A/N: I have decided on a definite time period for this story: it takes place between "Sanctuary" and "Brotherhood." I know "sanctuary" aired about three weeks or so after I started this fic, but I just had to diss Chaya! Gad I hated that episode…


Chapter 9: Of Graphs and Broken Hands

"Well that was a complete and total waste of time," Sheppard grumbled.

"Don't blame me! You were the one who was all gung-ho, let's go out there and almost get killed! It wasn't my fault!"

"Of course it wasn't, Rodney," came the sarcastic mutter.

"What was that, Sheppard?" McKay snapped.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," Sheppard replied loftily.

McKay glared and crossed his arms. "Now that we've established that I'm right, why don't we go find a quarantined area to wait it out?"

The major leaned in toward McKay and stated blankly "We haven't reached the battle with the Wraith yet, there's still time." McKay blustered a little, trying to come up with a scathing response, but had little success.

"Why don't we go down to the room where they keep the ZPMs and measure how many of them have been depleted? We could get a rough estimate that way," Sheppard suggested.

"I was getting to that," McKay said quickly.

When Rodney wasn't looking, John rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you were."

McKay didn't even catch the remark. He began walking away, muttering the entire time. "…could take measurements every 15 minutes or so and then plot them on a "time vs. depletion" graph. That would be so much easier if we had the laptops, but nothing I can't handle. Anyway, we'll need…"


"McKay."

Rodney practically jumped a foot into the air. "Don't do that!" he hissed. He leaned back down over the ZPM he was taking measurements on and muttered to himself quietly.

"Sorry," Sheppard apologized, clearly not meaning it. "Why are you so jumpy anyway?"

McKay began wildly waving around the tools he was working with. "Because, if I break the ZPM or a connection, we could change our timeline so that when we arrive here in the future, the shield doesn't hold and we all drown. Now, you wouldn't want that would you?" After thinking for a second, he continued, "Hmm. Actually that could prove interesting. In the last timeline, I was the one who nobly died in the flooding gateroom. I'd like to see what you would do in that situation."

"Oh, gee. Thanks for being so supportive," Sheppard growled.

Either completely missing the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it, McKay responded without looking up, "Any time. So what did you want?"

"Huh? Oh, yes. If we go far enough back, we'll meet the Ancients, right?" Sheppard said, leaning casually against the ZPM case.

"Maybe, yes. Why? Do you think you'll meet your Ancient floozy from Proculus in the past?"

"She was not a floozy!"

"Hah!" McKay snorted. "Don't make me laugh."

"You're just jealous because I got an alien love interest before you did," Sheppard taunted.

"Oh, please. Do you honestly think I care, Captain Kirk?"

"If I'm Kirk, then that makes you Spock. Or Bones. Yes, he never got the alien girl and he was sarcastic to boot."

McKay began grumbling. "Well, you're only upset because I was right about her."

"Whatever you say, Bones."

"Oh, go get beamed up or something."

Sheppard sighed and turned around. There wasn't much else to do down here. He looked around the room for anything to occupy his mind. He glanced over a shelf and did a double take. A huge grin spread across his face. Oh, did he have the greatest idea…


"Hey, McKay."

Rodney turned around, not too happy about being interrupted again. "What is it?" he said through clenched teeth.

"Punch me."

McKay's eyes opened wide and he arched an eyebrow. "What?"

"Punch me. You know you want to," Sheppard goaded.

"I'm not going to deny that, but we don't have the time-"

John put on the puppy dog face. "Aww, come on, Rodney! You're no fun! I promise we can go hide from the evil virus just as soon as you punch me."

McKay stopped and considered for a second. It seemed like a win/win situation. They got to safety and he got to deck the major in the face. He reeled his arm back and put every ounce of strength he had into the blow.

A flash of green light and a sickening crunch echoed throughout the room.

"Ah, CHRIST!" McKay screamed, holding his hand.

John could barely control his laughter. "Wahoo! This thing's great!" he chirped, pointing to the personal shield on his chest. He had worn his jacket over it so McKay hadn't seen the device.

"Dammit, major, I needed that hand!" Rodney moaned.

"We need to try something else! Where's the nearest balcony?"

"…every frigging bone in my hand is broken. Oh, I can't feel my fingers."

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Stop being so melodramatic. It wasn't that great of a punch anyway. Can you wiggle your fingers?"

McKay held his hand up limply. His index finger twitched a little before he yelped and began complaining again.

"Here. Take this," Sheppard said, handing McKay his 9mm.

McKay held the gun in his good hand. He looked from Sheppard, down to the gun, up to Sheppard, and back to the gun again. After turning it over once or twice, in the blink of the eye he brought it up and shot Sheppard in the head without warning.

Sheppard cringed. It had been a great shot. "Dammit, McKay!"

McKay looked at him innocently. "What? You gave me the gun, what did you expect me to do?"

"I expected you to shoot me in the leg! That's what I did to you!"

"Wow," McKay said, a wide smile growing across his face. "That was a lot more fun then I imagined." He began snickering.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," Sheppard muttered. McKay got waaaayyy too much enjoyment out of shooting him, and that made Sheppard only a little nervous…

Now Rodney was giggling maniacally. "Do you have your P-90? Let's try it on automatic!"

The major slowly began edging away from McKay. Dear Lord, I've created a monster, he thought uneasily.

"I think that's enough," Sheppard said, mentally deactivating the shield. "Why don't you get back to work?" He pocketed the device.

McKay scowled loudly, both at a missed chance to cause harm to Sheppard and the fact that John had easily turned off the shield, whereas he had almost "starved to death." Now in a sour mood, he turned back to the ZPM.

For an hour and a half, they sat down there. McKay at least had something to occupy himself, taking readings on the ZPMs every 15 minutes and making a graph. Sheppard however, was bored out of his skull. After pulling the personal shield stunt of Rodney, he was being completely ignored. John half-considered gating offworld to find something interesting and seeing how long it would take Rodney to notice.

When McKay finished making measurements, he spent a good twenty minutes drawing a makeshift graph. There was no paper around, so McKay used a Sharpie marker he carried in his pocket and drew on the floor.

Sheppard walked up behind McKay, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, bent over his work. "So when are we?"

He held his hand up to silence Sheppard. He had bandaged his 'injury' using a knotted piece of cloth. Sheppard hovered over his shoulder, trying to understand what McKay was doing.

"Quit looking over my shoulder. I can't work like that." When John leaned back a little, McKay went on to answer his question. "Right now it looks like we're somewhere between 7,000 and 5,000 years in the past."

"Isn't that a rather large margin of error?"

"Well, it would be if it was a linear relationship. But it's not, it's quadratic. I can't be exact without the proper technology. It would be much easier to graph if I had my laptop because then I could come up with a line of best fit equation. But I don't, so that's the best I can give you." After pausing for a second, McKay said quietly, "Hmm. This is interesting." He stared intently at the graph.

Sheppard leaned over to see what was so 'interesting.' It was just a curved line for all he saw.

"What?"

"If we extrapolate the points so that they hit the y-axis, we can find out when this whole thing started. But this doesn't make sense. According to the graph, the rip in space-time occurred sometime between 5 and 6 last night, not this morning. I'm speaking relatively or course. It wasn't really last night, but it was to us."

"So?" Sheppard asked wearily, trying to make sense of the mathematical babble.

"So it's just a little surprising that we didn't notice anything before noon today. Well, what would have been noon, had we still been in today."

"Stop it, Rodney. Temporal-speak gives me a headache."

"Come to think of it, I don't think I saw Kavanaugh last night…er, 10,000 years in the future," Rodney said, ignoring John's request. "No wonder it was so quiet in the lab."