is a good thing."

Rodney rolled his eyes in frustration and said, "Yes, but that's not the weird…"

"What are we talking about?" whispered a voice from directly behind them, causing Sheppard to instinctively grip his P-90 and Rodney to jump in his place.

"Okay you have really got to stop sneaking up on me like that!" Rodney growled, drawing glances of annoyance from the assembled elders. Rodney spared them a look of irritation and turned to face Keller. "And what we're talking about is none of your business."

Keller agreed with McKay and told him his scornful attitude was wasted on her with a simple shrug of her shoulders. Turning to Sheppard she said quietly, "Ronon and Teyla were wondering what was taking you so long so I volunteered to come and check on you two."

Sheppard adopted an offended expression. "You make it sound like we get into a lot of trouble or something."

Keller looked back and forth between the two men with a barely noticeable smile on her face, a smile that would have looked cute at any other time, but at that moment was irritating in that they knew it meant that she thought they did get into a lot of trouble but didn't want to actually say so.

Sheppard looked to Rodney. "I think we've just been insulted."

Rodney lifted his chin defiantly and said, "It would seem so, yes."

Jennifer's smile widened as she said, "No offence intended." She looked past the two men at the assembled elders. With a nod in their direction she said, "The elder is waving you over, Colonel."

Sheppard turned towards the elder man and nodded at him before saying to Rodney and Jennifer, "You two head for the gate. I'll be there in a minute."

Rodney turned around and headed towards the gate at about as fast a clip as he could without even sparing Keller a glance or acknowledging Sheppard's order.

It wasn't until he made it to the outskirts of the village and approached the small cluster of trees that separated the village from the field that the Stargate was located in that he turned around to see if she was following. To his surprise she was only a few feet behind him, and by the time he started again and began walking the path through the small patch of forest she was walking beside him.

They walked in silence until they were a third of the way through when Jennifer finally asked, "So what were you two talking about?"

The left side of Rodney's mouth went up in a half smile. "Beer," he replied as he slowed his gallop down to a trot. "He was wondering why I didn't want to have any of a drink they have that's like beer."

Jennifer's pace slowed to match Rodney's as she said, "Okay. And what did you tell him?"

Rodney slowed to a halt and turned to face Jennifer, who stopped and turned toward him as well. "I told him that weird things happen when I drink beer."

Jennifer's left eyebrow rose upward a centimeter. "Weird things?" she asked. She stepped towards him and looked up into his eyes. "What kind of weird things?"

Deciding it was time to have a little fun Rodney said, "I told him about the last few times I had beer and what happened, like after the mine…thing…and when you came to see me in the lab that night." He didn't tell her that he never got the chance to finish his stories to Sheppard. For example, he never told the Colonel that the weird things he was really talking about was how the morning after the mine incident his shower only sprayed cold water; or how the night after Jennifer left him in the lab after kissing his cheek his tablet died and all the info he had stored on it had been lost.

Jennifer's eyes widened and her cheeks began to flush. "You told him...," she glanced around and leaned in closer to whisper, "Did you tell him about the last time we had beer?"

"No," he replied with a shake of his head. He looked at her quizzically and asked, "Why? What happened the last time I had a beer?" His tone of voice left no doubt that he knew exactly what it was she was talking about.

Jennifer thought about clocking Atlantis' resident super genius but decided on another course of action instead to deal with his smugness. She edged even closer to him and put her hands on his forearms, then moved them slowly up his arms until she stopped them on his shoulders.

She leaned inwards and upwards, bringing her face closer to his until their lips were close to touching. "Well, if I remember correctly it started out with something like this." She closed the remaining distance and kissed him.

Hard.

By the time she broke away from him a minute later he was breathing heavily and his eyes were heavy with desire.

She smiled and stepped back from him, though she very nearly buckled and kissed him again when disappointment flashed in his eyes.

"And I thought it ended up with us not having any clothes on, but if you don't remember," she said teasingly, "maybe I'm mistaken."

It also ended up with him having to spend the week hobbling around and trying to come up with an excuse for those who were curious, (Sheppard, in other words), about how he managed to strain both his thighs and tweak his back.

The memory fled and he came back to his present situation when she turned and resumed her trek towards the gate.

Rodney stood there, looking intently at where Jennifer was standing just a moment before, wishing she was still there and still doing what she had been doing. She got him good, he had to admit. But not to her.

"Oh come on," he said loudly. He started turning in the direction in which she had gone and began saying, "I was only kid…"

THUNK!

-0-0-

"Where are Keller and McKay?" asked Sheppard as he approached Ronon and Teyla, who were standing next to the DHD.

Teyla gave Ronon a curious glance before turning back to Sheppard and saying, "We thought they were with you. Didn't Dr. Keller return to the village…"

"Yes she did," replied Sheppard. He looked back and forth between Teyla and Ronon before saying, "Crap," and turning towards the patch of woods. "I sent the two of them here ten minutes ago."

"And you did not see them on the path?" asked Teyla.

"No," replied Sheppard as he reached for his radio. He clicked the button and said, "Sheppard to McKay. Do you read me?" As he waited for a response he turned to Teyla and said, "The elder was so sorry for taking up so much of my time that he told me about a shortcut." He clicked the radio again. "Sheppard to Keller."

"Here they come," announced Ronon with a point of his hand towards the path.

Teyla began dialing Atlantis as Sheppard turned to watch McKay and Keller emerge from the woods, and it didn't take long for him to notice that something was wrong. Keller was walking alongside McKay, which was quite a feat considering the scientist was all but running towards them, but the really odd part was McKay seemed to be holding something to his head that looked suspiciously like a white medical bandage.

There also appeared to be some bickering going on between them.

"What the hell happened?" asked Sheppard when McKay was close enough to hear him.

McKay stopped and removed the blood-stained bandage from his forehead so Sheppard could see the two inch long gash above his left eye. "I told you," said Rodney harshly as he replaced the bandage on his forehead and resumed walking towards the gate, "that weird things happen when I drink beer!"

Sheppard turned to Keller who had stopped beside him as Rodney was speaking. He wasn't at all surprised to see concern in the doctor's eyes, but what did surprise him was the redness in her cheeks.

"He…," she hesitated and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear with her right hand before looking Sheppard in the eye and saying, "…didn't see the branch."

As she started walking to the gate, her eyes downcast and haste in her step, Sheppard looked back to tree line and smiled.

Weird things indeed.