556 words. A sequel to chapter 18. Don't own SGA or its characters. They belong to MGM.

Jennifer frowned as Rodney quickly leaned back and withdrew his hand from underneath hers as one of the staff approached their table. His hand leaving hers made her feel as though the temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees.

"Can I get you folks anything else?" asked Private Stiles with a smile on her round face.

"I'm fine, thank you," replied Jennifer. She looked to Rodney and when she caught his eye he looked up to Stiles and replied with a shake of his head. Jennifer looked back to Stiles and said, "Thank you, Pat."

"My pleasure, ma'am," came the jovial reply. "If either of you need anything, just let us know."

Jennifer nodded and then watched the young Private retreat into the bowels of the Mess before turning her attention back to Rodney.

He was looking at just about everything he could except her and it annoyed her. They'd just shared a moment and now he was trying to ignore it. She thought back to another moment she'd had with another man not that long ago. Her near kiss with Ronon had been constantly on her mind for days after the quarantine incident, but the fact that they had barely spoken a word and he'd shown zero interest since then told her she'd possibly read more into it than was actually there.

She tried to smile as his eyes found hers, but he'd looked away before the corners of her lips could even begin to move upward.

Jennifer sighed and thought about the two men. They were polar opposites in almost every way imaginable. Ronon was a man of few words while Rodney was always talking about something. Ronon was in tremendous physical shape yet Rodney wasn't in peak physical condition. Ronon was a soldier and Rodney was a scientist. Ronon was smart, but Rodney was a genius. Ronon was nothing like her, but Rodney…

"We're a lot alike," she said as she leaned forward and captured the straw in her drink with her mouth. She looked up at Rodney as she sipped her drink and nearly laughed at the look of utter disbelief on his face, but the urge to laugh vanished as Rodney looked down to his drink and frowned. Jennifer pushed the straw from her mouth with her tongue and sat back in her chair.

"You mean that don't you?" he asked without looking up. "That we're alike."

"Yes."

Rodney mumbled something as he reached for his drink, his face an odd mixture of anger and dejection. Jennifer didn't completely catch what he'd said, but she did manage to recognize the word 'opposites'. She decided to take a gamble.

"I don't think 'opposites attract' is always true," she said and held her breath. She slowly released it a moment later when Rodney's wide-eyes confirmed that she'd been right about what he'd said. "And if you do I'd could argue we're different in some ways, too."

For some reason that seemed to relax Rodney, and not for the first time she thought that Rodney McKay was a very complex man. Patience was definitely the name of the game for her if she was going to pursue a relationship with him.

A shy and completely adorable smile from Rodney made her heart flutter. Luckily for her, patience was something she had in spades.

A/N: "The Name of the Game" was written by Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Stig Anderson and released by the group ABBA on their 1977 album ABBA: The Album.