Just to reiterate, I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters…MGM does.

Thanks again to Kipling-Nori who took the time to look this over for me.

And thanks to everyone who has been keeping up on this.

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For the second day in a row, John Sheppard entered the main lab in search of Rodney McKay, and for the second day in a row it wasn't McKay that he found but Radek Zelenka instead.

"Hey, Doc…have you seen McKay anywhere?" he asked as he walked up to Zelenka's workstation.

Zelenka looked up from the latest technological marvel he was studying and pushed his glasses up to their proper residence on the bridge of his nose.

"No, Colonel," responded the Czech scientist, irritation easily evident in his voice. "He called this morning and said that because," he paused and, in as accurate an impersonation as his Czech accent would allow, added, "There's nothing planned that you could possibly screw up so I'm taking the day off." He brought his right hand up to his mouth and coughed into it to clear his throat. "Sorry."

Sheppard nodded and sighed. "Rodney willingly took the day off?" he asked in disbelief. "Rodney McKay?"

"Yes he did." Zelenka picked up a portable sensor and passed it over the object he had been studying. "I suspect he is in Storage Room 14B." He looked up at Sheppard. "He mentioned yesterday something about having an idea for…"

Sheppard held up his hands to stop Zelenka. "Wait…let me guess- for his hockey…thing."

"Rink, yes," said Zelenka. He frowned at the scanner in his hand, adjusted its settings and passed it over the device again. This time he smiled at the results and he looked back at Sheppard. "He mentioned last night that he had an interesting idea for creating the boards to enclose the playing surface that…"

"I get the point, Doc," said Sheppard. He ignored the disappointment in Zelenka's eyes that he didn't get to explain in detail what McKay's idea was and said, "I'll have to talk to him later if…"

'Carter to Sheppard,' interrupted Sam's voice in his ear.

Sheppard reached up and touched his comm. "Go ahead, Colonel."

'I need to talk to you about Lorne's intelligence report on P3X-493. Can you come up to my office?'

"On my way," said Sheppard. He looked back to Zelenka who had by this time turned his attention back to the shiny gizmo on the table. "If you see Rodney, Doc…"

Zelenka looked up and opened his mouth to say something but stopped when he saw something behind Sheppard. Sheppard turned around, half expecting to see Rodney standing behind him, and became very confused by the sight of one of the other scientists heading towards them.

"All right, Radek," said Helga Sigfridsson. "I am here."

Sheppard watched Zelenka's face go from concentration on the object on the table, to distraction at the sight of Sigfridsson and finally to what looked like sheer delight in a matter of seconds. And he could see why. Helga Sigfridsson was the stereotypical Swedish blond bombshell, standing at nearly six feet tall with a mane of golden hair that flowed down past her shoulders, bright blue eyes and a nearly perfect body that not even her white lab coat could hide. Sheppard wasn't usually one to think of believing a stereotype, but after looking at Sigfridsson he was more than willing to make an exception.

He was brought out of his funk by Zelenka's voice, though for some reason he couldn't stop staring at Sigfridsson. "Thank you, Helga," he said as he passed her the scanner. "If you need me I will be in Storage Room 14B."

Something clicked in Sheppard's mind and he turned to find Zelenka, who had somehow nearly made it to the door of the lab without him noticing.

"Hey, Doc!" called Sheppard. He moved to catch up to Zelenka, but not without casting one last admiring glance to Sigfridsson, and said, "Let me get something straight." Sheppard glanced back to Sigfridsson and then back to Zelenka. In a hushed voice he asked, "You got all excited that time because you get to go down to the…thing?" Zelenka nodded and Sheppard said, "Not because," he motioned to Helga with his head, "you know?"

After nearly ten seconds of Zelenka looking at him as though he wasn't speaking either English or Czech, Sheppard shook his head and said with some amusement, "Never mind."

Sheppard watched him rush through the door and was still trying to figure the scientist out when another accented voice brought him back to reality.

"Is there something wrong, Colonel Sheppard?"

Sheppard turned with a rapidity brought on by the feeling of being caught with his hand in the cookie jar and found the worried eyes of Sigfridsson looking at him. "Ah, no, Doctor, nothing."

After another second of bearing the brunt of her concerned gaze, Sheppard waved good-bye and headed towards Sam's office.

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Its official designation was Storage Room 14B, located in one of the lower sections of one of the buildings situated next to the control tower. It was a large room by any definition of the word large; in fact it was the largest available room in Atlantis taking up more than thirty-two hundred square meters.

More than enough to house a regulation sized NHL hockey rink; and as luck would have it, the bulky medical supplies that had been the room's occupants the day before had been moved to storage areas in closer proximity to the Infirmary.

While Rodney was past the point of being angry or upset at not being able to put an actual hockey rink into service, he could at least have the appropriate sized playing surface. Yes, there were those who whined and griped about having such a large playing surface and having to run it as opposed to skate it, but they would enjoy it nonetheless he was sure.

Rodney stood twenty feet inside the door to the massive room punching up data and schematics on his tablet. There would be room for the dry rink and players benches and bleachers for some spectators. He paused in his work and looked up, taking a second to visualize the way it was going to look. How the stands would look depended entirely on what other sports would be allotted to this room and how much spectator interest there would be in that sport, and in hockey of course. The surface itself would be exactly as specified in the NHL rulebook…no exceptions. There would have to be exceptions in the rules for the actual playing of the game of course, such as Jennifer's limited checking rule, and there would also be no slap shots, as the players would not have the luxury of the protective padding that ice hockey players would have. There would have to be other changes, but they would have to wait.

He and a couple of his more capable underlings had already managed to install the sensors in the floor that would detect offsides and icings. Like the sensors installed in the nets, any offside or icing would trigger audio and visual alerts from the scoreboard. He glanced to his tablet to check the power readouts he had been keeping an eye on and smiled. It was all coming together very nicely.

"Rodney," came Sheppard's voice from the doorway, "what does your team leader have to do to get a word with you these days?"

Rodney looked at Sheppard and said, "You could always come and find me, Colonel, the city isn't really that big, relatively speaking that is. And if that fails," he pointed to his right ear, "you could always use this wonderful piece of modern technology that we like to call the comm. system." Rodney's eyebrows rose questioningly, and after a few seconds of silence from Sheppard he sighed and said without hiding the irritation he was feeling at being interrupted, "Well, what did you want to see me about?"

Sheppard's grin was maddening for Rodney. "Nothing in particular." Sheppard walked towards Rodney as he said, "What exactly are you doing…" Sheppard stopped and looked at Rodney who had a very strange smile upon his face. "What?"

Rodney shook his head rapidly. "Nothing. You were rambling on about something?"

Sheppard started walking towards Rodney again and said, "I was saying…"

That was as far as he got before he felt himself being flipped over as though he had just run into a hip high fence. He barely managed to get his hands out in front of him and initiate a roll to minimize the impact on his back. He wasn't entirely successful and ended up landing on his back with a resounding thud, his feet pointing towards Rodney. On the upside, the pain in his back was dulled instantly by the anger he felt when he saw the insufferably pleased with himself look on Rodney's face.

"Colonel! Are you all right?" he heard someone call out. He tipped his head back and saw the upside down image of Keller running towards him. He put up his hands and shouted, "Look out for the…"

He stopped as she passed by where he had run into the invisible fence and looked back to Rodney, who shrugged his shoulders with the innocence of a cat who had just swallowed the canary.

"Yeah, Doc," he said as Keller knelt down beside him and began helping him up. He glanced sidelong at Rodney and said to Keller, "Just lost my footing, that's all." He gave her a smile as he leaned back and tested his aching back. "Guess I should be more careful."

Keller gave him an 'I don't believe you but I don't think I want to know' look and turned to face Rodney. "Hello, Rodney."

"Jen," replied Rodney. "Ah, thank you for coming down." He walked over and showed Keller the schematics on his tablet. "I wanted to get your opinion on the placement of the emergency medical supplies, and where you think the stands should go and a few other things."

"Rodney, I'm hurt," said Sheppard with feigned sadness in his voice. "I figured you'd come to me for help."

Rodney grunted. "Right. When I want advice on setting up a football field or talking to women I'll come to you." He looked back to Keller and when he saw her amused look his face instantly turned red. "Not that I need help talking with women or anything. I mean you're obviously a woman and I'm talking to you." He motioned to Sheppard with his hand. "I was just saying that…what I mean is that I don't need…"

"It's okay, Rodney," Keller said mercifully as she laid her right hand on his reassuringly. Her smile was brilliant as she added, "I know what you meant." She looped her right arm inside his left and said as they moved to the center of the room, "I think the medical supplies should go in between the benches…"

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Thirty minutes later McKay and Keller, still arm in arm Sheppard noted in amazement, walked up to where he was leaning against the wall near the door.

Rodney was so caught up in Jennifer's presence that he didn't even notice Sheppard grinning at him until they were nearly to him.

Rodney's brow furrowed in surprise. "You're still here? What do you want, Sheppard?"

Sheppard was tempted to make some sort of comment about wanting to observe the courting habits of Meredith Rodney McKay, but decided against it. "Not much really. I have a couple of questions but they can wait until you're finished with the Doc here."

Rodney graced Sheppard with a look of severe irritation before turning to Jennifer. "I guess we're finished," he said, disappointment lacing his voice.

Jennifer smiled at him as she extracted her arm from his. "I'll see you in the Mess later," she said, smiling again when the disappointed look on his face evaporated. She looked to Sheppard and said in way of good-bye, "Colonel."

Sheppard nodded. "Doctor."

She was almost to the door when she heard Rodney call out, "Jen?"

She turned to face him and said, "Yes, Rodney."

"Thank you," he motioned behind him with his free hand, "for your help, I mean."

"You're welcome," she said kindly. She gave them both a little wave and walked out the door.

Rodney was still looking in that direction when Sheppard walked up beside him and slapped his right arm with the back of his hand.

"Ouch!" cried Rodney as he roughly rubbed his assaulted arm. "What was that for?"

Sheppard leaned in close to Rodney and repeated, "What was that for?" He spread his arms out wide in front of him where he had his little tumble. "What the hell was that, McKay?"

Rodney managed to keep from grinning as he said, "Oh, that."

Sheppard nodded quickly and gave Rodney a look that said that he knew damn well what he was talking about. "Yes, that!"

Rodney stood up a little straighter and lifted his chin up a bit as he did whenever he was about to talk about something he was proud of. "The boards." At Sheppard's uncomprehending look he made a circling motion with his hand and added, "I'm using force fields as the wall that will surround the rink." He tapped some instructions in on his tablet and showed Sheppard.

The playing surface was mapped out, and around it glowed a thin green line, which Sheppard recognized as the representation of a force field. Oddly enough, there was a break in the field around where he and Rodney were standing.

"It's been tricky," said Rodney as he brought the tablet back down. "Getting the power ratios right so that they act like true boards has been a challenge." Rodney looked at Sheppard smugly. "I was, of course, up to the challenge."

Sheppard looked at Rodney and said sarcastically, "Of course."

"Yes," replied Rodney. "If there wasn't enough power, objects," he glanced sidelong at Sheppard, "like you would just go on through it." Ignoring the contrite look Sheppard gave him Rodney looked back to his tablet. "Too much power and anything that came against the field would be repelled backwards."

"Rodney," said Sheppard with pained patience, "why not just use real boards instead of invisible ones?"

Rodney typed more commands into the tablet and said, "Sam says that this room may be used for other sports as well, so installing actual physical, semi-permanent boards isn't going to work." He looked up to Sheppard and grinned. "Besides, this is much cooler. Just wait until I adjust the frequency and get some color into it."

Sheppard was about to retort that nothing about hockey was cool, except the ice that wasn't going to be used, when Zelenka walked up to them muttering something in what Sheppard presumed to be Czech.

"Didn't I ask you to tell Rodney I was looking for him?" asked Sheppard to Zelenka.

Zelenka looked puzzled for a moment and then answered with a resolute, "No."

Sheppard was still trying to figure out if Zelenka was right when the Czech started speaking to Rodney.

"We had a power fluctuation about thirty minutes ago," he announced as he turned to Rodney. "It may have caused this section to collapse…"

"The power fluctuation was Sheppard running into the wall and flipping over like a burger in a fast food joint," replied Rodney.

Sheppard pointed his finger at Rodney and was about to snap back when Rodney continued on.

"I shut down the field when Doctor Keller ran to him to see if he was okay."

"How did the field react?" Zelenka asked excitedly.

Rodney looked up to his fellow scientist and pronounced, "Perfectly."

"I'm fine, by the way. Thanks for asking," said Sheppard to the two scientists, who slowly looked up to him and then turned to look at each other. A moment later they began speaking in techno babble that started to give him a headache. When they finished a moment later, Zelenka scurried off in the direction he had come from and Rodney looked at him somewhat suspiciously.

"Why are you still here?"

Sheppard sighed loudly. "Carter wants us to go over the intelligence report on P3X-493 to see if it's worth checking out."

"What part of 'I'm taking the day off' do people not understand?" asked Rodney with his eyes raised to the heavens.

"Come on," said Sheppard with a chuckle. He slapped Rodney on the back. "Let's go to the Mess…you might see Keller again."

"Oh please," groaned Rodney.

The two friends walked towards the door, and when they passed through it Sheppard glanced at Rodney and said, "You called her 'Jen' by the way. Not Keller or Jennifer or Doctor. Jen."

"I did not!" exclaimed Rodney with a rather emphatic shake of his head. He thought about it for a second, and it dawned on him that he had in fact called her Jen. He looked over to Sheppard who, seeing that Rodney had realized it, nodded his head in confirmation.

"Twice," clarified Sheppard. He smiled widely and said mischievously, "You like her."

Rodney groaned and gently slapped his right hand to his forehead in frustration. "Don't start that again."

A second later, a startled Radek Zelenka looked up from his tablet wondering where in the world the thunderous laughter was coming from.