Chapter 6

Sheppard wasn't one for easily letting his emotions show through but when he was pushed into a corner, he had a tendency to fight back.

As far as he was concerned he was pretty much in a corner after being informed that if he didn't cough up some memories he either didn't have, or didn't particularly want to go and find in the first place, he'd face some 'help' compliments of a guy from Black Ops.

He'd made it adamantly clear in Elizabeth's office that he was doing it under duress, that he wanted to lodge a formal complaint, that he didn't particularly care about anyone knowing his business, that Rodney was the least qualified person in the world, the Kate could just do it by e-mail, that Kate was taking revenge and he was still sorry, that he wanted to read all of the communiqués with SGC, and in a last ditch attempt, that Carson needed to clear it medically. Having run out of steam, and arguments, Elizabeth had said, "Finished?'

"Yes," he'd replied. He was one step short of pouting.

"John, believe me, I understand. But we don't have any choice. You don't have any choice. If it's not Rodney, it's the specialist. It's not much a choice but Rodney is definitely the lesser of the two evils."

"Hey!" Rodney, was, as always, insulted.

Sheppard ignored him. "Why don't you do it? Why doesn't Beckett do it?" Elizabeth, as far as he was concerned, was a better choice and so was Beckett. Hell, Lorne was a better choice.

"I'm technically your commanding officer. It's inappropriate. Beckett refused on moral grounds."

He didn't have anything else to say, presented with no escape clause and no way out. He crossed his arms, huffed, and made his next demand like a teenage boy wanting to take the car out for the night.

"I'm taking a jumper for a ride to the mainland."

"Fair enough."

He had calculated the diplomat in her would relent. Diplomats tended to work on the theory that after a solid win, a little bit of leeway was required for the sake of fairness.

"But you're taking Rodney with you," she finished.

"Great. Excellent. Whatever." Yeah, now he really did sound like a teenager. As far as dignity went, he didn't have any left, especially with the unhip mode of dressing, so he turned himself around, made a gesture to Rodney to follow, didn't bother to say goodbye to Elizabeth.

"If anyone wants us, me and Dr. McKay will be doing loops over the ocean."

"We will?" Rodney had nervously stood up and seemed reluctant to follow.

"Yeah, Rodney, we will. Don't worry, I'm sure Kate can IM to your laptop and do some virtual handholding if needed."

"Elizabeth?" Rodney hesitated; cast a long pleading look at his one hope of being let off.

"Sorry. You and John need to work out how you want to play this."

"You know, if he loses it and attempts to kill me, we'll know who to blame."

Sheppard rolled his eyeballs. "Hurry it up McKay! If I'm not out of here and in that jumper in fifteen minutes, I really will kill you."

"Fine! Kate, is he allowed to threaten me?"

"You'll be okay," replied Kate. Sheppard thought she sounded vaguely amused.

"You'd better be right," muttered Rodney.

"One day McKay, if we ever find an alien version of an orange grove when we're on a mission, I am going to abandon you in it."

Heartily sick of being ordered around by all and sundry, Sheppard departed, all too aware that his flip flops squeaked as he walked. Even his footwear conspired against him. Nobody had told him when he signed up at the tender age of eighteen that his career as a pilot would eventually be reduced to this.

As he walked down the corridors and towards the nearest transporter he could hear footsteps behind him and figured it was McKay. They stepped in together, Sheppard didn't bother to speak because he couldn't think of anything to say that didn't involve berating McKay, for the sake of berating McKay, or bitterly complaining about his lot in life. The last time he'd been in such a pissy mood, Koyla had told him that Elizabeth was dead. That hadn't exactly resulted in good times for Koyla's squad.

He was a coiled knot of tension and he didn't know how to get rid of it, except for running, but running was out and he doubted Carson was going to relent to letting him fight with Teyla. That just left flying or smoking and he didn't smoke. Although he was getting a good idea about why people did.

The transporter stopped on the same level as the hanger bay and he did his best to take some manly strides past a team of two marines on their way to some other duty station but the combination of flip flops and the scrub pants kept hampering him.

He still didn't say anything to Rodney until they reached the jumper bay where upon he headed for the first jumper in his line of sight. Reached to key open the hatch as he usually did and found it stubbornly refusing to budge. He gave the hatch a thump with his hand and tried again.

"Terrific. We've got a broken jumper." Sheppard had never seen the hatch refuse to open before.

Of course, that meant McKay's brain instantly went into problem solving mode. "Let me see."

McKay approached the jumper, placed his palm against the appropriate control. The hatch began to cycle open.

"Weird," said Sheppard. They entered the jumper together. He made his way towards the pilot seat, as per normal, sat himself down as gently as he could and hunched himself forward to avoid sitting against the back of the chair. God knows what his back was going to be like by the time they went through a flight.

Rodney sat himself down in the co-pilot's chair, gripped the laptop, and readied himself to dial up the airlock opening sequence so that Sheppard could propel the jumper into the troposphere at around mach five.

Only nothing happened.

Sheppard frowned. The jumper must have been malfunctioning. Rodney sat in the co-pilot's seat looking equally as puzzled.

"Seriously, I think the jumper's broken," said Sheppard.

"What was your first clue?" Rodney was all ready out of his seat and flipping up a control panel, examining the cards inside. He checked them over.

"Try again, the cards seems fine."

Sheppard put his hands on the console. Again, there was no response.

Rodney came back, muscled Sheppard out of the way. "Let me."

He stood up and got out of the way. "Okay, okay, I'm up. I'm up."

Rodney muttered to himself, and reached over to see if he could get anything to activate. The jumper promptly hummed into life. Lights came on, console got all shiny, as expected. The output was shaky and the jumper seemed to act like it had a massive case of indigestion, but it was working.

"That's odd," said Rodney.

"You think?"

"Hah, hah. As usual, you're fabulous with the witty comebacks."

"I've got another one too. Get out of my seat, Rodney." Today of all days, they had to have a problem with the jumper. He made up his mind that if they couldn't get this one running, they'd just have to try every single one of them until he could get out of Atlantis.

Rodney gave him a withering look. "Typical zoomie."

"You been hanging around with Lorne again?"

"Yeah, I asked him about your gaming name one day. I believe the term he used was, 'fucking zoomies' so see, I was being polite."

Rodney left the seat, went back to his co-pilot's position, Sheppard sat down and… the lights went out.

"Jesus fucking Christ on a stick!" Sheppard hit a console.

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain."

"The last time I checked you were an atheist."

"But an atheist with a great respect for all religions whether real or imaginary."

"You're a funny guy, Rodney."

"I was being serious."

"And now you need to be quiet." Sheppard put his fingers to his lips to signal that Rodney should stop talking. Rodney did as he was told. Sometimes he did actually know when he should shut up.

The jumper remained resolutely and stubbornly powered off.

Rodney frowned, stood up again and reached across to the console. It lit up. He cast a perplexed glance at Sheppard, removed his hand.

"You try."

Sheppard did as he was told, and had a bad feeling about how this little exercise in feeling up the jumper was going to turn out.

The lights died. Sheppard wasn't used to this at all. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and did something he'd never had to do. Concentrate hard. He imagined all sorts of things. He imagined the jumper coming to life. He imagined the controls activating. He imagined the jumper soaring into the clouds. It was strange because up until now operating Ancient technology had been completely instinctual for him. Like breathing.

Nothing.

"Shit," said Sheppard.

"No kidding," replied McKay. He hit the comms button on his radio. "Elizabeth, it's Rodney. I think we've got a problem."

Of course, they'd both forgotten all about the laptop. Kate was indeed trying to IM. Rodney held it out for him to see. The screen started displaying an annoying series of question marks.

"Don't ask me," said Rodney.

((--))

By the time they hit the lab, McKay was officially worried. Kate was worried too by the way she kept sending him the same message. The message that said, "What's going on?"

"Can't talk now Kate, but I'll leave the channel open. I promise," he said over the radio and earned a dirty look from Sheppard.

Rodney grabbed a box, threw its contents over the workbench. A variety of harmless Ancient artifacts scattered in all directions. They sat on the bench, inert and inactive.

"Okay, pick one up and see what happens."

Sheppard approached the bench, seemed overly cautious, and hesitated before reaching out and picking up the nearest object to hand. Rodney recognized it immediately as his least favorite item. A toy. An annoying one at that. Once activated it proceeded to ask the holder's name, and then tell jokes. In Ancient. Occasionally it would let out a syrupy giggle that would ruin the insulin levels of anyone within a two meter radius and it would not shut up until dropped.

"You picked that one deliberately."

"If you mean, 'because it annoys you' then yes. It was deliberate."

Sheppard held the device and McKay waited for the cloyingly cute voice to start lisping questions at Sheppard in a language Sheppard didn't understand.

The device remained silent. Nor did it start glowing its comforting shade of nursery blue.

"Try another one," said McKay, trying to be encouraging.

Sheppard did as he was told, picked up another device. The one that projected star charts on the nearest wall. Again, nothing. The pilot began working his way through the devices, one by one and all remained inert and dead.

"Maybe you're not concentrating hard enough." McKay was trying to offer advice because he could sense Sheppard's increasing frustration.

"I am concentrating!" With that Sheppard took his current gadget and threw it – hard – against the nearest wall.

"Temper, temper." McKay tried for a joke because when Sheppard was in one of his foul moods – a mood he rarely showed – it was not the time to antagonize him further.

The pilot's shoulder's sagged. "I'm trying. I'm really trying. But that's the entire point: I never used to have to try. It used to just happen."

Sheppard sat down on the nearest stool, resting his face in his hands. He stared at the Ancient tech and it seemed to Rodney the man didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Rodney didn't know what to do either.

"I only got this gig because of the A.T.A gene."

"That's bullshit and you know it." McKay tried countering with a lie in an attempt to be kind and cheer Sheppard up but it was the wrong sort of lie. Of course everyone knew that Sheppard originally got on the expedition because Elizabeth had pushed for his presence. O'Neill had been reluctant, SGC had been reluctant, hell even Sheppard had been reluctant. When they'd been bored witless waiting for an opportunity to dial the 'gate on some backwater planet, Sheppard had let slip he'd decided to join the expedition based on the toss of a coin. Rodney couldn't imagine doing something so randomly idiotic. For Rodney, going to the Pegasus galaxy was a dream come true. A terrifying, stomach churning, nerve wracking opportunity but one nonetheless. He'd made a carefully considered choice based on weighing up his options of winning a Noble Prize, against the opportunities for real research in another galaxy. Everyone knew that Nobel Prizes were handed out when the scientist in question was way past doing his best work and Rodney had always had his suspicions that it was a popularity contest. After all, Stephen Hawking didn't have a Noble Prize. So he'd opted for another galaxy. Weighing up his options had meant a long day building an Excel spreadsheet with a list of advantages and disadvantages and assigning them weightings and then making a graph. It did not involve tossing a coin.

"Let's be realistic here. If I'm not cleared for full duty and I can't make Ancient technology go, what exactly am I going to be doing around here?" Sheppard poked his finger at another dead gadget.

Rodney felt himself beginning to panic. He didn't understand why Kate had asked him to do this and he still didn't. He wondered if Sheppard had forgotten about the radio being open, or whether he didn't think his comments were enough for anyone to read anything into.

"Paperwork. There's always paperwork." A neutral statement. That always worked. He thought. Or maybe not. He tried to think of what Kate did when he was being his usual nihilistic self and proclaiming that he was doomed, that Atlantis was doomed, that in fact the entire galaxy was doomed simply because he hadn't been able to get his morning coffee. She usually told him to stop over reacting and made him take a deep breath and realize that not having a cup of coffee didn't mean he was three easy steps away from universal destruction.

"That's comforting," said Sheppard.

"Are you any good at it?"

"Of course not. No one's good at paperwork. I only do paperwork because it's part of my job description. The only people good at paperwork get wound up about whether a full-stop was accidentally left out on page sixty-five."

His laptop was beginning to get covered in little sentences that indicated Kate would be no good at paperwork either, judging by her woeful lack of vowel and full stop use. Honestly, could it hurt to use a comma?

"U r dng gd Rdny. Keep it up."

Seemed Kate had gone to the same school of lousy typing as Sheppard.

"We don't know why this is happening yet, and I bet in the end, it's nothing." That sounded good and Rodney believed it, which made the statement sound sincere.

"This from the man who insisted he should be pushed in a gurney to sickbay because he had a splinter in his thumb."

"What's that supposed to imply?"

"You're a hopeless liar, McKay. When you say something really terrible is going to happen, I know you can fix it, and it's nothing. When you say 'it's nothing', it usually means that something's about to unexpectedly blow up, or melt because you didn't think the problem was serious."

Rodney spluttered. "Hey, that's …."

"Completely accurate?"

"No! I was going to say that it's completely wrong and a slur on my character."

"Sue me."

"Don't tempt me."

"How are you planning on fixing this?"

"Me?"

"Yes, McKay. You."

Rodney looked around at all the thoroughly dormant Ancient tech, and shrugged. He was stumped. It didn't happen often, but sometimes it did happen.

"Malfunctioning jumpers, computers, stargates and Ancient technology I can fix. I'm not so sure about people."

The IM window on his laptop started up again. "Nt so gd."

"Kate, you're not exactly being helpful," said Rodney.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow as he wasn't party to both sides of the conversation. Rodney tried to do what he did best. Assemble the assorted pieces.

"Well, I guess it isn't too much of a leap to figure out that this sudden lack of an ability to use Ancient technology and your abduction somehow goes together."

Sheppard used his finger to roll the Ancient toy around on the table. "No shit Sherlock."

Rodney hesitated before delivering his own reply. His laptop screen carried another message.

"kp gng. C if he cn tlk bout wht hppned."

"Um, Kate wants me to ask you if you remember anything about what happened."

Sheppard didn't stop rolling the toy around, in fact he picked up the pace, smacking the device into the others lying around. Reminding Rodney of a kid crashing his Matchbox collection of cars into each other. He was going to open his mouth again because he never was able to stand silence when Kate seemed to anticipate.

"Wait. Lt hm answr in hs own tme."

So he shut his mouth again. Wondered what to do, thought if the silence kept up he'd take to playing a game of Solitaire on his laptop.

"I… kind of remember."

Rodney put down the PC stylus. Okay, this was where he was sure it was all going to go wrong. He'd say something unsuitable and Sheppard would lose it completely and it'd be all his fault. He'd fail again. Kate should never have asked him to do this.

"Um, what do you remember?"

Sheppard kept his head down, stopped rolling the toy around. Instead, he picked it up, clutching it in his hand. "Mostly it's sounds. The sounds of someone walking around. I think." He concentrated hard on the toy, seemingly lost in its observation. "I think there's more but, it's… Not right. I just don't know how to describe it. You know, part of me thinks if I concentrate, I would remember, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea."

Rodney didn't know what to say. He was first-rate at many things but comfort, support and interacting with people wasn't one of them.

"Wl dne."

He wished Kate would quit typing. It was distracting.

"Now what?" The question was to Kate, not to Sheppard. Sheppard misunderstood him.

"We both get embarrassed and pretend this never happened?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," replied Rodney. Because it did. We are men, let us never speak of these things again. Besides, he didn't know if there was more he could do. Kate really needed to be here, this was out of his realm of understanding.

"Tl hm to wrte it dwn."

"Kate says you should write it down."

Sheppard shook his head adamantly. "I'm not going there." Then he seemed to reconsider. "Look, I know everyone's worried about Atlantis. I'm worried to and I know I should be more cooperative, and I know I should do this, but… You know, I'm fairly sure that Atlantis is okay. Really. I don't think this is a problem." He stopped, got a pathetic look on his face that Rodney was fairly familiar with. Sheppard was scared to death and he was never going to admit it.

And because Rodney knew just how incredibly painful it could be, twisting on the hook of your own mind numbing fear, he decided right then and there to make an executive decision.

"Maybe you should go and see Beckett. He's good at fixing people. Physically I mean. Then we could try and figure out the other stuff."

"Rdney? Dnt stp now."

"Seriously, I'm not good at this."

Sheppard brightened somewhat, having been provided with an excuse to leave. He slipped back into familiar behavior. "Well, thanks, Rodney. You've been really, really helpful." The sarcastic tone to Sheppard's voice said that he didn't really, really think Rodney had been helpful at all.

"Okay. I cn't mke u 2 sty thre. Gd strt anywy. Wll dne."

Rodney read the screen, pretended he hadn't seen it.

Sheppard scowled at him, pushed himself away from the table. "I'll go and see Beckett. Again."

Rodney watched as Sheppard stalked out of the lab, waited until the door closed to have a conversation with Kate. "What exactly is your plan, Heightmeyer?"

This time she spoke to him with her own voice, using the radio. "That you keep an eye on him, let him know you're there, and that he can rely on you. You did well."

"He's scared to death, Kate. Maybe pushing him isn't such a good idea," said Rodney.

"We don't have much choice. That IOA specialist is going to get the answers whether Sheppard likes it or not. The trick is to push enough that he'll remember without going off the deep end."

"Oh, nice. There's something to look forward to."

"He trusts you. That's a start."

"Is he going to feel the same about me after this?" Rodney was getting huffy.

Kate changed the subject. "I'll talk to Elizabeth about trying to get him some duties that don't involve paperwork."

Rodney shook his head even though there was no one to see the gesture. "I wish I knew why he can't operation Ancient technology any more. Can't be great, considering he's a natural user."

"It also can't be great thinking he's only here because of the fact he can use Ancient technology."

"Oh. He did kind of say that, didn't he?"

He didn't hear her voice again, but a message appeared on the laptop screen.

"Yes. Undrneth it all, he's probably as inscre as u r."

Rodney read the sentence and laughed. Yeah, right. Sheppard may be a lot of things but insecure wasn't one of them. Not in a million years.

((--))

Elizabeth had encountered enraged generals, pushy senators, upset prime ministers, blame shifting IOA members and more than a few hundred sycophantic aides in her time. She'd never been fazed by them. She was courteous but she was no pushover and their titles held no meaning for her. Good diplomats realized whether someone ruled a country or dug a ditch for a living, everyone had to eat, go to the bathroom, sleep, and eventually die. It was a great leveler.

Meeting someone who came from a Black Ops background was an entirely different matter. She stood before the stargate, the wormhole active, nervously waiting to greet their visitor. The reason for his trip had been classified. Mostly to stop gossip spreading through Atlantis but also to protect his real identity. As if anyone on Atlantis would have a chance to blab about the secret anyway but that was the way with covert operatives. They were paranoid about everything.

She half expected him to be wearing a black trench coat.

The figure that stepped through the event horizon however, completely defied her expectations. A perfectly normal human being appeared, dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and a jacket, baseball cap perched on his head. He looked like he was in his sixties, the hair she could see peeking from his cap was heading towards silver. A neat, salt and pepper moustache completed the look.

He was wheeling a large suitcase behind him, like he was heading off on a vacation in Barbados.

The man deftly let go of the handle on the suitcase, making sure it stayed upright and then shook her hand, warmly. Smiled at her.

"Hello, you must be Dr. Elizabeth Weir. I've heard so much about you."

She was totally knocked off center and she knew that had presumably been the tactic. He probably figured she was waiting for some intimidating character who could have escaped from The X-Files.

"Yes, welcome. Welcome to Atlantis. Dr…?"

His smile didn't drop but she got a hint that he knew he'd accomplished his first task. Taken her completely by surprise.

"I'm not big on formalities Dr. Weir. You can call me Royce."

"Is that a first name, or a last name?"

"It can be whatever you want it to be."

Several of the marines who usually guarded the Gate Room were staring at Royce in open amazement. He was incompatible with the rest of his surroundings. He noticed them and waved at them.

"Just popped in for a visit. General Landry asked me to do an efficiency report on the current usefulness of the armed services in Atlantis!"

The marines startled, and scampered back to their posts. Elizabeth thought that if Royce was doing this as camouflage, he was doing a damn good job. Blending in by standing out. Or in Royce's case fitting in very nicely with the rest of the scientific community by resembling a nerd.

"Dr. Weir, is there some place we can talk in private?"

"Yes, I have an office."

She led the way, and he bumbled his way up the stairs with his suitcase, looking so useless as the case smashed against the steps that a woman scientist walking by actually stopped and helped him carry it up the stairs.

He was good.

Once in her office, she'd closed the doors and she expected the act to drop. When it didn't she wasn't sure if she was witnessing the greatest acting feat of all time, or whether he really was like this. But he couldn't be like this, because no terrorist in any universe past or present was going to give away information to such a thoroughly non-scary human being.

"General Landry passed on Colonel Sheppard's file to me and your report. It's not a good situation is it?"

There wasn't much she could say to that loaded question. "No. It's not good."

Royce patted his suitcase. It was a commercial brand, readily available and kind of battered. It had seen its share of travel in a cargo hold. "I was on another job when I got the call. I traveled forty-eight hours just to get here. You wouldn't believe how long I had to spend waiting around for a connecting flight in Germany. But that's the military for you. The more urgent the matter, the worse the transport situation."

"I'm surprised they didn't try to beam you out."

"Couldn't. Everything's out of Earth orbit at the moment. It was C-130s for me and some other bone crunching modes of aircraft."

Elizabeth clasped her hands together to make sure she didn't give away too much in her body language. "Royce, I understand the IOA's concerns but I can't stress to you enough that I don't think their actions are appropriate."

He nodded, as if in agreement. "Oh, I quite understand but I wouldn't worry. I'm not here to torture him. I'd never do that. I just have some tricks and techniques up my sleeve that might clear up the mystery. I mean, I'm presuming you haven't made any more progress?"

"No, he hasn't remembered anything, if that's what you mean."

"Anything else happen?"

She didn't reply immediately because just how was she going to fill Royce in on the fact that Sheppard had punched Kate, and at the moment seemed unable to operate any Ancient technology?

"I'm going to take it from the way you just hesitated, that I don't have the full story."

He didn't say the sentence menacingly. It was innocently stated but Elizabeth knew that he expected her to fill him in. She had the same choices as Sheppard in this. None. She sighed and started talking.

((--))

Carson was hanging out in Sheppard's room at the infirmary, playing Battleships. The old fashioned kind featuring the tacky plastic game board and the latest addition, the sounds of explosions. Someone had apparently received it as a gag gift in a care package from a friend. It had been doing the rounds ever since and had wound up in the infirmary along with last year's magazines, three battered Stephen King novels, a magnetic Sudoku set, a magnetic chess set and a magnetic checkers set. They sat in a cupboard in the nurses' station and were employed as entertainment for bored patients who were banned from using their laptops and radios when they were supposed to be recovering.

Sheppard was actually doing well physically, and that was something Carson was grateful for. The ulcers weren't healing at a cracking pace, but ulcers never did and he was pleased that they were slowly and surely closing up. Ulcers that never healed had a nasty habit of generating a host of other serious, life threatening problems.

"C-nine," said Sheppard. He was drumming his fingers on the bed table.

"God damn it. There goes my carrier." Beckett stuck the last plastic peg in the plastic ship.

Sheppard grinned at him. Beckett had so far only managed to hit a couple of Sheppard's ships but not sink them.

It was a lazy day in the infirmary. A rare occurrence. No other patients, no surgery scheduled, case work all cleared up, notes filed, nothing much brewing in the way of research and besides, he'd grown thoroughly sick and somewhat despondent of his Wraith research. They kept reverting back and it was exasperating that he couldn't keep them stable in human form long enough. There was also the added bonus of the fact that any Wraith he managed to convert bitterly resented him by about day three of discovering what he'd done. He kept thinking they'd be grateful for being 'cured' but they never were. He was beginning to think he should change his name to Dr. Frankenstein.

Anyway, slow day, and he wasn't dashing around in his usual mode of panic with zero sleep, so he'd decided to catch up with Sheppard. Mainly because he wondered if Kate was making any progress with her odd-ball plan to somehow get Rodney to act as her surrogate.

He wasn't entirely sure it was effective, mainly because not only had Sheppard remembered nothing, he seemed to be more anxious, not less. In fact, he seemed to be spending far more time in the infirmary room than in his own room or office. Sheppard had the perfect excuse though – he'd stated that all the chairs were too uncomfortable and aggravated his ulcer. He'd taken to doing most of his loathed paperwork and correspondence while sitting up in bed.

Carson didn't mind since that meant Sheppard was actually getting a well earned rest for a change. It was just a pity it wasn't ramping down the man's tension levels any. The fingers were still drumming on the bed table and Carson doubted he was even aware of the action. Carson suspected that he was temporarily hiding in the room in a subconscious attempt to not to be on guard all of the time.

"How are you and Rodney going? Any luck?"

Sheppard stopped drumming his fingers. "Nope." He didn't elaborate, clearly indicating to Carson that the topic of conversation was essentially closed.

"You know, he is trying."

"I'd agree with you on that," said Sheppard, taking what Carson had said and turning it into a McKay oriented insult.

Carson decided to try and push, if only for a moment. "The specialist isn't going to take 'no' for an answer."

Sheppard bit his lip, seemed to be convincing himself to stay, rather than walking out immediately. "Don't you think I don't know that? I tried, Carson. Just fucking drop it."

Carson nodded, put a smile on his face and swiftly changed the subject. "Okay, no problems. By the way, Dr. Biro reconfirmed what we all ready knew. Your DNA does not show any signs of additions, deletions or modifications. Especially not associated with the A.T.A gene."

"That's not helpful."

"Are you telling me that you want someone to have altered your DNA?"

Sheppard sighed in frustration. "No. But at least if we had that, it would be an explanation of sorts." He went back to drumming his fingers.

Carson considered a minute, wondered how to broach the next topic to hand.

"I've noticed that you seem to be a wee bit tense of late." He figured that was about as neutral as he could be on that subject.

"I'd be less tense if certain individuals would let me run."

"Not until you've healed up some more. I can compromise and let you ride that damned stationary bike that's rusting away to an early death in the gym."

"That's because as far as stationary bikes go, it's uncool. I wouldn't be seen dead on it."

"What is it with soldiers and appearances?"

"Hey, our reputations are all we have."

"There's the stair climber."

"Slightly more cool but not by much. Besides, Cadman will get pissed off if I use it. Her name's all over it."

'Oh. I didn't know she used the stair climber."

"The woman has a butt you could bounce quarters off. How could you not notice?"

Then Sheppard realized what he'd said, in the presence of Cadman's sort-of-boyfriend. It was also probably a tad unprofessional in terms of Sheppard's position as commanding officer. Always a tricky one that – men and women serving together and trying to keep the relationships completely professional. But men tended to be men and they were occasionally going to make the less than thoughtful comment. Besides, Carson figured it could almost be counted as a compliment. Sort of.

"Sorry about that," said Sheppard. He looked suitably contrite and Carson didn't think he was faking.

"That's okay, Colonel. I won't take offense. I don't think she would either. Just don't tell her I said that." He moved onto other things. "I've been in e-mail conference with Kate. She wanted me to float the idea of you trying out a short course of Xanax."

"Xanax. You're kidding me. Right?"

"No. It's specifically designed as an anti-anxiety drug and you have to admit you're definitely anxious."

"No I'm not."

"You punched Kate. You avoid talking about what happened to you."

"Okay, okay. Maybe I'm a teeny bit wound up."

"Just consider it. You seem to be managing at the moment. Just. But if it gets any worse, Kate's going to get me to write out the 'scrip. We'd be expecting you to take them."

Sheppard ran a hand through his hair, did a very good job at appearing composed. "I'm not going to deny I'm agitated. But you know, I'll cope. I'll always do."

Carson nodded. He wasn't going to harp on to make a point. He'd put the idea out there, and if they went down that path, at least neither party was unprepared.

They were about to go back to their game of Battleships when they were interrupted.

"Hi there. Hope I'm not disturbing you. My name is Royce."

((--))