A/N: I usually despise flashbacks, but here I've written a story with them in. All italics are from the same time (established in the first part) except for the very last one at the end of the story, but that'll be obvious when you read it. The regular writing is all set in the present, which could be any season really, as I've just realised that at no point do I include or mention Ford, Teyla, Ronan or any of the other characters intoduced in season two.

I've always thought that Gaul and McKay had to have some backstory because they were obviously friends (in the SGA season 1 complete companion it says Gaul was a 'close colleague' of McKay's), and while I maybe embelished it to make it more interesting I don't think the initial premise is too far from believable.

Oh and obviously I'm not condoning substance abuse of any kind with this story.

Moving on...Enjoy!

Ante animus

Rodney glanced up from his desk as the door opened. Into his dorm stepped a short, scrawny looking brown haired boy. And boy was the operative word. This boy - something Gale? - was starting his degree a whole two years early. Not as early as Rodney had been when he was an undergrad (a whole three years younger than the other freshmans), but impressive nonetheless.

Impressive or not, it didn't mean Rodney wanted to share a dorm with him. Rodney was now a total of five years older than this boy. In the second year of his second degree, (Advanced Mathematics, his first having been in Physics), having additionally completed a Masters in Astrophysics last year, Rodney was now a 5th year resident on campus.

Now you'd think this would count for something, that a little privacy wouldn't be too much to ask for. But with a shortage of accommodation, and deeming it unwise to place the kid with his fellow freshman in case he was corrupted by their improper influence, the powers that be had decided to foist him upon Rodney. Hoping Rodney would set a good example. If only they knew, Rodney though with a smirk. A smirk which appeared to be intimidating the poor kid.

"Hi," the kid said bravely. "I'm Brendan, you must be Rodney McKay." Brendan put down his case on the empty bed and walked over to Rodney's desk. "Pleased to meet you," he said, sticking out his hand. Rodney shook it as quickly as possible.

"Look in other circumstances I might be vaguely please to meet you as well," Rodney said. "But you see you're kind of invading my personal space-"

"The Dean thought-" Brendan interrupted.

"I'm well aware of what he thinks, I've spoken with him about this on various occasions," Rodney said acidly. "As I was saying, don't take it personally if I give you a less than warm welcome, I'll just be trying to adjust to your presence. Not that I'm that likeable usually either," he added. Brendan nodded in understanding.

"Don't worry I understand, you'd rather be on your own. I'll try to make myself as unnoticeable as possible," he said with a smile before walking over to his side of the room and starting to unpack his case. Rodney grunted his thanks before returning to his work, his eyes momentarily stopping on the name tag on the kid's case; Brendan Gaul.

(BREAK)

Rodney was not having a good day. In fact today was shaping up to be one of the most truly horrifying he had experienced without suffering any direct threat to his life.

Not only had a group of the idiots that called themselves scientists under his command screwed up royally, but now he was stuck fixing it. Which meant he was on his back - his bad back, which was getting worse and more painful by the minute - deeply entrenched in the floor of the 'Gateroom. Additionally, as he was pulling out various crystals and rewiring extensively because his 'team' had overloaded a considerable amount of the hardware, in plain view of the control room, he had the increasingly worried looks of Doctor Weir and all other personal in the area.

They seriously thought he was going to screw up. It didn't matter how many times he fixed something that saved their lives, there was just no faith in his abilities whatsoever.

But it got worse.

Apparently Major Sheppard had been perusing the personnel files yesterday evening, only to come across an anomaly on Rodney's. Of course Rodney himself was already aware of this anomaly. He'd created it himself when he'd encrypted a good portion of his file so that it wasn't on display to, well, anyone.

And so now they had someone trying to discover exactly what that glitch was. He had found this all out via the security systems installed in the control tower, as they hadn't actually approached him about it yet, but it was just a matter of time really. Especially once someone hacked into the file. Although that would probably take a while considering he devised the code, but then again Atlantis was populated by the best and brightest, so probably not long enough to devise an effective escape plan.

He sighed and laid his head back on the ground and closed his eyes.

"You all right in there McKay?" Sheppard poked his head through the hole in the floor Rodney had climbed through to get underneath it.

"Peachy," he grunted, opening his eyes again and continuing replacing the wiring above his head.

"Not claustrophobic or anything?" Sheppard asked.

"Thank you Major, I had successfully not been thinking about the small inescapable space I'd sequestered myself in. Until now," he gritted out.

"Sorry," Sheppard said with an apologetic upside-down shrug. He glanced around the small space. "Want a break? You missed lunch you know."

Rodney was on the verge of snapping back that if it weren't for the morons who overloaded the systems in the first place he wouldn't have missed lunch at all. But he was feeling kind of light-headed and he really wanted out of the Atlantis floorboards.

"Sure," he acquiesced. "Give me a minute."

When he'd escaped from his Plexiglas coffin or whatever the stuff was that the city was made of, he and Sheppard headed towards the nearest transporter. He didn't miss the looks Weir, Zelenka and Grodin gave him as he left. It looked like they'd figured out his file had been purposefully encrypted. He idly wondered how long it'd take for them to hack in. Not long, he'd bet, with Radek on the case.

Carson joined Sheppard and Rodney for lunch not long after they sat down. He distractedly listened to Carson tell them about the recent patients who had visited the infirmary; all from the overload in the circuitry in the 'Gateroom. Rodney grinned when he heard that Kavanaugh's ponytail had had to be hacked off because it was too badly burnt to salvage.

"You're rather quiet today Rodney," Carson commented during an ebb in the conversation. Rodney just shrugged. "How are those repairs going? As I hear it, you won't let anyone else near 'em."

"They'd only blow the place up again," he said with another shrug.

"You sure you're all right lad?" Carson asked with a frown.

"Maybe it's the small work space getting to you," Sheppard suggested.

"That must be it," Rodney agreed.

It was a few minutes later when the call for Carson, Sheppard and himself to go to the briefing room came over the radio.

"What is this regarding Doctor Weir?" Carson asked as he and Sheppard stood.

"An anomaly found in Doctor McKay's records," she said tersely. Rodney's eyes widened.

"That was very fast," he commented.

"What?" Sheppard asked.

"You know, I've just remembered I left Miko in charge of a project in my lab and promised to drop in on her. Soo.." he trailed off and stood up quickly. He began walking towards the exit as Sheppard tapped his radio.

"Elizabeth, Rodney seems reluctant to-"

"Make sure he gets here Major," she interrupted.

"Yes Ma'am. McKay!" he shouted and Rodney stopped in his tracks and turned to face them.

"Fine, fine," he sighed. "Let's get this over with."

(BREAK)

Weir guided him to her office and requested that the others wait in the briefing room. He sat down heavily in a chair in front of her desk and looked at her questioningly.

"We found an anomaly in your file," she said. Rodney raised an eyebrow for her to continue. "Why did you-?"

"You've read the long lost file of Rodney McKay right?" he asked, she nodded. "Then you really don't need to be asking that question, do you?"

"I guess not," she frowned. "I don't exactly know what to do with this Rodney," she sighed.

"I'll just leave you to figure that out then," he said and began to stand up.

"Sit down," she said, her tone brooked no argument, so he sat. "I'll start by handing it over to Doctor Becket." Rodney cringed.

"Elizabeth-" it was bad enough that he'd probably lost her respect, but not Carson's as well.

"Rodney," she said sternly.

"Right," he deflated and sank back into the chair.

"Come on," she said, standing up.

"Now!"

"Yes Rodney, now."

He trailed behind her out of her office and to the briefing room. He assumed that they'd be telling Major Sheppard as well, seeing as he was sitting in there with Carson. Great.

There was a file sitting at the table, Elizabeth sat down in front of it and slid it over to Becket. He took it with a questioning look.

"Read it," she instructed. Sheppard glanced at it curiously. "You too," she told him. He stood up and read the file over Becket's shoulder.

"You can sit down Rodney," she told him, as he was standing on the side of the table nearest the doors, hands folded behind his back. "You might be here a while."

Rodney sighed and sat down in the chair next to him, as he watched the faces of his colleagues as they read his file.

Carson stopped reading and looked up after the fourth page. "I think I've read enough for the time being," he said, eyeing the extensive remaining pages. "This, this should be in your medical file." He said, looking up at Rodney, who was studiously studying his hands that lay on the table.

"I agree," Elizabeth said, giving Rodney a stern look.

"Of course you do," Rodney muttered. "Look if it had been important to a situation I would have mentioned it," he defended.

"What if were unconscious Rodney?" Carson said angrily. "And for that matter I don't remember any mention that you had a history of substance abuse when I was feeding you stimulants for three days!"

"You wouldn't have given them to me if I had!" Rodney replied angrily.

"Exactly!" Carson declared.

"Do you know what a ridiculous point you just made! Would you have preferred me to have fallen asleep and for us all to be Wraith food?" he spat.

"McKay," Sheppard said warningly.

"Right," he took a deep breath. "Calm. Sorry."

"It's not just the medical records I'm worried about," Elizabeth said.

"The criminal record?" Rodney guessed.

"Yes," Elizabeth confirmed.

"Criminal? You?" Sheppard questioned. Rodney laid his head down on the desk and groaned quietly.

"Elizabeth please. I encrypted that file for a reason," he said quietly. He looked up imploringly into Elizabeth's eyes. He spotted a small amount of sympathy before she shut it out.

"I think we need to discuss it," she said.

"Discuss it?" Rodney frowned. "Fine," he said, sitting up straight. "What exactly would you like to discuss?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She looked unsure and glanced to Sheppard and Becket then back to him. Rodney rolled his eyes.

"I'll just start with the worst and we'll work our way down from that shall we?" he asked her. "Right then," he took a deep breath. "Number one; murder, in self defence."

"Murder?" Becket asked quietly.

"He was a bastard Carson, you have no idea what he did to-" he barely stopped himself from saying 'to me', but he did, "- to people," he said instead.

"Rodney, the file says-" Elizabeth began.

"I know what the fucking file says," he hissed at her. She looked like he'd slapped her. "I… Look, I just…" He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "This is pointless. This happened years ago, just because you've nosed about and read all about it doesn't change it or make it worse, it's the same as it always was. This is your problem not mine. Keep me out of it," he said and stood up and left the briefing room.

(BREAK)

A/N: Ante Animus roughly translates as 'before life'

animus -i m. the spiritual or rational principle of life in man. More specifically: (1) the seat of feeling , the heart; 'animi causa', for pleasure; loc. (or genit.) 'animi', at heart. (2) character, disposition; as a trait of character (esp. in plur.) courage, spirit, vivacity; also pride, arrogance. (3) the seat of the will, intention: 'habeo in animo', I am resolved. (4) the seat of thought, intellect, mind, memory, consciousness.

Thus this is the story of part of Rodney's life before Atlantis, i.e. life started when he went there, rather sappy and sentimental I grant you, but that's what it means nonetheless.

Please review and let me know what you thought of this part!

Thanks for taking the time to read it!