Here it is…chapter two...finally (silly site kept screwing up the formatting!) The author's notes from the last chapter still stands, especially the copyright info (just in case they're watching!) and except for the beta part, as Kipling-Nori has done me the favor of doing the beta thing for this chapter. Thanks a million K-N!!

Another little addition as well. Some of you have asked about or mentioned some McKay and Keller shippiness. I hadn't planned on doing a whole lot about it, but when I wrote this it just came naturally. We'll see where it goes…if anywhere.

Thanks to those of you who have reviewed and thank you all for reading.

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"You know she's never going to go for it," Sheppard drawled with far too much enthusiasm.

Out of instinct Rodney covered the tablet he'd been working on for a while, even though he knew the damage had already been done. Rodney glanced around him for the first time since arriving in the mess hall after waking up with yet one more universe altering idea. Unlike it had been then, the mess was nearly full of people. All around him civilians and soldiers were milling about looking for tables, or sitting at tables eating and talking to friends and colleagues. He looked to his watch and a groan shot out of his mouth before he could even think about trying to stop it. It was already nine thirty and he'd been working non-stop on his little idea for nearly three hours.

Remembering that Sheppard was standing next to him, Rodney looked up to him and did what he usually did when Sheppard managed to sneak up on him: insult his intelligence. "Oh please," he said with as much condescension as he could muster after digesting only three cups of coffee, "like you could possibly have any inkling as to how someone as brilliant as Samantha Carter would think."

Sheppard smiled and slapped Rodney on his right shoulder before moving over to sit at the table directly across from him. "Maybe. I guess we'll find out." Sheppard picked up Rodney's unused fork and poked at the untouched breakfast situated on the table between them. "What is this supposed to be?" asked Sheppard seriously.

Rodney, his attention already refocused back onto the tablet and his project, lifted the tablet up higher so that Sheppard couldn't see him and muttered something unintelligible.

Sheppard looked at the plate again and said, "That's what I thought." He dropped the fork unceremoniously onto the plate and folded his arms across his chest. Rodney needed a distraction, and as luck would have it, one was about to walk by. He waved to catch her attention and smiled when she waved back at him. He motioned to an empty seat next to Rodney and smiled again when she nodded knowingly.

"So, Rodney," asked Sheppard when he saw her begin to head towards their table, "what's going on with you and Keller?"

Rodney lifted his head just high enough to be able to glare at Sheppard over the top of the tablet. "What makes you think anything is going on?"

Sheppard shrugged and said, "You two have been spending a lot of time together lately, that's all. I was just curious."

"She's a great doctor and valued colleague," he said, reciting what really amounted to what a politician would have called towing the party line.

"That's it?" asked Sheppard. The way he asked and the way his eyebrows rose was all Rodney needed to know that Sheppard wouldn't leave it there.

He narrowed his eyes and then pulled the tablet back up to conceal his face from Sheppard. "She's a friend," said Rodney. He lowered the tablet again and gave Sheppard another glare. "A better friend than you, I might add." He lifted the tablet again. "She doesn't ask me silly questions, or bother me when I'm working, or get people I've never met before shooting at me."

Sheppard actually laughed at that. It was all true of course, but that wasn't the point. "Rodney," he said with false surprise lacing his voice, "you like her!"

Rodney lowered the tablet to the table with less care than he meant to or should have and leaned back in his chair. "Really, Colonel, I said she was a friend. How did your juvenile mind get from that simple statement that I like her? Must you always try to read more into a situation than is really there? That's how you always get into so much trouble."

Sheppard repressed the grin that was dying to get out at the fact that he'd just managed to trap his friend in the proverbial web- it really was too easy sometimes. Instead he adopted a curious expression as he placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. "Does that mean you don't like her?"

Rodney sighed in frustration and implored any deity that would listen to grant him the strength and patience to put up with John Sheppard. "No, Colonel, that doesn't mean that I don't like her. Try to keep up, please. If she's my friend, and I have said that she is, then I must like her. Do you have any friends that you don't like?"

"No," admitted Sheppard. "So you do like her?"

Rodney sighed again. "Yes," he said finally as he grabbed the tablet off the table. "I like her. There…you happy?"

Sheppard finally smiled so widely it nearly hurt. He looked past Rodney and said with a mixture of smugness, satisfaction and amusement, "Hey, Doc…have a seat."

For the third time in one minute Rodney tested his lung capacity by inhaling and expressing an impressive amount of hot air in another sigh and said, "Oh come on! You don't expect me to believe that she's standing right behind me, do you? Really, Colonel. How gullible do you think I am?"

Rodney glared at the Colonel in unhidden and unfettered exasperation waiting for an answer, until someone pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. "Oh crap," thought Rodney as he turned to his left to see the brown eyes of Jennifer Keller looking at him. She had a strange smile on her face, the kind of smile that told him that he didn't have to ask or guess exactly how much of Sheppard's grilling she heard.

"Thank you, Colonel," Jennifer said with a nod in his direction. She looked down to Rodney's plate and a small frown appeared where just a scant moment earlier a beautiful smile had been. "You haven't touched your breakfast, Rodney. Everything okay?"

"What?" he asked, dumbfounded as he was by the ridiculously simple question. "Yes, thank you, I'm fine." He looked back down at the tablet still miraculously in his hands and said, "I'm not hungry. And busy. Not hungry and busy." He raised the tablet and turned it towards her so that she could see what was on it. "See? Just busy…and not hungry." He flashed her a nervous smile before placing the tablet on the table again and looking over to see Sheppard staring at him as though he had ten heads. "What?" he demanded of Sheppard, who only exacerbated Rodney's mood with a pained shake of his head. Keller hid her smile by taking a bite out of a slice of toast.

Sheppard, still receiving a perplexed and very annoyed glare from Rodney rolled his eyes and turned to Keller. "So, Doc, any progress on the sports thing?"

Jennifer took a sip of her steaming coffee, and after placing the mug on her tray she said, "The response has been amazing! I sent out the information to the department heads yesterday after the staff meeting and got responses almost immediately. It was…really…quite…," she finally stopped when she realized that both Rodney and Sheppard had nearly identical baffled looks upon their faces. "Didn't you two get the e-mail?"

"Well, you see the thing is…," began Sheppard at the same time Rodney said, "Usually I don't bother…"

They both stopped and looked at each other, and in what was usually a scary thing for most people to witness they appeared to telepathically have a discussion and agree to something. There was no telepathy of course, and Jennifer knew it.

It wasn't scary either.

But it was a little weird.

Sheppard had the good grace to appear embarrassed as he said first, "Lorne usually takes care of that stuff for me. I don't like to get bogged down in the paperwork area of the job."

Jennifer gave Sheppard a look of mild disapproval and turned her gaze to Rodney. Unlike Sheppard, he didn't appear to be embarrassed as much as he appeared to be very uncomfortable at being busted.

He noticed that she was looking at him and he muttered, "I'm too busy to be reading every single message that comes through our system, and make no mistake there are dozens every hour ranging from power requests to repair work. Seriously, we should get some sort of spam protection built into the system."

Keller opened her mouth to say something when a voice in her right ear stopped her. She put her hand up to her ear and activated the comm. unit and said, "Go ahead."

Rodney and John watched Keller take the call and a moment later she stood up. "Needed in the infirmary," she said by way of explanation. "See you later."

She placed her left hand on Rodney's shoulder as she turned away and he stiffened out of reflex, not out of any sort of discomfort.

Sheppard smiled at Rodney who ignored him and went back to work on the tablet.

Deciding to shelve the Keller issue for the moment he said, "When are you going to talk to her?"

Rodney looked up and partially turned around to point in the direction in which Keller had gone. "I just talked to her."

Sheppard shook his head and said, "Carter. When are you going to talk to Carter about," he motioned to the tablet with his right hand, "your thing?"

"Oh. In a few minutes."

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know she'll say no, Rodney." His smile got a little wider as he leaned back in chair, stretched his legs out in front of him and added, "The fact that she already said no might be a fairly good hint."

Rodney grunted. "It's been almost twenty-four hours, Colonel." He looked up and graced Sheppard with one of his better 'I can do anything' smiles. "After she sees what I've come up with, there's no way she'll be able to say no."

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"No, Rodney."

"But all we have to do set up a retaining wall. We can even use…"

"No, Rodney."

"There's even a fast freezing system in one of the labs..."

"No, Rodney."

"The power demands won't even be an issue since…"

"No, Rodney."

"But you won't even hear me out!"

Sam looked up from the one page report she'd been trying to read for the past fifteen minutes and sighed loudly. Ordinarily she found her chair quite comfortable; plenty of padding for the derriere and wonderful lumbar support, but with Rodney McKay bearing down on her like there was no tomorrow, it had become very uncomfortable indeed. "I know what's involved, Rodney." She held up her right hand to forestall the impending argument that was no doubt about to erupt from his mouth and tried to let some and not all of her frustration into her voice. "I know." She smirked at McKay and added, "I may not be a you but I'm not that far off."

"Look it really isn't that…"

"No, Rodney."

Rodney grunted contritely and sat down in the chair opposite Sam and began to pout in a way that would do any four year old proud.

"Look, Rodney, it's not quite as easy as you're making it out to be. Oh I know that compared to some of the projects we currently have ongoing it's relatively easy, but it's still problematic. For example, who's going to create and maintain the ice? You?"

Rodney raised his chin a little and said, "Well…yes."

Sam stood up and walked around her desk, and when she stood in front of Rodney she leaned back and rested against the desk, using her hands to support herself on the desk. "As you constantly point out you don't have enough time in the day to do your work as it is." She folded her arms across her chest and waited a heartbeat for that to register and continued. "And it wouldn't be fair to saddle anyone with that responsibility. We're all busy. Besides, the response to the idea of a sports league has been phenomenal." Sam reached behind her and picked up a piece of paper off her desk, turned back to face Rodney and read from the paper. "Basketball, soccer, tennis, bowling and, of course hockey, are just some of the suggestions."

"Bowling?" asked Rodney incredulously. "You've got to be kidding? That would be…"

"As ridiculous as setting up a hockey…thing?" asked Sam with a raised eyebrow.

"Rink," informed Rodney automatically.

"Whatever," said Sam. "Look, Rodney, besides the time required to maintain the ice, there's the fact that despite the massive size of the city, large spaces are at a premium. Most of the rooms we have that are large enough to house hockey rinks, basketball courts and whatever else may be needed and wanted are being used as storage areas for all sorts of things, including MALPS, weapons and scientific equipment." Sam dropped the paper to her desk, folded her hands together and let them rest against her stomach. "Because of that the room or rooms we choose will probably end up housing more than one sport." She adopted a lopsided grin. "It would be kind of hard to play basketball in the same room as ice hockey, wouldn't it?"

Rodney looked up to Sam and found himself agreeing with her, as much as it galled him. "Fine," he stated as neutrally as he could. He stood up and headed for the door, pausing long enough to half turn towards her and say, "Thank you for thinking about it."

Before Sam could even register that Rodney McKay had just thanked her even though she refused his request, he was halfway through the control room.

All she could do was shake her head and smile.

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Sheppard walked into the lab and took a look around. It was odd enough that Rodney was not in the main lab, that is to say he wasn't in his usual haunting ground, and when Zelenka told him that Rodney was in this seldom used lab, he couldn't help but be curious. He stepped in farther and walked up to a counter-like workstation and did a double take. On the other side of the counter directly across from him was a hockey net staring him straight in the face.

"What do you think?" came a voice from off to the right.

Sheppard turned his head in that direction and didn't see anyone, until he looked past the counter to see another, as yet uncompleted, net. He followed the structure down to the floor and narrowed his eyes in confusion when he saw a pair of legs outstretched on the floor going back and disappearing behind the counter.

"What are you doing, Rodney?" asked Sheppard, even though he knew the answer was obvious.

"I would think the answer to that would be obvious," quipped McKay.

Sheppard felt very fortunate indeed that Rodney was unable to see his look of profound irritation. "Yes, Rodney, I can see that you're creating another masterpiece that will help us in our fight with the Wraith," he said with what he thought was the appropriate amount of sarcasm, "but what I meant was what are you doing on the floor?"

"Running the wiring," Rodney replied, either ignorant or uncaring about Sheppard's remarks.

Sheppard's eyebrows rose in confusion. "Wiring? In a hockey net?"

Rodney grabbed the edge of the workstation and pulled himself up. When he was completely upright he looked at Sheppard proudly. "Yes, wiring." He gestured to the completed net and said, "I've installed sensors in the hollow frame and hooked it up to a small battery in the base of the frame." Rodney moved over to stand by Sheppard and picked up a puck off the workstation. "The sensors will record when the puck crosses the threshold of the frame and emit a signal to the scoreboard I'm going to build. The score board will let everyone know when a goal is scored by various audio and visual means." Rodney held up the puck between them. "It eliminates the need for a goal judge, referee and video reviews." He tossed the puck into the net and was immediately rewarded with a two second long tone emitted from a small box on the workstation. "If there wouldn't be too many questions asked I'd even patent it and sell it to the NHL."

Sheppard was stunned. "You're taking this awfully…seriously…there, Rodney."

McKay looked sideways at Sheppard. "You know I was going to rig up the same sort of thing for the basketball rims."

Sheppard's eyes lit up. "Really?"

McKay opened his mouth and hesitated for a second before shaking his head and saying, "No…not really."

"McKay…"

"Sam won't let me build an ice rink," explained Rodney, "so I decided to do this." He walked over to the opposite end of the table and picked up his tablet. "Have you seen some of the sports that are being considered?" He held the tablet out to Sheppard who took it as though it were a ticking bomb. "Bowling, cricket and horseshoes. Horseshoes! I mean seriously, there's about as much physical activity in bowling and horseshoes as there is in…in…in…"

Sheppard couldn't help himself. "Chess?"

Rodney fixed the Colonel with a look of absolute scorn. "Why are you here?"

Sheppard smiled and placed the tablet on the workstation. "I came to see if you were interested in lunch." Sheppard smiled even wider when Rodney looked to his watch and grimaced at the time.

"Yes, well, sure." Rodney walked around the end of the table and headed to the door saying over his shoulder, "Well let's go! I haven't got all day you know!"

All Sheppard could do was shake his head, smile and run to catch up with his friend.

Tbc…