Chapter 4: Defence Mechanism
People tended to lower their voices or stop speaking for moments at a time when they first saw him entering a room. No problem, he'd expected it. He'd also expected to overhear hushed comments of: "Is it true?" "Is he part fish now?" "How did we not know?" Hell, he'd even expected the few people who had come up and boldly questioned him about it. Then he'd thought it would be brushed aside like most other things in Atlantis. Hell, Sheppard's bug incident got two days of intrigued stares and then it was back to normal.
Rodney had been out of the infirmary for two days now, and he was beginning to get the idea that this wasn't going to disappear as quickly as he'd hoped. He tore the picture of a mermaid with his face on it off his door and marched into his quarters. Cute. He hadn't seen that one yet. He had received anonymous emails playing "Under the Sea" and a burned dvd of "Splash." Learning who the culprits were would be easy enough and he could send them a very clear message that the mocking was not appreciated, but it just wasn't worth the effort.
Besides, Zelenka hadn't looked too impressed by the jokes. Whether he was unhappy on Rodney's behalf, or that someone else had beaten him to the punch lines, Rodney figured the Czech was probably going to do something about it himself.
He hoped.
"McKay?" He jumped and looked around quickly, expecting to see Sheppard in his room, only to find it empty. Right, his radio, thank god.
"McKay here," he responded, distracted as he tried to remember where his garbage can was. Did he even have one? Oh wait, there was one in the bathroom.
"You planning on joining us?" He froze on the spot, and swallowed thickly. He hadn't seen anyone from his team since his meeting with Sheppard and Weir two days before. He wouldn't say he was actively avoiding them so much as making himself too busy to be around them. He'd completely forgotten about movie night.
"Probably not," he quickly informed him. "Something came up and I'm going to be stuck in the labs for a while longer. You should just go ahead and start without me, I'll try and join you later." He breathed a sigh of relief at his quick save even as the guilt crept up. He ruthlessly shoved it back down.
"McKay, you told Teyla you'd be here."
"That was four days ago, plans change and working to save lives tends to be a bit higher on the list of priorities than socializing."
"You're not working right now, Rodney," Sheppard informed him, not sounding as smug as Rodney would expect him to with a comment like that.
"Oh really? I don't see how you could possibly know that as you're not here."
"Ronon's outside your door." Rodney looked towards the door in question even though he couldn't see through it. He didn't really know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. "Rodney, come hang out with us." He felt caught between embarrassment, longing, and nausea at the situation. The nausea might win. "Look," John continued, sounding frustrated now, "We're just gonna watch a movie. Serenity. You haven't seen that one yet."
It wouldn't be too long before they would be deployed on a mission and Rodney wouldn't be able to continue avoiding them once that happened. He didn't really want to avoid them forever as it was, he just wanted to avoid the questions for as long as possible. Wasn't it enough that they knew he had gills? Couldn't they all just leave it at that and continue on with their lives? What was wrong with good old repression and ignorance? Let bygones be bygones. Rodney blamed Heightmeyer, Elizabeth and Carson and their flimsy notions that talking about things helped. It didn't, and Rodney wanted to forget it all and he couldn't do that if people had questions!
"Fine. I'm coming," he relented, feeling another pressure headache building in his forehead. When he reached up to pinch his brow his shirt scraped at the still healing filaments and he dropped his arm. This was not going to be a good night.
"It's your turn to bring the popcorn," Sheppard informed him, sounding about five times smugger then he should, which Rodney equated to him being satisfied. He stomped to his cupboard and grabbed two bags of popcorn before heading to the door. He walked out without slowing down or stopping.
"We're stopping at the mess hall," he informed Ronon as the man silently stepped up beside him. Neither of them spoke until they were waiting for the bags to finish popping and Rodney could no longer handle the Satedan's incessant staring. The mans eyes were going to bore a hole through his back!
"What? Stop staring at me! I have enough complex's as it is." He snapped, which was apparently all the invitation Ronon needed to begin talking.
"You can breathe under water." The man stated, his arms crossed over his chest and his hips leaning casually against the metal counter. Rodney's head began to ache a little more.
"Wow, you're an observant one."
"Could you always do this?"
"For a long time," Rodney turned to the microwave and willed it to pop faster.
"You have a fin?"
"A what! Are you serious?" Rodney looked up at the man with wide eyes and saw that he was. He blinked incredulously. "Of course I don't have fins! I'm not a damn fish!" Ronon shrugged at him.
"You have gills. It didn't seem that odd of a thought."
"Well…it is odd, and I don't have one. Are we done here yet? Why is this taking so long?"
"Sheppard said most people with gills have fins."
"Oh, and exactly how many people with gills has Sheppard met? One. I'm sure he's a real expert on the subject."
"How many have you met?" Rodney pulled the hot bags from the microwaves, hastily opening them and dumping them into the large bowl he'd set out.
"None," he admitted.
"Can you make other people breath underwater?"
"Oh, for the love of all that is science! No, I can't do that! Go to the marine biologists and ask them how gills work and then do me a favour and explain it to Sheppard to save me from listening to these stupid questions a second time." He huffed and left the kitchen with Ronon already stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
"Sheppard says this is a good movie. Cult classic." Ronon raised his eyebrows in question at McKay.
"Apparently," Rodney gratefully grabbed onto the change in topic with both hands. "I never had the chance to see the show but I know it developed quite the following."
"You should take more time off."
"You should stop eating the popcorn before it's all gone."
"You should have made more."
"You should grow a brain." Ronon snorted at the weak comeback and made to grab another handful from the bowl. Rodney twisted out of the way and stepped quickly into the lounge they always watched movies in, shoving the bowl into John's arms by way of greeting. "Here, before the bottomless pit eats it all." He sat down beside Sheppard and crossed his arms.
"It is good to see you, Rodney," Teyla greeted from Sheppard's other side and Rodney shifted, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Teyla was the only one who hadn't been there at 'the great revealing.'
"Yes, yes, same to you. You had a good visit with your people, I take it?"
"Yes, it was very peaceful." Rodney nodded in response and leaned back in his seat.
"So, movie?" Sheppard leaned forward and hit play without further comment and Rodney gratefully sank into his seat, feeling Sheppard's body heat all along his left side. The next thing he knew the lights had been dimmed, he was lying along the entire couch, and the only person left in the room with him was John, splayed on the smaller couch beside Rodney's, snoring lightly. Where was a recorder when you needed it?
Rodney slowly sat up. The movement must have been enough to wake Sheppard as he suddenly jerked to a fully sitting position, looking around quickly.
"I wasn't asleep," he immediately insisted into the silence, and Rodney snorted. Sheppard focused on him. "Feel better?" He asked, voice hushed in the dim light. Rodney thought about the answer before nodding; his headache was gone at least.
"Yeah. Guess I needed some sleep."
"You looked a little rough."
"Yes well, work tends to run me down a bit when I'm not paying attention."
"Or when you're using it as an excuse to avoid people."
"Well, it's effective to a point," he shrugged before waiting for the questions to start. Sheppard startled him by standing and stretching, making a face as something in his back twinged.
"Well, I've got an early start. I'll see you later for breakfast." The look he gave Rodney as he left promised that while there was still a lot that they were going to talk about, he was either willing to let it go for now, or just too damn tired to interrogate Rodney at the moment. Rodney watched him leave and stood himself, ignoring the burn as his shirt rubbed the still tender flesh around his gills. He'd refused to let Carson look at them again until they healed a little more, but he was going to have to go in eventually for a check up. He was not looking forward to that.
There was a picture of a shark with Rodney's face professionally superimposed over the head taped to his door. He tore it down with barely a glance and just threw it on the floor in his quarters on his way to bed.
He hated this.
oooOOOooo
Rodney flinched in his seat as he heard yet another box being placed none too gently on the floor near Kusinagi's work area. The only reason he didn't snap at the people delivering them was the quiet and angry words the woman herself sent their way and the next few boxes being offloaded were handled with much more care. He liked to think he had taught her well over the years.
He shared a satisfied look with Radek, who just rolled his eyes at his pleasure, and went back to his calculations. In a few hours he would be ready to head to the corridor that had been flooded the few days before and begin conducting repairs properly. Just the thought of how long it was going to take him to do this…the days leading up to his next mission were going to remain full that was for sure.
"Radek," he suddenly called out and looked over at his friend. "I need those power ratios and the schematics you promised me an hour ago."
"Yes, and I am finishing them now, along with the thousand other things you asked of me five minutes ago. You may call me a god, but I am but a man. You will have it when I am ready and not a moment before."
"How you expect me to get any work done around here when you people can't even get me the most basic of information…" he muttered loudly but went back to his work. At least Radek was speaking with him normally again. He'd been a bit angry with Rodney for messing with all those scanners and then making him fix them all. It was a few minutes later when he finally received the information he wanted. He looked between the two monitors set up before him and frowned.
"What?" Zelenka asked.
"What what?" he heard responded automatically, no really hearing the question.
"You have that look."
"Look?" He was distracted as he made the connection he had been searching for all morning.
"The look that says you know something," Zelenka informed him. He quickly began inputting some new data, not really hearing what the Czech had said. It was a few moments before he stopped and looked over at his friend.
"What? Sorry, my mind was elsewhere," he sent his findings over to Radek, and then moved to stand next to the man he had been ignoring. He pretended not to see the irritated look that was thrown his way as he approached, instead he began silently pointing out what he had found. It took Radek two seconds to see what Rodney had seen in the readings, which thankfully erased the look of irritation.
"Oh, I see. So if we are able to create program to reroute the sub-directives towards the main control database…"
"Then we can completely open up those systems to take a look at the connections without having to shut down and then reboot any of the primary systems."
"And then we can find what is causing the problem," Radek nodded. "It should take half a day, maybe more to write the program…"
"Get Koslowski to help, he can take care of the base and you can focus on the details."
"Yes, is good idea. Perhaps if we-" Rodney didn't hear the rest of what Radek had intended to say as a body suddenly smashed hard into his, driving him sideways into the table. He had a split seconds thought of 'what the fu-' before a sudden sharp, red hot pain demanded his full and undivided attention. He pushed away from the table and instantly pressed a hand to his side, which only made the pain flare worse and he cursed himself for the action as he took a moment to catch his breath. When he looked around the room it was dead silent and everyone was staring at him with a look akin to horror. It was not horror for whether or not he was hurt, but more for what he would do to the culprit.
He looked over to find Dr. Plaid (whom he called such not because of his name but because he always wore plaid shirts instead of the uniform blue) gawking at him through a pair of thick glasses, hunched over slightly and trying to discreetly right the data screen in his hand. Rodney looked behind the man to see the boxes that had been placed earlier kicked out of alignment and put all the information together.
They were waiting for the yelling to begin.
"Watch where you're going next time, you could damage valuable equipment," he snapped with less heat than usual and then turned back to Radek and his work. It was a few minutes before the noise level was back to normal and he sighed in relief.
"Are you okay?" Radek asked him quietly and Rodney glared at the concern.
"Have you ever been punched in the throat before?" Rodney was satisfied that Radek looked a bit horrified at the thought.
"No."
"Well this was nothing like that. It's just a little bump. I'm fine." He looked back towards the work and Radek took the hint and followed suit. At least he did for a few minutes before he sighed and adjusted his glasses.
"You are bleeding, Rodney," he said quietly and Rodney startled, looking down to where Radek indicated. Sure enough there were a few blotches of red beginning to smear his blue shirt. Red and blue did not purple make he thought as he pulled at the material self-consciously. He resisted the urge to lift the end and take a look at why he was bleeding for fear of everyone else also looking. "Perhaps you should visit Carson, have him examine for life threatening injuries." The Czech suggested quietly, no doubt trying to keep Rodney from panicking with his gentle tone. Damn it, Rodney had almost been completely healed. He glared at his shirt, suddenly not at all comfortable being in a room where everybody was probably aware that he had gills and Radek was speaking to him like he might spook for the suggestion of seeking medical aid.
"Right. Good idea. I'll probably be gone for the rest of the day. Take care of the kids and get what you can of that program done. I'll look at it when I get the chance." He left without making eye contact with his friend, but held his head high. Nobody looked at him as he walked out, too absorbed in their own work.
He decided to actually go to the infirmary, despite knowing that it was just a little scrape. Radek would no doubt tell Carson about the blood, which would have Carson calling in the cavalry to drag Rodney to his clutches as soon as possible. Rodney had no urge to be dragged anywhere like a child and he had to see Carson sometime anyway. It might as well be on his own terms.
It wasn't that he didn't trust Carson, mostly, because medicine was still voodoo as far as he was concerned. It was more that he hadn't been to a doctor about his 'situation' since he had been young. Very, very young. He had managed to successfully hide the truth from everybody for over twenty-five years, and those that did know hadn't been able to touch him for just as long. The thought of having a doctor examine him, even Carson, had the hair on his neck rising and his muscles tensing without thought. He was going to have a tension headache tonight for sure.
He ignored the look one of the soldiers gave him as he walked by, seeing the distrust in her gaze and the narrowing eyes. This wasn't unusual, because even among an expedition as open minded as Atlantis there were always a few who's true colours showed when something they didn't understand or agree with occurred. Rodney hadn't really received any overt hostility, but he had noticed several looks. This soldier was one of the most frequent flyers among them, though he could care less to learn the woman's name. She had looked at Ronon the same way for his first few weeks in Atlantis. He glared at her for good measure and she just blinked as she walked past, completely unfazed.
When he finally approached the infirmary doors he actually paused for a second out side, hesitating to make the final few steps, before he angrily pushed himself forward. Despite what people thought, he wasn't a coward when things needed to be done. And this needed to be done.
"Carson!" He called loudly as he stepped through the doors, ignoring the nurses that didn't even flinch at his sudden and loud appearance. They had been battle hardened long ago. He walked right past them to the Scotsman's office and stopped in front of Carson, who was looking up at him from his desk in confusion. At least until his sharp gaze zeroed in on the small bloodstains on his shirt. He probably smelt it first, the bloodhound.
"What's happened to ye now?" He said in alarm as he rounded the desk and made to pull up Rodney's shirt.
"Do you mind? There are people around!" Rodney hastily stepped back out of Carson's reach and right into one of said people, who grunted at the impact but held steady.
"What's up, Rodney," Sheppard's familiar voice drawled behind him and he twisted around to find the man looking him over. His trained gaze also stopped at the bloodstains. Rodney backed away from them another step in reaction, not expecting to have to deal with two people.
"What are you doing here?" He snapped and Sheppard held up a handful of bandages and field dressings.
"Do you think our med. kits refill themselves?" His eyes narrowed. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Rodney stammered out, suddenly wishing he'd just gone and changed his shirt instead of coming here. "It was just my scientists displaying their usual lack of balance. I'm fine though, nothing to worry about so I'm just gonna go now."
"Ye certainly are not," Carson firmly grasped his arm and began leading him to the back of the infirmary and into one of the private rooms. Sheppard followed without invite or hesitation and closed the door behind them as though he belonged there. "Now off with yer shirt, Rodney, and tell me what happened." Rodney hesitated at the command, which he could see bothered Carson because the man was not used to him trying to delay medical treatment.
"There is such a thing as doctor patient confidentiality you know, not to mention privacy," he snapped at Sheppard, who just crossed his arms over his chest.
"You're just removing your shirt McKay, it's nothing I haven't seen before," he said while staring right into Rodney's eyes, daring him to disagree. They both knew Rodney would be lying if he did. "And I need to know more about this whole gill thing so I can take precautions for it in the field. So let the kind doctor help you and take off your shirt before you bleed out on the floor." Rodney instantly looked down at his shirt.
"I'm not bleeding that much, it's just a scrape." But he was relieved to see the stains hadn't really grown any larger. He looked between the two men again, Carson looking ready to cut the material off and Sheppard was clearly unwilling to listen to Rodney about anything, as usual. Fear overcame his indignation, which turned into anger because Rodney was not going to let this fear control him. He quickly reached down and pulled off the shirt with a huff, only flinching slightly when Carson's warm gloved hands began gently prodding around the area.
"See, that wasn't so bad," Sheppard mocked him and Rodney glared.
"Oh shut up, and also, ow! Watch what you're doing there!" He snapped at the slight burning the inspection triggered. Carson looked up at Rodney with a touch of horror in his eyes.
"I'm sorry Rodney, I didn't realize you were that sensitive here," he gentled his ministrations drastically as he began cleaning the small scrape and Rodney instantly felt guilty.
"No, it's fine. It doesn't hurt that much, I'm just…being difficult," he admitted and looked away from Carson's hands on his body. He'd been unconscious last time so he hadn't really thought about people touching him there. Now it just unsettled him and he wanted to run from the room. "I was pushed into a table," he found himself saying instead. "It just scraped some of the almost healed skin but it should be fine by tomorrow."
"They look a hell of a lot better than the other day," Sheppard commented, watching over Carson's shoulder. "Do they always heal this fast? Because I would have thought that level of damage would take more than a week to look this good."
"Rodney's cells seem to have increased regeneration capabilities in this area. The swabs I took when he was in here last certainly suggested it, but this is more impressive than I had originally thought," Carson mused in response.
"Hello, the specimen is in the room you know," Rodney cut in, not liking being talked about so blatantly. Sheppard frowned and Carson looked unsettled as he apologized and applied a touch of salve to the small wound.
"Is this why you never looked like you had gills before? The tissue regenerated over your entire side?" Sheppard asked as Rodney hastily slipped his shirt back on. He looked at both men, knowing that this question and answer session had been coming for a while and he sat down in the chair to his right. The two men took the hint and sat down as well, staring at him with intensity. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.
"If I don't use them for a certain length of time then they grow over, yes. I always believed it was some form of defence mechanism, that if I wasn't going to use them then they could be hidden. Obviously it worked."
"How long does it take for them to grow over then?" Carson asked, frowning to himself.
"In about two months you won't be seeing them anymore. It generally took a few weeks when I was younger but the last time I used them I was in my early twenties and it took longer to grow over that time. I can only assume that as I get older the healing time slows."
"You're going to let them grow over? What if you need them again?" Sheppard asked and Rodney looked at him oddly.
"When could these possibly come in useful around here, hm? They could be a liability, and the last thing I want is for more people knowing about them."
"I don't get it, don't you want to use them?"
"It's not a matter of want Colonel, it's a matter of need. And I don't need to use them, therefore they can just go away." He didn't meet either of their eyes as he said this and therefore missed the look the two men shared as he waved his hand for the next question. Carson waited until Rodney looked at him before asking.
"Are there any files on this that I could look at?"
"No, I destroyed them."
"So there were studies done then," Carson hedged, the gentle understanding in his tone aggravated Rodney and he glared at the man.
"Of course there were studies done. I would have thought you'd figure that out now with my reluctance to share this information." He tried to draw on his anger so that he wouldn't remember the fear. "Needless to say there is nothing left of the research to look at, so you're going to have to take new scans for your files. The quicker we do this the sooner I can get back to work," he made to stand but Carson's strong grip suddenly appearing on his knee kept him in place and he folded his arms across his chest in response.
"Does yer sister have them, Rodney?" He snorted in response to that.
"No. Thank god, because she's always been about living the normal, family life. This wouldn't have worked well into her plans." And he was truly glad for it, though sometimes it was more difficult to bury the bitterness than others. At Carson's raised eyebrow he decided to just lay out the whole story, because it was obvious that his friend needed to know and neither man had any real idea about Rodney's childhood.
"Okay, listen: My mother was a geneticist and biological engineer, a brilliant woman on all accounts and involved in all sorts of cutting edge experimentation from the moment she graduated." Rodney didn't sound very impressed with her qualifications, even if she was his mother. "Nobody ever took the time to actually talk to me about any of this, but from what I understand one of the projects she was working on needed test subjects in the form of pregnant women. I suppose my development just happened to coincide with her project because she volunteered to inject my embryo with some kind of genetic altering drug, which I don't know anything about," he quickly added, forestalling Carson's question. "There were several women injected with this experiment, but none of their children survived, either being miscarried or dying shortly after birth. Lucky me, I suppose." He grimaced.
"Regardless to say she left the project before I was born and, after an apparently difficult birth, I went home with everyone under the notion that I was completely fine. Apparently my mother refused to let the organization examine me and my father had no idea anything was wrong in the first place so life…went on." Here he paused, not sure exactly how much information they needed, or how much he cared to tell them.
"After Jeannie was born my mother became ill. Very ill. My birth having somehow damaged her enough that having another child nearly proved fatal. She never spoke to me about any of this, personally I think she didn't want to deal with the fallout…" he trailed off quietly, remembering the weeks of examinations and experiments after she had taken him to... and his father's anger when he finally found out what had happened, before snapping back to the present. "And that's all I know about why I am…this way." Carson looked sick, John looked blank and Rodney couldn't stop his hands from shaking as he finished telling the story for the first time. He waited in silence while they thought about what he had told them.
"Does Jeannie even know about this?"
"Of course not! I may have only been a child, but I was still a genius. Telling her would have put her in danger. It may have even put me in danger if she couldn't keep a secret, and let me tell you Jeannie is a wonderful person in so many ways but when it comes to her keeping her mouth shut in regards to me, well, she was even worse as a child then she is now. So I didn't. I didn't tell anyone. My dad knew, my mother must have told him what she did at some point, and I wasn't going to tell anyone else if I could help it. They never asked me about it, regardless." Was he saying too much? He was probably saying too much and he should really stop talking now. "Can we get to those scans now? I wasn't lying when I said I had things to do." And Carson thankfully agreed.
oooOOOooo
Rodney had left a while ago, all insults and bluster as he went to do 'important work.' John had disappeared before the tests had started but now he and Elizabeth were closed away in Carson's office, waiting for him to grace them with his presence. At the moment he was taking a minute to gather himself so he could remain professional, his thoughts dancing all over the place instead of remaining on the facts before him.
Rodney McKay had gills. Yes, he had been aware of this for days now, but it was still difficult to wrap his mind around that despite the undeniable proof. They looked about a hundred times better today than they had when Rodney had first been pulled from the water, the tissue regeneration healing him remarkable fast.
Earlier Carson had nearly panicked when his friend had marched into his office with blood on his shirt, his first thought being about how little he knew of Rodney's gills. It had been nothing, thank goodness, and he and John had finally managed to corner the man into telling them a little bit about them.
Genetic experimentation on an embryo. While Carson could certainly understand the possible necessity he had never, ever, actually considered performing such an act, especially for a non-lifesaving purpose. Changing a human being on a genetic level before they were even born…he shuddered at the thought. Thank goodness Rodney's mother had the decency to not put her second child through the same fate. Not that what she had done could ever be considered forgivable, especially if she treated Rodney as poorly as his offhanded comments made it seem.
He couldn't even imagine how Rodney had felt when he realized how truly different he was as a child. All Carson knew, in accordance to Rodney's own admittance, was that he must have been terrified, especially as he hid it from everyone. What kind of parents did he have if he couldn't trust them? And Rodney didn't trust them, that much was evident in how he spoke about them. Carson hated to think of it, but it certainly explained a lot.
When he finally entered his office both Elizabeth and John turned to look at him. Elizabeth looked interested, John looked closed off and weary. Carson knew the soldier hadn't told Elizabeth a thing yet, and Carson wondered how much of Rodney's story he could leave out when explaining things to Elizabeth. God love the woman, but if Rodney wanted her to know the nitty gritty then it was his choice to tell her.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting," he apologized as he set up his computer. "I just had a few more things to go over," he lied.
"No problem, Carson. Is everything okay with Rodney?" Elizabeth asked concerned.
"Aye, there's not a thing wrong with him at the moment. Not even he can complain," he tried for a smile and managed one. There was nothing wrong with his friend physically at least. Elizabeth smiled back, Sheppard looked as thought he didn't buy the levity for a second but said nothing. "Rodney's given me permission to explain to you both how his gills function, but beyond ourselves and a select few of my medical staff we are keeping a lock on these medical files." She frowned at that but nodded in understanding. He called up the diagram he wanted, the image of Rodney's body lighting up the screen.
"As you can see by this diagram he contains a normal set of lungs meant for atmospheric respiration, completely separate from his gills and functioning exactly like our own. However, when he is submerged he sucks the water in through his mouth and down his trachea and this is where it gets interesting." He enlarged the graphic slightly, showing a better view of the thoracic cavity.
"Where his trachea divides into the bronchial tubes he actually has a third passage, and when he breathes water the two bronchial are closed off with a valve, much like the epiglottis which keeps food and drink from entering the trachea."
"How does his body distinguish drinking water from water he's supposed to breathe?" Elizabeth asked, staring at the image.
"He says it's an instinct, a natural process that occurs without conscious thought, just like when we eat and drink," Carson explained and at her nod went back to the image. "This third passage also has an epiglottis of sorts to prevent water from entering his lungs. It forms its way behind his heart and other organs, changing from hard cartilage into a soft rubbery flesh. The tube divides, traveling between the eleventh and twelfth ribs. On a normal human this would seem impossible except that the flexible tube is supported through the ribs with a set of muscles that don't exist on a normal human being." He looked up to find both people staring intently at the screen. Elizabeth looked a bit green but Sheppard was examining it with a sharp eye, no doubt committing the diagram to memory.
"From here," Carson pointed unnecessarily, "the tube flows into a strong but thin membranous sac that is pressed between the external oblique muscles and the three gill slits. The water is pressed thin and forced out of the gills back into the surrounding water. Each gill is branched with feathery like tissue filled with tiny blood vessels near their surface. The oxygen in the water is absorbed into these blood vessels as it is pressed past them and the oxygen is then transported throughout his entire body. This allows him to breathe under water."
"Is that really enough surface area for proper oxygen absorption?" Sheppard asked, ignoring the raised eyebrow Elizabeth gave him.
"Actually, yes, his gills are large and fully capable of passing enough water through them to support his mass. Another benefit is that he can manually pull the water in through his mouth without the aid of continuous movement, unlike a shark which must swim continuously or it can't push the water through its gills. You should be aware that breathing water, because of the slightly slower absorption rate compared to air, requires approximately four percent more energy than respiration with his lungs."
"Will this be a problem for him?" Sheppard wanted to know, frowning and Carson shook his head.
"He probably won't even notice it, not unless he plans on swimming for an indeterminate amount of time. There are other changes to be aware of as well, such as his skin for example. When you spend too much time in the water your flesh turns wrinkly, after that your skin bloats. In order to sustain long periods under water skin must be able to absorb and expel the water enough to remain at a constant H2O state, which Rodney's body is capable of doing. Vision is also important, water being denser to look through then air his eyes are capable of focusing perfectly in both environments."
"Is there a way any of this could affect his health?"
"Not in any way other than the average breathing issues that most people have. So long as he doesn't go around breathing toxic or diseased water he should be fine. He even has the ability to breathe both salt or fresh water, though I have no idea which he prefers. I re-tested the water of this planet as soon as I realized what I was dealing with and it is perfectly clean. In fact it has a higher oxygen concentration than back on earth, so I suspect if anything it would just make him more energetic if he swims."
They both nodded in understanding but Elizabeth looked a bit discomforted as she continued to stare at the image. Then she shook herself and looked at her watch before standing.
"Thank you for this update, Carson. I know there are more things I need to discuss with both yourself and Rodney, but unfortunately I have a meeting with some of the geologists in ten minutes. If anything important comes up please keep me informed."
"Of course," he agreed, relieved when Sheppard stood as well, moving to follow her out of his office. When he reached the door, however, he paused and turned back to Carson.
"McKay said he's going to let his gills seal up again," he stated and Carson nodded, because Rodney had indeed made that fact abundantly clear. "Now," Sheppard's brow furrowed a bit, "I don't know much about all this, but it seems to me that if I had gills I would be predisposed to use them from time to time. Is it…normal for him to just lock them away like that, and more importantly can it hurt him to not use them?"
"That is a good question lad," Carson rubbed a hand over his eyes, feeling every bit his age right now. "And I have no answer for ye. Rodney's still being tight lipped about this and he hasn't mentioned anything beyond what he believes I need to know. I would think that after being able to avoid using them for so long it doesn't bother him," he let the comment hang in the air and, after a moment, Sheppard stared at him a moment before he nodded and left. At Carson's soft request the door slid shut and he rested his head on his desk, the image of Rodney still displayed on his screen.
He had no idea how to help his friend from this point, he just hoped Rodney would start to see that they weren't going to make as big of a deal of this as he seemed to expect.
TBC.
Thanks for still reading.