Authors Note: This hasn't been beta-read so I apologize if it has grammar/spelling errors in or if the characters sound a bit off. Please let me know what you think of this, complaints, suggestions; any feedback would be helpful as long as it is constructive.

After a break I finally came back to this and hope it's still going ok. I do have a plan but not all the details, so unless i get plot bunnies breeding on this fic then it might be awhile til more. Sorry if that's so. And also a lot of people asked if this was inspired by the Xander split episode of Buffy. No It is inspired vaguely by the StarTrek:Original Series evil Kirk but only more like scifi cliché and importantly they Rodney's are both Rodney and not the evil/good versions of him Hope it's clearer in this chapter.

Spoilers: For Season One episodes 1-14 probably.

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate in any incarnations of course and I'm not making any money, this is just some harmless fanfic fun.

Chapter 3: The Other Side of the Coin

It was 5am and he sat in his lab. He had twenty reports to review and 4 hours until the next meeting he needed to attend.
Not enough for decent sleep but just enough time to do the reports if he could concentrate on them.
Only problem was he couldn't.
She'd be there.
And worse he'd be there.

Quentin and Elizabeth.

And she'd giggle undoubtedly, because Quentin had that bizarre effect on her. Whilst these days she never got his jokes, watching him blankly like he was mad or pathetic or something else he couldn't take. It was like she thought him a stranger to what she now knew and couldn't reconcile the real Rodney with the new 'improved' version that everyone had a habit of preferring. It was always "Quentin, can you take a look at this?" everyone wanting to show the latest and greatest to him before their actual chief scientist and then it was "Hiya, Quentin" from cute blonde commandos in the hall, admiring Quentin's muscles, practically drooling despite the fact they never paid a single whip of attention to him before.

The cafeteria was now a no go zone, making food brief snacks, dinner made mobile and eaten in seclusion of his lab. Sometimes Ford would drop by, acting casual and as if he was really interested in whatever Ancient thing was the most recently discovered. Or even, as he had last time, that he wanted to know how the Stargate worked; trying to pass it off as necessary for tactical advantage even as his eyes glazed over after a sentence or less.

And why was the cafeteria so bad? Quentin lived there a quarter of the time and where ever Quentin was she was too. Joined at the hip and bosom buddies, just how Quentin enjoyed it. He couldn't blame the guy for liking spending time with Elizabeth but it was the motivation that he questioned. He didn't yet know if it was real or fake, either way Elizabeth had taken to 'Q' better than him and there was not much he could do to change that whilst she avoided him like the plague in favour of his clone.

The hours passed slowly as he went through report after report, reviewing and evaluating the work until it was time. More than time in fact he realised as he snorted awake, his body slumped painfully over on the bench, back stiff. Finding his face stacked atop the half finished reports.

"Yo, Rodney!" called out someone way too loud for his liking.
Ugh. He sat up weary and focused on the man in front of him. Ford.
"You been here all night?" Ford asked, allowing his ever chipper morning smile to fade a tad.

It wasn't right for someone to like being up this early and he could almost cherish worrying the guy but for the fact he'd been one of the only people who still put up with him lately, or put up with the difference; the fact he wasn't Quentin, best friend to all. Ford was an exception. Looking at it from a certain perspective you might even say the lieutenant had gone out of his way to befriend him, a reasonable turn around from the initial annoyance of having him on AR-1.

"The meeting is about to start, Dr. Weir sent me to remind you."
"I'm not late?"
The lieutenant shook his head at that. "Not yet anyway."
Which made Rodney wonder.
"But why did she send you if I wasn't late?"

Ford bit his tongue, like he was trying to hold back form saying something and it couldn't be anything he thought the scientist wanted to hear. Rodney could guess it probably came from Ford's upbringing, he could just imagine good old grandma teaching lil' Aiden that age old of bone of wisdom 'If you can't say something don't say anything at all'. But really, thought Rodney, what could make him feel worse than not having slept in 29 hours.

"Spit it out." he demanded.
"Well..."
Ford looked a bit sheepish, his expression showing off his youth and Rodney almost felt bad for putting him on the spot. Then he reminded himself that Ford was military, looks were deceiving because the guy was tough as old boots and a little bit of discomfort wasn't much compared to what they handled on missions. No coddling; even if he had sidled up to him the last few weeks.

"...it's just I've noticed you seem to avoiding Dr. Weir and maybe she realises it too and you know, wanted to make sure you didn't skip the meeting ."
There was barely a pause between the embarrassed admittance and his cool unconcerned reply.
"Fine. I'm ready, let's go." he said, snapping his fingers at Ford whilst he told himself sternly 'I don't care what she thinks' as if it could be true if he repeated it enough...

"Quentin, stop, please." was the cry he heard from outside the briefing room. Elizabeth's laugh bordering on flirtatious, hitting his ears, followed by Quentin's low chuckle of amusement. Amusement at what though; the joke, Elizabeth's response or the game he might well be playing with them all. Perhaps it was him, lack of sleep making him paranoid but it was like Quentin used everyone to get to him, people as pawns in a grand match between them. If it was so Quentin was the only one playing but it was a bad enough taunt if that was what it was designed to be.

And it was enough to make him want to turn tail and bail out of the stupid briefing but he only stopped, giving an exasperated look as if to say this-is-why to Ford who shrugged at it trying to remain neutral.

The laughter stopped suddenly as he entered, putting on his best smile for the situation. Problem was his best smile for having not slept in 2 days and being more than a little resentful wasn't very nice to see, twisted and wry and as sarcastic as any comment even if he hadn't meant it to be. Like everything he felt showed through in it, awkward and bitterly.

No one responded to his greeting, a muteness overcoming them all as they watched him take his seat. Did he looked that bad? He was a bit disheveled he knew but why were they still staring. Hadn't anyone taught them it was rude.

Elizabeth tried not to shift in her seat as Rodney stared at her unforgivingly.
She reminded herself there was nothing going on, with Quentin or Rodney, and besides that she hadn't been doing anything wrong by talking to Quentin. It was just Rodney's stare made her feel like she'd stabbed him in the back.

She swallowed her discomfort, avoiding the gazes of both the McKay's and started the meeting.
"Anyway onto business. I believe you wanted to raise an issue Major."
Sheppard leant forward, nodding.
"Yes I do. I think Quentin should join AR-2 for the time being."
Rodney was the only one who had anything to say to that, even though it shouldn't have affected him.
But he'd picked up on the hint of Sheppard's, the underlying promise of more.
"For the time being? What do you mean by that."
"Exactly what I said. For. The. Time. Being." replied Sheppard steadily.
"And after 'the time being' what then?" asked Rodney rather accusingly.
"Maybe you could share time in AR-1." Sheppard said it warily, as if he already knew it wasn't going to go down well. He hadn't been wrong.

"What!"
Rodney stood up suddenly, looked round, presumably for answers or some show of sanity, he obviously didn't like this idea one bit. Quentin however looked pleased, quietly happy at prospect and saying nothing more on the matter.

"Why? Come on Rodney play nice. Sharing is good and Quentin's getting a little stir crazy here." posed Sheppard, trying to appeal to Rodney's soft side. Which was terminally absent when dealing with Quentin she'd noticed.
"So? He can go to the mainland or something." deflected Rodney, brushing it off as nothing important with a wave of his hand.

That had been what had broken John's patience unfortunately, now more than eager to debate in full favour of Quentin, who said there biding his time waggling his thumbs and acting only vaguely interested. Sometimes she found it hard to tell what was going on with Quentin, unlike Rodney who she could see through two thirds of the time and otherwise usually had an clue. If Rodney was an open textbook then it would fit to say Quentin was a locked diary, opening rarely, at choice moments. The sound of John's angry voice broke her reverie. They were still arguing fervently their respective prejudices.

"Hardly fair when you get to go off-world and he doesn't. AND you get to be head poncho of the science teams whilst he's a lowly lab runner!"

Rodney was about to respond but Elizabeth cut him off, seeing it might well escalate into ruff and tumble at this rate if she did nothing. She continued when she was sure she had their attention, glad to see Rodney was still drawn to her by her command. It was one thing for him to ignore her but it would not be acceptable if he dismissed her leadership; gladly that wasn't so.

"Rodney, you should hear us out..." said Elizabeth. She felt her heart tug as she realised the mistake of using the term 'us', making it seem like a plot against him, but she carried on hoping she could reason him down form his high and mighty stand against Quentin.

Everyone deserved a chance, happiness, respect and Quentin was no different. She would have thought he'd be more cooperative considering it was himself they were talking about or at least someone so similar to himself. They had their differences by now, because of the circumstances they'd had to endure since the accident, but each was indefinably Rodney McKay. She saw it in so many little things they did. And at the same time Quentin was his own man, someone she'd found an easy friendship with, easier even than Rodney. This was where it got confusing because technically they were both Rodney and she called Quentin the same because he had asked her to, feeling more comfortable with it after having been called it all his life just as the original Rodney had.

That was the difficulty with this, both of them trying to live the same life, the men competitive and seeing that neither could have everything as they wanted. She simply had to show them, though most resistance came from Rodney she admitted, that they would have to work together on this.

"It's hard for you I understand but you both have to adapt to this unique situation, sharing responsibilities should make it easier for you and Quentin. I'm quite willing to agree to this if Sergeant Bates is as well. I thinks its a wonderful compromise."

"You would." he spat at her.

She hesitated for a second, shocked at the hateful tone he had taken with her, before she woke up from the confusion and defended herself verbally.

"Excuse me?" she asked. Her heart beat raced as she met his steely gaze. She actually wanted him to explain, wanted to know what he had meant by that. There had already been his glare earlier and this only led her to believe he had a problem with her, or more accurately with the friendship between her and Quentin. He might as well admit to it because otherwise nothing involving Quentin would ever get resolved.
But he never said a word, studying them one by one, focusing on Quentin last before stalking out.

She reacted instinctively, jogging after him.
"Rodney! Get back here." she yelled, ignoring the gate room personnel, as she tried to catch up with him. He was a speedy devil when he wanted to be, even though he wasn't running.

Elizabeth stopped, panting a little, noting he had turned the way to the quarters and not the labs.
She wanted an explanation but something stopped her going after him, not allowing herself to, settling for watching his retreat, as he nearly tripped up in his furious desire to get away from her.

She composed herself, straightening her jacket and made her way back to the meeting, dismissing everyone when she got there and not acknowledging their concerned looks.

Making excuses of paperwork she made her was to her office, refusing the joyous Quentin's offer of lunch. Personally she didn't want to have deal with either of them right now since they were a handful and she didn't much care for celebrating with Quentin when it only served to antagonize Rodney. She was finding it weird that neither cared for their counterparts welfare one bit, but then there had always been things about him, shortcomings, that she had learnt to accept. And she'd accepted him as he was, the same with Quentin, but it wasn't like what she had Rodney, which was probably the whole point. The reports sat in front of her but her mind kept on drawing back to the meeting, to its abrupt end.

He'd never done that, he'd never said nothing, it was unlike him to drop an argument. In fact it was a very bad sign for him to say nothing at all. She could deal with his panic, with his anger maybe, with his flustered banter and the torrent of thoughts and questions that often streamed from his mouth.

But nothing? You couldn't do anything with that. She couldn't help him or work out what it meant.
But it was clear wasn't it, that he was jealous. Only he was very wrong and Elizabeth wished he wouldn't take it so badly because this was how it had to be.