The fundamental purpose of school is learning, not teaching. — Richard DuFour

Carson Beckett looked up from his class notes as one of his students walked in, face down, shoulders rising and falling in time with her sobs. Oh, bloody hell, no another ane.

"Janet?" he asked softly. "Are you alright?"

The girl nodded, clearly not trusting herself to speak.

"Why don't you go to the toilet, splash some water on your face? I find that helps," he suggested quietly. "Don't forget to take a hall pass, just in case."

There was a time when a student entering his classroom in tears would have commanded the attention of every one of their classmates - much to that student's embarrassment - but since Rodney McKay had been hired to fill the vacancy in the physics department it had become a regular occurrence. He and other teachers had raised concerns with the principal, but Elizabeth Weir was reluctant to let him go without someone else lined up to take his place.

"Alright, settle down," he addressed the room. "Today we're going to be continuing our study of human reproduction." He paused for the expected outburst of giggling. "I hope you all did the homework I set you last time," he continued, referring to the next chapter in the textbook which he'd instructed them to read.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure Daniel and Vala did their homework," Jack announced dryly.

There was another bout of laughter, this time punctuated by sharp wolf whistles. Beside Jack, Teal'c turned to stare at Daniel - who opened and closed his mouth several times, before coughing and staring down at his closed textbook.

Vala looked smugly across the room. "At least we did it," she shot back, "unlike you and S—"

"Am I going to have to place you both in detention?" Carson asked them.

At that moment, Janet walked back into the room, looking a lot calmer. Carson watched her as she took her seat, thinking that if Elizabeth wasn't going to do anything about McKay then he was.

"Now, as I was going to say, I'd like you all to turn to page 394..."

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. — Benjamin Franklin

After the lunch bell had rung and the corridors had emptied of hungry students, Carson went in search of McKay. He knocked on his classroom door as he walked in, finding the other teacher with his head bowed over his desk, marking coursework.

He's barely seen the man since he started working at the school as McKay avoided the staffroom and spent all his time in his classroom, but he'd occasionally passed him in the corridor at the end of the day. Now he had the chance to stop and look at him, he was startled to find that the man was actually rather attractive. He immediately shook that thought out of his head, however, because the man was an arse.

"Mr McKay, I wondered if I might have a word?" he asked stiffly.

"No," he said, scratching things out. "No, no..." What was obviously a very large 'X' was marked on the page. "This is all wrong."

"Mr McKay?"

"Does nobody listen to me?"

"Mr McKay!"

Finally the other man noticed him. "Hmm? Oh. What do you want?"

"I want my students to stop coming into my classroom in tears."

McKay looked around the room, as if it would offer some clue as to why Carson was talking to him about that.

"Every day I have students come into my classroom upset, or I pass them in the corridor crying, and they all have one thing in common - they've just left you." Carson's voice grew hard. "What are you doing to these kids?"

"Well I'm obviously not teaching them," McKay declared in irritation, waving around an exam paper that Carson could see was covered in red pen. "This is a complete and utter waste of my time—"

"Excuse me?" Carson's tone was like ice. Waste o' time?!

"If they don't want me to teach them physics then they should have taken another class. My cat could have scored higher on this paper!"

Carson narrowed his eyes. "Look, some kids aren't scientifically-minded, but the school dictates they have to take at least one science class, so—"

"Well then, they should have taken biology or chemistry instead and bothered someone else with their inability to comprehend basic science." McKay looked him up and down. "What do you teach?"

"Biology!" Carson informed him tightly.

McKay snorted.

"What?"

"You should be teaching them, because medicine is about as much of a science as... oh, I don't know, voodoo?"

Carson glared at the arrogant man. How'd a man like that ever get intae teaching? "Not everyone had the stomach for the days we dissect things. Besides, sometimes it isn't about taking the classes you're good at, but taking the ones you enjoy. Even if a student fails the subject overall, if they're engaged with the material they can still learn something."

"Yes, like the fact they shouldn't have taken that class," McKay argued, picking up another exam paper.

"Have you never done something because you enjoy it, despite the fact you're no good at it?" Just because he liked tae fish, didnae mean he ever caught anything. Maybe one of these days he'd finally catch a nice trout fer his dinner...

But McKay was too engrossed in the paper in front of him so, with a defeated sigh, Carson left to get some lunch.

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. — Albert Einstein

An hour after the final bell had rung, Carson packed up the homework sheets he'd been marking and headed to his car. As he unlocked it and put his briefcase on the passenger seat, however, he noticed a phone lying in the footwell. A push of a button showed a lockscreen photo of Jeannie and Kaleb Miller, colleagues who taught art and English respectively. He'd given her a lift home the night before. She must have dropped it then, he reasoned. On the off chance that she hadn't left yet, he locked the car again and headed back towards the art department.

As he passed the music classrooms, however, he heard the sound of a piano being played. Whoever was playing was hitting all the right notes, almost clinical in their execution, but was playing slowly as if inexperienced or out of practice. Curiosity getting the better of him - because apart from the janitorial staff everyone should have left for the day - he followed the sound of music.

To his surprise, McKay was seated at one of the pianos, a melancholic expression on his face.

Carson was sometimes referred to as the 'heart of the school' by his colleagues, and it was that heart that caused him to turn back after he started walking away. He may not like the man, but there was clearly something bothering him.

"It's getting late," he stated.

The music abruptly stopped, and McKay stared at him wide-eyed. "I didn't... When did... How long have you been there?" he asked accusingly, as if Carson had been spying on him.

"I just got here," he replied. "I was on my way to see if Jeannie was still here."

"Jeannie? My sister?"

"Aye. She left her phone in my car when—" Wait, what? Jeannie Miller's your sister?" How cuid those two be related? Jeannie was lovely, while McKay was... not.

"Yes! And she's married!" McKay exclaimed, before demanding, "What was she doing in your car?!"

"Calm down, alright? I gave her a lift home yesterday."

"She has a car."

"Kaleb had it."

"And where was he?"

"At home with their daughter. She wasn't feeling very well, from what I understand."

"Oh," McKay said, sounding as if he hadn't known his niece was sick. "Why wouldn't she ask me to take her home?"

"I don't know," Carson shrugged. "Maybe I offered before she could ask you?"

"No," McKay sighed, his face falling. "She wasn't going to ask me."

"I'm sure she would have—"

"No. No, she wouldn't," McKay said glumly.

Carson closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Oh for God's sake... Why cuid he no just hae walked away? "I didn't know you could play," he said conversationally, nodding towards the piano. He didn't know anything about the man, except that he was an arrogant man who made his students cry and apparently wasn't close to his sister. None of things should make him want to stay, and yet...

"Oh. I don't. I can't."

"It didn't sound like you couldn't play to me," Carson said, stepping further into the room. The man obviously needed some cheering up, and it wasn't a lie. "I know The Skye Boat Song when I hear it."

McKay looked a little pleased with himself, and honestly the man looked a lot nicer when he smiled. But there was also a touch of surprise in his expression, as if the man wasn't used to receiving compliments.

"What else can you play?"

"Oh, this and that. Lots of things, really. I've actually memorised the sheet music for—" He stopped, seeming to realised what Carson was actually asking. "I don't let people hear me play."

"Well, I've already heard you play," Carson pointed out, sitting down in a chair at the front of the room, hands clasped together and an expectant look on his face.

McKay stared at him until it became clear that Carson wasn't going anywhere.

"Oh. Uh... Okay," he said hesitantly, hovering his fingers over the keys.

A moment later, a slightly stilted rendition of Let It Be had Carson nodding his head along to the familiar tune.

"That was pretty good," he said when McKay had finished.

"No it's not. I haven't touched a piano in years. Not since I stopped my lessons."

"Why'd you do that?"

"I was never very good, and I don't like doing things unless I'm really good at them because I can't get ridiculed that way. And my teacher told me I had no sense of the art," he confided, then paused. "Why am I telling you this?"

Maybe because someone had finally thought tae ask. "So what made you play again now, after all this time?" Carson pressed curiously.

McKay looked at him, then turned away. When he spoke, his tone was sad. "Someone asked me today if I'd ever done something because I enjoyed it, even if I wasn't very good at it. And it made me realise that I've missed it."

"I didn't think you were listening."

"Of course I was listening!" he snapped, immediately looking like he regretted it. He looked at Carson again. "Do I really make my students cry?"

"Yes," Carson stated bluntly.

McKay's shoulders slumped. "I'm amazing at physics, but I guess I can add 'teaching' to the list of things I can't do."

"You could do that," Carson agreed, "but that's a very negative way of looking at it. Alternatively, you could see teaching as something you could be better at and strive to improve."

McKay stared at him. "You know, for someone who teaches biology, you're actually pretty clever."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Carson told him, narrowing his eyes.

"Good. You should."

Carson pinched the bridge of his nose. What are you daein? "It's getting late," he stated, "and I'm starving. Do you want to grab some dinner with me?"

McKay looked startled. "What? Why?"

"Why not? Two colleagues can discuss their work over food, can't they?"

"Well, yes, but... I don't understand why you'd want to spend time with me."

McKay sounded so honestly confused that a piece of Carson's heart broke for the man. What would it take tae put a smile back on the man's face?

"I mean, no-one else here has made any kind of effort to come and talk to me."

Carson bit his tongue to avoid asking if McKay had made an effort to talk to anyone, either. His people skills seemed to be sorely lacking, if his interactions - or lack thereof - at work were anything to go by.

"Even my own sister wants nothing to do with me," McKay continued. "You tell her you think she's making a mistake teaching art instead of physics, then suddenly realise four years have passed without so much as a 'Merry Christmas', so you take a new job to be closer to her, only you find you're further away from her than you were before."

Carson sighed. Why was he always attracted tae the good-looking ones with baggage? "Look, truth be told, I very nearly didn't speak to you. I don't like the way you are with the students, and I didn't like you."

McKay's shoulders sagged. "That's hardly surprising." Then his brow furrowed as he replayed Carson's words in his mind. "Wait, you said didn't? As in, past tense?" There was the faintest trace of hope in the man's voice, tinged with disbelief.

"Aye," Carson nodded. "I realised just now that I don't actually know you. Maybe I'm wrong, but I reckon there's got to be more to you than your habit of making your students cry."

"I don't mean to!" McKay exclaimed, offence in his tone. "I want them to succeed. If they fail, that looks badly on me!"

"Wanting them to do well is a sign of a good teacher," Carson told him softly. "But you know, I think you've got the whole teaching thing a bit backwards."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not about you - it's about them."

McKay frowned as he contemplated this. After a minute his expression softened, and his mouth fell slack. He snapped his fingers and gestured at Carson. "What you said - about them learning something, even if you don't succeed in teaching them the subject," he began slowly.

"Aye?"

"Maybe the same can be said for teachers."

Carson wondered where McKay's train of thought was taking him. "How so?"

His hands grew more animated as his words came faster. "Even if I can't succeed in teaching them physics, maybe I can learn how to be a better teacher by helping them anyway?" he realised aloud.

Carson smiled, and clapped him on the shoulder. "And that's a sign of a great teacher."

"Oh, well, I wouldn't go that far..."

"Neither would I. Not yet, anyway. But I have every confidence that you can get there, if you want to. You strike me as a smart man," he told him softly.

"I am," McKay agreed.

Modesty was clearly a trait the man didn't possess.

"But I'm also petty and arrogant."

But at least he was honest - if brutally so.

"So is that a yes to the dinner, then?" Carson asked.

"Oh. Yes," McKay said, standing up. "I'm starving. Wait..."

"What?" Carson asked as he got to his feet.

"What's your name? I'm terrible with names, and I'm pretty sure we haven't met before."

"Carson. Carson Beckett. And Elizabeth introduced us your first day here."

"Oh." McKay looked embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it," Carson reassured him. "That was weeks ago."

"So where are we going to eat?" McKay asked as they exited the classroom. "I only ask because I'm deathly allergic to citrus..."

The two walked back to their cars, arranging for McKay to follow Carson to a decent restaurant that he was fairly confident didn't use any citrus fruit in its cooking. He drove to the exit of the parking lot, but didn't join the main road - instead looking in his rearview mirror and waiting for McKay to drive up behind him so they could drive off together.

Maybe Rodney wasn't so bad, he mused. Maybe they could even become friends. Or even something mair...

He looked at himself in the rear mirror. "It's been too long since you got laid," he told his reflection. He refocused his gaze behind him once again, noticing the car that had stopped behind his. He looked back over his shoulder and Rodney gave him a tentative wave as if to say he was ready to go.

Carson shook his head as he joined the traffic, his colleague's car following behind. The man wasn't one to beat around the bush, certainly. He'd say what he thought, no matter who it might hurt, but the arrogance behind some of his statements rang false - as if it was projected to show a self-confidence he didn't feel. Rodney would certainly be an interesting man to get to know better - wherever it led.

Life as a teacher begins the day you realise that you are always a learner. — Robert John Meehan