Title: Getting To Know You

Author: Ellex

Disclaimer: Stargate:Atlantis does not belong to me. (Sob)

Spoilers: The Storm

Reviews: I love feedback and constructive criticism. Please don't flame – it's just rude.

Summary: Conversations between Shep and McKay

A/N: This is an AU sequel to "The Storm". I've only seen "The Storm" once, and I don't remember all the details, so any mistakes are mine. Any medical mistakes are also mine. Serena Perry is an OC, she'll show up in person later on. If my details about Doctor Heightmeyer are wrong, you'll just have to live with it. People keep mentioning her in their fics, but I can't figure out where they're getting the info.

This could be McShep preslash. Right now it's entirely dependent upon your own interpretation. I'm not saying one way or the other…yet.

Chapter Three: Waking Up and Remembering

Rodney slowly floated towards consciousness. Something had woken him up, and at first he couldn't figure out what it was. He frowned but didn't open his eyes, and finally his mind seemed to connect back to his body. His head only ached a little, which was an incredible relief, so that wasn't what had woken him. Something was missing. The warm spot in the middle of his back was cold. The gentle pressure was gone.

He carefully opened his eyes to find the room blessedly dim. Bright lights gave him headaches. Loud noises gave him headaches. In fact, pretty much everything gave him headaches, and he was beginning to wonder if his head would ever stop hurting. Even thinking hurt sometimes, and his mind was so slow and sludgy and confused that he had stopped trying.

His hip was beginning to ache from lying on his right side. Rodney carefully rolled over, jerked almost upright in surprise at the sight of the figure beside the bed, and fell back with a gasp, clutching at the mattress as the room seemed to tilt around him. He stared fixedly at the ceiling, trying to ignore the sensation that he was about to fall off the bed.

A hand gripped his shoulder, and it helped to ground him. The figure leaned over him, and Rodney was surprised to see John Sheppard, looking at him with what appeared to be real concern.

"What – "his voice was hoarse with disuse, and he coughed to clear his throat, which sent a brief stabbing pain through his head. A cup appeared before him, and he reached out hands that were weaker than they should have been to take it. Gentle hands helped him sit up and he sipped slowly at the cool water, and a moment later the cup was taken away before he dropped it. He was eased back down onto the bed, and lay there quietly for a moment before opening his eyes again.

It was John Sheppard, sitting at his bedside, and Rodney could not for the life of him figure out what he was doing there. Unthinking, he asked exactly that.

Sheppard's face closed off momentarily, then the usual cocky grin spread across his face.

"I'm just checking up on you to see that you aren't slacking off. No sick days on Atlantis, McKay. Besides, Kavanaugh is driving me nuts. At least you're almost as smart as you claim to be."

Rodney couldn't follow this at all.

"Sick days? Am I sick? I don't –"

Sheppard sighed. "Never mind. Forget I said it. Go back to sleep, McKay."

Go back to sleep? Hadn't he already been sleeping? If Sheppard was here, then he shouldn't be sleeping, he should up and working. There was so much to do, and he didn't want Sheppard to think he was slacking off…

…slacking off. Hadn't Sheppard just said that to him? He found his eyes had closed while he was thinking, and opened them again. But Sheppard wasn't in the chair beside the bed anymore, he was over by the door, talking to Carson.

"…vitals are normal. Ye might ask if he wants anythin' to eat. I'd like to remove the IV. Do ye want me to tell Dr. Weir that ye're stayin' the day?"

"No, she already knows." Sheppard glanced back at McKay, and turned, smiling. "Well, look who decided to join us again. How are you feeling?"

Rodney had to think about that one. It took a few seconds to take inventory, and when he looked back at Sheppard, he was surprised to find the smile fading from his face.

"Better. I think."

The smile was back in an instant, and Rodney thought idly that Sheppard ought to smile like that more often. It was a more open and honest smile than his usual lopsided grin, and it made him look much more friendly.

"Glad to hear it," Carson said, then, "I'd better get back to young Ford before he breaks somethin' else."

He watched Carson leave, then his words sank in. "Ford's hurt?" he asked anxiously.

"Broke his ankle. Nothing too serious, but he'll probably be out of commission longer than you. Beckett says six weeks. You should be up and around in two, but you'll still have to take it easy for a while. No sign of brain damage, fortunately. Are you hungry?" Sheppard watched his face anxiously.

Rodney found himself blushing a little at the soldier's intense scrutiny. He averted his eyes while he thought about the question. To his surprise, he did feel a little hungry. His stomach felt small and empty, but not painful. The nasty taste in his mouth would be nice to get rid of, though.

"Yeah. Yeah, I would like something to eat. MRE?" he asked hopefully.

Sheppard rewarded him with that wonderful smile again, but replied, "No way. Those things'll make you worse, not better. The Athosians are living here on Atantis again until they get things cleaned up on the mainland, and this one woman – Alinna – makes the most fabulous soup you've ever had. Kind of like chicken with lime."

He made a face, and Sheppard quickly added, "There's no citrus in it. Beckett checked. Don't budge, I'll get some."

Less than five minutes later Rodney was sitting up in bed, sipping carefully from a mug of soup, while Sheppard sat beside the bed, fooling with his PDA. The hot soup tasted wonderful, and seemed to ease the lingering ache that permeated his entire body.

"How did Ford break his ankle?" he asked after a while. Sheppard put down the PDA and gave Rodney his full attention again, which the Canadian found a little disconcerting.

"Helping Kavanaugh." Sheppard scowled. "The moron was trying to reconnect one of the power substations to ground into the water, and got his wires crossed. The whole thing nearly fell into the ocean, along with Kavanaugh. Ford got him up onto solid ground, then slipped and fell himself. We managed to get everything reattached – did you know we found a small portable tractor beam type of thing? Weir won't let that idiot anywhere near the power substations now. Doctor Zelenka and Doctor Perry fixed it."

"Doctor Perry? You mean Serena?"

"Is that her name? I couldn't figure it out. Zelenka pronounces it 'Zerna'."

Rodney couldn't help a grin. "You'd better not call her 'Doctor Perry' to her face. She says a doctorate isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Just look –"

"At Kavanaugh. Yeah, I heard her say that."

The two men shared an easy grin before McKay looked down at his soup self-consciously.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

There was no answer for a moment, and he glanced at Sheppard, who looked away with a troubled expression on his face.

"What do you remember?"

He searched his mind, which made his head start to ache a bit. "I remember…one of the Genii sticking a knife in my arm…K-kolya telling his men to shoot you…hearing – hearing the g-gunfire…" He swallowed with difficulty. The pain in his head was getting worse. "He was going to hurt Elizabeth. I t-told him to - " he broke off and put a shaking hand to his head. The mug was taken from his other hand before he could drop

it. "I don't remember any more. I – I can't-"

"It's okay. It's okay, Rodney. You don't have to remember. Just let it go. Everyone's alright. They all got home safely. You saved the day, Rodney. You saved our lives."

The stabbing pain in his head was drowning out the words. From a distance he felt strong, gentle hands easing him back down on the bed, turning him onto his side, and the by now familiar sensation of a warm hand rubbing slow circles in the middle of his back. It was Sheppard, he realized. Sheppard had been there each of the dimly remembered times his head had felt like his brain was trying to escape from his skull. He would have liked to ponder that realization, but the pain pulled him farther down into darkness. Desperately, he focused on the hand on his back, and the pressure in his skull seemed to back off a little. After a few minutes, it eased off even farther and he was drifting somewhere just short of sleep. His body relaxed, the muscles sore from their previous tension.

"Better?" Sheppard's voice was barely audible.

All he could manage was a small sound of assent.

"Go to sleep then. I'll be here when you wake up."

Rodney found that thought incredibly reassuring, and willingly let consciousness slip away.

A few days later Dr. Weir was passing by when she glanced out the transparent doors to the deck nearest the infirmary. She was mildly startled to see what looked like a roughly fashioned deck chair made from crates and pillows, occupied by a figure muffled in blankets. Though the sun was shining, there was still a slight chill in the air, even a week after "Hurricane Atlantis", as Ford had dubbed it. When asked what they would call the next one – hoping, of course, that there wouldn't be a next one – the young Lieutenant instantly replied, "Hurricane Beckett, of course."

She moved closer, stopping just before the point where the doors would sense her presence and open. The person in the chair was Rodney McKay, his face still pale and haggard even in sleep. The bruising had faded, but the 3-inch long gash just above and slightly forward of his left ear was still covered by a white bandage. One hand pillowed his head while the other clutched the blankets around him. For once he seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

Dr Beckett had reported to her that Rodney would likely take a couple of weeks to fully recover from his injuries. The debilitating headaches had decreased in frequency and intensity, and he no longer suffered lapses of his short-term memory, but he still tired easily and spent most of his time sleeping. Both Sheppard and Carson said he had nightmares, but Rodney refused to talk about them. In fact, he claimed to have no recollection of anything that had happened between the head injury and waking up in the infirmary, but Elizabeth had her doubts about that.

It seemed like things were getting back to normal. The remaining captured Genii had been sent back to their planet with a warning message from Doctor Weir. The city had survived the storm almost completely intact. The Athosians had moved back to the mainland, and most of the work was focused on getting their little colony running again. Ford had earned himself another three weeks in the cast by getting a little too overconfident on his crutches. McKay's headaches had disappeared almost completely – only showing up when he didn't get enough sleep or spent too long staring at his computer screen.

But every so often - once, maybe twice a day - someone would find McKay just standing somewhere, usually in his lab, not moving, eyes blank, unresponsive. It had scared the wits out of Elizabeth the first time he found him like that: motionless in the middle of the hall, his head tilted slightly as if he were listening for something. His face was utterly blank, his eyes unseeing. He hadn't moved until she touched his hand, and then he looked up, eyes focusing on her face, and several tense moments passed before he whispered her name, as if he wasn't entirely certain of her identity.

A moment later, he was his normal acerbic self, flatly denying that he had been anything other than lost in thought, that there was nothing wrong with him. Sheppard had found McKay twice in his lab in this semi-catatonic state. Carson could find nothing wrong physically, but admitted that medical science did not completely understand the human brain. The possibility still existed that McKay had suffered some lasting brain damage that Carson could not detect. It was also possible, Carson said quietly to Elizabeth, that McKay's fugue states were attributable to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Atlantis team had a psychiatrist, whom Sheppard insisted on calling "Counselor Troi" to Doctor Heightmeyer's disgust; but although Rodney had willingly spoken to her about the traumatic events concerning Kolya, all he would say about his lapses in behavior was that he had been thinking.

"Thinking about what?" Elizabeth and Heightmeyer both asked him, and he would launch into an involved explanation of some technical issue that made Elizabeth's head spin.

Heightmeyer later spoke privately with Elizabeth.

"I think Dr. McKay is having flashbacks," the tall Minnesotan said. Dr. Weir had noticed with some amusement that her accent diminished noticeably around McKay. "The mind is a funny thing: it can block a traumatic experience out of the conscious memory, but not out of the subconscious. And everything in the subconscious, sooner or later, rises to the surface.

"Doctor McKay says he can't remember anything after telling Kolya to leave you alone - not the head injuries, not shooting Kolya, nothing until he woke up in the infirmary almost four days later. That isn't unusual considering the severity of his concussion. But these fugue states sound to me like an indicator of returning memories, especially since Carson can find no evidence of brain damage."

"What can we do for Rodney?" asked Elizabeth.

Heightmeyer shrugged. "Not much. Keep an eye on him. Be supportive. Listen if he wants to talk."

"And these fugue states?"

"Don't try to wake him up from them. If he is remembering what happened, it's best to let it proceed as naturally as possible. If you see any physical symptoms - if the memories are traumatic enough, he could go into shock - or if his behavior changes radically, get Carson and myself immediately." Suddenly, Heightmeyer smiled. "This is Rodney McKay we're talking about. I think we can generally trust him to go straight to Carson if he feels at all unwell."

TBC