Chapter 2: I should have known better

In the car, the radio stays silent. John will not risk another reminder. This week has been difficult enough, this day will be enough of a trial, he doesn't need to reinforce it with another shot of musical battering. With his luck, he would fall on a R.E.M special. He snorts. John Sheppard: still alive to see the songs that have marked his life turn into golden oldies. Who would've thought?

The car purrs, but John feels none of the thrill and satisfaction he usually does. It won't be a pleasant trip, it will be a horrible day, a distressing weekend, he knows. He knows because he already feels the anguish.

What is he going to say? What is he going to do?

He pulls to the side and shuts the engine before reaching the end of his road.

"Pull it together, John," he pleads with himself, closing his eyes, breathing deeply. He mentally reviews his luggage, but a forgotten item is not the problem.

He had almost managed to outrun it, but when the phone rang and that voice reached out to him, in that familiar speech pattern. The name, the request, the same that comes through the mail every year.

It was a phone call, this year, or rather, phone calls. He couldn't refuse, but he couldn't accept. He stayed silent for a long time, listening to the breathing at the other end of the line. He clung to that touch of life, and finally decided that he wanted it. Needed it, perhaps. Some familiarity in a life that has been foreign to him for longer than he cares to recall.

Yes, he said. One word, and it brought him here, in his car, on his street, squeezing his eyes shut tightly because he has carried this weight a long time. It is so heavy, he cannot stand straight anymore.

O-O-O-O-O

The nights in Atlantis were seldom quiet. That night, without impending doom, a freshly resolved crisis or the Wraith on their merry way, Atlantis was quiet. Quiet in the way office buildings could be, after hours, and of course, that was it; that section of the city was the industrial section. Sometimes, Sheppard forgot how big, how impressive and imposing Atlantis was.

He was so at ease, everywhere he went felt welcoming and warm, that he found the concept difficult to grasp. It was home, not some soulless collection of rooms and corridors.

Sheppard's boots made a loud thump, thump as he walked with the heavy feet of a man ready for bed. The lights dimmed at his approach, allowing for his burning eyes. He sometimes thought of the city as a doting grandmother, warm, smiling, the smell of molasses and tea never far behind. Weaker than she used to be, but with a knowledge and wisdom only years could bring. No matter where he went, Atlantis embraced his presence, showed him things he never could have known without her.

He reached the labs and the square of light that spilt from Rodney's space, leaning in the doorway, watching the scientist work on the cube he had found earlier. Quiet had settled here too; the labs were devoid of life but for the overlord himself. There was no one around for at least a mile; all had left work to go eagerly toward home. This was not an unfamiliar sight, for John. The hunched back, the empty coffee cup, the blue glow of a laptop and the whitish light of a desktop lamp amounted to McKay's late-night life.

"Hey!"

Flailing hands, a cup of coffee swept away, the blue glow of a laptop and the whitish light of a desktop lamp were McKay's late-night life once John appeared at the door. Grinning in satisfaction, Sheppard strolled across the lab and bent over to pick up the cup that had gone flying along with Rodney's hands, which were now clutching at the scientist's chest as he breathed, panting dramatically. Sheppard rolled his eyes, returned the cup to its previous location and leaned against the workstation.

"Don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack! Where would you be if I died, hmm? In deep, that's where you'd be, in very deep."

"Come on, McKay, it's not like I jumped out and shouted." John held back the grin, because what he had done was exactly that. "What's with the cube?"

McKay glared half-heartedly and mumbled unflatteringly, already gearing up for a long-winded explanation.

Sheppard quickly cut in to stop the expository essay he could see looming in the near-future. "The cube. What does the cube do?"

Thrown off-course by the interruption, Rodney took a few seconds to reorient his speech. "Yes. The cube. It's what I thought it was. I knew I had seen it in the database."

"Rodney," John said, sighing impatiently.

"It's a box." McKay looked at Sheppard the same way he looked at inbreeding natives, or what he perceived to be inbreeding natives.

"I can see it's a box. What does it do?"

"What does it do? It's a box. It holds things, inside."

"I know what a box's used for! Don't be a jerk."

Rodney smiled, amused and pleased by Sheppard's interest. He leaned in, catching the juvenile fever that followed John everywhere. "If I'm right – and there's no reason to think I'm not – this cube, this marvellous metal box holds…" Rodney paused for added drama. "…control crystals."

John visibly deflated. "Control crystals?" He looked at Rodney, disillusioned. This was not cool at all; he should have gone straight to bed. "They hid control crystals in the wall?"

Rodney was not done. His smile widened, his head nodded and he looked around the lab, as if expecting a surprise attack. Seeing the area was clear, he leaned in further. Sheppard leaned in too, intrigued despite himself.

"Yeah. Control crystals. For the index. They must've hidden it when they left."

"The index?"

"Yes!"

"What index?"

"The Ancient index!"

"There's no index!"

"There isn't right now, because the control crystals are in that box." McKay pointed to the shiny cube.

"An index of what?

"Of everything the Ancients have ever done. Everything in the database, listed neatly, accessible from the Chair. Everything." Rodney's eyes glowed and his mouth was curved in a happy little smile. He wanted it so much that John could hear the series of gimme-gimme-gimme-gimme running wild in Rodney's mind.

Sheppard whistled his admiration. "How come you never told me about this?"

"I wasn't sure…but now, finding the box. Look, it's all here." McKay typed a few keys on his laptop and presented his world to Sheppard. Diagrams, texts and images piled unto the screen, all depicting the cube. McKay continued with his explanation, "This here is a diagram of the cube. See how it looks smooth on the outside? It's not; when you touch it, you can feel a pattern. It's made of tiny interlocking squares. They all need to be activated one by one for the cube to split, but problem is they each have an access code. Without the access code, they don't budge." McKay indicated an amount of text. "That's all I've found so far to break the code. It's really…advanced. I'll get it, but…we might not have the index for a while, with the roof continually threatening to fall on our heads and me taking the place of a support beam."

"Well, you've got the bulk for it, anyways." Sheppard smiled, softening the blow.

"And I've got the brains for this. I've got everything, it's a wonder I don't have a fan club."

"The Rodney McKay Fan Club, where IQ and ego abound."

Rodney huffed, but his attention had returned to the laptop screen. The mystery of the day had grabbed him, leaving nothing for the mortal world. It was all about the cube now, and Sheppard knew when to take his leave. He landed a solid hand on Rodney's left shoulder as he advised him not to linger. "It's already midnight, don't stay up too long."

With a vague motion of the hand, McKay indicated his awareness of someone speaking and demanded that he shut up. Sheppard slapped McKay's back, hard, before heading off, letting the darkness and quietness of the night escort him to his quarters.