A/N: For saclateri, Dr.Dredd, Nebulan and dahan, who will each know why ;)

Additional Edit: PurpleYin pointed out the similarity of a moment in this fic to the conversation between Sam and McKay in the SG-1 episode Redemption. Can you believe I've still never seen that episode? I have now read the transcript ;) Nothing new under the sun, eh?


Chapter Six: The Art of Science

The coloured glass door slid noiselessly aside and Dr Rodney McKay stepped out onto the balcony. He looked out at the ocean, and then down at the still form on the deck.

"Carson?" McKay's tone was even and without a hint of shock. "What the hell are you doing?"

Dr Carson Beckett looked up at his friend. "Same as you - enjoying my day off."

McKay rolled his eyes. "I meant, what precisely are you doing down there?"

"What does it look like? I'm sunbathing." The Chief Surgeon was fully-clothed, but lying stretched out with his arms behind his head, enjoying the sunshine.

McKay shivered and began to zip up his jacket. "Carson. It's fifteen below. How can you be sunbathing?"

"You're exaggerating as usual, Rodney. It must be at least ten degrees. Join me, man. It's a beautiful day." He watched to see what the Canadian was going to do.

McKay made a great fuss of lowering himself down, to sit on the deck beside Beckett. "Knowing you're using centigrade makes it marginally more acceptable, but I don't know how you can sit out here doing nothing." McKay rested his arms on his knees and gazed out over the water.

Beckett kept quiet, and the two men shared companionable silence for a while, breathing in the cool air as the sun shone down on them.

With his easy Scottish brogue, Beckett offered, "I was watching the clouds go by, Rodney. That one looks right like a rabbit." He pointed straight up.

McKay screwed up his face in disgust. "A rabbit? What are you, six years old?"

Beckett chuckled softly. "Lighten up, man. Tell me. What do you see in the clouds?"

McKay sighed heavily and lay down flat on deck. He looked up into the sky and squinted. "OK. Mostly cumulus, with some cirrus. Nothing special."

Beckett shook his head, tutting. "Can you not see shapes, Rodney? Have you no imagination?"

"Give me a break, Carson. I'm a real scientist. Personally, I get excited about altocumulus lenticularis, and that's as far as it goes. No rabbits, no Chrysler buildings." He sighed, "I always knew you weren't a serious scientist."

Beckett smiled wryly and, after a pause, said, "I agree, Rodney, in a way."

"What?" McKay sat up quickly, staring at his friend. "You agree?"

Beckett lay there with his eyes shut. "Aye. Medicine is about more than science. I've always thought that."

"I don't follow."

Beckett looked at McKay with a dimpled smile. "Medicine is about art, Rodney. You have to see more than just what is in front of you. A person is like a cloud - you can't give them a label. You need more than science. You need the eyes and hands of an artist, to see how to help folk, because no two people are the same. If you try and follow a set of scientific rules, patients might die. I'm more than a scientist, I'm an artist."

McKay had listened quietly to Beckett's heartfelt explanation. He smiled cautiously. "Oh."

Beckett shrugged. "Ach. I'm just blethering, never mind me. Lie down and enjoy the sun, Rodney."

McKay shuffled down again, and took some deep breaths, his hands linked over his chest. He looked up into the sky again. "Hey, is that…?"

"Aye." Beckett agreed. "A dead ringer for Caldwell. Good this art thing, isn't it?"

McKay gave him a sly grin, and nodded, "Yeah. Pretty good, Carson. Pretty good."


A/N: What a load of blethers ;) Hope you enjoyed it anyway!