"I am not here to be murdered!" Rodney howled.
"And I am not your personal guinea pig McKay!" Max snapped.
He was standing near one of the infirmary exits, holding has pad in front of him like a shield. Max was festooned with sensors and wires and glaring at him from a gurney while Carson held his hands up in a gesture partway between appeasement and surrender.
"Rodney! You are upsetting my patient!" Carson said firmly.
"Me? Upset her?!" He demanded in a tone of deep offense.
"You little –" Max hissed and started to remove the instruments attached to her.
"Enough!" Carson barked. The scientist and immortal snapped their full attention to him. "Rodney, get out." Carson finished mildly.
"Me? But I –"
"Am interfering with our readings and aggravating the patient which may skew the results." Carson said firmly.
Max lowered her hands and didn't object when one of Carson's assistants replaced the sensors she had already removed.
"I…yes, very …well then. Carry on." He said in a fluster of saving face and left.
"I'm sorry Dr. Beckett, I know you're friends –"
"Stress kills Sergeant, and not always by heart disease." He sighed and gave her a firm reproving glance before checking over his assistant's work.
"Doc said you're physically good to go." Max said.
"What do you think?" He asked.
"I think first off you need to decide on your name." She said gently.
He still wore a hospital gown. He was healthy enough to be assigned quarters and duties but no one seemed to really know what to do with him.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, basically, that you look like Jarod, mostly sound like Methos, and those are both first names only. So you need a full name. I mean, think about it, this is your new life, who knows if either of us will ever get back to Earth, or want to. You can be a new person out here, it's a whole different galaxy."
She watched him mull the question.
"Well, there's no rush. You've been assigned quarters next to mine. You'll like it, no doubling up and it's close to one of the quieter pylons. I'll help you get settled tomorrow."
"Ah ah secret is secret. You can see it when it's finished." Lorne chided. She had run into him on her way to the infirmary and caught him hauling his current painting either to or from the latest session.
"Promise?" She asked.
"Of course." He grinned. She made one half hearted last attempt to sneak a peak then went on her way. She didn't want to keep Carson waiting.
She understood Rodney's concerns, if he couldn't be sure the complicated data collection was being done in a way that eliminated as many variables as possible his job just got harder but his people skills went out the window when he had an idea on the line.
The two men were chatting when she arrived.
"Any updates?" She asked hopping on a gurney and removing her uniform jacket, black and grey like the other non-command combat personnel.
"No but hope springs eternal." Carson murmured as Rodney watched him begin the scan. After a few sessions the men had combined brain power to tweak the medical scanners to conduct the scans so she didn't need to be hooked up to a bunch of sensors directly anymore.
She absolutely understood why Rodney's well, shitty, behavior was so tolerated among the denizens of the city. He rarely acted with intentional malice and was a more sensitive person than he seemed which certainly helped mitigate his priggishness but at the end of the day he saved and improved lives almost daily in the city. So, she understood it, but she didn't like it and wouldn't let him get away with his more blatant nonsense anymore.
"Are you sure you can't just –"
"Just what Rodney? Bitchslap all wraith in the galaxy with my zappy powers?" She snapped.
He looked offended.
"Okay how about this Rodney, why don't you stop sneezing every time we go off world?"
"Are you making fun of my allergies!"
"No dippy I'm pointing out the ridiculous nature of your persistence in demanding I 'just do the thing already'"
"Oh."
Carson merely observed the little exchange and quirked an eyebrow knowing full well when intervention was worth the effort and it emphatically was not.
"Real talk guys, I don't mind doing this, I'm off missions until my friend is on his feet anyway but are you making any actual progress?"
Carson glanced at Rodney, clearly deferring to the bigger ego and idea man behind the whole thing.
"Honestly, I don't know yet. I'm hoping to gather enough data to track any trends or cycles and then use that to extrapolate signals and oscillations we can test on a small scale."
"Hmm okay." She said agreeably.
Carson breathed a tiny sigh of relief and permitted a sliver of hope that the teammates could behave and maybe even find common ground.
"You sure you can't just, y'know whammy?" Rodney asked with eyebrows raised while making an exploding gesture with his hands.