Chapter 3

Rodney felt sick. Maybe… no. No, he definitely wasn't hungry. His head hurt and the phrase, 'Bear with a sore head' danced through his mind, which brought everything flooding back. He groaned.

"Hey, Rodney." Sheppard's voice. "How're you feeling?" Rodney groaned again, which John seemed to take as encouragement to continue. "Like a…"

"Don't say it," said Rodney, croakily. "If you value your life."

He opened his eyes, carefully, but the light was dim and soft. John sat by the bed. Rodney prepared himself for the onslaught of the teasing. If he'd had the energy, he would have covered his face with both hands. Heffalumps. Lorne and his men. And he'd pretended, unconvincingly, to be a tree. Had he sung?

"Oh, God, no!"

"Here."

Rodney felt a cup held to his lips and he drank.

"Sorry."

"What?"

"I'm sorry." Rodney opened his eyes again and John was doing that awkward rubbing at the back of his neck thing he did. "I activated that thing and then just left you to it."

"That thing?"

"The Thermos thing. It… um… It wasn't keen and I kinda forced it and Jennifer said…" He took a guilty breath. "Jennifer said it was a medical appliance and the resistance was a kind of a lock that I broke and it was a type of gas used for anaesthesia. And, huh, you, er, had a bad reaction. And they had to cordon off your lab after, er, after Zelenka went in there and then decided he was a pigeon."

John looked down at his feet. Rodney noticed a lump in the next bed, Zelenka's characteristic unkempt tuft sticking over the top of the blankets.

"Oh," he said, with interest dampened by his headache. His eyes focussed on the nightstand, on which stood a very homemade-looking card and several jars, the jars a distinctive style that the Athosians used for their honey. Hmm… He squinted at the card. The picture was a pencil sketch of Winnie-the-Pooh and Owl. Miko. Rodney's already queasy stomach lurched. So, Zelenka might have done a bit of flapping and cooing? That was nothing to the ZPM cuddling and sucking that Miko had witnessed!

"How did you know…?"

"Oh, well, Lorne told me you were being a bit… unusual."

"So, you came looking for me?"

"Ah, well, no, I just kinda put that down to, you know, you being you?"

"Thanks," said Rodney, happy with the level of sarcasm he could pack into a single word, even suffering from a sore head and an upset stomach. "Didn't Lorne say anything about the…?"

"The heffalumps? Well, yeah, but it was meatloaf day, so… I should say sorry again, shouldn't I? Anyway, my first real clue was the citywide blackout when you pulled the ZPM."

"Huh, yes, that'd be a bit of a giveaway."

"But Miko must have been on your trail before that," said John. "I guess she picked up on the whole heffalump issue. She found you." His voice took on a suspicious drawl. "She said that you were trying to run a diagnostic on the flow of power from the ZPM when you passed out."

"I don't remember," Rodney said, determinedly. He picked up the card and looked inside. 'To Dr McKay, with best wishes for a speedy recovery from Miko Kusanagi,' it said, formally. He considered the picture of the bear and the owl once more. It was rather well-drawn, he thought. Perhaps in future he'd try to determine the sandwiches' exact point of arrival and say thank you. He placed the card back on the nightstand.

"You'd better get some more sleep," said John.

Rodney grunted an affirmative and closed his eyes. As he drifted back into to his not-too-unpleasant-considering-the-kind-of-day-he'd-had dreams, he felt a brief pat on his shoulder and the murmured words, "Silly old bear." But such was the tone of affection, that he couldn't find it in either his still-quite-fluffy head, or heart to protest.