Chapter Five
"Are you okay?" Rodney shouted at him. He had to shout to be heard over the din of the rain beating against the hull of the jumper.
It had been raining hard the entire day. Sheppard and Rodney had stacked as much wood as possible into the front of the jumper so that it would be dry when they needed to use it. The fire had gone out in the middle of the day despite their attempts to nurse it through the downpour and Sheppard's makeshift attempts to shield the fire from the deluge had been pathetically unsuccessfully.
He glanced at his watch. Three in the afternoon. Fifteen-hundred Zulu to the military.
"Yeah, I'm okay," replied Sheppard because that was his standard response these days. McKay would pose the question, he would answer and skillfully side step the truth: he was not in the best shape. The wounds had eventually healed, his legs were now covered in shiny pink scars that looked like he'd been burnt multiple times with a nickel, but the scars were the least of his problems. He was plagued with vague and non threatening symptoms that did nothing but put him in a bad mood. Pounding headaches that came and went, frequent nausea that flared up at random times, muscles that ached in the morning until he'd had a chance to warm up and on some nights made it impossible to sleep. He didn't think it would kill him but damned if it wasn't making a shitty situation worse.
The military training in him refused to allow him to use the remaining ibuprofen they had left because it was for emergencies. He just wondered what perversely gloomy part of him thought things were going to get worse. And if they did get worse, how two measly ibuprofen were going to help.
Rodney glanced at his own watch.
"Nightmare? Or should I say daymare?"
Sheppard shrugged and ignored Rodney's terrible pun.
Rodney continued, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
Rodney didn't say anything to that. He just rolled over so that he faced the wall and seemed to be settling himself back down to sleep despite the noise outside.
They'd taken to napping due to boredom and the lack of energy resulting from a significant reduction in calories. A change in the season had seen the air temperature climb to more temperate levels. The change had also brought with it massive amounts of rain that had driven them to seek shelter in the jumper. Lying down and catching a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon made a sensible survival choice.
Thankful that Rodney wasn't going to pressure him into any more conversation, Sheppard tried closing his eyes again but it was hopeless. Now he was awake he would end up lying where he was and fitfully dozing and that translated into him wanting to get up and do something. Anything to try and distract himself from feeling so lousy.
Except of course that he couldn't because if he went outside at this moment he'd probably drown where he stood.
Rodney's voice rang out again. "I think I'm going to get some gauze from the med kit tomorrow and use it as earplugs. You thrash around when you're having a nightmare. It's damn noisy."
There was that McKay attempt at humor again.
"There is no way in hell you heard me over this racket."
"Keep telling yourself that…"
"Thanks, I will. By the way, news flash, you snore."
"No I don't."
"Yes you do. And you drool."
It wasn't delivered with any kindness. Sheppard found that his air force trained optimism, can-do attitude and ability to get along with anyone was draining out of him to reveal a hitherto unknown mean streak.
Their life had been pared back until it was reduced to trading insults with each other that had turned from good natured to barbed, trying to find enough to eat, and lately, trying to ignore their own pungent aroma wafting around them.
Sheppard turned over so he could face the wall because staring at the jumper's hull was better than staring at Rodney's butt. The padding on the benches meant they were reasonably comfortable but there wasn't much width and turning over was a delicate exercise in not rolling off the edge. Rodney had spent his first week falling onto the floor.
As he contemplated a tiny scratch on the hull he realized with guilt that he was beginning to dislike Rodney. Every time he looked at McKay, his brain conjured up heartless and semi-comic images of all the things that Rodney resembled. A Kewpie doll (formless, with minimal hair). The Pillsbury Dough Boy (rotund and squishy, although Rodney probably didn't giggle when poked in the stomach). The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man (large, grouchy, threatened New York with destruction – mild when compared with five-sixths of a solar system). The Michelin Man (bulky). Jimmy Neutron (huge IQ, not entirely practical). Bender the Robot (same personality). No matter how hard he tried to push the imagery down, it just kept bubbling to the surface.
He wanted to hand in his mission accountability card and be taken off the clock. No more worrying about Rodney, or even if they were going to get rescued. He just wanted to find a quiet place down by the river and watch the water flow.
The places his brain kept going were alarming him. He wondered why he wanted to hang out by the river when he wasn't exactly in love with the place after the leech incident.
The incident that had been five weeks ago. It wasn't a good way to start off their enforced vacation on a strange planet in the backwater of Pegasus Galaxy.
The first week had been bad, as he expected. He'd been out of action after the leech problem although Rodney had managed to pull off his first mission by himself and return safely with the container of water. A full hour over due but he'd returned, intact and uninjured for which Sheppard was eternally grateful. While waiting for Rodney's arrival he'd cleaned himself up, used copious amounts of gauze and tape to plug up the circular wounds, rinsed off his blood stained underwear, set his clothes out to dry, zipped himself into his sleeping bag and sat by the fire, clutching his Glock. Then he'd warmed up, boredom had set in and he'd occupied himself by completing the barricade for the rear of the jumper. It had been a dumb move, and he'd reopened some of the bite marks but it had kept his mind off worrying about Rodney.
Rodney had been gone for nearly two hours and just when he thought he'd have to go on a search and rescue mission, the scientist had staggered out onto the beach, sweating and bitching in a steady stream of bitchiness about how heavy the container was and it had been an idiotic idea to go, even if it was his own idea.
It turned out to be lucky for both of them that Rodney had made the effort on that day. The second day signaled the beginning of their bodies adjusting to the sudden change in diet, and for Rodney, the lack of coffee and sugar. Sheppard had been through it too many times to count so he continued gathering more firewood and exploring rock formations within sight of the jumper. He would have gone further if his legs weren't giving him grief - for some reason he'd had the added bonus of feeling like he'd just finished the New York marathon. At the time he'd dismissed it because he didn't think the physical damage was that bad – just a couple of dozen holes. He'd felt worse during basic training. So he ignored it and while he continued working outside, Rodney was prostrate, taking ibuprofen every four hours and pointing out all the various ways he was feeling so bad that it might actually be a symptom of a more serious illness.
Sheppard had realized that Rodney's blood sugar has bottomed out and his body was trying to find a way of stabilizing the insulin levels. As much as the man whined about hypoglycemia, Carson had taken pains to point out to both of them that he wasn't truly hypoglycemic because McKay wasn't a diabetic. Nor did he have cancer, liver failure or any other number of horrible diseases. However, he was a person that lived on sugar and coffee, and so any reduction in the load was going to give him a case of the shakes until his body got used to it.
"Stop being such a girl," said Sheppard sometime around seventeen-hundred when Rodney had touched his own forehead for the tenth time and moaned about having a fever. Then he'd insisted Sheppard do it.
Sheppard had refused and said, "Why don't you just use the thermometer in the med kit like a normal hypochondriac?"
Rodney had actually seemed hurt by the remark but Sheppard had pretended he'd never said the remark in the first place. He tried to remain calm, he tried to dampen down his growing irritation. Despite being covered in holes he'd continued to catch fish and tried to determine what plants, if any, were edible on top of his own irritating headache. Rodney, of course, had taken great pains to point out that he was allergic to citrus and so couldn't take part in any of the plant tasting. Sheppard had gamely performed the taste testing and then the gagging and spitting. Any sympathy he'd felt for Rodney had departed at the end of week one.
The problem was that although Rodney had recovered, Sheppard had not. Rodney's energy levels may have been low but he tried his best to accomplish the tasks that Sheppard set and his spirits were occasionally buoyed by the Friday night treat of half a power bar or, the latest, an MRE.
Sheppard tried, as usual, to do most of the work but knew he was losing a battle he didn't fully understand. It was only a matter of time before Rodney would have to shoulder the responsibility for both of them and Sheppard wasn't entirely sure he liked the idea.
He tried to shake himself from his glum mood by listing the things that had gone right.
They'd managed to get the barrier mounted into the hatch space. Rodney hadn't been impressed when he'd arrived back from the water run to find that Sheppard hadn't bothered with resting but they'd both been happy when it had upped the air temperature in the jumper by five degrees. The barrier was a crisscross of branches woven together, the holes plugged with evergreen twigs and leaves and fastened with rope. They'd arranged it so they could lay it flat across the jumper door during the day and then with some more rope and some skilful tying, they could lift it up at night.
They kept catching fish so they had food. He'd even managed to find some edible seaweed. Not great but could be swallowed when desperate for variety. They weren't exactly living it up but they could survive. It had been harder to counteract the long hours of tedium. There was only so much fishing, hole digging, fire stoking, water collecting and repairing of the hatch barrier that could take place. Normally Sheppard would have filled in the time by exploring but that would mean taking Rodney with him and listening to Rodney complain or leaving Rodney behind and feeling guilty.
He looked at the face of his watch again. Three thirty in the afternoon.
So there he was, lying in the back of the jumper, not thirsty but definitely hungry, not cold but definitely dirty. His mind latched onto listing all of the things that he wished he had but didn't. He wanted clean clothes, a decent meal, a shower, his own bed, his guitar, the view from his quarters, the smell from the cafeteria when they cooked pot roast, watching football on TV and popcorn. He wanted to spar with Teyla, run with Ronon, go on a mission to a world where they left after breakfast and got back in time for dinner. He wanted a steady supply of analgesics and - possibly for the first time in his life - wanted a checkup from Carson.
Abruptly, the sounds of nature trying to hammer her way through the sides of the jumper stopped.
He slowly sat up, tossed off the sleeping bag, put on his mud caked shoes and untied the hatch covering to get a look at the latest set of damage to their surroundings.
The pit containing the fire was now a swimming pool. The sand was scored with rivulets of water running towards the sea. On the positive side, he'd rigged a water collection system using plastic stretched out into a hole and anchored around the edge with rocks. He'd also left out their ever dependable bucket. With the amount of rain they'd been getting it had cut down on the need to go back to the river. He went down to start scooping the water into the containers and found the action oddly soothing.
Rodney had roused himself and wandered outside. He loudly sighed.
"Great. Another day, another round with the monsoon season."
"It's not monsoon season," shot back Sheppard while setting the bucket carefully out of the way so as not to spill its contents.
"You don't know that. I'm pretty sure you don't have a degree in meteorology and therefore you don't know anything about the meteorological conditions of this planet."
Sheppard picked up the field shovel, moved off to another area around the other side of the jumper to start digging out another pit for the new fire. He resisted the urge to hit Rodney with it.
"Doesn't the monsoon have to involve high summer heat before it hits?"
"I don't know. Unlike you I admit to knowing very little about the weather."
"Do you think we've had stifling air temperatures before it rained McKay?"
"No."
"Well, there you go then. "
Sheppard turned his back to the man and started digging a hole. He'd become really good at digging holes as he hadn't dug so many of them since survival training. Pits for the fire, holes for the new latrines, holes for collecting water. An excuse to dig a new hole would at least take his mind off the various aches and pains running around his body.
He could feel Rodney standing behind him, presumably with his arms crossed. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Another trait that was beginning to drive Sheppard slowly crazy.
"You're not digging a hole just for the sake of it, are you?"
He straightened up and turned back to his personal pain-in-the-ass. The pain-in-the-ass that looked about as crappy as he felt. Rodney's jacket and t-shirt were starched with dirt, his pants were being kept up by some wiring they'd pulled from a jumper console in frustration, his hair was sticking up compliments of about five weeks of grease and he had a beard that was well on the way to transforming him into a Mountain Man fashion statement. Sheppard figured he looked just as bad and he was also experiencing the same problem in the pants department. They'd both started shedding weight rapidly on their new All Fish All the Time Diet leading to an enhanced roominess in their clothing. It struck him that it wasn't fair to continue to think of Rodney as a vaguely unfit scientist since he definitely wasn't carrying any extra weight but his imagination just wouldn't allow him to view McKay as skinny.
Between the hunger and the dirt, he found the dirt irritated him more on this particular day. It wasn't like he was unaccustomed to it – hell, being dirty in a war zone was de rigueur. He just disliked living in squalor surrounded by hints of technology that had let them down. Besides, they'd both acquired skins sores and rashes. No matter how many valiant attempts they made to keep themselves clean there was only so much they could do with sea water, boiled sea water, or sea water and sand. It got the top layer of dirt off and some of the smell but that was it. The same went for their clothes.
"No, I am not digging a hole just for the sake of it. In fact I would prefer it, if just for once, you dug the hole."
Rodney uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. "Fine. I will. I'm perfectly capable of digging a hole and I will dig the hole and maybe that will stop you giving me evil looks for not doing my full share."
Sheppard rolled his eyeballs and held out the shovel to Rodney. "Oh, excuse me Mr. Genius for trying to keep you from keeling over from low blood sugar, or allergies, or whatever the hell else you think you have wrong with you."
Rodney wrenched the shovel from Sheppard's hands, harder than intended. Sheppard narrowed his eyes. He had another headache brewing and his tolerance level was at an all time low.
"Are you implying I'm making my low blood sugar up!" Rodney was indignant.
"I'm sure it's real. In your head. Or maybe you've just adjusted to not stuffing your face all day."
Rodney seemed too enraged at that latest insult to answer immediately. He turned around and picked up where Sheppard had left off, throwing sand around with the vigor of a meerkat digging a burrow. It pissed Sheppard off even more and disturbingly, he could feel himself losing his temper. Losing his temper equated with losing control and in his current condition losing control just might translate into Rodney getting hurt.
"Great! Dig the hole. Then you can light the freaking fire and catch some fish!" Sheppard made an impulsive decision to get some space and stomped off in the opposite direction.
"Where are you going!"
"Away!"
"Away where!"
"Away. Into the forest. Where it's quiet!"
"Screw you!"
Sheppard stopped his walking so he could turn back and faced Rodney. "Fantastic come back, McKay. Don't tell me your giant brain is at a loss for words - my God what a tragedy for mankind that would be."
To his surprise Rodney lifted his middle finger and gave a clear, non verbal indication of just what he thought of Sheppard right now.
Sheppard returned the gesture and then continued his walk off to anywhere. Anywhere that Rodney wasn't.
((--))
It had been six weeks and no Daedalus. The rumors around Atlantis were flying thick and fast and had quickly escalated from postulating that there were problems with the hyperdrive to postulating that Earth had been invaded by the Goa'uld. Who said scientists were lacking in imagination?
Elizabeth had pulled Lorne into her office to formulate a plan for quelling the increasing absurdity of the rumors and to try and get the expedition teams back on task.
"Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying so, part of this is down to Sheppard and McKay's disappearance."
No matter how many times she told Lorne to call her Elizabeth, he refused. It made her feel like she was old. Or his mother.
"You're going to need to give me a little more than that, Major."
"People keep hoping that the Colonel and McKay will get rescued. To do that we need the Daedalus. The longer the Daedalus doesn't turn up, the less chance they have. Or at least, that's what people are thinking."
"I'm aware of that, Major."
"Yes, and the longer the uncertainty goes on, the weirder it gets."
"I know that."
"Which is why you requested the replacements."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "You know about that?"
"I'm the military commander of Atlantis by default, remember? I had to provide the secondary authorizations."
She knew that as well, but she'd forgotten. These things happened when Sheppard had been here but John hadn't been interested in the contents of the communiqués, or other paperwork. He was usually too busy griping about the AARs he'd been forced to write.
Whereas John had taken to a posting in another galaxy with style, thrilled to be out of range of the traditional chain of command on Earth, Lorne was very much the military career man. To a much greater degree than his former CO Lorne liked the chain of command. He wasn't the sort of man to authorize a request without reading the authorization and the contents first.
"What are you intentions, Major Lorne?"
He held up his hands in a gesture of appeasing her.
"No intentions, Ma'am. I'm just doing my job."
"Let me phrase that another way. Do you have any opinions about my actions?"
Lorne considered her for a moment formulating his reply. That was another aspect that was different. Lorne tended to pause more.
"Ma'am, my opinion is that you're doing the right thing. Because you don't have any other choice."
"That was my conclusion."
"It's a tough position to be in. I'm glad it isn't me."
"Unfortunately it still leaves us in the same predicament. We've always been prone to gossip, but this is out of control."
"True, but on a positive side at least it's not gossip about McKay."
"People used to gossip about McKay?"
"Sure. Everyone used to trade stories about who he'd crossed or upset. People are sad that he's gone and at the same time, they're embarrassed because they're relieved that they're getting a break. Helps to explain why everyone's going nuts."
"Oh."
"Yeah, no one wants to admit to it."
"I don't blame them." Hell, she hadn't seen that coming. She knew Rodney unintentionally berated and bullied far too many people to win any popularity contests but she also didn't want to admit that she'd ignored his behavior because he kept Atlantis going and saved their butts on more than one occasion.
"What about John?"
"The Colonel - let's just say the legend stories are growing. Don't be surprised if by next week a friend of a friend swears that he saved an old Athosian lady and some cats from a fire."
She sighed. "At this rate I'm going to schedule everyone with Kate."
"It still leaves us with a problem. Do you want to send the request in the next data stream or wait some more?"
"I was actually planning to temporarily lose them."
Lorne snorted and shook his head. "Fat chance, Ma'am. The network administrator would have found backups and downloaded them back to the LAN before you'd had a chance to hit delete. And they'd have an audit trail to prove it."
"So you're saying I should get it over with?"
"No, I'm saying if you need to temporarily lose the file, get Zelenka to hide it for you. The man's got private files spread over three servers. Apparently he's paranoid someone will delete his work and he doesn't trust the backup process."
"I'll take that under advisement."
She smiled at him and thought, maybe she could convince SGC to make Lorne her 2IC instead, even if he didn't want the job. She could work with him; he certainly had a sense of humor… She stopped and suddenly a deep sense of remorse flooded her. Mentally she was moving on. She was coping.
That wasn't right.
((--))
Steven Caldwell was mentally comparing being controlled by a Goa'uld to being forced to sit in an office and fill out paperwork. At least the Goa'uld didn't like doing anything not immediately beneficial and half the time his consciousness had been so suppressed by the symbiot's control, he'd been unaware for weeks at a time.
He was just signing his fiftieth requisition for stationery when General Landry entered with Hermiod. For a change he looked happy and Hermiod was excited, and an excited Asgard was a rare event.
"Good news?" asked Caldwell, trying not to laugh.
"Hermiod says that the hyperdrive problem has been resolved."
"Indeed," added Hermiod.
Caldwell grinned at Hermiod and a smile from Caldwell was so rare that it startled both Hermiod and Landry. "That's definitely good news, Hermiod. Thanks."
Landry appraised Caldwell. "Looking forward to getting back into space, Colonel?"
"Yes I am, sir." And after so many weeks stuck in his office chair, Caldwell actually meant it.
((--))
Rodney sat on the log near the newly rebuilt fire and kept his view on his watch. The numbers were ticking down. He'd programmed the timer to count down in seconds so he could watch them move rapidly before they took away another minute from the total, and then another hour and then another day. It was a distraction from the unending misery, the unending tedium and from Sheppard.
He kept looking at the numbers and they were counting lower and lower and they were almost there.
He finished eating another fish. He didn't taste them any more. His body had adjusted to mostly protein and not much else. Nearly all of the plants Sheppard had found so far were inedible, the bitter taste warning of possible toxins, and no matter how hungry Rodney was, he couldn't force down more than two mouthfuls of seaweed.
His watch started beeping and he looked up at the sky, hoping for a miracle. It was irrational but he didn't care. He really, really wanted this to be over.
The beeping caught Sheppard's attention at long last. He'd been sitting against the log, wearing a frown and simply gazing at his boots. He'd been doing that a lot and it concerned Rodney. Actually, it had moved way past concern and into anxiety but Rodney discovered there were only so many times he could ask, "Are you okay?" He'd tried to get Sheppard to admit that something was wrong but the man stubbornly refused to let his façade of competence slip. Then again Rodney had reflected that even if Sheppard owned up to being sick there was nothing Rodney could do. Maybe that was why the pilot refused to acknowledge the problem. If they didn't acknowledge it, it didn't exist and Rodney could remain in state of blissful semi-ignorance.
Rodney had never been more aware of his dependence on Sheppard at this point in time and he wasn't in love with the concept.
His mind flashed back to Todd, and the camping trip, and Todd trying to keep Rodney's morale up as they tramped over some God awful forest track. Todd was trying to be supportive but it was humiliating because the camp instructor had made Todd stick with Rodney and in the end Rodney could do nothing but bite the hand that was trying to help him.
"Stop patronizing me you asshole."
After those words, it had been the last time Todd had willingly held a conversation with Rodney.
The beeping kept going, Rodney kept standing, looking desperately into the sky for something. A glint of metal or light. Something. God. Anything. Please.
The noise had managed to get Sheppard's attention.
"Why's your watch beeping?" He asked the question in the same irritated tone he'd been using for a week. It seemed everything Rodney did aggravated Sheppard.
Rodney didn't bother to hide his depression. "I set it to signal when the Daedalus was due to arrive."
Sheppard snorted. "Like that's ever going to happen."
Rodney took a deep breath and tried to form a simple sentence that didn't contain any sarcasm. He'd been practicing that skill in abundance of late - ever since his last outburst had sent Sheppard off into the forest for the afternoon. McKay had discovered that he didn't like being alone. Not like this. Not by himself in the middle of nowhere surrounded by silence and the unknown. Kate Heightmeyer had told him he kept pushing people away because he didn't want to get hurt but underneath it all he was fighting with the contradictory impulse for approval and that meant wanting to be around people. He'd scoffed at her and then asked about the brand of cereal that had included a free degree. When Sheppard had left him behind it had taken an hour for his attitude to go from bluster to meekness. The situation of being alone had given him an attitude adjustment. One that said flashing around rude hand gestures to the only other human being on the planet was a bad idea.
"Aren't we supposed to stay positive? Or something?"
"Yeah. Right. If you say so."
Rodney turned his attention back to the sky again. Just for once couldn't they both get a break? The watch was still beeping. With a sigh he turned it off, cancelled the alarm, and did not set the timer again. They'd been stranded for forty-two days. Time for the Daedalus to get to Atlantis. Time to get to them.
Sheppard seemed to notice Rodney's melancholy at long last and actually tried to offer some comfort.
"Look, I wouldn't worry. The Daedalus is like a bus. It's mostly on time. Not always. You should give it a few days."
"That makes sense."
Sheppard put a hand to his head, rubbed at the temples. This also troubled Rodney. He'd noticed this gesture more than once and it seemed to coincide with Sheppard's increasing moodiness.
"Are you okay?"
"Just another headache in a long line of headaches."
Okay, it was bad. Really bad. Because Sheppard acknowledging that he had a headache meant that if Rodney had the same headache Rodney would be begging Carson to knock him out, just to get away from the pain.
He risked an opening gambit and broached the obvious subject to hand. "I could get you some ibuprofen from the jumper."
Sheppard shook his head, seemed to definitely regret the action. "No. We're getting low and we might need them for something more serious than a slight headache."
"Knowing you it's not a slight headache, it's a migraine."
"Leave it, McKay. I'll be fine."
"Sure. Now you've got a medical degree. I don't remember seeing you in any of my gifted kid classes."
Sheppard didn't stop rubbing his temples. "That's because when you were sitting inside making scale models of the solar system, I was out getting bullied like normal children."
"You got bullied?"
"You try starting at a new school every year of your life. Luckily around aged nine I got the hang of school politics and a mean right hook."
Rodney wasn't sure what had caused Sheppard to reveal a sudden tidbit from his personal life. Sheppard didn't do personal. If he hadn't known better he could have sworn the man hadn't had a life before Atlantis. About the only thing he knew was that he liked football, Ferris wheels, played a guitar, was a fantastic pilot and was doggedly trying to finish War and Peace. That wasn't a life. It was a back story for secondary character in a cop movie.
He tentatively tried to keep the conversation going.
"Why did you move so much?"
Sheppard had closed his eyes.
"Army brat. My father was a lifer and into career advancement. He took postings wherever he could get them. Sometimes my Mom and me were stuck on base while he was overseas, sometimes we went overseas and sometimes we went to places in the US that seemed like we were in another country anyway." He opened his eyes again to look at Rodney.
Rodney thought he looked exhausted.
"What about you? What's the childhood of a boy genius like?"
"Not that great when competing with a sister who's a smarter genius."
"You have a sister?"
"Jeannie. Huge potential, incredible mind. I was constantly trying to keep up with her."
"There's more than one McKay out there? Should I be scared?"
"Relax. She got distracted by boys at fifteen and it was all down hill from there. She's married now with three kids. Her 99.8th percentile IQ is being used to change diapers and clean up baby vomit."
"Jealous?"
"Not likely. I think that when it comes to solving the mysteries of the universe versus spawning, spawning loses."
"Spawning? Could you be any less romantic?"
"What else should I call it? It's simply passing genetic code onto progeny. Of course, it would be a cruel blow to human kind if I didn't have children but there's no guarantee that my brilliance would be passed on. For a start I'd have to find a woman with a suitably high IQ because intelligence is passed down on the X chromosome. There just aren't that many women out there who are on the same level as me and cute. Except for Samantha Carter of course."
"With that attitude I can't believe you gave me shit for being attracted to Chaya."
"Chaya was a whole different matter."
Sheppard didn't get a chance to reply as they heard a sound. An animal sound. It was a huffed grunt, a roar that sounded like it was coming from a stag, or a bull.
Both of them startled.
Rodney posed the obvious question. "What was that?"
Suddenly his fears of being attacked by large animals with overly developed canines didn't seem so absurd.
"Dinner," said Sheppard with a dash of enthusiasm. He somehow got himself standing up, took a deep breath, seemed to take a moment to motivate himself, and then ran to the jumper.
Rodney ran after him and watched in awe as the man grabbed the Glock, shouldered on his vest, tucked in the life signs detector, put on an empty pack and clipped on the P90. Rodney's brain tried to keep up with events.
"You're planning on killing it?"
Sheppard headed down the ramp with haste. Rodney couldn't figure out how he could keep going.
"Actually I'm planning on killing it, gutting it, skinning it and eating it. Maybe in that order. Maybe not."
This was the one part of the survival course that had remained theoretical for Rodney. Oh sure, the group that he'd been with – all civilians – had been appropriately serious and grim during the discussion on how to trap animals and as humanely as possible dispatch them for dinner, but underneath it all Rodney liked that fact that when he ate a burger, it didn't resemble something that had a face.
He didn't have time to offer up any doubts over the enterprise because Sheppard was off and running and Rodney's brain insisted that he needed to follow and make sure Sheppard didn't keel over and die. As an added bonus Rodney's stomach insisted that as squeamish as he was, the evening's meal just might involve a steak dinner. The steak dinner won.
In a wonderful show of bravado, Rodney grabbed the other Glock and charged after Sheppard.
((--))