Chapter 3

"You're trying to tell us that… Rodney… is in your head?" Sheppard asked slowly. As Elizabeth, nodded Carson sighed and sat down heavily on the edge of the nearest hospital bed. Teyla looked surprised, Ronan—as usual—showed no outward signs of emotion, and Sheppard had the gall to look amused by the whole thing.

"I assure you, Colonel, that this is not that amusing." Rodney snapped irritably in Elizabeth's head. Elizabeth ignored him—she was used to having him always buzzing around her, spouting off a steady drone of dialogue at all hours of the day. She usually found it quite comforting, but right now, she was just happy she had gotten used to toning it out when she needed to.

"You tone me out?" Rodney asked quietly. Elizabeth, who had just been about to respond to Sheppard's rather inane question—of course Rodney was in her head!—jumped in surprise when she suddenly realized what Rodney McKay was saying to her.

"Wait…" Elizabeth's eyes widened, "Rodney, can you hear what I'm thinking?"

There was a long pause.

"Yes." The man mumbled quickly, as if embarrassed to be admitting it.

Though no one had heard Rodney's admission to the fact, the look on Elizabeth's face was enough confirmation and now every face in the infirmary took on a look of slowly dawning shock. Even Sheppard's amusement faded away when he realized what it meant.

"Can you… um, stop thinking?" he offered lamely and blushed when everyone looked at him as if he was a certified born idiot. He threw up his hands, trying to cover his blunder. "What?"

Elizabeth was becoming less and less amused with the whole situation.

"Colonel, don't be an idiot." Rodney snapped shortly in her head. "Of course she can't stop thinking. That's like trying to stop the tide."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"Rodney, I do believe I was just complimented." She replied lightly. She could almost hear Rodney fidgeting nervously in her head. She decided to give him a break. "And here I always thought it was you that was the smart one."

"Well, yes, but… well, you're pretty… pretty… smart! Smart! You're smart. Not that you're not pretty but… uh… intelligent. Think a lot… smart. You're, uh, you're very smart." Rodney mumbled. She didn't hear another word from him and Elizabeth felt a momentary pang—he was only that quiet when something was wrong and she knew that now he was immensely uncomfortable. She wished there was some way she could relieve him, but he was right—she couldn't stop thinking any easier than she could stop the tide from rising and falling.

"What is he sayin'?" Carson asked and Elizabeth suddenly realized that they had all just been hearing an entirely one-sided conversation. Or, rather, they had been seeing her one-sided reactions to his own conversation.

"Nothing." Elizabeth said quickly before she could stop herself. Of course Rodney McKay wasn't saying "nothing". He was always saying something. But she refused to revise her statement and instead aimed a steady gaze square between John Sheppard and Carson Beckett. "I think a better question is how are we going to fix this? We need our chief of science here, in the flesh, and I need to be able to think privately."

"I'll go talk with Zelenka and see if he can't figure something out." Sheppard said quickly, suddenly uncomfortable with the whole situation. "He's been working on the memory buffer in the dart since we got back to Atlantis. Hopefully he's made some progress."

"We will all go." Teyla said, almost before Sheppard had finished speaking, thus giving her and Ronan a simple escape route. Sheppard flashed a smile at Elizabeth before he and the two remaining members of his team left her alone with Carson—and, of course, Rodney. Who, disturbingly, hadn't said a single word since his fumbled attempt at… complimenting her? Correcting himself? Well, whatever he had been trying to do, he hadn't spoken since.

"How're you feelin', love?" Carson asked, getting up from where he had sat down on the edge of the spare bed. Elizabeth sighed and rubbed her fingers across her eyelids.

"Honestly?" she asked and peeked over the tips of her fingers. "I just want to go to my quarters. I can't think here and I can't go back to work… so I may as well just go get some rest."

"Aye, that is a fine idea." Carson nodded, pleased to finally have a more-than-willing patient. Usually it was Rodney in Elizabeth's place and Beckett always had to fight him just to keep him from going straight back to work. Elizabeth, at least, was being smart about it. "Would ye like me to send someone back with you?"

Elizabeth shook her head slowly.

"No thank you, Carson." She smiled up at him. "I think I can manage on my own. If you would just be so kind to get my clothes for me…"

"Oh, of course. Wait right here, lass. I'll be right back."

Carson immediately turned on his heels and disappeared from sight so he could retrieve her uniform from whatever nurse had stripped her of it. When he was gone, Elizabeth sighed.

"Rodney, talk to me." She said quietly.

"Why?" he demanded sullenly in her head. Elizabeth's lips quirked in a slight smile.

"Because, frankly, it's more disturbing having a quiet Rodney McKay than a talkative one." She told him truthfully.

"And here I thought you simply tuned me out." He responded churlishly and Elizabeth was struck by how much like a child he could act when he was unhappy. "And I don't act like a child! I'm simply pointing out the fact that you, yourself, said—"

"I said nothing, Rodney McKay." Elizabeth snapped irritably before she could control herself. There were few people who could drive her to distraction, but Rodney was certainly one of them. "You simply overheard a private thought not intended to be heard by anyone. You said yourself that I couldn't very well stop thinking."

"Well… you could… fine!" Rodney snapped and immediately relapsed back into his sullen silence. Elizabeth sighed and looked up, blushing hotly when she realized that Beckett had been standing there for most of the conversation. He lifted and eyebrow and his eyes twinkled with a hidden smile.

"Problems, lass?" he asked, his voice quivering slightly with unvoiced laughter. Elizabeth sighed again—she had a feeling she would be doing that a lot in the future—and sunk down a little in her bed.

"I simply underestimated how difficult," she emphasized the word for Rodney's benefit because she knew he was listening, "one scientist could be."

"Ah, lass, I don't envy ye at all." Carson chuckled and handed her her clothes.

"Thanks." Rodney snapped in Elizabeth's head. She refrained from translating and smiled her thanks at the Scotsman. Smiling back Carson pulled the dividing curtain closed around her bed so she could get dressed in privacy.

She was just starting to pull back the covers and hop out of bed when she realized that she wasn't dressing in privacy. Rodney would be seeing whatever she was seeing. And right now she was more than a little uncomfortable with even a man she considered to be her closest friend to see her naked.

Elizabeth was suddenly rocked by a reeling set of emotions that she knew were not hers. First, she felt a brief flash of surprise, followed quickly by excitement, which lasted only a second, before it immediately gave way to embarrassment and finally a rush of terrified horror. And all in the brief few seconds it took for Rodney to realize what she had just been thinking.

"Um, Elizabeth, if you… uh, if you don't…ah…look, then I won't… uh, I won't be able to—er, that is if you…" Rodney trailed off into a faltering silence and Elizabeth felt herself blush with his embarrassment. She was mildly surprised—apparently they were more closely connected in there than she realized if she could feel his emotions. She heard Rodney take a deep breath before he plunged on for one final attempt at getting his words across. "What I'm trying to say is if you don't watch yourself getting dressed then I won't be able to see you either."

Of course, he said it all so fast that it came out sounding more like "whatimtryingtosayisifyoudontwatchyourselfgettingdressedtheniwontbeabletoseeyoueither."

Elizabeth blinked in surprise. Funny—she had just been thinking the same thing. Rodney groaned.

"Dammit, Elizabeth! Why didn't you say something instead of making me sound like a complete idiot?"

"To tell you the truth, Rodney, it was because you were talking to fast to let me get a word in edge wise."

"Then why didn't you think it?" he demanded. Elizabeth blushed again—but this time because of her own emotions and not Rodney's. She couldn't even bring herself to say it out loud, but before she could stop herself she was thinking it—and no matter how private she wanted these thoughts to stay, she may as well have been shouting them into Rodney's ear.

Because I can't think when you're talking.

Rodney was silent a moment. When he spoke again, his voice sounded hurt and Elizabeth felt like kicking herself.

"Am I really that annoying to you, Elizabeth?" he asked her softly.

"Oh, God, Rodney! That's not what I—"

"You don't have to say anything." Rodney said quietly and Elizabeth felt her heart breaking when she heard the sadness there, too. "I'll try to stay quiet so you can have yourself to yourself."

"Rodney, don't." Elizabeth said sternly. There was no answer. "Rodney?"

"What?"

Elizabeth grinned broadly.

"I thought you were going to stay quiet?" she asked in relieved amusement.

"Well, not when you keep shouting at me."

Elizabeth felt her smile broaden.

"Good." She said smugly. "In that case, you had better keep talking or I'll be shouting at you a lot."

"I thought you wanted me to be quiet?" he asked. Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

"No, Rodney, that was you who said that."

"Really? Huh. That doesn't sound like something I'd say."

Elizabeth grinned and while Rodney chatted away in her head, she struggled to get dressed without looking down.