Same Song, Different 'verse

by lila-blue

Another AU, same story. Sheppard/McKay – in all universes they're always together. This Sheppard's a Colonel, Elizabeth is still in command, Carson never died, Teyla and Ronon are their usual selves. Due to a lab accident (which he doesn't blame Zelenka for) Rodney is … inconvenienced.

Same Song, Different 'verse

Don't exactly remember when this got written or whether anyone besides me ever read it, but if you'd like to take your chances –

Another AU, same story.

Sheppard/McKay – in all universes they're always together. This Sheppard's a Colonel, Elizabeth is still in command, Carson never died, Teyla and Ronon are their usual selves. Due to a lab accident (which he doesn't blame Zelenka for) Rodney is … inconvenienced.

---

John looked around the conference table, palming his hands against the cool, triangular top. He was well aware that Rodney's body language, as he crossed the floor, was rapidly working its way up to apocalyptic but sometimes it fell to him to be the brains of the pair. And this was clearly one of those times.

"He is not going through the 'gate."

Rodney's face turned sharply toward him in astonishment. "I don't think that's your decision, Colonel. Or am I not allowed to go to meetings either now?"

John snorted. "Of course you're allowed to go to meetings, Rodney. You're here, aren't you. Don't be stupid."

He regretted the word the moment it left if his mouth. If only the man didn't know just the tone to bring this stuff out in him.

"I would claim it is impossible for me to be stupid," retorted Rodney, his speech going even more rapid-fire and clipped, his hands weighing the two words against each other midair. "Genius. Stupid. They're mutually exclusive." The hand cupped as if actually holding the word genius – not surprisingly – won.

As usual, he was right even if John couldn't see it. Although that was a rather reversed observation - being as he was the one to whom the stained-glass panels of the conference room were nothing more than an arty, impressionistic swirl of muted, muddy darks, with the occasional shard of light throwing painful splashes of color screaming in flashes of garbled visual pain: sharp needle-like dots of white, slower burning dashes of orange. The path to the conference table had crossed a patch of morning sunlight and the shock of it made him stagger slightly, drew Carson's attention – the doctor's slight movement nearer creating a pressure of warmth along his right side. Blindsight. Bodily radar for the visually impaired. He'd often wondered if it had been John - not that that thought didn't bring a shiver – but if it had been John, would Atlantis have whispered directions in his ear, guiding him with gentle caresses like the lover the city was for her favorite.

But he only had Carson who only sighed and said, "Come along, Rodney."

The physician had a tendency to grasp and haul him without warning, exercising some medical right of touch that he seemed to think he'd earned by keeping him alive when Zelenka's hand had slipped and the alien grenade (because that's what the ominously lemon-shaped object had turned out to be) had exploded in his face, taking most of his vision and leaving in its place the artistic kaleidoscope he was ill-equipped to appreciate and the hundreds of skirmishes he'd fought since: Carson's bent toward overprotection, Kavanaugh's claim he was no longer capable of heading Science, now John's refusal to even consider the fact that he alone possessed the skills to wrench a damn, still-partially-charged ZPM from the housing the first-contact team had described.

He could see in his mind, damn it. Zelenka's careful description – and mired in guilt as he was, Zelenka's descriptions were always careful, if still a little frantic and accented – drew, in his mind, intricate diagrams of black on white. His occipital lobe worked just fine, thank you, and he could see the flat face of the wall's side, see the curious alien rivets like shining, black dots, could see where the pathways of the interface locked the device into place. Given words, he could still see.

"Sit down," finished Carson, hand drawing Rodney's from his elbow, his movement intersecting again with the beam of sunlight, transforming the motion into a sudden, slightly stinging slash of blue. A blink and it was gone, leaving only muddy grays in infinite shades that, with a John-like twist (someone should remind him to damn his constant influence), he'd begun to name in strange American colloquialisms.

Orienting himself – in meetings, in the gate room, in the confusion of the cafeteria – took time and effort and was an annoyance, his brain needing the processing time for something more galactically useful than a seating chart, which he'd begun to wish they'd simply supply him and save him time.

"I'm going," he repeated, snagging the chair Carson brought under his hands. "I'm the best man for the job."

If this didn't have quite the strength of conviction behind it that he used to be able to muster, well, there were – even he admitted – some casualties to having things blow up in your face.

"Let's be reasonable, gentlemen," floated across the table. Elizabeth's diplomatic tone, which meant John was somewhere with his face scrunched up in consternation, probably rolling his eyes.

Not knowing which way to glare now made it less effective, but Rodney managed to put a reasonable depth of sarcasm into "I see that look, Colonel."

Of course, that carried little weight even when he could see, but he could hear uncomfortable shifting, probably not actually from Sheppard's direction, but enough movement to give his ego a small boost that he still had ways of making the recalcitrant squirm.

Just, perhaps not a certain colonel.

"Rodney-" John began, exasperation twinged in his tone.

Rodney fixed on the direction, facing a little to his left. "Do I have to get the ADA in here?"

He could hear John shift, leaning back in the chair, probably crossing his damn hands behind his neck in that alpha-male grunt thing he did, baring his belly to attack to prove no one would dare. "I don't think that's enforceable in the Pegasus galaxy."

Rodney waved a hand. "Not the American Disabilities Act, you idiot. The Atlantean Disabilities Association."

"You formed an association?" clarified John. "What is it, an association of one?"

"Seven, actually," Rodney retorted, fingers of his right hand flicking in an emphatic count. "Gordon has diabetes. Unbeguan—"

"Gentlemen," Elizabeth tried again.

"Going," repeated Rodney. If you sounded like that's all there was to it, often it was true.

"Colonel," asked Weir, trying formality as nothing else had worked, "do you have a good reason you feel Dr. McKay shouldn't assist— "

"Apart from the obvious?"

"Which is?" sneered Rodney.

"Obvious," John finished.

~oOo~

In the end, of course, he won.

And John pouted, which was on his list of things he really regretted he could no longer see. Because John Sheppard, Lieutenant Colonel, with his lips pursed out and shoulders slightly slumped was the exact incarnation of the best five-year-old's pout he had ever witnessed.

~oOo~

"Carson? We're bringing Carson?"

John bumped him lightly to slow the frenetic pace. "Easy, Rodney."

"Why are you bringing Carson?"

"Humor me on this one." He stopped Rodney's forward momentum entirely by grasping his waist with both hands and performing a gentle body block. "Hold still," he grunted, "you're not exactly inspection-ready."

"What?" Rodney's hands went to his vest, exploring it with soft pats.

"Rodney," John coaxed, stilling him again. He straightened the vest and the jacket under it, lacing it more snuggly, a hand lingering only briefly on the side of Rodney's throat, causing a fruitless squint in his direction.

"I didn't do it right?" Lashes blinked over blue eyes pulled tight with annoyance.

"Not bad, just not Air Force quality." John took one of the hands that had fallen, disheartened, to Rodney's sides. "Here." He wrapped the fingers around the Beretta.

"You're giving me a weapon?" questioned Rodney even as his fingers firmed around the familiar weight of it.

"Call me paranoid," admitted John. "Just don't use it unless someone actually lays hands on you. I think you can figure out how to hit something at pointblank range."

"If they lay their hands on me," repeated Rodney. "That include Carson?"

He fumbled the weapon into the holster John wrapped around his leg.

"You may not shoot Carson. And don't shoot yourself, either," John ordered, an edging of doubt entering his voice.

"Mmph," snorted Rodney.

~oOo~

"Rodney, lad?"

Still standing in the gateroom, eyes averted from the painful brilliance of the gate, Rodney tilted an ear in Carson's direction. "Ah, my keeper." He shoved his elbow closer to his side forestalling any latching the physician might be thinking of doing.

"They've all gone through," Beckett reported.

"Oh."

John was more pissed than Rodney had realized if we'd gone on without him. Or maybe he was just wanting to go first and glare menacingly at anything that might look twice at his significant other.

The corona of the gate swam fuzzily before him, incandescently bright and stinging.

"Close yer eyes, Rodney. I've got you," said Carson softly, a hand leading Rodney's to grip just above his elbow.

The horizon of the 'gate, as they neared it, seemed suddenly unbreachable, the sensation against his skin the same tactile radar signature of Atlantis' very solid walls and he automatically stopped, free hand moving out to meet the obstacle, finding only the strange tingling give of the horizon.

"Rodney?"

"Fine," he retorted at the low questioning. "Just getting my bearings."

"Rodney, ye don't hafta— "

Right. Rodney stepped decisively into the humming puddle … and fell out into a disorienting splash of vertigo. The world and the voices in it spinning in a freefall that ended with his knees pressed against cool and damp stones that he heaved over, John and Carson's hands tight under his arms, his name ringing in a stereophonic duet. He sagged against a familiar set of sinewy arms, let himself be briefly enveloped before pride got the better of him and he pushed himself off only to land on all fours again, the bitter, acrid scent of his stomach contents worth another try at dry heaving.

"'m okay."

"Sure you are." John's hand palmed soothingly across Rodney's back. "Just need to get your land legs back is all."

"Rodney? I can give ye a shot of compazine."

"'m okay," Rodney repeated, getting himself to his knees to bolster his case. "Just …" Hands shot out again, stabilizing him as he tried to get his feet under him. "Need a minute."

"Aye, come sit down and let me look at you."

Settled, Rodney leaned back against the pack that John wedged against his back and let the world steady. He felt Carson's fingers wrap firmly around his wrist only to release with a consoling pat.

"Better?"

"Yeah," he replied, because it was, the sun not strong enough to penetrate the dark glasses John had just slipped on him. He blinked gratefully, hands coming up to explore the wraparound shades, identifying them as John's favorite pair.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

John gave his arm a brief caress. "De nada." There was a wake of movement as John rose from his crouch. "I'm just going to go check on Dr. Z. Make sure he doesn't put that screwdriver somewhere he shouldn't."

"I'm going with you." Rodney planted a hand and levered himself upright.

"Doc?" John alerted.

There was the soft sound of Beckett shaking his head. "Won't do much good to try and stop him."

"No, it won't," Rodney concurred.

~oOo~

"Wait, don't touch."

With a series of graceful, but none too subtle, acrobatics that only John had managed to perfect, John's elbow disappeared from beneath his touch and long fingers stretched along Rodney's bicep.

"How am I supposed to get it out of there if I don't touch it, Colonel?" he added for good measure.

"I don't mean forever," John huffed, holding him still, or at least still enough that he gave up on forward progress.

"What are you going to do? Poke it with your P-90?"

"If it makes any sudden moves," concurred John.

"This is ridiculous," Rodney chided, straining against the limb-lock.

"Radek?" John was not about to release the tethering grip. "Anything I should worry about?"

"Besides the sharpness of Rodney's teeth?" came back in skeptical Czech-accented syllables.

"Already filed those suckers down," murmured John, the under-the-breath comment at least worth a lessening of Rodney's pull.

"You so did not," hissed close from the scientist's direction.

"You sleep with your mouth open, Rodney. You don't know what I do in there." John smiled sweetly at Zelenka and said, much louder, "This thing isn't booby-trapped or anything, right?"

"Fiendishly mounted," supplied Zelenka, "but booby-trapped? I think no."

"He thinks no," echoed Rodney brightly, "sounds perfectly safe to me."

"Yeah, well," retorted John. "I touch first."

"Oh no, you don't." Visions of slavering ancient machinery, just panting for the mere swipe of John's fingers, flashed their paranoid way through Rodney's mind. "If we want you to touch, we'll tell you to touch, right Radek?"

"It will," conceded Zelenka," be safer if I touch first."

"All right." John released his hold, having to shoot his hand back out in a steadying maneuver as Rodney tottered slightly.

"Sorry." A hand waved John off. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, yeah," said John, skepticism washing the words. "Come on."

He still held Rodney in check as Zelenka fingered the casing tentatively and reported, "no sparks."

With a "hmpf!" Rodney slipped from John's admittedly now-looser grasp and approached the wall, hands held out in front of him just the way the occupational therapist on Earth had instructed, not knowing the technique would end up be used in the far reaches of the galaxy Pegasus.

"Is not your normal ZedPM housing," offered Radek. "Is much like one you described on M48-293."

Rodney's hands stopped their exploration to make little twisting motions, "With the screwcap thing?"

"Yes, only not quite the same. There are bolts," Zelenka's sure hands lead Rodney's over the small protuberances as John watched the dance of Rodney's fingers across the metal.

"What about that thing Robinson found?" suggested Rodney.

"That thing?" echoed John. "This a technical engineering term?"

"Radek knows what I mean," Rodney's hands left the panel again and began demonstrating something long and rounded. "The … the … thing."

"It is a technical term," John smirked.

"He means the reverse drill," explained the Czech, his hand making a similar pantomime.

What was it with scientists and naming things? John frowned, shaking his head. "I'm not sure that's an improvement."

"It looks like a drill," Radek's index finger made a fast, whirling motion, "only in reverse," he added, the finger switching directions. "Is magnetic."

"Well, try it," prodded Rodney, before turning back in John's direction. "You see why they needed me here?"

John's forehead scrunched. "Not really, no."

"We needed ATA gene," put in Zelenka, attaching the drill to the nearest bolt.

"Which I have," John reminded. "You didn't need Mr. Magoo here for that."

"A week from Tuesday," muttered Rodney.

"What?"

"That's when you're going to have sex next," Rodney threatened quietly, earning a snigger from Radek. "A week from Tuesday."

Rodney could hear the whisper of fabric as John crossed his arms. "I can wait."

"Not," finished Rodney with a self-satisfied grin, bouncing once on his toes in a maneuver John didn't get to see very often these days.

~oOo~

Radek raised his hands in surrender. "I give up-"

"No, no, no," interrupted Rodney. "We do not 'give up.'"

"It does not want to come out," pointed out Zelenka.

"We got all the bolts?"

"Yes," Radek captured Rodney's hand and ran it around the outside of the embedded casing. "For fourth time, we removed all the bolts."

John came over to watch as Rodney examined the whole thing again, starting with the small rise of the outer plate and moving systematically inward to the flush head of the ZPM, pressing until his fingertips turned white in an effort to engage the mechanism that usually popped the power source automatically away from its housing.

"You," said Rodney, twisting his chin in John's direction, "Mr. Super-Gene, get over here and see if it likes you better."

"Atlantis likes me better," observed John, pleased with the roll of blue eyes he got in return from behind dark shades.

"So maybe this ZedPM shows the same bad taste," Rodney acknowledged, stepping out of the way and stumbling over Zelenka's open pack, the Czech looking mortified as Rodney went down on a knee.

"Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy," murmured John, but his grip on Rodney's arm was gentle and he brushed him off lightly with his free hand, calm eyes meeting Zelenka's worried ones. "Just a pack," he said, tossing the offending piece of equipment out of the way.

"Rule two?" spat Rodney. "Did we forget rule two?"

Zelenka frowned. "I forget rule one."

"Rule two in the McKay guidebook," offered John, "is keep your fucking clothes off the floor."

"That's the rule two as it pertains to lieutenant colonels' quarters. The general rule two is keep your fucking stuff off the floor."

"Is not floor," protested Zelenka. "Is ground."

"Fine," Rodney waved a hand in the air, "as of now, rule two is modified to include 'ground'."

"Sorry," sighed Zelenka. "Is safe now." And he drew Rodney to him, well away from the wall and any ancient machinery Sheppard's mere presence might overly excite. "Colonel can do his thing."

John surveyed the firmly stuck ZPM then settled his fingertips on the top and pressed. He could feel the barest frisson of response. The crystalline power source gave slightly, blinking to life and making a soft whirr for a bit before going out again.

Rodney tilted his head. "What just happened?"

"Not much," observed John.

"Did it light?"

"For about a second." John shifted his weight to his other leg and studied the panel. "So why don't we just try cutting around it? Take it home and play with it there?"

Radek knocked on the metal front. "Is composite of some kind. Went off scale. Even the Ancients' devices do not want to cut it."

"Well, they cut it somehow," mused John, running a hand along the raised curve of the edge that fit snuggly against the wall.

"Perhaps with something that we do not yet know of," offered Zelenka.

John noticed Rodney fumbling with the face of his watch. "What time is it anyway?"

"About an hour past when I expected you to start complaining about having no lunch."

"Very funny," groused Rodney. "Although speaking of lunch-" he dug into his jacket pocket for a powerbar only to have the hand captured.

"I think we can take the time for a real sit-down feast." John smiled when Rodney placidly allowed him to lead to him to sit on a nearby flattish rock, his temper _ by the mere siren song of an MRE. "I even brought your favorite: beefsteak with mushroom gravy."

"You have favorite MRE?" asked Radek, settling on a slightly more rounded outcropping. "Who would have suspected?"

"And," continued John, pulling out another packet. "Spiced apples. Enough to make up for the Mr. Magoo crack?"

Rodney made a gimme-motion with one hand. "You have an extra dessert in there and I'll think about it."

~oOo~

"I should— "

John stopped Radek with a hand on his thin shoulder and nodded toward Rodney's back. "Let him."

With the cane out and a clear path in front of him, Rodney was in no danger of falling and, with the planet deserted and constant contact from the men manning the 'gate, there were few security concerns. So, if Rodney wanted to study a recalcitrant ZPM, by himself, John was prepared to let him.

"It is," Zelenka said after a moment of quiet, "hard to watch."

"He's never said anything, Radek. And if he blamed you, you'd know."

The scientist settled his chin in his palms, leaning forward over bent knees. "He understands it was a mistake," admitted Radek. "But to say he doesn't blame me-"

"I'd say," concluded John, "the person blaming you is yourself."

"To je Pravda. It is true. I go over it in my mind. I see the device drop from my hand, see Rodney push me away right before it explodes. I was arogantní, blbec. Idiot. I have tried to apologize— "

"But he won't let you."

"No. He also will not let me make … allowances. He won't let me do work that I could easily do, that he must work twice as hard at because he is blind. This does not make sense and I feel that he must blame me."

"Don't equate McKay-stubbornness for a point," John observed. "He's not thinking of you. He's Rodney McKay," he said fondly. "He's thinking of himself."

"I do not see," ventured Radek before pausing, looking at John skeptically. "I do not see where this attraction between you comes from. You are not, as they say, 'match made in heaven.'"

"Soul-sucking wraiths. No good pizza in light years. This isn't heaven, Zelenka, it just might be hell," John pushed off the rock, planting a brotherly pat on the scientist's knee. "We're perfect for it."

Radek raised his eyebrows behind the lenses of his glasses. "Mohlo by být."

"Yeah," John waved as he straggled after his charge. "Whatever you said."

~oOo~

John gave a smile to Beckett as he wandered out of the woods. "Good walk, Carson?"

The physician waved a hand in greeting and hunkered down next to Zelenka on the rocky seating to watch two sets of ATA genes battle one well-stuck ZPM. They had wondered why whomever lived here had blatantly set it out where anyone could get to it, but apparently, they knew no one foolish enough to try could get it out.

"Carson?" Rodney raised his head. "Get over here."

"Aye?"

"And what do you think he's going to do?" asked John leaning against the panel's face.

"Maybe three sets of genes are better than two," responded Rodney. "Maybe it'll like his accent."

"I do nay have an accent."

"Right, doc." John pointed to the top of the crystal. "Put your hand there and push."

Carson tentatively pressed against it.

"Put some shoulder into it."

"Aye, all right." He levered himself harder. "I think it's stuck."

"Really?" queried Rodney. "If only we'd figured that out ourselves." Rodney turned in what he hoped was John's direction. "Why did we bring him again?" Fingers snapped. "Oh wait, I know. Blind guy might stub his toe and need emergency medical treatment."

"Get over yourself, Rodney," said John, smiling.

After a sigh, Rodney rubbed his palms together. "Okay, let's regroup and come at this from another way."

"Like the back?" inquired Carson.

"There's a back?" Rodney put a hand out along the panel, gliding it to the right until he came to the wall's corner. "Why didn't you tell me there was a back?"

"Because, presumably, we thought you realized everything that has a front has one?"

Rodney snorted in John's direction. "Very funny." He pointed out into the shadows. "Show it to me."

~oOo~

"What's this made out of?"

John watched with a bit of envy as Rodney's fingers ghosted over the dips in the stone, knowing just how graceful and feather-light that touch could feel.

"Is similar to granite," supplied Radek.

"So we can cut it," Rodney concluded.

"ZedPM is probably fully encased— "

"But we could take it back to Atlantis."

"At least that way nobody else steals it," John admitted.

~oOo~

John landed the jumper with only the slightest of shudders, knowing Rodney had tensed behind him - in wait for the small jolt he couldn't see coming. It had always been odd, the things that could shake the otherwise unflappable McKay calm. Hand him a nuke and he was fine, let him go out at noon on even a cloudy day without sunblock and he was a basket case, obsessing about milligrays and cumulative lifetime exposure. So it shouldn't have been a surprise that one of the things that bothered him was the soft bump of jumper meeting landing bay which he could no longer see coming.

"See, not so bad." John admired his own handiwork as Rodney released his grip from the armrests of the jumper's bucket seat leaving sweaty prints behind. "Told you it'd be better than a straight trip through the 'gate."

They'd needed it anyway – an easier way to lug a block of not-quite-granite and stuck-ZPM back to Atlantis – so they might as well take advantage of the ride.

"Hmpf," replied Rodney, sounding unconvinced, holding out a hand in anticipation of John's arm appearing nearby.

Instead, John put his hands on Rodney's shoulders, the hunk of rock occupying the back of the jumper not allowing them to pass in anything but single file. "Walk," he commanded, steering with a grip on the hard muscles of Rodney's upper arms, grateful he wasn't, instead, holding his head as puked his greetings all over the floor of the control center.

"Uh uh," he chided when Rodney put out an exploratory hand to the mass as they passed it. "You'll get to play with it soon enough. Your little friend Dr. Zelenka will take your big, new, shiny toy to the lab and call you when it gets there."

"And what am I going to do?" inquired Rodney.

"After the report to Elizabeth?" John 'hmm'd' briefly. "I was thinking a bit of downtime in our quarters."

"Why? Oh!" said Rodney, elbowing John after he snickered, "and they think you're the genius."

~oOo~

"Good thinking," congratulated Elizabeth and John watched Rodney rise ever so slightly on his toes, preening under the approval as he always did, as if that wasn't something he got practically every day.

"Once he figured out that something that had a front had a back too," put in John, smirking when Rodney deflated just a bit.

"And your contribution to this endeavor was?" Rodney snapped.

"Getting the jumper so you didn't puke all over the gate again."

"Ah," realized Rodney, "right."

"You got gate-sick?" Elizabeth sounded concerned and Rodney, for once, blushed.

"Just a little— "

"Splashed his breakfast all over MX9-172. It was very … colorful."

"Yes, and thank you for sharing the visual," returned Rodney. "I'm fine, Elizabeth, thank you for asking." He pointedly faced John's direction as he said it.

"What did Carson say?"

"What does Carson always say? He offered to shoot me up with one of his voodoo potions. It was nothing. Just a little," Rodney's hand fluttered toward the side of his head, "inner ear thing."

Elizabeth frowned in John's direction and received a shrug in return meant to convey, she hoped, that Rodney was fine. When she looked unconvinced, he shot her a tight smile.

"All right," she conceded, letting it go. "Give me a progress report when you're able."

"I can go through the gate, Elizabeth," said Rodney, tilting his head slightly as if he could hear her reluctance.

"I never said you couldn't," she retorted gently.

"Oh," said Rodney. His hand made a kind of waving motion between them. "I -" He gathered himself. "Of course you didn't."

~oOo~

John slipped the sunglasses off Rodney, leaned in, and finding the greeting enthusiastically returned, had just settled into some serious pressing of flesh when he noticed the tears – salty and poignant and just damned unfair – and his brain, finally getting into gear, ordered the lights down with such sharpness that he swore he could hear one of the light-bulb-like globes crack from the change in current.

"My bad," he murmured, kissing away the remnants of the pain.

"Shut up," muttered Rodney affectionately, going back to his original gusto.

"Bed?" John managed to get out, treading backwards in slow steps which were followed with a kind of blind trust that still simply frightened him.

"Mmmm," confirmed Rodney, concentrating on the space just below his earlobe, putting those talented fingers to use along John's flanks, their warmth moving downward to cup his hips.

"Clothes?" gasped John monosyllabically and the fingers, with a minimum of searching, deftly moved to pop the button of his waistband and slid the zipper down just as the back of John's knees hit the bed and they both tumbled to the soft surface, John grunting a little as Rodney landed on top of him.

Only momentarily deterred, Rodney went methodically back to stripping him, hands skimming John's chest as John did his own exploring of the hard nubs of nipples standing erect beneath the blue of Rodney's short-sleeved uniform shirt. Not that Rodney's nipples weren't known to get excited about practically anything, standing up, hard and enticing, whenever the man got emotional … but, he fancied, they were particularly attentive to Air Force lieutenant colonels. He flicked one lightly to prove his point, getting a muffled moan from the vicinity of his right ear, which was currently undergoing oral excavation.

Exquisitely moist, warm mining that came to an abrupt halt as Rodney swatted a hand at his headset. "Not now Zelenka. I don't care that the mainframe—" Rodney raised off John, blinking. "It did? It did? I'll be right down there."

There was a muffled thump as John's head defeatedly hit the mattress.

"Uh, on second thought," corrected Rodney, "give me ten minutes."

~oOo~

It was only a few days later when John found himself sitting in sickbay, looking toward Carson with a kind of hopeful expression that Rodney would have rolled his eyes at.

"So?"

Carson sighed and, tellingly, didn't turn, his hand aimlessly toying with a small Ancient scanner. "No, lad. The Euloans are good doctors, but it's beyond even their capabilities, impressive though they are."

"I thought –"

"I wouldna have thought that Rodney would be the accepting one."

When Carson did turn, John could see self-recrimination flicker briefly in the gray-eyed gaze.

The physician smiled wanly. "You know I've done everything that I could."

Damn. This wasn't what John had meant to happen. It was just, with the Euloans' hyperbole of medical breakthroughs and technological advancements, he'd seen a glimmer of hope and grabbed onto it full-fisted.

"I know that, doc. I just thought there might be a chance. He still has some sight."

Painful and not useful, but still not total darkness. But Carson only sighed again, settling on a chair, putting a comforting hand on John's knee.

"Son, I don't want to discourage you, and I don't want you to give up this quest of yours. This is, after all, the Pegasus galaxy and the Ancients were far advanced, but Rodney—" John smiled briefly as the name rolled in Carson's affectionate burr, "is adapting magnificently. Have ye not heard him complaining?"

"Yeah," ventured John, somewhat surprised Carson would even ask.

"Which is perfectly normal McKay behavior. If he's complaining, then he's fighting. He's breathing, lad, and there's no brain damage, which is nigh onto miraculous. An explosion like that—"

"I know, doc." John found himself covering Carson's hand in a hard, short clasp.

"Aye, now if I could only get Dr. Zelenka to listen to the same speech."

"Rodney wouldn't know what to do without him," observed John fondly, leaning forward over his knees as the physician straightened.

"Yes, but I'm afraid Radek has taken his guilt all too much ta heart."

"I think enough up-close and personal time with Rodney will put the quash on that."

"Like it has with you, Colonel?" posited Carson with a grin.

"Yeah," John conceded, "but I'm nuts."

~oOo~

If he'd been paying attention, he might have noticed that the door to Rodney's lab had popped open a bit too quickly, even for ATA-activated technology but, as it was, he was too startled by the force of Dr. Kusanagi– all ninety pounds of her – colliding with his solar plexus to contemplate it.

"Miko," John stopped the fleeing scientist with a gentle hand and frowned at the tear tracks glistening down her cheeks.

She hesitated only a second then took off down the corridor, heels tapping out the irregular rhythm of her run.

"Rodney?" John inquired, "What did you do?"

"Nothing," came back at him, muffled by the equipment Rodney was bent over, a look of concentration etched deep in his slightly rounded face.

"You know, I somehow doubt that, because Miko was crying."

"Really?" Rodney stopped momentarily, frowning. "Why?"

"Probably because you were mean to her. You were mean to her, weren't you?"

With a soft cracking of vertebrae, Rodney straightened as John came closer, one hand idly caressing his new, talking spectrometer. "The woman is way too sensitive."

"Maybe," John conceded, "but, maybe, you need to make allowances for that sensitivity. After all, she makes allowances for you."

Rodney froze and John frowned again, not sure what he'd said that –

"My … disability is not the same as careless stupidity," spat Rodney.

"I wasn't talking about – hell, look -"

"Something you are well aware I can't do – look…"

For all the depression that had dogged him on his walk from sickbay, it only took a second for Rodney –

"Don't give me that, Rodney," he found himself retorting. "And I was not talking about your eyes. I was referring to your personality."

"You don't seem to have trouble with it," replied Rodney petulantly.

"Yeah, well, I'm a bit…odd, or hadn't you heard?" John absently picked up one of the Ancient devices that were scattered about and put it down quickly when it began to glow a slightly unearthly pink-yellow.

"Don't touch that," said Rodney, maneuvering himself over toward the counter.

"How'd you know?"

"It hums when it's activated."

"Oh," John looked at the offending object again. "So, Miko-"

"Fine, fine. I'll apologize," dismissed Rodney.

"Put some feeling into it," John advised. "Anyway," he continued, after ducking the glare Rodney tried to throw his way, "I came down for our progress report. How's our ZPM?"

"Still stuck." Rodney gestured with a tilt of his head toward the door. "Radek's over talking with the metallurgy crew trying to see if they have any brilliant ideas."

John slapped his palms against his thighs. "You'll get it out. You have my complete faith."

The look on Rodney's face softened, not the bouncy preening he gave Weir when praised, but almost a blush. "Really?" he said softly.

"Of course, Rodney." Worry lines again scrunched John's forehead as Rodney continued to ponder this with the same odd expression.

"Even though I-"

"Make Miko cry? Keep finding that stash of candy bars no matter where I hide it? What?" replied John, reaching out to grasp Rodney's hand and getting a surprised huff in return before warm, talented fingers clasped his own.

"Nothing," said Rodney, turning back to his equipment. "Forget it."

"No way," protested John, unsure why this had suddenly turned into a moment of unexpected intensity. "Even though you…" he led.

"Beat the crap out of you at chess?" supplied Rodney, sniffling a little and confusing John further.

"This isn't about my less-than-stellar chess-playing ability," John deduced. "Come on now. What's going on?"

Rodney waved him off. "Nothing. I just didn't know-"

"Didn't know?"

"That you still have the faith thing." Rodney shifted, looking a bit embarrassed. "Probably low blood sugar. It makes me emotional."

"So what you really need is a piece of chocolate cake."

Rodney scrubbed the bottom of his free hand into his right eye, easing the ache there and John reached to grasp that hand in his own as well, holding it comfortingly.

"Come on, I'm buying."

Rodney snorted, regaining some of his equilibrium. "Of course you are."

~oOo~

"You did not block."

Rodney rolled to his back with a groan. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed," he muttered, putting a hand against his side and wincing with a theatricality that made Teyla smile.

"The stroke was less than full force," she reminded him, not offering a hand up. "The colonel told me to – I believe the term was – 'take it easy' on you."

"Yes, well," began Rodney, getting his feet under him, a hand seeking the smoothly rounded side of the dropped stick, "thank God for that."

"That does not mean I am to coddle you," observed Teyla evenly as he latched onto the practice weapon and used it to push back to his feet. "And I am still less than pleased with your stance."

Stiffening a bit as she moved to wrap her arms around him and pull him straighter, he sighed. "I'm an astrophysicist, not John Sheppard."

"Yes," Teyla agreed, positioning his legs with a guiding nudge of her knee, "but we must work with what we have."

"Oh, thank you so much for sounding so… upbeat about my abilities."

Slender arms crossed around his chest, enveloping him in a constricting hug, a turn of events he was just about to protest when "Am I interrupting something?" echoed in John's bemused drawl.

Rodney took the opportunity to move away from the guiding grip.

"His stance is most unsatisfactory."

"Ah," said John, looking over Rodney's less-than-military posture, "maybe I can help with that."

"Your help is not—"

John cut him off with a deftly intoned "Rodney" and, coming up behind him, pressed his chest against Rodney's back and nestled even more tightly than Teyla had, warmth uncomfortably – or, maybe, too comfortably – flooding regions Teyla had never – and probably wouldn't dare – touch.

John grinned as Rodney practically leapt out of his grasp. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Teyla and I were doing just fine, thank you."

"Come on back here." John latched both hands on Rodney's shoulders and forced him back into position with only the slightest grinding before he settled, hips comfortably pressed to Rodney's ass. "Just giving you a pointer," he breathed.

"Could we please get mature?" Rodney hissed back. "This is supposed to be a training session, not a re-enactment of Kirk-does-alien-bimbo-number-69."

"Sixty-nine?" inquired John smugly.

"Oh, shut up. You're the one practically glued to my ass in a public place. It's bound to have psychological consequences."

John grinned at Teyla who stood, arms crossed and foot tapping. "Sorry, Rodney's easily distracted."

"We only have the practice room for a few more minutes, Colonel. You said yourself that it is important Dr. McKay learn some basic fighting skills to compensate for his loss of vision."

John sighed, "Yeah, I did, didn't I? Okay," he gave Rodney's back a small shove while trying to jam his leg between Rodney's slightly open ones, "then defend against this: an attacker taking you from be—oof!"

He found himself blinking up from the floor at a happily grinning Rodney.

"Very … good," he granted, grunting a little as he got up. "When'd you learn that move?"

The crooked, cocky grin still brightened Rodney's face, even lighting his eyes, creasing their corners with fine laugh lines, and John found himself matching it with his own smile.

"He has quite a good sense of leverage," Teyla admitted, "it is in the use of weapons where there is difficulty, which is why—"

"You were practicing with the sticks," finished John.

"Until we were disturbed."

"Ah, well, I can see when I'm not needed," said John. "Don't have to tell me twice."

"Maybe five or six times," ventured Rodney, "but twice, never."

"Rodney," he drawled again, "don't think we won't finish that 'stance' lesson later."

Rodney twirled the fighting stick in a neat arc, settling back into his defensive and still-not-quite-military posture. "Yes, yes," he dismissed, "you can show me that pointer of yours later tonight."

Teyla raised an eyebrow and John had the grace to blush just a little. "I have," his hand rose and fell a bit awkwardly, "military things to do. I think I'll just go, uh, do them."

~oOo~

When it dawned on Rodney that John's promise of a "nice vacation on an Earth-like planet that needed a little technical help" was just a ruse, he drew up short.

"You brought me here as an example?"

"Rodney," John hissed, "calm down."

"I will not calm down! They just offered to lock me up in the poorhouse."

"Workhouse," corrected John, "and it's kind of my point to show them that just because you can't see doesn't mean you're not a functioning part of my team. They're already impressed with our technological gizmos. I thought we might take the opportunity to get the point across that just because someone has a handicap—"

"I'm not handicapped," muttered Rodney. "I'm just inconvenienced."

"See? There you go," said John, brightening. "That's what I want to get across to them."

"Well I'm thinking," Rodney said, swinging a hand out to grasp John's elbow again, "that if they won't even speak to me that's going to be a bit difficult. And since you insist on not locking me up for the benefit of society, they now think I'm your sex slave."

"I am not," Rodney continued as if he could hear the smirk that suddenly appeared on John's face, "your sex slave."

"Of course not, Rodney. And they don't think you're my sex slave."

"Maybe not until you told them we were sharing a room."

"You'd rather sleep with Ronon?"

"And let them think I'm his sex slave?" Rodney's face scrunched.

"Teyla then," offered John, "but I'm not leaving you on your own with these people."

"Thereby proving their point."

"They don't have a point, Rodney. That's my point. Lose a limb, lose your sight and they lock you up in prison."

"Colonel Sheppard—"

John laid a hand on Rodney's arm as the scientist startled at the close intrusion.

"The room is prepared for you and your…"

In the awkward pause Rodney hissed, "… sex slave."

"Shuddup, Rodney."

~oOo~

Despite the interior lock on the door, the civilized surroundings, John found himself wrapping an arm over Rodney's chest and reassuring himself that the man was still there, snoring softly, making faint snuffling noises as he resettled closer to the warmth draped over him. He'd missed these moments those long months that Rodney was back on Earth tolling in rehab – missed the warm weight at his side, missed the snarky daily reports of whatever Rodney-perceived idiocies the science staff was guilty of, missed the lightening-fast connections of Rodney's overly-alert mind. To think that Rodney would have been consigned to menial and damn useless make-work labor in the sterile halls of Audorea's "workhouse"-

Rodney sighed again and snuggled deeper and John laid a dry kiss against the soft, short strands of his hair.

~oOo~

The way the Audoreans were going out of their way to avoid them had ceased to be funny when the third tunic-clad denizen had crossed the street to keep from trodding the same bricks as Rodney, who was neatly swinging the arc of his cane in a gentle tapping motion, the tip bouncing slightly off the asphalt-like sidewalk.

Rodney, of course, was oblivious – as he would have been even if he could see – waxing poetic about some failure of Kavanaugh's as relayed by a chortling Zelenka at the first of his many daily check-ins. But John still found himself putting a light hand to the small of Rodney's back as if the touch could somehow put back what this ill-thought-out trip to Audorea was taking away. Rodney failed to notice the gesture, still laughing about Kavanaugh, and John secured the touch more closely, his palm molding to the softly padded vertebrae, not using the connection to guide, instead just reveling in the feel of the warm flesh.

"And then he got his damn finger caught in the intake valve," finished Rodney triumphantly and John laughed with him – not at Kavanaugh's distress but at Rodney still being by his side, Audoreans and other assorted naysayers be damned.

~oOo~

"You will listen to me!"

Rodney's fists pummeled the wooden table, the sound startling in the sudden quiet of the council chambers.

"I don't give a damn about your so-called cultural mores but I won't let you get away with stupidity just because you've got a hang-up because I can't see. I'm the smartest man likely to grace your backwater planet and you better appreciate it."

John leaned back and crossed his arms not even trying to hide his grin.

"And when I say you're stupid I mean you're stupid. Spectacularly so. Saying you're stupid is, in fact, an insult to all the other stupid people I've met. So, let's get this straight. You have a problem and I have a solution. Now I can take my brain and go home and in twelve months your little asteroid problem will be past help," Rodney paused, tilting his head to hear the stunned silence of the rest of the table, "or you can let those poor people out of your … workhouse and I'll make you a bomb that will easily cleave your mini planet-killer in two. Up to you."

~oOo~

"Letting them out isn't enough."

"Quit yer worrying," soothed Carson. "Their families are glad to have them back. Even if there are no rehab facilities, they'll work it out for themselves. People are resilient, Rodney. We'll give 'em checkups, make sure they're all right and leave them to settle."

"What if they just turn around and lock them back up?"

"Aye, that's a danger. But I've scheduled a follow-up visit with the so-called Ministry of Health," Carson put a fair amount of skepticism in the term, "just to keep a wee eye on them. You can come along. It'll do ye some good to get in more gate travel. At least ye didn't throw up this time."

Rodney ducked his head. It was true only because John had wrapped guiding hands around his waist before they stepped through, the tight hold providing enough orientation against the vertigo that he'd only tangled his feet and stumbled through the gate rather than landing on all fours and presenting his stomach contents to what would have been a doubly-appalled audience. Not that it wouldn't have served the bastards right.

"Come on. There's someone I want ye to meet."

"Hmm?" murmured Rodney.

"Come along," Carson prodded. "You don't know it, but you're a real hero to some around here, Rodney. I have someone who'd like to meet you."

"Me?"

The physician grinned. Rodney might not be averse to explaining the exact nature of his scientific brilliance to any passerby, but he was downright shy when it came to any non-scientific good he might have done.

"Aye, you, Rodney. Come along," he repeated, a hand bringing Rodney's to his elbow. "The walk will do ye good, ye know."

With a put-upon sigh, Rodney snapped the cane out to its full length and fumbled on John's confiscated sunglasses. The Audorean day was crisp and sunny and reminded him of fall in New England, of the light that used to shine in the windows of his office at Northeastern on an October day, and Carson's shadow cut the warmth in sharp delineations against his skin. They walked for several blocks, their path strangely free of other pedestrians which – Rodney worked out a few minutes later – was undoubtedly because they'd all crossed the street to avoid him.

"Here we go." Carson sounded all too cheerful which made Rodney grimace.

"What exactly are you getting me into?" inquired Rodney.

"Just a wee visit. These are lovely people and they so want to meet you."

"Carson." Rodney stretched the name out in warning.

"Just tough it out ye whiner. It won't kill you." Then, tone switching back to that caring, friendly tenor, Carson greeted their welcomers with a handshake; his hands, once freed, quickly assuring Rodney did the same.

As a series of fumbling grasps vied for his fingers Rodney realized that the whole extended family must have turned out for Carson's meet-and-greet and, by the time it was over, he was left disoriented by the hasty introductions and shambled a bit closer to Carson in the chaos.

"And here's who I really want you to meet –"

Apparently oblivious - Carson seemed, to Rodney, to be very good at noticing everybody else's discomfort but his - the physician literally forced his reluctant hand down into a much smaller one.

"This is Ptar. He can't see, Rodney. They released him this morning."

"A kid?" The searching fingers seemed fragile in his own and he recognized the tactile examination of his own much larger hand. "They lock up kids?"

"He was born blind, Rodney. He's been locked up since."

"Oh," he said, knees creaking as he bent down. "Hi … Peter."

"Ptar," corrected Carson cheerfully.

"Yeah," said Rodney, trying to balance on the balls of his feet. "I'm Rodney."

"You can't see either?" The fingers, which had found their way into both of his palms at this point, twitched in a familiar manner, wanting to wander.

"No." He took the glasses off and raised the hands in his own, giving what he wouldn't even give to John: the right to ghost a touch over the scars. "See?"

The light was dim, but bright enough to cause a shadow when the small hands stroked across his brows, blocking the illumination and he twitched back instinctively, Carson's hand moving to steady his shoulder.

~oOo~

"That was lovely, Rodney. You were very kind."

Rodney made a little hmpf'ing sound and resettled the glasses back on the bridge of his nose now that they were back in the bright sunlight.

"Carson," he warned tightly, "you tell anybody that and I'll kill you."

~oOo~

"What we have here is a failure to remunerate."

"Oh, very cute. Very, very cute," replied Rodney. "You think I'm paying you for this? Genes for rent? I don't think so."

"It's just 'cause mine are the best," smirked John.

"Yes, yes, since we can't have General O'Neill, we will just have to make do with you."

"If O'Neill's failed to charge for his services that's his lack of business savvy, not mine."

"All right! All right," Rodney's hand twisted around the thing that looked like one of those electric knives John's mother used to cut the Thanksgiving turkey. "What do you want?"

"We watch whatever movies I want—"

"Tonight? Fine," agreed Rodney proffering the implement.

"Not just tonight."

"Fine, fine, tomorrow night, too."

"Uh huh. I know you and 'tomorrow night' will just turn out to be one of those lab emergency nights like when Beckett wants to examine you and there's suddenly an urgent generator crisis and a guilty look on Zelenka's face."

"Next free night then," bargained Rodney. "What," he asked, shaking the knife-thing, "you don't trust me?"

"With my life," vowed John in his most sincere tone, "not with movie night."

"If you didn't want to watch such dorky movies—"

"Come on, you love them. The more bad physics in them the better."

"Not to mention the wholesale slaughter of microbiology and that comet's tails do not blow back from the direction of travel nor do EMPs make anything explode. Fine, fine," waved Rodney, "I'll sit quietly. I will not remark that things cannot burst into flame in a vacuum or that holograms cannot be projected somewhere without supporting equipment at the receiving end. So, take this thing and turn it on so we can see if it will cut the ZPM casing. And you better be playing the role of SAP."

"Fine," said John, "I'll describe the flux capacitor to you in all its glory."

"Oh no," Rodney's equipment-laden hand waved a little more frantically and John had to time his snatch of the pointy end of the knife-thing carefully, "not Back to the Future. No, no, no, no."

The knife's handle lit to the ubiquitous dull green of the Ancient's smaller power cells.

"Did it just—" moaned Rodney, irritated, holding a hand back out for the device.

"Yep," grinned John smugly as he settled it in Rodney's fingers, grimacing a bit when they traveled up the length of the cutting edge.

"Well just don't stand there," said Rodney running the pad of his thumb up and down against the slight vibration of the blade. "Go see if it cuts."

"Lieutenant LeBlanc has the three-set," John wheedled, taking the device carefully away from Rodney's hold and watching his posture deflate.

"Not the old west one, too?" The voice was broken and John could hardly bear seeing such lethargy in his normally exuberant partner.

"Yep," he grinned.

~oOo~

"No take-backs," muttered John, sliding up against Rodney on the couch and wriggling into a comfortable position.

"What are you five?"

"It's not my fault the ZPM is still stuck. I turned on the knife."

"Which might be able to cut the Ancient equivalent of warm butter."

"Not my fault," repeated John. This was quickly followed by a small yelp. "What are you doing?"

"I'd think you'd know," murmured Rodney, his hand snaking underneath the soft stretch of John's tee.

"Don't think I don't," John growled, smacking the hand back down where it happily went about its business with what it could find below waist level. "Wait," he said, realities suddenly dawning, "I'm thinking this is one of those infamous McKay lose-lose situations."

"Right," said Rodney dismissively, concentrating on finding a convenient earlobe to nip. "You're losing something here."

"I'm losing," emphasized John, "my promised movie night."

"Oh, come on," Rodney came up for air with a disbelieving snort, "are you saying you'd rather watch bad science fiction than—"

"No," admitted John, "I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that my partner is a wily genius and that I know exactly what he's up to – which makes me a wilier genius and that means you're not getting out our little private Back to the Future marathon."

"You want me to stop?" This came out with just enough quavering in the whimper to make it almost believable that he was breaking Rodney's heart.

"Of course not. I just want you to know that you've merely postponed the inevitable. And we will start from the beginning again next time. You can only procrastinate so long."

"Yes, well," Rodney nuzzled deeper, clearly taking this as a victory, "only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday."

"Don't think you can win this one just by … oh … God … do that again."

"Ha!" said Rodney, grinning up at him in triumph, blue eyes turned slightly skyward.

"Hey," said John suddenly, softly, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss at the corner of one scarred lid. "Don't want you to think I'm a pushover."

"You pushed over any easier, Colonel, and you'd be doing backflips."

The press of lips moved to Rodney's cheek then the corner of his mouth.

"Who says I'm not?"

~oOo~

"I do not feel comfortable."

"Come now," said Teyla, taking Ronon's arm much as John was taking a reluctant Rodney's across the space of the mat, "it is difficult to convey the proper positions when I am the one sparring."

"I could hurt him," protested Ronon.

"Easily," Teyla acknowledged. "But you will not. There is no danger."

"Why not use the colonel?"

The corner of Teyla's mouth tipped into a grin as Ronon followed her gaze to the contentedly bickering pair. "The colonel proves … distracting."

"I can see why."

"That is not the distraction I am concerned about," whispered Teyla causing Ronon to lift an eyebrow. "It is the colonel's constant, I think they call it, double entendres. The often two-sided meaning in their words," she continued. "There will be nothing odd about a sentence, yet the colonel will find it amusing and then the doctor will dismiss the hidden meaning of the words and, by then, all concentration will be lost."

"Must be an Earth-thing," grunted Ronon.

"Indeed," agreed Teyla, fixing her gaze on her pupil.

~oOo~

"Hey, whoa, you said you were going to spar, not practice origami with him." Rodney groaned slightly as John untangled his limbs. "I leave for two minutes and, next thing I know, you're doing the petal fold. Come on Rodney, buddy," John encouraged, hands urging him to uprightness as John speared Teyla with a hazel-eyed gaze. "Thought you were keeping an eye on this."

"McKay, here," rumbled Ronon, "knows some very unorthodox moves. I was just returning the favor." He was surprised at the beaming expression this brought to his commanding officer's face.

"I know. I taught him myself." John grinned a little more, shaking Rodney's shoulder. "Way to go, Rodney."

"The colonel has a philosophy," sighed Rodney, counterbalancing himself against the strength of John's hand and pulling himself to his feet, "if you suck at fighting fair, fight dirty."

"Works for me," said John proudly.

"How'd you do that… that…" Rodney's fingers made little twirling motions, "…thing."

"This?" responded Ronon, cutting the scientist's legs out from under him with a swipe.

"Yeah," Rodney thunked his head back against the mat where he again unceremoniously landed. "And," he raised up as if just suddenly realizing, "that was so unfair. Cheap shot at the blind guy."

"You asked," defended Ronon.

~oOo~

"Take him to the cafeteria, get him something to eat," instructed John, watching Teyla go over a final few moves, Rodney's limbs looking touchingly clumsy beside her graceful motions. He found himself smiling fondly. "What?" he finally asked when the bigger man made no effort to move. "I thought you and Rodney bonded over the whole food thing."

Ronon jerked his chin in Rodney's direction. "He is different now."

"Trust me on this, he hasn't changed." He viewed Ronon appraisingly. "This really bothers you."

"On my world if you couldn't pull your weight—"

"Rodney more than pulls his weight."

Ronon raised a brow at the tone that had crept into John's voice.

"He is not the same. Although he was never much at—"

"Ronon." It came out low and warningly.

"I am not doubting his usefulness, only his physical capacity."

"Brains over brawn," put in John. "It's saved your butt more than a few times. It's not catching, Ronon. Being with him won't weaken you." He clapped a hand over a hard bicep. "Might even do you some good."

Across the way, Teyla came to a kind of Athosian parade-rest while Rodney slumped back to his usual posture.

"I'm starving."

"Yeah, well what else is new?" John pressed his lips together as he studied Ronon. "Come on, Rodney, I'll drop you by the cafeteria on the way to my meeting."

"That will not be necessary," said Ronon. "I, too, am hungry."

"Zelenka said they have those weird purple eggs this morning," mused Rodney crossing his arms against his chest.

"Tell Em I said to make you some pancakes," John suggested.

"Oh, yes, like I'm going to use her crush to get food. Actually," Rodney pondered, "that's not a bad idea. Unless she poisons them to get me out of the way. Maybe not," he backpedaled. "Kitchen help with unrequited colonel-lust cannot be a good thing."

"Do not worry, McKay, I will protect you from small, lust-ridden purveyors of food," Ronon offered, receiving a "there you go" and an encouraging pat from John.

"Right," smirked Rodney, "and I'm to trust you with my life."

"I do," murmured John, receiving a surprised look from Ronon.

"Yeah, yeah," Rodney waved a dismissing hand. "A minute ago you thought he was creasing me into eight congruent right triangles."

"No," corrected John, "that would be a waterbomb base. I thought he was making a petal fold."

Rodney shook his head. "We have got to start talking about your hobbies."

"Topology, Rodney? Huzita's Six Axioms?"

"Yeah, yeah, you're geometric. I get that." Rodney tilted his head. "And I'm still hungry. Ronon?" His gaze fell somewhere to the left of a well-defined shoulder.

"Cane?" urged John.

"Oh, yeah. I left that—" Rodney turned a full three-sixty. "Somewhere."

"For a blind man, you're not very organized," John observed wryly.

"Well, that's because you keep distracting me with your rubbery geometry," groused Rodney, grasping the missing cane when Teyla came to his rescue and pressed it into his hands.

~oOo~

"Fold here." John smoothed out the paper with the tip of his nail, fingers comfortably entwined with Rodney's. "And here. Now," the pad of his thumb brushed along its partner as Rodney followed the action with his fingertips, "pull that out. That's right."

Rodney's head rested on his shoulder and his eyes were closed even in the dim light of John's quarters, just his fingers warm and ghostlike, tangling with John's.

"So, what have we got?"

Rodney snorted, his head rolling slightly, hair brushing John's lips enticingly as he carefully examined the sharp folds with his fingertips. John found himself swallowing heavily as a thumbnail inadvertently scraped along the palm of his left hand.

"I'm thinking it's a problem of scale," John decided, cocking his head. "The one you're used to is so much larger."

"You made a 3-D representation of your ego?" mumbled Rodney, attention clearly set on solving the problem.

John made a little humming sound. "Mmm, I've been accused of it being my ego."

He could feel the corner of Rodney's mouth curl up again the sharp jut of his collarbone. "Ah … perhaps if I did a little comparison," his fingers curled in a quick arpeggio then moved down and elicited a slight gasp out of John. "Yes, I believe I know what it is. It's a representation of -."

"Rodney," hissed John low as the fingers curled tighter.

"Yes? You have more of this pornogami you want to share with me?"

"Got something I want to share," breathed John, Rodney's fingers doing another chord progression.

"Hmm …," hummed Rodney back, "and what would that be?"

John folded a hand around Rodney's, "I'll give you two guesses."

"No folding?"

"A little spindling maybe." John nipped at Rodney's jawline and he dropped his head back.

"No mutilating."

"Oh, definitely no mutilating."

Rodney hmm'd a little more as if contemplating this "Spindle-er or spindle-ee?"

"Either way," concluded John nipping his way down inside the collar of Rodney's uniform shirt, "the folding portion of the evening is done."

"Oh," said Rodney, moving the zipper of his shirt down to facilitate things, "I was rather enjoying that."

"Just wait until we get to the spindling," murmured John.

~oOo~

"Rodney?"

In the midst of the chaos, Rodney was standing pale and still, flinching only occasionally as the fast-moving medical staff brushed by him, cane held sharply vertical in a white-knuckled grip. There was blood on his uniform shirt and, when Carson got closer, he could see the fine tremors coursing through the taut limbs.

"Rodney? Has no one seen to you, lad?"

Stabilizing the colonel had been top priority, but that was no excuse for ignoring the obviously shocky scientist and if any of that blood was his and not John's …

"Rodney?" he repeated softly a third time, moving to intercept the suddenly swaying body, getting there just as Rodney's knees buckled and the cane clattered to the floor.

"'m okay."

His skin, Carson noted with a quick touch, was cold and clammy, the fine tremors growing. He lifted the hem of the soaked shirt and winced at the long, weeping tear running along Rodney's flank.

"No yer not, you daft bugger. Did no one check on you?"

"Told 'em I was okay." Rodney gasped as Carson probed the wound gingerly.

"Aye, and we'll talk about why ye scream about a hangnail and ignore a knife wound after I get you fixed up."

"Carson?" It came out a little raspier than either of them would have liked. "John—"

"Sauter has got him in surgery. Hush now," he soothed, waving O'Meara over. "We need to get him up on a gurney." He looked down as Rodney's icy fingers fumbled along his arm.

"Don't think I can get up."

"You don't have to, lad. We'll give you a hand." He stroked lightly through Rodney's short hair. "Come on now," he soothed, aware of the suddenly short, shallow huffs of Rodney's breath, "stay with me, Rodney."

"Can't—" was breathed out between increasingly pale lips and the weight in his arms went suddenly slack.

"Aye, well," Carson informed the staff that encircled them, "it'll be easier this way."

~oOo~

"There's no need to wait," Carson's voice was muted in the low light of the nighttime infirmary. "I'll be nearby."

"I know you will." Elizabeth stretched against the hard seat of the chair she'd pulled between the two beds; she faced Rodney but was positioned so she could see John's monitors as well, their data glowing in the dim light. "I just-" she grimaced a smile, "I just don't think he should wake up alone."

"And in the dark," added Carson quietly.

"Yeah," confessed Elizabeth. "I know how we've—" she caught herself almost making skeptical quote marks in the air, "put it behind us, but I can't imagine opening my eyes, not sure where I am or who's there, and finding only-"

"…darkness," Carson finished for her.

"Yeah," she admitted, her hand moving to wrap around Rodney's.

"We give him our fears," he concluded. "The oldest fear in the book – the fear of what we can't see." Carson coughed uncomfortably. "Took forty stitches, but I got him put back together. Lucky the blade didn't cut deeper. Do ye know what happened?"

"According to Ronon, the natives took exception to Teyla's clothing – or what they felt was the lack thereof. John stepped up to protect her and got stabbed for his troubles. At that point, Rodney stepped up to protect John, but they just swiped him aside."

"Aye and we're lucky it was just a swipe." Carson laid a hand on the sleeping man's shoulder, not surprised he didn't wake at the intrusion. "I slipped him a little something extra," he confessed. "No use him staying up and fretting."

"Good," approved Elizabeth. "Besides, John's going to have a few things to say when he wakes up and reads the report. He'll need his strength."

"Aye, I suppose the colonel will get a mite tetchy all right."

~oOo~

"John?"

Elizabeth started, blinking against the still dim infirmary lights, not sure what had woken her. It wasn't until Rodney's hand scrabbled against the sheets, knocking clumsy fingers against the upright railings that she really remembered why she was there, half-curled in an uncomfortable chair.

"Rodney?" she returned, securing the searching fingers in her own.

"Ow," he murmured, his turning pulling at the row of stitches. "John?" he called again, eyes blinking painfully against the lighting Carson raised, the physician looking bleary-eyed and rumpled.

"Easy there, Rodney," Carson soothed. "Do you know where ye are?"

"Infirmary," Rodney mumbled. "John?"

"Uh uh," Carson clamped a firm hand on Rodney's shoulder when he struggled to rise. "The colonel will be fine. We got him all patched up."

"Teyla?" Rodney's brow furrowed.

"She's fine too," reassured Elizabeth, clasping the fingers in hers tighter.

"Need to see him," Rodney's voice slurred slightly and the pressure against her hand loosened.

"Later, Rodney. You've still got enough sedative in ye at the moment to drop a charging horse."

"Won't know 'til I…" Rodney's hands twitched once, emphasizing his point, "…see him."

"In the morning," promised Carson, getting an unintelligible "mmm" in reply and smiling slightly at the deep, even breathing that followed. "He should sleep the next few hours," he said, smoothing the sheets down before turning his gaze on Elizabeth. "So should you. Go back to yer quarters. I promise I'll be right in my office." He tracked her swing in John's direction. "The colonel as well. They're out of danger, Doctor. Go get some rest."

~oOo~

"I need to see him, Carson. That means I need to touch him." Rodney's fingers flexed with the pronouncement.

Carson had come in to find Rodney standing by his own bed, bent over slightly, clearly favoring his damaged side. He frowned as Rodney continued, "But you've probably got him wired up like a Christmas tree with all your blinking lights and I…" He looked a bit defeated and his right hand spasmed closed, making a tight fist. "I need to touch him."

"He's going to be fine, Rodney," soothed Carson, taking his arm when he didn't seem willing to move on his own.

"You know I hate it when you do that," said Rodney, almost absently, not bothering to shake off the hold, but tilting his head to the right where Carson now grasped his arm.

"You know where the bed is, lad," observed the physician, loosening his grip but still keeping a watch on the slightly swaying figure.

"I don't want to hurt him."

"Och … come on. Yer not going to hurt the man. Come along," he urged again. "He should be waking up any time now and he'll be happy to see a friendly face."

"I won't knock any of your gizmos loose?"

Carson frowned, not sure where this sudden hesitancy was coming from. It was usually that the man had to be physically restrained from putting his hands where they didn't belong.

"Here," Carson took the nearly fisted hand into his own and pulled Rodney closer, wrapping his hand around John's. "See?"

Rodney performed a gentle examination of the fingers wrapped in his. "So his hand's okay, fine."

"Rodney," sighed the physician, "gimme yer hand," and he took the cold fingers in his own and led them up the forearm, stopping briefly at the tape holding down the IV needle. "One IV – I gave him the last unit of blood last night." They moved up to the shoulder and down the collarbone, Rodney's fingers catching on the tubing of the nasal cannula. "Aye, I've still got him on oxygen, and will for some time until that gash in his lung heals, but he's breathing just fine."

"I know," said Rodney, fingers following the line of the tubing up to the solid curve of the jaw and rubbing briefly against the stubble there before moving to the soft edge of the bottom lip, "I can hear him." The touch lingered for a moment before he asked, "Where's the wound."

"Here," guided Carson, leading the reluctant hand down to the edge of the bandage sheltering the ribs.

"Not very big."

"Puncture doesn't take much room. You should just be glad they missed anything more vital."

He watched Rodney's free hand move self-consciously to his own side but then the object of their attention stirred, a frown flitting with the wakening movement.

Rodney pulled his hand away if burned. "Did I?"

"He's just waking up." Carson gave a quick pat to a lax cheek. "Don't prove me wrong, now, Colonel. I know yer in there."

"R'dney?"

"That's more like it," approved Carson, turning his head to get a better look at the monitors as John slit his eyes open, blinking the fuzzy figures into something recognizable.

"You 'kay?" He reached a hand toward the robe Rodney wore.

"Rodney, I believe someone's talking to ye."

"Yeah, hi," he returned, stretching out a tentative hand that John strained to reach. "You scared the shit out of me."

John's whisper was skeptical. "And Carson's got you in here for that?"

"He got sideswiped by one of the natives," Carson provided. "Nothing a few stitches dinna take care of."

"Five's preliminary recon wasn't worth shit," John sighed. "Think they would have noticed that they kept the women under burlap sacks." He strained a little more to reach Rodney's hand before Carson did a little tug and brought the questing touches together.

"You really okay?" asked Rodney, a bit too quietly for Carson's comfort.

"Got a little too much plastic stuck up various portions of my anatomy, thank you." John fixed Carson with a mock glare. "But other than that, I seem all in one piece."

"Yes, well," Rodney smiled tightly and John exchanged a confused glance with Carson. "As long as you're all right."

"I'm just fine, Rodney," John frowned again but his eyes were getting heavy, softening his worry involuntarily.

"That's enough," said Carson, reining his charges back in. "You both know ye're all right and you both could do with some rest." He put a hand back to Rodney's arm. "So it's back to bed with ye. You can see each other again a little later."

~oOo~

"I shouldn't have gone."

"That's what all the moping is about?" said John.

"I'm not moping."

"Well, you're not exactly your normal ebullient self – no complaining, no demanding blue Jello and a laptop, no accusing Carson of secretly being a follower of Maria Laveau … it's unnatural, Rodney."

"Fine, you've proven you can joke while lying in a hospital bed. You're the one who didn't want me going through the gate in the first place."

"All right," admitted John, straightening and wincing in the process, "it's true I didn't want you going through the gate but then I changed my mind."

Rodney's brow furrowed and John had to resist the urge to wipe away the lines with a gentle thumb. "You did?"

"Yep, I did."

"Really?" asked Rodney with a kind of puzzled innocence that made John smile.

"I was a little worried that you'd still be … you. You know, going in where angels fear to tread, getting so excited about some new glowy trinket that you forget all semblance of safety precautions."

"And you're saying I'm not like that anymore."

"No, you are. I'm the one that was wrong."

"You were wrong," repeated Rodney.

"That's what I said," acknowledged John.

"You were wrong." A tiny smile quirked the corner of Rodney's mouth.

"Yes, although if you keep repeating it—"

"I've never heard you say that."

"Maybe I've never been wrong before," John offered.

"Think I could-" Rodney waved a hand over John's chest.

"Could what?"

"I don't want to-"

John's frown returned as Rodney hesitated. "Give me your hand."

"Huh?" murmured Rodney, teeth worrying his lower lip to a deep pink.

"I want you to sit on the bed, so give me your hand," John instructed, enfolding his fingers with Rodney's and pulling slightly so the reluctant body followed. "That's it," he encouraged as Rodney found the edge of the bed and too carefully hoisted himself up to sit one-hipped against the mattress, free foot pressed firmly against the infirmary floor as if he was afraid to commit too much weight to the sturdy Atlantis furniture.

"Do you want to hear why I changed my mind?"

"I don't know," Rodney wrinkled his nose, "do I?"

"I changed my mind because you're not me."

"Okay," led Rodney when John trailed off. "I'm not you, which we'd pretty well established the first time I steered a puddle jumper so I'm not getting why this would come up now."

John's hand was warm around his and Rodney could hear the soft exhalations of his breath.

"I -" John's fingers squeezed a little tighter around his, "I don't know that I could do … what you do."

"Do what?"

"That," said John.

"Okay, you've officially lost me."

"I couldn't," John's grip moved to Rodney's wrist, thumb worrying the pulse point there, "I couldn't have handled what happened— I would have been curled in a whimpering ball in the corner and I don't know what it would have taken to get me out."

"No, you wouldn't," countered Rodney, hand maneuvering to grip John's wrist in turn, feeling the sinewy strength there. "You'd have been plotting to find some way to fly the jumpers by telemetry alone and scaring the crap out of me by walking on the balcony railings."

"I might have been walking the balcony railings," conceded John, "but I think falling might have been the point."

"I would have caught you. You're scrawny," Rodney judged, thumb rubbing on the bulging bone of John's wrist, "wouldn't take much."

"I am not scrawny," replied John. "Just because I don't keep a munch of powerbars in my pocket-"

"A munch?" replied Rodney.

"Yeah, like a herd. A herd of powerbars is naturally a … munch."

"Carson's still got you on the good stuff, doesn't he?"

John rolled his head back and peered up at his IV bag. "Don't think so."

"Oh, I disagree," Rodney countered. "And, therefore, we shouldn't be having these kinds of conversations. The stuff makes you all … mushy."

"Mushy?"

"Rodney?" The name rolled in Carson's careful burr. "I believe ye have yer own bed. And, if yer well enough to be out of it all the time I think I can probably release ye."

John squinted at him. "What? You mean he doesn't need to be lounging in his pajamas and he's still here?" He turned back to Rodney. "Are you nuts? You could be out of here?"

"Um," Rodney hummed noncommittally, "Carson's always a bit optimistic about my prognosis."

"That's because you're a ruddy hypochondriac," mumbled the physician, but he grinned a little in John's direction.

"So, I'm just, oh, imagining this whole blindness thing."

"No, son, I dinna mean … if ye feel ye need to be in the infirmary…" continued a suddenly discomfited Carson.

"Carson, calm down before you bust something. I know what you meant. And I just felt it was my job to keep a certain colonel entertained. Besides," Rodney's hand smoothed down John's flank, "I've always had a thing for hospital gowns."

Carson held up his hands. "Ta much information."

"Then go torture some of your other patients," offered Rodney.

"You are my other patient."

"Oh," this silenced Rodney for a bit and his hand fumbled back for John's. "Maybe I should go. Radek's probably pulling out what little hair he still has. Besides, I have an idea about the ZedPM."

"Zee," corrected John automatically.

"Oh no, we are not going to start that again." Rodney raised his head and seemed to search for the position of the physician. "Carson knows. What letter comes after 'Y'?"

"Zed."

"See?"

John rolled his head against the pillow. "You're asking Carson for correct pronunciation?"

"I beg yer pardon?" said the physician.

"This," continued John, not paying attention to the slightly hurt tone in Carson's question, "is why the good ole US of A invented the alphabet song. What rhymes with 'zed'?"

"Fed," mused Rodney. "Red, dead, bed, head …"

"All right, all right," John conceded, tiredness suddenly creeping into the amusement in his voice.

"And that's enough," declared Carson. "My patient – and I don't mean ye, Rodney – needs his rest."

"Go look at your 'Zed'PM," mumbled John. "You can come back and tell me how much hair Dr. Z has left."

"Definitely the good stuff," Rodney decided, patting the arm beneath his hand and getting no response but the deep evenness of John's respirations.

~oOo~

"Come, Rodney, it is celebration." Zelenka insistently pulled at his arm. "Do I have to get Colonel to come down and get you?"

"Work to do," muttered Rodney, fingers moving down to carefully position themselves on the laptop keys.

"There will be food."

Rodney squinted his eyes as if briefly tempted then declared, "Bring me some. Something good."

"No going, no food," retorted Zelenka. "It is your party. You are the one who came up with the idea of using the teleporter to molecularly separate the ZedPM from its housing."

"Brilliant idea," corrected Rodney.

"All right," Zelenka conceded, "brilliant idea. And such brilliant idea deserves celebration. Besides, Colonel said I was responsible for dragging you out of the lab so you may receive the proper acclaim." Zelenka stopped and considered the man hunched over the keyboard. "This is not like you. You never hid before from limelight."

"Things are different now," muttered Rodney, fingers losing their place and causing a clenching of fists. "Damn it," he spat. "Radek, just go. Go enjoy yourself and," he emphasized, "bring me some food, but you're distracting me."

"No," said Zelenka resolutely.

"No?"

"Yes, that is what I said. No."

They posed, equally stiff.

"I am getting Colonel."

"Oh, no, you're not," Rodney ordered.

"You are acting strangely," concluded Zelenka. "Acting strangely requires Colonel."

Rodney closed his eyes. "It'll be crowded."

"Yes, is party," Zelenka concurred.

"It'll be loud."

"Yes, that is true as well."

Rodney's face screwed up in a look Radek found hard to decipher. "I'm blind."

"Yes," he grudgingly conceded, still confused. But he took a step closer as if that would somehow help matters.

"Loud. Crowded. Blind," emphasized Rodney. "You'll run off. You'll see Elizabeth and go do your puppy dog routine."

"My what?"

"So, you'll leave me with Carson," continued Rodney without missing a beat. "And he'll do his grip-of-death thing to my arm and I'll end up with nerve damage and John will figure that I need to be treated and he'll leave me to Carson's tender mercies and—"

"I am getting Colonel," decided Zelenka.

~oOo~

"Rodney?" The tone was soft and gentle, the kind of tone that came into John's voice when he thought you were injured. And, maybe, Rodney considered, that was because he was.

"Everyone's looking for you."

"And I was here all the time," snapped Rodney a bit harsher than he'd intended, so he doubled his typing speed. It would probably all come out as gibberish from the speech processor but he'd deal with that later when they'd finally left him alone.

"Okay," drawled John, the tone still concerned. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

"I'm remapping the energy flow conduits to incorporate the new ZedPM stream."

"And that can't wait?"

Rodney lifted his hands from the keyboard, sighing audibly. "Everything takes a bit longer now."

"But that doesn't mean you have to spend twenty-four hours a day in your lab. There's a party going on upstairs."

"Yes, I heard."

"You've got Zelenka thinking you're having a nervous breakdown."

Rodney waved the comment off with a hand. "Has he seen himself off-world when he thinks the Wraith have come? That's a nervous breakdown."

"So, I don't think you're having a nervous breakdown," conceded John. "I just think you're hiding."

"Crowded," explained Rodney.

"And loud," acknowledged John.

"Science geek," Rodney added, pointing a finger at his chest. "I was never any good at social situations to start with."

"Okay," John accepted. "So you're just a shy, retiring wallflower and this shouldn't worry me at all that no one's ever noticed until now."

"I don't want to go to one party and you all act like you're on the verge of making appointments for me with Heightmeyer." He ticked the list off again on his fingers. "Crowded. Loud. Blind."

"Christ," muttered John. "You didn't cause the mission to go bad."

"Who's talking about the mission?"

"We are," emphasized John. "I'm the one who got surprised by a knife in the lung. I don't think you seeing would have made any difference."

"Party?" reminded Rodney.

"Don't change the subject."

"You changed the subject," Rodney objected. "I'm just trying to stabilize the power flow if everyone would leave me alone."

"Rodney, we've got enough power to run the shields for a decade now. Hell, you're the one thinking we might use that … continuous recharging idea of yours to open the gate back to Earth."

"Theoretical only," dismissed Rodney.

"And you'll get it done eventually, but not tonight." John moved closer but didn't put a hand on Rodney's arm. "Tonight you're going to get your fill of acclaim. And the Daedalus has a reserve case of junk food and Zelenka's got a stash of Lobkowicz so we're all set. All we need is the man of the hour."

Rodney rolled his head back, cracking the vertebrae in his neck. "I'm not getting out of this am I?"

"Nope," said John, taking the opportunity to lay his hand lightly on Rodney's arm. "So come on. You just have to make an appearance. I'll stay right with you."

"They, uh," John waited while Rodney gathered himself enough to continue, "on the planet. All hell broke loose and I could feel you go down and they were … they were everywhere, pushing me, and Teyla cried out your name and I tried to get to you but there were bodies everywhere crowding me out." He coughed self-consciously, shaking John's hold away. "Now every time there's a crowd …even in the cafeteria…"

"Come on," urged John, his fingers tightening again along Rodney's bicep, feeling the taut muscles of the arm beneath his touch. "It's Atlantis. We're perfectly safe. Well, except from the Wraith and the weird energy creature and the scary nanoviruses," John grinned tightly. "But the crowd is perfectly harmless and I'm not leaving your side. Straight to the food and then home, okay?"

With only a brief worrying of his lower lip between incisors, Rodney relented.

~oOo~

It was noisy and, for Atlantis, what looked to be a record number of partygoers and Rodney carried his cane close to his body but slightly tilted as if he could hide behind its protection, his hand gripped so tightly to John's elbow that – any other time – John would have complained.

"Just stick close to me," he instructed, throwing what he hoped was a reassuring smile at the concerned look their entrance got from Elizabeth and Radek.

"Any closer and I'd be in you," muttered Rodney, jerking slightly as one of Carson's medics carelessly brushed by him, in a hurry to get deeper in the crowd.

"Later," promised John, leaning slightly inward to just brush the tip of Rodney's ear as he said it, getting at least a bemused shake of Rodney's head in return.

"Promises, promises," Rodney murmured.

"And you know I keep 'em," John pulled Rodney slightly toward him out of the path of Lorne's attempt to keep up with a two-stepping Haley Murray but the major, already well into his large cup of Athosian ale, did a non-too-graceful pirouette and slapped a friendly greeting against Rodney's back and Rodney lurched against John.

"Good work, Dr. Mac!"

"Don't call me that," Rodney gritted through his teeth, trying to untangle his feet from his cane.

"Sorry." Lorne's grin dissolved as John righted Rodney. "I didn't mean … you just did good, doc. I wanted you know we're all happy."

"Yes, well, I'm thrilled," muttered Rodney, managing to resnap the white aluminum back to its regular length.

Lorne held up his hands in the face of John's frown. "Going," he said, and he took off after his dance partner.

John leaned back down and tucked against Rodney's ear. "See, he's happy."

"I noticed."

"They're all happy. The marines can't dance for shit, but they're all," John quickly pulled Rodney out of the path of a careening Egyptian seismologist, "happy. Actually," he added, "your scientists can't dance for shit either."

~oOo~

Rodney clutched the paper plate John had given him and delicately examined the contents of the snacks, pulling back as his fingers encountered something cold and clingy. "What is this?"

"This?" said John taking Rodney's fingertip into his mouth with a rather satisfied slurp. "Ranch dip."

"Agh," said Rodney holding his hand at a distance, "that's disgusting. You've been hanging around Ronon too long. Did everyone just see you do that?"

"Nobody noticed."

"You think it's pretty easy to fool the blind guy." Rodney rubbed his hand against the leg of his pants.

"We should dance."

"No, we shouldn't," contradicted Rodney.

"I want to dance."

"You do realize that while we're," Rodney's hands made the smallest of quotes in the air, 'out', we're not 'out-out' and dancing is pretty-" words seemed, for once, to fail him and he blinked a minute as if grasping for some better descriptor before settling on, "…out."

"We're out," declared John.

"You've talked about our sleeping arrangements with, say, Caldwell?"

"Nooo," John drew the answer out. "But I'd pretty much say he's figured it out."

"How?"

"You holding my hand for three days in the infirmary was probably a pretty good clue."

"He saw that?"

"Rodney, anybody who walked into the infirmary saw that."

"Well," dismissed Rodney, "injured team thing. Everybody knew General O'Neill and Daniel Jackson were like that."

"That's because they were out," explained John patiently. "Even if they weren't, you know, out."

"So, I can be out and not even know it?" asked Rodney, and John smiled, realizing the mission was accomplished and he was at least completely distracted from his former hesitancy.

"Yes, you can. So, come on and dance with me."

"Oh no," said Rodney, drawing himself up stiffly, the cane moved back to its protective don't-approach-me position. "You said 'food and home.' I distinctly remember 'food and home.'"

"Dance and home," John bargained, ignoring the tenseness that had returned to the body beside him.

"Terrible dancer," admitted Rodney.

"Everyone can slow dance."

"Maybe everyone that can see."

"Think of it as foreplay," offered John. "And we know you can do foreplay. I know how you move," he breathed.

It might have been erotic, if they hadn't been standing next to a table of chips-and-dip in the aft section of the roped-off jumper bay. "Are you nuts? I'm calling Carson. I think he let you out with a fever or something."

"Come on," John wheedled. "One dance and we're gone. Nobody's going to notice."

Rodney continued to hold the cane in a death grip and John carefully took it from him, handing it to a surprised looking Zelenka who'd just wandered over, brow still furrowed.

"We'll go between the jumpers. Nobody has to know. Zelenka can stand guard."

Rodney's head tilted toward the ruckus on the floor. "Radek?"

"Yes, I'm here, Rodney."

Rodney sighed. "Fine. One dance," he capitulated. "Somewhere where no one can see."

~oOo~

Carson had once remarked, not unkindly, that with Rodney all his grace had settled in his hands – his agile, constantly-in-motion hands which couldn't be still under most any circumstances. Not particularly elegant hands per se: pale as all of Rodney's skin was, with a dusting of fine brown hair, nails blunt and cut close to the quick.

The hand currently grasping John's shoulder tightened its grip and the one clasped palm-to-palm with his right one made a brief aborted attempt at freeing itself.

"You're sure nobody is watching," Rodney worried.

"I'm sure," promised John, ignoring the gathering of feet beside the nearest jumper's nose that he could just see just at the corner of his peripheral vision. Just three pairs. Three pairs was no one. "Relax," he commanded, drawing Rodney tighter until their knees bumped and Rodney made a small plaintive sound, forehead pressing to John's shoulder.

"I couldn't do this when I could see. Nearly backed Janie Tidwell into the punch bowl during the eighth-grade dance."

John grinned and tried a simple swaying step. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. "You had a date for the eighth-grade dance?"

"We were in chess club together. My mother insisted I take someone."

Rodney seemed to be getting the hang of it and John closed his own eyes, shutting out the jumpers and the trio of feet.

"Like riding a bicycle," whispered John, eyes firmly shut now. Just music and touch and gentle swaying and his mind saying that if he was taking a chance he didn't care. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.

"You still think I'm having a nervous breakdown," surmised Rodney, his sigh not disrupting his rhythm.

"Maybe I just like to dance," supplied John.

He reopened his eyes and noticed, just at the corner, that the number of feet had multiplied so he closed them again. It wasn't fair, that with just a twitch of muscle, he could do what Rodney couldn't – banish the darkness and restore the light. Although undoubtedly Rodney would remind him with scientific preciseness that he, too, could see the light, could see the shadows and random splashes of color that made up the Atlantis he now knew.

John's hand firmed its grip around Rodney's waist as if he suddenly needed orienting, when it was probably more that John was lost and Rodney was quite stable and knew exactly where he was. Rodney was good at that, good at putting his mind to the kind of precise tedium that made up counting steps and making mental seating charts and remembering where he and everyone else was without looking. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.

When his eyes were closed, the breadth of the jumper bay was more a feeling of soaring space, the parked puddle jumpers providing a haven of closeness as if he could feel their bulk, like Rodney could feel the press of the walls or the giving horizon of the gate, as if they pushed in on them, solid and reassuring. He could see why Rodney sometimes hesitated to leave the confines of the city, leave the steadying boundaries that defined the space he was in.

Rodney was warm, a living weight in his arms, familiarity making the closeness desirable and comforting – a closer, even more steadying anchor of touch – and he rued for a minute that this, too, had been taken from Rodney on the planet … the sense of safety, of the surrounding pressure of other living beings being a balm, a cradle.

The music swelled and faded and changed again to some tune he didn't know, still slow and melodic, but not the rhythm they had been maintaining and John opened his eyes, frowning slightly that the crowd had grown arithmetically, multiplying into an audience – mainly of science staff, thank God, but still more people than Rodney would feel comfortable observing. More than he felt comfortable with. He shot Zelenka a kind of what-the-fuck look but the Czech merely shrugged, making a kind of what-could-I-do gesture back, Rodney's cane still locked in one fist.

"Rodney," John said gently, smiling a little when Rodney merely hummed in reply and resettled against him. "I think we've got company."

The languid posture was gone in an instant and Rodney's feet tangled with his in their haste to get some separation. "What?"

"Gentlemen," greeted Elizabeth, stepping forward from the throng, a hand at her side waving an order for the others to disperse. "I think if there's going to be dancing it's only fair I get an opportunity."

"Oh," said Rodney, stepping back, one hand slightly behind him in search of the jumper's side, "He's all yours."

"I think she means you, buddy," observed John, drawing him forward again, leading the hand he held into Elizabeth's.

"Um," murmured Rodney, "I don't think—"

"You'll be fine," said Elizabeth, settling into the stiffly held arms. "Just … relax."

"That's what I said," confirmed John, positioning Rodney with gentle shoves then leaving him to it with a conciliatory pat.

He withdrew, moving back to lean against the jumper, watching the tight look of concentration on Rodney's face. "Did he look like that before?" he asked Radek when the Czech sidled over and Rodney's mouth pursed further.

"Like he is eating lemon?" inquired the engineer.

"No citrus," corrected John. "Never citrus."

"You did not look at him?"

"Had my eyes closed."

~oOo~

The row in science department blue was clearly salivating over the news, while they rest of the military contingent just sat looking slightly bored, and John found his eyes resting on Rodney who insisted, "I'm going."

"You don't have to," said John. It had been three weeks, but inside his chest he could still feel the slightest pull where the knife had bitten deepest, a tiny but tangible reminder of the last time he'd gone through the gate. Why, no doubt, he was assigned this less-than-action-packed meet and greet with the planet-o-science.

"They said they have cold fusion. Cold fusion and they'll share," Rodney emphasized. "You think I'm going to let Radek have all the fun?"

Radek blinked indignantly and muttered something in Czech that caused Rodney to look even more self-satisfied.

"Okay," John agreed. "I just wanted to make sure—"

"Going," stressed Rodney.

"Fine, then we have a go in two hours."

~oOo~

Rodney closed his eyes against the flare of the horizon and John took the opportunity to give a tug to a slightly askew vest, getting his hand slapped with unerring accuracy.

"Cut that out," he said, capturing the offending wrist. "I'm just trying to make you Gate-worthy. You always manage to—" he pulled at the top of Rodney's jacket and stepped back to admire the results, "—there."

"Fine," muttered Rodney patting himself down, "can we go?"

"We can go," said John, offering his arm.

Rodney still had his eyes closed against the brightness but he was bouncing a little, just like Zelenka who stood beside him nearly bobbing in anticipation, and John found himself grinning and patting the fingers grasped around his elbow.

"Well?" questioned Rodney. "Cold fusion," he added as an emphasis.

"Going," said John.

And together they stepped forward.

~end~