Chapter Two

Oddities

I opened my eyes. The brightness of the lights caused me to squint. I didn't know where I was, but I had an idea. I was staring at a ceiling that I was pretty sure belonged to the infirmary. I rolled my head to the right, and saw Weir sitting beside me. I blinked. "What happened?"

"Rodney said something went wrong with the equipment."

My voice was croaky, like Kermit the Frog, and I was thirsty. "Water?"

She nodded, and got up, walking out of my line of sight. I tried to remember what had happened. Memories were starting to return, and the mental movie reel ended on McKay intentionally dialing it up, after I'd asked him to stop.

A water glass was thrust in front of me. "Here, Major." Elizabeth was holding the plastic cup in front of me, and started adjusting the bed so I could drink without wearing it.

"Thanks," I said, and took a long drink. The water was lukewarm, but tasted better than a chocolate shake on a hundred degree day in Texas. "Where's McKay?" I had a bone to pick with him. I wanted to know what game he was playing. We'd gone back and forth with petty jokes and stunts, but never intentionally hurt the other. What I remembered from earlier could only be described as intentional.

"He said he'd be down to check on you soon," she answered.

"What was the problem? I feel like I've gone surfing for a week straight." I'd done that once, and if I was being truthful, this felt worse.

Elizabeth paused before answering, hesitating for what I didn't know. "He said the device charged your body, and in order to discharge, you had to be grounded. When he did, he didn't realize there wasn't any insulator on the pad."

I'm not a dense person. If electricity courses through your body, it has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is to ground. If you have an insulator, you'll be fine, but if there isn't one, it's going to hurt. I was pretty sure this fit the definition of hurt. The only thing of it was, I thought I had seen McKay increase the charge on my body. That first spark wouldn't have been enough to land me here.

"McKay tried to kill you," Elizabeth whispered from my bedside. She had sat back in her chair, and was adjusting her shirt.

"What?" I asked, confused. She'd announced that as if she was giving me an update on the weather, not accusing my friend of attempted murder.

She stilled her hands, and looked up from whatever wrinkle was holding her attention. "I said, McKay thought he killed you." She looked at me oddly. "Major, are you okay?" She said it like she was afraid I'd had a few brain cells to many fried in the accident.

Ironically, I was beginning to wonder the same thing. "I'm fine," I said, as much to reassure myself, as to reassure her. That was twice I'd misheard what was said. I wondered if the q-tips were doing their job. "Where's Beckett?" I wanted to get out of here and track down McKay. See him tell me to my face and judge whether he was hiding something or not.

Elizabeth looked behind her, towards the area where Beckett had set up an impromptu office. He was almost always there when patients were in the infirmary. He'd even had a bed brought in. "Carson!" Elizabeth shouted, surprising me, she usually is reserved and quiet. Come to think of it, I can't recall her raising her voice like that before.

Beckett poked his head around the corner, and when he saw me sitting up, a broad smile rewarded my awake status. "How do you feel, Son?" he asked, coming over to my side, and slipping on his stethoscope.

"Like I've been electrocuted," I replied dryly. Redundant questions seemed to be a staple of the medical field.

He pulled his head back from leaning over my right shoulder, letting the cold metal slide off my skin from its position over my lung. "Back to normal, I see," he observed.

I was pretty sure that wasn't a compliment. Yeah, I'm not the most patient patient. Truth be told, I think he's still pissed at me for not coming back after I was stunned before we caught Steve. I'd promised him I'd come back when it was all said and done, and then had forgotten. Okay, maybe not forgotten so much as decided it wasn't necessary. He'd given me a lecture that would've made my mother beg for mercy, and I was scared about my next routine physical.

Back to the matter at hand, I cleared my throat. "Can I go?"

He was looking me over like a prize piece of china, with a hairline crack running through the center. "You'll take it easy?" he asked, and was that a hint of reproach?

"Yes," I tucked the crossed fingers closer under my thigh beneath the sheet. "I promise."

"Elizabeth, a moment please?" Carson asked, but it wasn't a question.

Weir stood, casting a concerned look my way, before placing a hand gently on Carson's arm, and moving out the door. I watched her leave, appreciating the view, before looking back at Beckett. He was giving me that look, and I knew I hadn't fooled him.

Beckett sat on the bottom edge of my bed, and folded his arms over his chest. "Major, I won't be saying this again. You take it easy, or you'll wind up back here. A body can only take so much abuse, and you've heaped it on "

I felt the need to defend myself at that juncture. "I'm not the one doing it!" I protested.

He scowled. "Don't test anything, don't have your session with Teyla, no missions, nothing except eat, sleep, and relax for the next week, is that clear?"

I don't think I'd ever seen him this serious. I let the crossed fingers unwind. So, maybe I would take it easy, at least for a few days. It wouldn't hurt to let him think he'd made a point, for a little while. "Okay," I replied.

He stared at me for another long moment, I guess trying to decide if I was being serious, or complacent enough, to get the letter out of here. I was kind of doing both. You don't tell the warden you have plans for skipping parole before they let you out of the joint. "You can go. Pick up your pain medication from the duty nurse," he said finally, and slid off the bed, disappearing into his office, not giving me a second warning glance.

I didn't need to be told twice. I was a little worried he'd come running back, and tell me he changed his mind.I slid off the bed, and realized instead of the scrubs I normally got stuck in, they'd gone the gown road this time. I felt something pulling, and peeked down the neck hole and realized why it was a gown. I had all those little sticky pads from an EKG left in my hair. Damn it, those things hurt! No wonder Beckett had hightailed it out of there.

I wasn't even going to try to get those off. I grabbed a blanket, and hightailed it to the showers, snatching a pair of those gay pink scrubs on the way. Water was a sticky things worse enemy. It'd get most of it off with minimal hair loss, and hopefully minimal pain. I think this was part of his payback move. They could've taken them off when I was out, and I would've been none the wiser, except a little less hairy.

It took about thirty minutes of soaking, pulling, and praying before I was showered, back in my quarters, and tossing on a clean uniform. Since I had been grounded I kept it to some jeans and my black shirt. Now, it was time to hunt down McKay.

Where was that sneaky bastard hiding? I'd gone to his lab, and he wasn't there. I'd tried Zelenka's, and even checked Kavanaugh's hole, but no McKay. I had been wandering around, and had nothing to show for it except fatigue, which was gaining ground fast.

I finally gave up and headed towards the mess hall, and what would you know, there he was eating lunch with Ford and Teyla. I was kind of hungry so I went through the line and got whatever was the daily special, and joined them at the table.

"Major, it is good to see you up," Teyla greeted, smiling warmly.

She always smiled that way at me. It was like a friend you hadn't seen in years, and they were always so happy to see you. It made me feel good inside. I was worried she'd wake up some day, and start blaming me for what I'd inadvertently caused on her planet. It was my fault they were here. If I hadn't activated that stupid locket things might be a lot different. "It's good to be up," I said, sliding my tray beside hers.

"We were coming to see you after eating, Sir. Didn't expect the Doc to let you go so soon." Ford looked embarrassed that I'd found them, and not the other way around. He was like the loyal bloodhound of Atlantis, and for whatever reason, he'd latched on to me as someone to look up to, and learn from. I guess the kid could do worse.

McKay was checking me out, top hair sticking up, to polished boots at the bottom. I looked at the boots. Maybe not so polished anymore. I caught his eye, and he flushed. "What?" I asked, self-consciously.

"Just making sure there wasn't any exit holes. You should have seen the arc you created," he said it casually, but I got the impression that I had scared him.

"About that," I started. "Which way did you turn that dial?"

He picked a roll off his tray, and set it back down, then picked up his juice and gave it a tentative sniff. "The right, I think. Why?"

"Because I told you to stop, and you turned it up," I accused. I didn't want to confront him in front of anyone else, but on the other hand, they were all on my team, and I wasn't a believer in secrets.

McKay seemed genuinely startled by my accusation. He set the juice down. "I had to get it to build up enough of a charge so it would discharge, letting you get off the pad. I didn't know there wasn't an insulator."

Now I felt bad. Rodney looked like I had shot his dog or something. It's kind of funny because here was this guy, about as blustery as a north wind, and as prickly as a porcupine, but inside he was all soft cotton and pudding. His heart was about as protected as Switzerland. "Well." I lost my edge, "Just, don't do it again."

"If I knew it was going to send you flying across the room, I would've had a video camera," McKay added, smiling smugly in his attempt at humor.

My goodwill evaporated. "Funny," I said. Of course, I was the one who thought it'd be funny to toss him over the balcony, and shoot him in the leg. It's a complicated friendship we had going.

Which brings me to the fact that we are all here to eat, and I was starving. I looked at my plate to check out the daily special. The sign had said bean and bacon soup, not a dish I was overjoyed about, but it was something the military could make pretty portable, so they tended to use it a lot. Canned goods had a shelf life longer than Elizabeth Taylor.

I dipped my spoon in the liquid, and brought it up to my lips, before I realized my spoon was full of crawling worms. I tossed the spoon across the table, and jumped out of my seat. "What the hell is that?" I shouted, pointing at the bowl.

Ford stared at me, stunned. "Bean and bacon soup?" he said, but it was like he was asking me what it was.

"There were bugs, crawling things, in it." I pointed at it, and leaned in, surprised to see that a bean was floating on the surface, not a bug. I looked up, and realized I'd tossed the contents of my spoon on McKay, who hadn't budged an inch, and was covered in beans, with liquid dribbling down his chin.

I also realized that everyone in the room was staring at me. I looked again at the soup, thinking this was a trick. Someone's idea of a joke, but the soup mocked me in its normalcy of beans and bacon, with not a bug in sight. I swallowed. "I, uh, I'm just going to go," I backed away from the table. "I'm going to go take a nap."

McKay lifted a napkin calmly from the table, and slowly wiped his face, and knocked the beans off his shoulder. "That would be a good idea, Major."

I felt the eyes on my back as I forced myself to walk out of the room. That was weird, even for me. Maybe Beckett was right. Maybe I did need to take it easy. I headed for my quarters, and figured probably I should stay there for a while, a long, long while.

AN: Thanks for the reviews, and as for the evil, mean, horrible cliffies, if you read my stuff you know I just can't resist!