Sensitivity: Part Ten

Aftermath

That attack in the freezing pre-dawn was the last one for the night.

The bleary-eyed defenders watched the sun rise, watched it move across the sky, and more than a few went back to their bedrolls and fell asleep.

Rodney found a packet of stimulants in Sheppard's jacket pocket and appropriated a couple to boost his flagging energy. John wouldn't be needing them after all.

He and Carson were two of the men who stood the last watch, propped up on either side of a doorway, mostly arguing with each other.

The return to the central city was neither triumphal, nor hesitant. Elizabeth, flanked by Rodney on one side and Captain Robert Saunders on the other, went back through the corridors to the control room, and took the city out of lockdown. She then proceeded to list the things that needed to be done by the personnel who'd gotten more than a few brief snatches of sleep, before she went to her quarters and slept until the midafternoon.

Atlantis was somewhat subdued that day.

A shot from a stunner did wonders for the more aggressive men in the city. They woke up groggy and stiff, and restrained in a broad assortment of ways. Rodney took a photo for posterity. It would make good ammunition in the informal rivalry between the military and scientific personnel.

There was satisfaction that he'd been correct in his theory. A regular proximity to the women, specifically to one or two women, had toned down the aggression of the men. Probably a genetic imperative; when you 'owned' a women - and he was very careful not to use that term anywhere near one of the women - then she was yours, so why intimidate her further?

It was possible that the possession worked the other way as well; after all, if you 'owned' a woman - or were owned by her, whichever way it went - she wasn't going to take your interest in another woman particularly kindly.

By the morning after the morning after the night of the full moon, personnel were back in their quarters, and roaming around Atlantis. A day after that, the base was more or less back to normal. And that evening, Elizabeth called a meeting with him, Sheppard, and Carson to discuss the state of Atlantis following the full moon.

Carson was late.

"Well, finally," Rodney exclaimed when Carson appeared in the door of the briefing room.

It earned him an arch glance from Sheppard and a quelling one from Elizabeth, but at this moment in time, he didn't much care.

He was in a bad mood. Primarily because he hadn't finished any of the research he'd planned to have done by today and the backlog was building up. The enemies they'd made in this galaxy weren't going to stand still, even if Rodney's concentration was shot two days after the night of the full moon.

It seemed to be pretty much the same state of affairs all through Atlantis.

Both men and women were restless in and of themselves, and with each other as the personnel got over 'The Night Of The Bloody Swords' as one of the control room technicians had labelled it. Apparently it was a reference to a chapter from a fantasy novel wherein a small number of heroes held a room against the repeated attacks of their enemies all night.

Irony, much?

Okay, so the men and women of Atlantis weren't enemies exactly, but there was no lack of distance between most of the groups. The women were particularly wary of their male colleagues after the night of the full moon - and Rodney couldn't blame them.

Given how the men had behaved - even those who'd been helping defend the women - he wasn't terribly surprised that more than a few of the female personnel kept a careful distance around him.

It was a pity that Patricia Kelmar wasn't one of them.

Then again, you couldn't have everything.

Carson sat down in his chair with a huff, and glared at Rodney. "I was finishing off the bloodwork from the most recent personnel tests," he said before he turned to Elizabeth. "I'm sorry I'm late, Dr. Weir."

"But you have news?" Elizabeth seemed calm enough with her hands wrapped around the mug of tea - not coffee, but tea - that sat on the table in front of her.

"The testosterone spike is abating," said Carson. "It's still higher than usual, so there'll be a few upsets for a while, but the worst is probably over."

Rodney had to object to that. "The worst is not over," he snapped, irritably. "We're still dealing with the 'worst' of this - all those women who won't look us in the eye anymore."

Carson frowned. "That's not my job," he said. "My job is the physical and physiological well-being of the base, and as far as that's concerned, we're getting better. I've spoken with Dr. Heitmeyer and she's of the same opinion - behaviours are calming down all over the city, and while there are relational problems between the sexes, there are also signs that things are returning to normal as the moon wanes."

"Are they going to re-occur when the moon waxes again?" Elizabeth's question of course.

"It's hard to say," Carson said. "I'd be inclined to say 'no' - or, at least, not as much. One of the chemists has been working on the pollen compound. Apparently, when it's fresh, it works in much the same way as a hormone released by the pituitary gland, activating the pituitary to release luteinizing hormone which stimulates the testes to produce testosterone in males." He bobbed his head slightly, indicating uncertainty. "The process is slightly different in women, but the female body tends to respond to hormonal changes in the people around them."

Beside Rodney, John sat forward a little, frowning. "So...we changed because of this pollen, and the women changed because of us?"

"Something like that," Carson said. "It's a little more complex than that."

"You said 'when it's fresh,'" Elizabeth noted. She seemed pensive, rolling her mug between her hands. "What about when it's not?"

"The pollen loses potency after a couple of days. We went back through the clothing assigned to Major Sheppard's team and found pollen samples from their first trip to Tabaasa. It breaks down in a week."

Elizabeth nodded, "But this will happen every time a team goes through to Tabaasa?"

A shrug was all the answer she got. "At least until the pollen seasons ends."

"There are ways around it," Rodney pointed out. "Send only women to Tabaasa."

"Not virgins," Sheppard added dryly. His lip still bore a visible contusion from his encounter with Teyla. Exactly what kind of encounter was still officially unknown.

Privately, Rodney knew that John Sheppard had tried to...well, force himself on Teyla - and she had responded predictably. Of course, nobody was brave enough to ask - not when Sheppard moved around the city like a man who was keeping himself from violence with a very thin thread of control.

Some men, it seemed, were responding worse to the aftermath of the testosterone poisoning than others; Sheppard was just one of them.

In the occasional thoughtful moments that prevailed upon him, Rodney wondered if John's bad temper had anything to do with the fact that Teyla had promptly requested a pilot - a female one - to take her to the mainland to stay with her people for the last two days. A couple of the other 'untouched women' had gone with her, although a handful had stayed in defiance of the danger to themselves.

"Make sure that the trip back to Atlantis has a 'stopover' on a deserted planet," he said. "We did that on the way back from Tabaasa the third time. Not that it made much difference."

"Not that it would have made much difference," said Carson, looking back at Elizabeth with his typically earnest expression. "By then, the pollen had already infected the base."

Sheppard was drumming his fingers on his upper arm, and Rodney glared at him. Beneath the table, he could feel the vibrations of the other man jiggling his leg - an on-and-off agitation that was exacerbated by Rodney's own restiveness. The Major sat up, stopping the leg-jiggling, and clenching his fingers tight. "If we time it right, then we can collect the food when there's no...danger to us."

Exactly. "It'll mostly be a matter of scheduling," Rodney pointed out.

She looked from him to Major Sheppard to Carson, and smiled. "Very well. I'll arrange for an all-female team to pick up the first shipment then."

"And we'll have a party?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. It seemed that Ford's repeated insistences on some kind of celebration had infected Sheppard. Elizabeth's smile just broadened. "I think Lieutenant Ford's idea of a party is an excellent idea. I'll speak with the personnel in charge of the mess hall to see what they can organise." She glanced around the room, "Is there anything else?"

"When do Teyla and the other women get back?"

Rodney studied the look that passed between Elizabeth and Sheppard - a challenge from one to the other. After a moment, Elizabeth said, "I don't know. We haven't heard back from them, yet."

"Actually," Carson said, almost apologetically, "Grodin was speaking on one of the communications channels when I came in. I think it might have been Lieutenant Hodge, with Teyla and the other women."

"There you go, then," said Elizabeth briskly. "Anything more?"

There was nothing more. At least, nothing more public. Rodney wanted a word with Elizabeth, but when she went towards her office, John followed, so that was out.

Of course, he hovered just long enough to hear Elizabeth say, "Are you going to apologise?"

He didn't wait for Sheppard's answer.

oOo

John didn't let any nervousness show on his face as he waited in the gym. If he was going to feel like an idiot, then at least he wasn't going to look like one.

Common sense said that he looked fairly stupid waiting in the empty gym for a sparring partner who wasn't likely to trust him around her again. That didn't stop him from hoping.

He was jiggling his leg again and consciously stopped.

Damn, the waiting was hard.

In spite of taking care not to look edgy, John was nervous as all hell. His behaviour the other night had been way over the line - even given the mitigating circumstances. Then there was the slight problem of remembering what he'd done, every second of it.

And the moment he remembered with perfect clarity was the one when she'd looked up at him as he held her jaw in his hand, her eyes dark with anger, betrayal and a helplessness that was unlike Teyla.

The small group of women had come back from the mainland yesterday, and if they were cautious around the men of the base, at least they weren't flinching every time a guy passed them in the corridors. Weir said it would take time for everyone to deal with what had happened.

As far as John was concerned, Elizabeth was another matter left unfinished. The distance between them wasn't immediately plain, but he thought it pretty obvious that she was angry at having to take up a weapon against him.

Yeah, mending that bridge would take time.

Now, John waited for Teyla to show up to their scheduled fighting session. Or not.

Rodney was insufferably triumphant after having his theories proven right. Ford took it with good humour, Beckett rolled his eyes and went somewhere else as soon as McKay so much as mentioned the night of the full moon. Elizabeth was both amused and exasperated by McKay's ebullience. Still, she managed to be tactful as ever, and adroitly changed the topic whenever it came up.

He was grateful for one person who was aware of just how uncomfortable the topic was to him.

Now he'd be all the more grateful if Teyla would just turn up. That would signal that things were okay between them. Maybe not back to where they were, but a starting point for rebuilding.

The afternoon light flowed through the window, warm and golden, and he scuffed his feet against the floor in impatience, then paused.

She stood in the doorway, her bag over her shoulder and her hair tied out of her face. Some remnant of the Tabaasan sensitivity still remained; enough for John to be very aware that there was a tension in her shoulders as she faced him.

"I wasn't sure if we were on," he said, seeing that she wasn't going to start the conversation.

"I was not sure if it would be safe," she said a moment later.

He gave her a terse smile. "I'm glad you're here."

Her mouth tried to curve in a smile but didn't quite make it. She still held herself with a cool aloofness - none of her usual ease, and he saw the way she watched him. It was the same way she looked when they were in the midst of sparring - the watchful gaze of an enemy.

John took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." He hadn't actually intended to apologise, but the words were there and they needed speaking. It was now or never, all or nothing.

Teyla nodded. "Your apology is accepted." She glanced at the distance between them, then back down the corridor she had travelled to reach here. "I..."

"Look," he said quietly, taking two steps across the gym. He stopped the instant she edged backwards. "I can't take back what I did, Teyla. And you are...attractive." The admission was more difficult than he'd expected, and her lips twitched slightly at his reluctance. "If you want to take time out from sparring, then I understand that. But on Earth, we have a saying; when the horse throws you, you climb back on."

One auburn brow arched. "You are saying that we should return to sparring as though nothing has happened?"

"Not as though nothing has happened," he said. "But...with a clean slate." Another Earth metaphor that she didn't understand. John tried to think of a more appropriate description. "We don't let the past interfere."

Plainly, she was still thinking it over.

And he couldn't do anything but wait for her to finish.

She was studying him with the calm gaze that had disconcerted more than one person in Atlantis. He met her, look for look, telling his nerves that they could take this - he'd played the waiting game before.

But when she sighed, it jangled across his nerves like a Sergeant's bellows on the battlefield.

He took another step forward, lifting his chin and meeting her gaze. "Teyla?"

"Major Sheppard?"

"Will you trust me?"

It was a gamble. John knew that. What was broken couldn't always be fixed, and what was torn couldn't always be mended.

But as Teyla set her shoulders and stepped into the room, he felt a genuine smile touch his lips for the first time in days.

Trust was a start.

oOo

The celebration party was in full swing when Elizabeth finally arrived at the mess hall.

As she paused in the doorway, she cast her eye over the room. After the last week of tension between men and women, it was a pleasure and a relief to see that most people were sitting in mixed groups, talking and chatting with reasonable ease, if not quite the camaraderie of two weeks previously.

There were exceptions of course. She spotted various groups of marines scattered about the room. For the most part the ones who'd come off worst after the 'Night of the Bloody Swords' were the military personnel, whose generally higher testosterone levels had resulted in the more aggressive behaviour that was only now fading away.

No, Elizabeth wouldn't be sending any male military personnel back to Tabaasa in a hurry.

As she started across the room, she caught various gazes of people she knew, and nodded at them, smiling slightly when she spotted Teyla sitting with Lieutenant Ford and a mixed group of personnel, both scientific and military. Major Sheppard, she noted, was carrying drinks over to them from the serving counter. She caught his eye and smiled, and received a slightly sheepish smile in return.

She wasn't sure she'd quite forgiven him for putting her in the position of defender against him. If there was one man she'd trusted that she'd never have to defend herself against, it had been John. The night of the full moon had given her reason to doubt him.

She and John had already spoken about his actions and hers that night, mostly recriminations.

Then again, Teyla appeared to have forgiven him for his behaviour. Compared with that, what was Elizabeth's grievance?

Yes, there were a lot of things they'd have to work through over the next few weeks.

"Elizabeth," Dr. Heitmeyer stopped as she and a few others passed by on their way to a table. "Glad to see you could make it."

The smile on the psychologist's face indicated she was teasing, and Elizabeth felt her mouth curve. "This is one party I certainly wouldn't miss. How is everything so far?" She eyed the food Kate had on her plate. "It looks delicious."

"I haven't tried any of it yet, but Kelly in the kitchen assured me that it's all very tasty." Kate leaned towards her in a conspiratorial fashion. "I think Rodney's a little annoyed that there's nothing he can complain about."

She couldn't quite help the laugh that sprang to her lips. "Where are you sitting?" When Kate indicated the corner of the room, she said, "Save me a place," and continued on towards the serving counter. Her stomach was beginning to make growling sounds at the prospect of a meal with fresh-cooked ingredients - the aromas in the air were mouth-watering.

Indeed, the food both looked and smelled delicious, and the mess hall sergeants had written out labels to indicate what was in each dish. The names used for the labels were Tabaasan, but where an Earth equivalent existed, the cooks had put the descriptor in brackets.

Most of the personnel had already taken their food, and while some of the pots were empty, there were still quite a few remaining. She filled up her plate swiftly and was on her way to sit down, when Rodney intercepted her.

"Elizabeth," he peered at her plate. "Ah good, I see you're trying the bitter melon stuff. And the potato-like salad. I was going to recommend them. But the stroganoff is overcooked."

It was irresistable to ask, "No citrus?"

He puffed up a little. "Does this look like the body of a man suffering from anaphylactic shock?"

She limited her amusement to a smile. "It's good to know the Tabaasan food agrees with you."

"Yes. You know, I was thinking," he said, "that sending the military personnel away on the hunt was probably the worst thing you could have done that day."

Elizabeth sighed, unnoticed by him. The last thing she either needed or wanted right now was a rehash of the last few days. "Rodney--"

He rambled on, quite insensible to her present impatience with his theory. "I mean, they were all hyped up on their testosterone levels, and you send them out to go kill things, which probably set them up even further. By the time they got back, the only thing they had to attack was each other or the women."

"Rodney." Once again, she found herself speaking a little more loudly to gain his attention.

Blue eyes fixed her with surprise. "What?"

"Can this wait until later?" She waved the plate at him and his head lifted in an 'oh' of understanding.

"Of course," he said, and followed her towards the table where Kate Heitmeyer was sitting along with other personnel. "You know..."

"Rodney," she warned him.

"I was just going to ask if you wanted a drink," he said. It was her turn to stop and look surprised. "What?"

There'd been a moment when she'd had a very strong feeling of déjà vu. "Do you remember a conversation we had about usual behaviours?"

His expression said he did, turning patiently exasperated as he remonstrated, "Elizabeth, very little of what we've seen in the last few days has been in the parameters of the 'usual behaviour'. Now, do you want a drink or not?"

It was hard not to smile. Not the most suave of men, ever. But without doubt, charming in his own way. "Yes, please."

"Good." He patted her on the shoulder and leaned in a little with what he probably considered a 'wise and sagelike' expression. "And my advice to you is 'enjoy it while it lasts.'" And with that, he turned on his heel and made for the drinks counter, pausing to snap something at one of the junior scientists on the way.

Elizabeth watched him in bemusement before shaking her head and turning back towards the table.

Returning to normal, yes, but still definitely a little strange.

oOo -- fin -- oOo

AUTHOR'S FINAL NOTES: Thank you very much for holding out this far! I hope you enjoyed the ride! Keep an eye out for my next longfic - hopefully to be done before the Season Two premiere in the US (July 15th, 2005).

Several people have asked why Rodney isn't affected by the virus. He is. Both he and Beckett are affected: however, as he suggests in 'Theories and Proofs', the men who interact more regularly with the women of the city are less aggressive and more inclined to sensitivity. Since Rodney interacts a lot with Elizabeth, and is on Teyla's team, he has a good 'grounding' in them both. The difference between him and Sheppard is that Sheppard is part of an organisation that hones human aggression into a tool - and the major falls prone to that in Chapter 9.