i'm soooooooooooooo sorry on the hugely long wait... again, i didn't know what to do with this story! two chapters for your wait... hope you like them!

Feeling refreshed, due in no small part to Arynn, Carson got out of bed and made his way to the commissary and plopped himself down to eat. Within minutes, a fellow Atlantian made his way to the hungry doctor.

"So, how was your birthday?"

Unaware to the approach of the man, Beckett choked on his food and looked up at the person responsible.

"Hi John," he coughed out. Sheppard smiled and pat his doctor on the back. After Beckett had his food under control and the tears wiped from his eyes, he started a mild conversation. "You know, the patting on th' back thing doesn't really work that well."

Sheppard shrugged. "Yeah well, it seemed like the only appropriate thing to do." Carson chuckled.

"Of course." John started digging into his eggs and bacon eagerly.

"You know, Weir's cooking was better… oddly."

"I find myself in agreement major."

There was subliminal agreed silence as the two men wolfed down their meals. The primal instinct of feeding oneself had kicked in. The women of the base either looked on in disgust or chuckled at their ravenous nature. Weir strolled by and had a mixture of those feelings as she did.

"Men…" she communicated to the others quietly with a roll of the eyes. The other women chuckled slightly and went to work on their own meals.

Done and feeling slightly intoxicated by the experience, Beckett let loose a large belch. This startled John out of his feeding frenzy.

"Doctor…" he said in part admiration and part disbelief. Carson blinked a couple times and looked shocked at what he'd done.

"I'm sorry… I dun know what had come over meh."

"I'm impressed though doctor. Didn't know you had it in you!" With that statement made, John loosed a mighty burp of his own. Making a small grimace at the indignity of the whole thing, Beckett then grinned and offered his congrats.

"Nice one colonel," Carson recognized the recent promotion.

After a few moments of bantering, a large belch was ripped from the throat of someone else on the other side of the commissary. The echo effect was nicely done. John cocked his head and listened to it.

"Nice. I believe we've started something here," he commented.

"Indeed we have." Carson never thought he'd have so much fun with something so… so… revolting. Suddenly he felt a certain bonding between Sheppard, him, and the other males in the room. It was a pleasant feeling.

A slightly higher pitched burp emitted itself from directly behind Beckett. John looked up and his face showed one of interest with a bit of a twisted smile. The sound made a few of the guys' heads turn in their direction.

Carson tilted his head and turned around with a grin on his face.

"May I sit here?" the owner of the burp asked politely.

Being ever courteous, Sheppard said yes.

"Hello, my darling." And that was when Beckett really saw who it was. That is until she grabbed him and planted a huge kiss on the good doctor's face. When she disengaged from his face, Carson was left stunned. The woman sat down among the loud wolf whistles and grins.

Sheppard smiled like this was something that happened everyday. "Hi Arynn," he greeted amicably.

"Hi yourself Sheppard."

"Arynn?" the bewildered doctor managed to sputter. She smiled at him.

"In the flesh."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The three walked down to the infirmary for a quick check-up and then on to Weir's office. The check-up in the infirmary included the last treatment for McKay and Sheppard's hair re-growth. Apparently, the cure was designed so that the visible hair, head hair, grew back first then it dealt with the rest of the body hair. John had almost grown his hair back to the way it was… when he was a cadet. Maybe by tomorrow it would be the same "poofy-ness" as before.

McKay's hair was getting there… very slowly. Since he didn't have as much hair to re-grow as Sheppard, it came back slower. The whole thing had damaged the scientist's massive ego. For now it was a good thing, but that wasn't going to last. Arynn grinned when she saw what they had done to each other. When McKay had gained maximum distance from the infirmary Kavanaugh came in for his treatment.

Laughing, Arynn quickly ran to the infirmary computer and whipped up something. Giggling, she handed the concoction to her doctor.

"What's this?" he asked suspiciously.

"This will get rid of the welts and most of the pain, but it will keep some of the purple markings on him. It was used to teach children not to pull pranks on each other. It would embarrass them and they would think twice about doing so," Arynn explained while trying to hold herself in check.

"Ah." Kavanaugh was getting pretty pissed off in the meantime.

"Hurry up doctor, I have many important things to do. And why is that woman telling you what to do?" he asked snidely implying and meaning everything. Arynn was about ready to strike him down. Again, she consulted the doctor's ear.

"Mix this with water then give it to him."