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“Rodney,” Zelenka says, interposing himself between McKay and the database console he’s working at. “Go to bed.”
“I will,” says McKay absently, leaning around Zelenka. “In a minute. I think I’m onto something.” He rubs at his temple to try and soothe the pounding ache in his head, but it doesn’t help. He reaches for his coffee cup, goes to take a sip, and finds it empty. He frowns and sets it back down without taking his eyes off the data scrolling down the screen.
“You said that six hours ago,” Zelenka points out. “Have you left the lab since then?”
McKay tries to remember. He’d gone to get more coffee at one point. He’d eaten a cold MRE for dinner and a couple of PowerBars sometime after that so he wouldn’t have to go all the way to the mess hall. He doesn’t answer Zelenka.
Zelenka sighs and steps aside. “The database will still be here in the morning. Please get some sleep.”
McKay waves him off. The answer is in here somewhere. Just because no one has found it yet doesn’t mean it’s not there. He just hasn’t stumbled on the right combination of search terms yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’ll get it.
There’s a long moment of silence, long enough that McKay thinks maybe Zelenka has given up and decided to leave him alone, but then Zelenka says, “Colonel Sheppard is stable for the time being. Nothing will happen to him in the next eight hours.”
But it’s already been days, McKay doesn’t say.
“You will be of no use to anyone if you are dead on your feet,” Zelenka says. “I am not saying stop entirely, just for the night.”
McKay tries to summon up the energy for a string of insults that would send any normal person skittering away or at least a really withering glare, but all he can manage is a quiet, “Go away, Radek.”
Zelenka’s voice goes soft and threatening. “Do not force me to call security, Rodney.”
That gets McKay’s attention. He looks over at Zelenka. “You wouldn’t dare. This is my lab.”
“I would,” says Zelenka. “They will probably bring Dr. Keller, and she will have to drug you.”
McKay hesitates. He can’t just give up, not when everyone else has already written Sheppard off. “One more search,” he says. “Just a few more minutes. I’m almost there.”
Zelenka leans forward to inspect the screen, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “There, you see?” He points to a line of text. “You are repeating yourself.”
McKay looks to where Zelenka is pointing. It’s a duplicate of a search he’d run hours ago. It had turned up nothing then and it turns up nothing now, just some information about a lab they’d found and investigated their first year in the city.
Maybe Zelenka is right. Maybe if he grabs a few hours of sleep, he can come at the problem with new eyes. Maybe the solution will just come to him in his sleep, something brilliant that will turn off the thing that’s keeping Sheppard unconscious and solve Atlantis’s energy problems and win him a Nobel prize.
“Fine,” he says. “But only for a few hours.”
“Wonderful,” says Zelenka, and all but pushes McKay toward the door and out into the hall. “If I see you here in less than eight hours, I will cancel all your simulations and change your access codes.”
“As if you could,” scoffs McKay. Zelenka doesn’t even have admin access, nevermind override authority on McKay’s access.
Zelenka gives him a tight, mirthless smile. “I will pull the control crystals from the door array. Do not test me.”
McKay glares at him, but Zelenka is totally unfazed, so McKay stomps off down the hall towards his quarters.
As soon as the door slides shut behind him, all of the exhaustion he’d been shoving away for the last who knew how many hours crashes over him like a wave and threatens to drag him under. He toes off his shoes and throws his jacket vaguely in the direction of the desk chair and then crawls into bed without undressing further.
He expects to fall asleep instantly, the way he so often does when the adrenaline rush of crisis finally subsides, but no matter how much he tosses and turns, he can’t turn his brain off enough to sleep. Without the endless task of combing through the database to distract him from worst-case-scenarios, he just lies there, staring up at the ceiling and trying to breathe around his panic and guilt.
It’s a long time before sleep comes.
He wakes too early, just as the grey dawn is starting to creep in through the window. He glances at his watch. It’s only been a few hours. He should try to get some more sleep, try to chase away the sharp headache lurking behind both eyes, but he knows it’s no use.
There’s nothing for it but to get up, so he does. He takes a perfunctory shower and dresses. He considers stopping by the mess for breakfast, but he doesn’t want to risk running into anyone and have to talk about how he’s doing (terribly), how he’s sleeping (barely), and the progress he’s made (none).
He goes straight to the lab instead. Zelenka rarely follows through on his threats (he threatens to quit at least once a week and he hasn’t so far), but on the very off chance he’s actually pulled the door crystals (which would be a massive safety hazard), McKay can access the database from almost anywhere in the city.
As expected though, the door slides open easily when McKay approaches. The lab is empty - the science department keeps odd hours, usually informed by the current crisis, but they’re rarely up before ten unless they have to be. McKay makes a pot of coffee, fishes a PowerBar out from his desk drawer, then pulls up the database search again.
It keeps the panic at bay for a few hours. His underlings leave him alone for the most part. Simpson interrupts him to ask about a minor power fluctuation, and he turns to her only long enough to yell, “Jesus Christ, Simpson, are you a scientist or an idiot child? Figure it out yourself!” Simpson starts to argue -- six years in a galaxy full of things far more terrifying than a sleep-deprived Rodney McKay has made his staff disrespectful at best -- but Zelenka shoots her a quelling look and she stops.
After that, McKay moves to an unused auxiliary lab. He keeps searching.
The days go by, and nothing changes. McKay combs through the database in search of answers, wolfing down cold MREs and coffee when his body demands it. He wakes too early and goes to bed too late, usually only after Zelenka comes down and threatens to shut off power to his lab. Jennifer tries to prescribe him sleeping pills, which he doesn’t take. Most of his regular duties are tacitly assigned to Zelenka. McKay doesn’t really notice.
It is some comfort, however slim, to know that, in the beginning at least, Teyla and Ronon are handling Sheppard’s condition about as well as McKay is, which is to say barely if at all. Ronon has taken to skulking around Atlantis whenever he’s not haunting the infirmary. He draws the curtain around Sheppard’s bed and sits there for hours, glaring at anyone who comes near. Teyla’s civilian self-defense class has to be put on hold after she puts a Marine twice her size in the infirmary for three days. It was an accident and she’d apologized profusely, but the civilians were still too afraid to spar with her.
And Sheppard sleeps. His brain waves aren’t indicative of coma, Jennifer had explained. His EEG is normal for someone cycling through REM and non-REM sleep. His heartbeat is steady; his breathing is regular. He just won’t wake up, and nothing she has tried will rouse him.
It might have been easier, McKay finds himself thinking one night when he’s tired and frustrated and ready for Sheppard to just wake the fuck up already, if Sheppard had been killed outright. The very idea sends a ribbon of cold panic into his gut because he’ll find the answer, he will, but at least then he would know. The work had helped at first, given him something to concentrate on, but if he’s honest with himself, he’s no closer to fixing this than when he’d started.
He’d had a few good ideas, at first. He’d tried a localized EMP to try to short circuit the device on Sheppard’s wrist. He’d tried working on the device directly, rewiring the tiny crystals with tweezers and a headlamp. He’d advocated for getting a saw and just cutting the damn thing off, but Jennifer had said that would almost certainly kill him.
So they’d turned to the database. Most of the science division had been assigned to it at first -- Sheppard was the military commander of the base, after all. But one-by-one, they’d been pulled off to work on other problems, solve other crises that came up. Eventually McKay was the only one still working on it. Woolsey had tried to reassign him as well, but McKay had refused point-blank and then threatened to quit. Woolsey had almost called his bluff, but the usual Pegasus troublemakers were generally quiet, so he’d relented.
It feels like McKay’s been over the entire database at this point, but he keeps searching. The answer has to be there.
Jennifer calls AR-1 and Woolsey down to the infirmary one day and stands before them, her hands clasped nervously. McKay is already irritated for being dragged away from his research, but when he sees her face, pale and drawn, anxiety bubbles up painfully in his stomach.
“I have run every test I can think of,” she tells them, “and put Colonel Sheppard through every scanner we have, Ancient or otherwise. I’m… I’m very sorry, but whatever is wrong with him, it’s beyond my ability to fix.” She takes a deep breath, bracing herself, and then she says, “I think we should consider sending him back to Earth. Maybe at the SGC will see something we’ve missed.”
“No,” says Ronon flatly. He crosses his arms and uses all of his height to loom over her.
“Ronon--” Woolsey starts at the same time Jennifer says, “This wasn’t an easy decision to come to, you know.” Ronon ignores them, a glare settling onto his features. Woolsey and Jennifer look at Teyla.
“I must agree with Ronon,” she says. “If there was someone on Earth who could help Colonel Sheppard, you would have already called for them. He should stay here, where he is among friends.” Her tone is steady, calm even, but McKay can see she’s clenching her teeth, and there’s no mistaking the flash of anger in her eyes.
Woolsey sets his jaw and turns to McKay, as if expecting some sort of appeal from him as well.
“I have a lot of work to do,” McKay says, and flees.
He makes it about halfway to his lab before he has to duck into a closet.
Back to Earth, he thinks as he sinks to the floor on shaky knees and struggles to breathe. It’s not unprecedented. It’s mostly Marines that get sent back through the wormhole because McKay doesn’t give a damn what his scientists’ bodies are like as long as their minds are sharp, but there had been a couple of his people. People who’d been fed on by the wraith but not killed. There’d been a chemist who’d burned her hands -- Carson had repaired the skin with some Ancient medical gizmo, but the nerves were shot. She was doing theoretical work, the last McKay had heard. It’s nothing compared to what she’d been doing on Atlantis.
Sending Sheppard through to Earth means Jennifer doesn’t think he’ll ever wake up.
It’s giving up.
McKay presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and tries to get a grip. He’s been skating on the edge of gibbering panic for what seems like weeks, and he’ll be damned if this is the thing that sends him over. Teyla and Ronon will make sure Woolsey doesn’t ship Sheppard back to Earth like malfunctioning equipment, and McKay will keep working. He’ll fix this. He has to.
He’s been awake for 24 hours at least. Maybe longer. He’s long since lost track of the time. Zelenka’s off-world doing the annual shield check-up for the kid planet and the rest of his minions are either too scared to risk funding reallocation (a function Zelenka has mostly taken over anyway) or they simply don’t care that their boss is probably running himself into the ground.
Twenty-four hours is nothing, really. McKay has been up for longer than that on accident before, to say nothing of the various 72-hour amphetamine-fueled crises he’d endured over the years. There’s no such thing as “enough sleep” on Atlantis -- McKay is used to grabbing catnaps where he can and supplementing with caffeine.
But he can’t remember the last time he slept more than six hours. And, oh yes, he may have discovered Zekenka’s stash of the pale purple moonshine they brew out on the North pier. His tolerance for alcohol is usually pretty high, thanks to that little detour in Siberia, but he hasn’t eaten and he hasn’t slept, which is how he finds himself stalking down the hall toward the infirmary in the middle of the night.
He’s been avoiding the infirmary, generally. Teyla and Ronon had tried to convince him to visit at first. “Someone should be with him,” Teyla had said. “When he wakes, he should not be alone.” He’d brushed her off. Working on solving the problem was a better use of his time, and anyway, it wouldn’t make a difference to Sheppard.
He’d been in once or twice since Jennifer’s little announcement, mostly just for painkillers for the near-permanent headache he’d developed. He’d tried to get her to give him some uppers once, but she’d just asked a lot of invasive questions and tried to convince him to speak to the expedition’s shrink, which he’d refused.
The lights in the infirmary are dimmed and it’s deserted except for the night nurse dozing on a cot in the back. McKay crosses the room, yanks back the curtain around Sheppard’s hospital bed, and glares down at the unconscious form of his best friend.
Because -- Jesus, he’d started off guilty and panicked and determined, and that sucked, but at least he was productive. Then he’d slid into depressed and useless, which was worse, but at least it occasionally came with numb, which was better than fucking sad.
And now? Now he’s just angry. He’s tired and drunk and fucking pissed, and it’s a good thing he’s reached the end of his rope, because if he had anymore, he’d probably use it to strangle Sheppard and be done with the whole thing.
“Nap time’s over, flyboy,” McKay demands, the words coming out a little slurred. “This has gone on for long enough, and I have more important things to do than spend all my time trying to figure out a way to wake you up. So just -- just stop. Stop this.” He kicks the leg of Sheppard’s bed petulantly. “Up and at ‘em, Colonel Rip van Winkle. Don’t make me get the jarheads in here to play Reveille.”
If it was anyone else with that thing on their wrist, Sheppard would probably have been able to just think it off. McKay had tried -- he’d gotten every gene carrier in the city to think “off” at the thing to no avail. He’d even tried to get General O’Neill to make the trip, but he was apparently far too busy, and the SGC had eventually stopped returning his emails. Which was a fine way to treat the man who regularly saved them all from peril and certain doom.
It had almost been McKay in the hospital bed, actually. They’d been exploring a tower on the south end of the city when they’d come across a lab with a row of tiny Ancient-standard beds and a wall console that had been wiped clean. The device had been left under one of the beds, probably forgotten in the Ancient’s rush to abandon the city. McKay had scanned it, but it didn’t give off any readings. He’d reached for it, but Sheppard had gotten there first. The lights on the back of the device flashed green, it snaked around Sheppard’s wrist, and down he went.
McKay should have done more tests. Had someone without the gene pick it up. Had Sheppard wear gloves, at least. He supposes it’s lucky it wasn’t a bomb. Wouldn’t be the first time.
“Come on, Sheppard,” McKay says, kicking the bed again. “Don’t think I don’t know this is just an excuse to make Lorne do your paperwork.” Another kick. “The Marines are in shambles.” Another kick. “TJ misses his Uncle John.” Another kick. “Teyla almost killed a guy.”
He kicks at the bed again, and then all the fight goes out of him abruptly and he collapses into the nearby infirmary chair.
“Damn it, Sheppard,” he says, his throat suddenly tight. “Just wake up already.”
A hand touches his shoulder, and McKay jerks awake. He opens his eyes to see Jennifer leaning over him, her face lined with concern.
“Mmm, wha?” mumbles McKay. He starts to unfold himself from the chair to get up, but his neck and back scream in protest.
“Here,” says Jennifer, holding out a glass of water and two white pills.
McKay swallows the aspirin with a grimace, hands the glass back to Jennifer, and then rolls his shoulders a little. He glances over at the bed. Sheppard is still sleeping, his chest rising and falling regularly. The lights on the wrist device still glow green.
If this is what passes for the new normal, McKay wishes he could sleep through it too.
“You okay?” says Jennifer, leaning in again to study his face again. She starts to pull the pen light out of her breast pocket.
McKay waves her off and gets to his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain. He feels like shit, actually, but that’s no different from usual. “Fine,” he says shortly. He starts to push past her.
She puts her hand on his arm, and he stops. “Are you sure you’re okay? Because I know you haven’t been sleeping, and Radek said--”
“You’ve been talking to Zelenka?” McKay interrupts. “That nosy Czech bastard. I said I’m fine.”
“He’s just worried about you. We’re all worried about you, Rodney. You spend all your time in that lab, you’ve been neglecting your friends and your job, you’re barely eating… I know losing Colonel Sheppard has been hard on you--”
“We haven’t lost Sheppard!”
Jennifer gives him a sad look, and McKay shoves a hand through his hair. How the hell is he supposed to explain it to Jennifer of all people? He doesn’t have Sheppard’s near-suicidal need to never leave a man behind, but Sheppard is team. And before Atlantis, McKay wouldn’t have given a damn, wouldn’t have even understood what that means, but six years in the Pegasus Galaxy have taught him a hell of a lot about loyalty.
Jennifer looks at him for a long moment while he glares at her defiantly. “You’re not fine,” she says eventually. “Please talk to Dr. Singh. Or Teyla or Ronon. Someone. This isn’t healthy, Rodney.”
“Oh what the hell do you know?” McKay says acidly. “You didn’t realize I was dying cause you liked me better when I was someone else. They teach you those ethics in medical school?”
Jennifer goes very quiet. She presses her lips together in a thin white line and looks down at her hands. This is why we broke up, McKay thinks wildly.
“Sorry,” he mutters. He only half means it.
He glances over at Sheppard, still sleeping, and then leaves.
The worst part, McKay thinks as he barricades himself in his lab and glares daggers at anyone even thinking of bothering him, is that Jennifer’s not wrong. He’s aware that Woolsey has been granting them tremendous leeway, McKay in particular. Zelenka’s been picking up a lot of the slack, but he has his own department to run, and there are things only McKay can do that he’s been putting off for weeks. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t have a constant pounding headache, and he’s been avoiding Teyla and Ronon for so long they’d eventually just left him alone (though he suspects Zelenka’s been providing them with updates on McKay’s mental state, that rat fink). If he keeps going like this, either the SGC is going to fire him (unlikely; they need him too much) or he’s going to drive himself into a nervous breakdown and wind up in the infirmary next to Sheppard. (It could probably be argued that he’s reached that point already.)
But what is he supposed to do, just give up? Just let them ship Sheppard back to Earth, where he’ll sleep until his body eventually gives up on him? There’s a version of McKay that spent 25 years trying to bring Sheppard back when everyone thought he was a lost cause. It seems like a small price to pay for Sheppard’s life. Atlantis needs Sheppard -- the city, the people, hell, the whole Pegasus galaxy.
Damn it, McKay needs him.
There’s a cautious knock at the door. “What part of ‘I’m busy; leave me alone’ do you morons not get?” he yells without getting up. “Figure it out yourself; you’re supposed to be fucking scientists.” There’s a good chance he’ll come out to something on fire or emitting dangerous radiation because, despite McKay’s own astronomical hiring standards, the SGC keeps hiring idiots, but so be it. He’ll make it Zelenka’s problem.
“Rodney,” calls Teyla’s voice. “It is Teyla and Ronon. Would you please open the door?”
He’s tempted to leave them out there. There’s no way they can get through the encryption he’s got on the lock, even if they get Zelenka’s help. But they’d just keep knocking, and Teyla is tenacious.
He drags himself to his feet and opens the door. “Yes?”
They look terrible, honestly. There are dark shadows under Ronon’s eyes and more lines around Teyla’s mouth than he remembers. McKay is probably not the only one who hasn’t been sleeping well.
“Rodney,” Teyla begins diplomatically, but Ronon cuts her off, his voice gruff and matter-of-fact.
“Stop hiding from us,” he says, crossing his arms and looming. “We’re gonna get lunch, and you’re gonna come.”
“Did I not just say I was busy?” McKay says incredulously. “I very distinctly remember saying I was busy.”
“Whatever you’re doing can wait,” Ronon says. “You’ve been avoiding us long enough.”
Teyla shows him a smile with too many teeth. “We will use force if necessary,” she says.
McKay narrows his eyes at them. “Did Jennifer put you up to this?” he accuses.
“She is simply concerned for your wellbeing,” Teyla says. “We all are.”
McKay crosses his arms defiantly. “I’m not the one you should be worried about. I’ve been working my ass off trying to fix this mess. What the hell have you been doing?”
Ronon gives him a look so murderous that McKay takes an involuntary step backwards. Teyla’s face goes very smooth, and then she says in a soft, dangerous voice, “I know you are hurting, Rodney, but do not make the mistake of thinking you are the only one worried about John.”
Shit. McKay feels like a heel, and he wishes he could take the words back. It had driven him crazy when he’d been dating Jennifer and she’d constantly tried to police his tone, but as usual, she wasn’t wrong.
“That -- that came out wrong,” he says, trying to backpedal. “I didn’t mean--”
Teyla’s expression softens. “Apology accepted.” She touches his elbow and then pulls him forward to tip their foreheads together. “Now please join us for lunch.”
He glances back at the database console in the lab. There has to be some algorithm he hasn’t tried yet. It’s already been weeks, and they can only put Woolsey off sending Sheppard back to Earth for so long…
He turns back to Teyla and Ronon. Sheppard is… honestly, McKay isn’t really sure how to describe what Sheppard is to him anymore. Team doesn’t seem to cut it. But Teyla and Ronon are team too, and they deserve better than this.
“Fine,” he says eventually. “Calm down, I’m coming.” Teyla gives him the barest hint of a smile, and Ronon’s expression softens to merely vague irritation, which McKay figures is the best he can expect, all things considered.
They have lunch. Guilt twists in McKay’s stomach, and he’s almost too nauseated to eat, but they’re serving roast beef, real Earth cow from the most recent supply run, and it feels like he hasn’t had a real meal in ages.
They talk while they eat. McKay doesn’t really have anything to add to the conversation seeing as he’s mostly just been holed up in a lab for the last few weeks, but he listens while Teyla talks about the trade summit she’s planning for the Athosians, how Torren is beginning to speak in full sentences, how she’s begun sparring with some of the Marines again. Ronon is much less forthcoming, but he talks about his most recent date with Amelia, how he might take her to Sateda some day.
McKay feels like an ass all over again. He’d been so wrapped up in his own grief and anxiety that he’d forgotten that his team is four people, not two. At least they’d had each other to lean on, he thinks.
He’s just finishing up a pudding cup when Teyla and Ronon exchange glances and then turn in unison to look at McKay.
“Well?” he prompts. “Out with it; I don’t have all day.” An hour for lunch with his friends is one thing, but waiting around for them to work up to spitting out what is almost certainly not good news is another.
“There is… something we should discuss,” says Teyla, lacing her fingers and setting her hands on the table in front of her. “Ronon and I believed it would be better for you to hear it from us than Mr. Woolsey.”
Anxiety flares up in McKay’s chest, tight and hot. “Is this why you--”
“No, no,” Teyla assures him. “We did indeed simply wish to see you. It is merely coincidence that this must come up now.”
McKay is decidedly not mollified. “And?”
Teyla pauses, searching for the right words, so Ronon says bluntly, “Woolsey’s going to replace Sheppard.”
McKay’s lunch feels like lead in his stomach. “He’s gonna do what?” Words are bubbling up under McKay’s skin, falling out of his mouth before he can stop them. “He can’t do that! He’s not even -- Sheppard is going to be fine! I’m gonna fix it, and he’ll wake up. He can’t -- who are they even going to find, some random jarhead who doesn’t even know what it’s like out here? And what, we’re all just supposed to fall in line? Because if Woolsey thinks I’m going to risk my extremely important neck to go offworld with an unknown quantity--” He’s breathing too fast and his hands are shaking. “I won’t,” he says faintly. “I can’t.”
Teyla reaches across the table to place her hand on top of McKay’s. “We understand,” she says softly. “It wouldn’t be the same without John.” Ronon nods in agreement. “Which is why I have decided to spend some time with my people, on New Athos. I have asked Ronon to join me, and I am asking you as well.” McKay’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline and she continues, “Not permanently. And only if you wish.”
McKay stares at her. “You’re just going to leave? Did you even try to talk Woolsey out of it?”
Teyla presses her lips together and suddenly looks very tired. “Of course we tried, Rodney,” she says. “But it was to no avail. He has agreed to leave Major Lorne in command in the interim, but the IOA and the SGC have begun their selection process.”
“No,” says McKay, pushing up from the table. “No, they can’t just -- no.” His hands are still shaking. “He has to listen to reason. He has to listen to me. He might technically outrank me, but the IOA needs me more than it needs him.” He leaves his tray and stalks straight up to Woolsey’s office.
The steamroller combination of brilliance and desperation gets him pretty far, but in the end, Woolsey just gives him a sympathetic look and says, “I’m sorry, Doctor McKay, but it’s out of my hands.”
“And when Sheppard wakes up?” McKay persists. “You’ll just say ‘Sorry, you no longer have a job, go back to Antarctica’?”
“If Colonel Sheppard regains consciousness, he is certainly welcome to remain on Atlantis,” Woolsey says, his tone patient. “But you must be realistic. It’s been weeks. Do you really expect him to wake up again?”
“I’m not giving up on him,” McKay says stubbornly. “And you shouldn’t either. He’s come back from worse than this.”
“That may be,” Woolsey allows. “But Atlantis needs a military commander. Surely you must see that.”
“It has one.”
“A conscious military commander.” Woolsey sighs. “The IOA expects to have selected its candidate in three days, at which time Colonel Sheppard will be transferred back to Earth. You have until then to find a solution.” He looks down at the files on his desk, dismissal written on his face.
“Fine,” snarls McKay. He’s made a career out of impossible odds, and he’s not about to stop now.
He spends most of the first day sifting through the database with renewed vigor, searching for any hint of information about the thing on Sheppard’s wrist and threatening to fire anyone who so much as looks at him.
“Rodney, if the device is in the database, you’d have found it by now,” Zelenka says when he stops by, as if McKay would hesitate to fire him. (He wouldn’t. Probably. Okay, he probably wouldn’t fire Zelenka at all, but only because he occasionally has a good idea, that wily bastard.)
“I might have missed something. You could help, you know,” McKay says without looking up.
“I am a little busy doing your job,” says Zelenka. “I am not CSO. I do not get paid to be CSO.”
“This is a really crappy time to ask for a raise, Radek.”
Zelenka throws his hands up and stalks out, muttering in Czech as he goes. When all this is over, McKay thinks, he’s probably going to have to apologize to the man. The thought horrifies. (Maybe he’ll just give him a day off.) Anyway, he’ll worry about it later. He calls up another search.
He works into the night until he can barely keep his eyes open. Hours of searching -- days and weeks of scouring Ancient records, lab notes, and reports -- and he has nothing to show for it. Oh, he’d stumbled across a few things he’d earmarked for later perusal, but nothing like what he’s looking for.
He stumbles back to his quarters around 0300. He’ll try again tomorrow. He’ll find the answer tomorrow. It’s the only thing he lets himself think.
The next day passes in much the same manner. His minions have apparently finally learned self-sufficiency because he’s able to work uninterrupted until midday when Teyla stops by to drag him to lunch. He tries to blow her off -- he has a deadline now, and if anyone’s good under the pressure of the relentless passage of time, it’s Rodney McKay -- but she’s not having it.
“Ronon and I are leaving for New Athos tomorrow afternoon,” she reminds him. “If you have not elected to join us, then it may be sometime before we see each other again.”
“No, see, that’s just it,” McKay says. “If I can do this, then you won’t have to leave. You can stay and we’ll still be -- Everything will be the same.”
Teyla gives him a sad smile, and he can see that she’s finally given up on Sheppard, too.
“I have to keep working,” McKay insists.
“Very well,” Teyla says. “I hope you will at least see us off.” She squeezes his hand.
“Won’t have to!” McKay calls after her as she leaves.
The hours tick by, and he’s no closer to a solution. He’s been asking Atlantis for answers for weeks (for years, really -- the city is so big and as merciless as the beings that built her), but he’s been asking in his own language, search strings and database queries. The system is designed to accept questions in that manner, but it’s not ideal. Atlantis is meant to be run on the nuance of thought, not this clunky press of buttons. Maybe he just needs to try asking the city in her own language.
He goes down to the main power room. The chair would probably be better, but somehow he doubts Woolsey would authorize its use. McKay stands in front of the main display and runs his fingers over the console. He doesn’t have Sheppard’s connection to the city, but he hopes his artificial gene will be enough.
“Look,” he says out loud because it’s easier to organize his thoughts that way. “I don’t even know if you… I’m probably just talking to myself here, but on the off chance you can understand me…. Sheppard’s… He’s still out. If he doesn’t wake up soon, they’re going to send him back to Earth, and I have no idea how to fix it. I know you care about him -- maybe not the way that humans and sentient beings care, but... Everything lights up when he walks into a room. The whole city -- it’s like you were waiting for him.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “It’s like that for me too.”
Nothing happens for a long time. He feels like an idiot because he knows intellectually that Atlantis’s AI just isn’t that sophisticated, but he’d hoped. This had been his -- his Hail Mary, Sheppard would have called it. His one last long shot.
Jesus, he can’t even think about what will happen if this doesn’t work.
“Please,” he says. “I need him.”
The map on the display screen flickers, and then blanks out. A moment later, green writing in Ancient starts scrolling across the screen, too fast for him to read even if he could translate that quickly.
“Shit,” he says. “Why didn’t I bring a tablet?” He pats down his pockets and finds a flash drive. Hopefully it will be big enough. He plugs it into the console and sets up the data transfer.
“Thank you,” he tells the city.
It’s early morning by the time he’s finished translating and figured out what to do. He skids into the infirmary at a dead run and yanks the curtain aside. There’s a nurse hovering over Sheppard, switching out his IV bag and checking vitals.
“Move,” McKay says. “I know what to do.”
The nurse hesitates, a confused look on her face. “No time,” McKay says. “C’mon, c’mon. Go get Jennifer if you must, but move.”
She finally skitters off, and McKay slides to his knees next to the bed. He pulls Sheppard’s wrist closer, then runs the tip of his finger over the back of the device until he finds the hairline crack that will open the access panel. He clips in the tiny leads, hooks it up to the laptop he’s got open on his thighs, and starts typing.
There are footsteps behind him, which he ignores, and then Jennifer says, “Rodney, what are you--”
“In a minute. Need to concentrate.” He blocks out all the background noise -- the steady beep of the heart monitor, Jennifer’s unnecessary, time-wasting questions, more footsteps as Jennifer presumably runs off to call Woolsey -- and focuses on the code.
This has to work. McKay’s out of options, and Sheppard is out of time.
He’s just hitting the button to upload the code to the device when Woolsey arrives on Jennifer’s heels and demands to know what he’s doing.
McKay disconnects the computer, flicks the access panel closed, and hauls himself to his feet. “You can call off the search,” he says, unable to keep the grin off of his face. “I found your military commander. Right where you left him.”
“Please explain,” says Woolsey, crossing his arms and looking skeptical.
“The wrist device -- it emits a… virus of sorts,” McKay starts. “It messes with brain waves. I think it was part of a sleep study. Once I figured that out, it was a short leap to -- wait a minute. Teyla and Ronon should be here. They haven’t left yet, have they?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he taps his radio. “Teyla? Ronon? Hope you didn’t spend too much time packing. Get down to the infirmary.” He taps the radio again to silence their questions. He’ll answer them in a minute anyway.
“You said it’s a virus?” Jennifer cuts in. “I ran a blood panel -- there was no trace of any kind of infection, viral or otherwise.”
“It’s more like a computer virus,” McKay explains. “I don’t know how it works exactly -- voodoo is your specialty, not mine.”
“So how did you come to this conclusion?” says Woolsey.
“Oh, uh.” McKay shrugs, his face going a little pink. “I asked Atlantis.”
“You mean you found it in the database?”
“Not exactly. I mean -- Ancient technology has a mental component, right? You can fly a jumper, control the lights and doors, launch drones, all without touching a thing so long as you have the ATA gene. So why not the database too? It’s a lot easier to express complex requests mentally than it in to put it all into a verbal database query.”
“Surely someone must have tried this before,” Woolsey points out. “Why now?”
Honestly, McKay doesn’t know. Sheppard’s always been the city’s favored son -- maybe it’s just a one-time thing to save his life. Maybe no one’s asked hard enough. The city’s central code is lightyears ahead of McKay’s understanding -- frankly, it’s a miracle they’re able to operate as much of the city as they are.
He’s saved the trouble of explaining by Teyla and Ronon’s fortuitous arrival. “What is this about?” Teyla asks. “Has something happened?”
“Something’s about to,” McKay says. “The device emits a virus, I wrote a program to counter the virus, and then I uploaded it to the device. It should be kicking in--” he glances at his watch “--right about now.”
They all turn to stare at Sheppard. There’s an audible click, and then the device on Sheppard’s wrist opens and clatters to the floor.
“Ronon, you wanna--” McKay says, gesturing to the device. He means “pick it up so it can be isolated from gene carries for further study”, but Ronon crunches it underfoot instead. “Or that,” says McKay. Ronon shoots him a look. “It’s for the best, I suppose.”
They continue to watch Sheppard. Nothing happens for several long minutes, and McKay has to force himself to breathe normally. Sheppard will be fine. He’ll wake up any second now and--
“Colonel Sheppard?” Teyla says softly, moving forward to take his hand. “John, can you hear me?”
Sheppard’s hand twitches in Teyla’s, and then his eyes flutter open. He glances around at everyone gathered by his bed, then says, “Uh, good morning?”
“About time, Sleeping Beauty,” McKay manages to get out from his suddenly dry throat. Ronon slaps him on the shoulder, and he almost goes down on suddenly weak knees.
“It is indeed good to see you awake, Colonel,” says Woolsey. “Normally I’d say we should leave you in the hands of the good doctor to get some rest, but I dare say you’ve had quite enough of that just recently.”
Teyla cracks a smile, her face smooth with relief, and Ronon mutters, “That’s for sure.” McKay just stares at Sheppard, reassuring himself that Sheppard is going to be okay. That he’s not going anywhere.
“Okay,” says Sheppard. “Someone want to fill me in?”
The debrief is, predictably, nigh endless, and McKay finds himself missing Sam Carter’s leadership if only for her efficiency in conducting meetings. He manages not to spend the whole meeting shouting “I told you so!”, but Woolsey makes him explain how he happened across the exact information he needed no less than three times. He still has no explanation beyond “I asked nicely.” He suspects that would fly a lot better coming from Sheppard, whose close relationship with the city is well-known, but it’s all he’s got for the time being. The Ancients and their technology remain enigmatic at best.
Teyla and Ronon still go to New Athos, but they push the trip back a few days to spend some time with Sheppard, and they’re back on Atlantis within the week. The IOA doesn’t foist a new military commander on the city. McKay manages to resume most of his regular duties and promises to leave Zelenka off of the maintenance rotation for a month, which is really the least he can do. AR-1 gets put back on the offworld schedule. Jennifer still wants McKay to talk to Dr. Singh, but she doesn’t make it mandatory, so he blows it off. Things go back to what passes for normal in the Pegasus Galaxy.
McKay spends a lot of time in the main power room, trying for a repeat performance, but no matter what he asks or how earnestly he voices his request, the display screen never so much as flickers.
“Oh, come on,” he tells the city. “I know you can hear me. What, you’ll only work if Sheppard’s about to get kicked out of the city?” Still nothing. “I could shoot him if that would help?” If anything, the map on the screen gets brighter. “I’ll figure it out eventually, you know!”
Eventually, he drags Sheppard down to give it a try. “Just think at it,” McKay tells him, steering him bodily in front of the console screen. “It’s mental, so you shouldn’t have to ask out loud.”
Sheppard quirks an eyebrow at him. “What should I ask for?”
“ZPM research, battleship schematics, something I can do to the desalination tanks to keep them from breaking down every other week -- we’re going for proof of concept here; it doesn’t matter.”
“Okay,” says Sheppard a little skeptically. He squints at the screen, his brow furrowed in concentration. McKay tries to watch the screen, but he keeps getting distracted by Sheppard’s profile.
Nothing has changed between them, not really. They still argue and hang out and explore the galaxy together, carrying on the same way they always did when Sheppard nearly died. But there’s… something. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise -- after space vampires and exploding tumors and relentless homicidal robots, what’s a little thing like figuring out you’re in love with your best friend, have been for years probably?
But he hasn’t said anything. It’s like… It’s like how light behaves as both a particle and wave. If he looks, it’ll collapse into one or the other. And while option one might be good, great even, option two will mean the end of what has so far been the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
Sheppard would take it well. Despite the military bravado, he wouldn’t laugh or get violent. He’d just make that pinched, uncomfortable face, tell him “thanks but no thanks”, and pretend it never happened. He’d say nothing needed to change, but it would.
McKay isn’t that brave.
“Okay, this isn’t working,” says Sheppard, turning to face McKay.
McKay averts his eyes like he wasn’t just gazing longingly at his best friend and clears his throat. “Yes, obviously. What are you doing wrong?”
Sheppard frowns, his bottom lip jutting out dangerously near a pout, probably because McKay got the city to do something he can’t. “Are you sure you didn’t just find it in the database yourself and hallucinate the rest?”
McKay scowls at him. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Because from what I hear, you were running on very little sleep at the time.”
“I’m always running on barely any sleep. And Zelenka needs to keep his mouth shut.”
“Who says I heard it from Zelenka? It wasn’t exactly a secret.”
McKay gives that the skeptical look it deserves.
“Alright, fine,” says Sheppard. “So what did you do differently? Walk me through it.”
“I didn’t do anything differently! I just asked, and the data flashed up on the screen.”
“Out loud?”
“Yes but--”
“What were your exact words?”
“Um,” says McKay articulately. “I don’t remember? I mean, I was kind of distracted at the time, what with you about to be carted off and replaced and me with the sleep deprivation.” One would think six years of facing down hostile aliens on a sometimes daily basis would have made McKay a better liar, but he just keeps babbling. “Besides, I told you, it’s mental. If the words mattered, I could have just asked in the hologram room or conveyed it orthographically via the console like I’d been doing.”
Sheppard crosses his arms. “Okay, so describe your mental state then.”
McKay drops his gaze to the floor. “I was -- they were gonna send you back to Earth and probably stick you in a room in the SGC and forget about you, and I was running out of time. I was -- Jesus, I was desperate, Sheppard.”
He risks a glance upward to find Sheppard watching him with a thoughtful expression on his face.
In for a penny, McKay thinks. “The city didn’t want to lose you,” he says. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
Silence stretches between them.
“You didn’t,” says Sheppard very softly. “You didn’t lose me.”
McKay looks up and meets Sheppard’s eyes.
The function collapses.
“John,” McKay says, and then Sheppard is kissing him.
It’s slow and sweet, just the soft slide of Sheppard’s lips against his. Atlantis could show him everything he ever wanted to know about ZPMs right now, and he wouldn’t even care, not when he’s got Sheppard pressed in close, one hand on McKay’s cheek and the other around his shoulders.
(Okay, he would care a little.)
(He opens his eyes and peeks over Sheppard’s shoulder just in case. The display is still showing the same map of the city, so he turns his attention back to Sheppard’s mouth and the sneaky thing he’s doing with his teeth.)
They part after a few moments, both a little breathless. “You want to get out of here?” Sheppard asks, waggling his eyebrows significantly.
McKay rolls his eyes. “You’re such a dork, Sheppard.”
“So no then? Cause I can keep talking to the city if you’d rather--”
McKay cuts him off by reeling him in for another kiss, then pulls him out of the room by his sleeve.
“You think you’ll ever get it to work again?” Sheppard asks as they walk to the transporter. “We could probably find a lot of cool stuff if we could just ask for it.”
“No idea,” says McKay, hitting the spot for the personnel quarters on the transporter map. “But if you’re thinking of doing something stupid to see if the city will save your life again, don’t.”
“I wasn’t!”
McKay shoves him out of the transporter and towards his room, where the bed is bigger. “I’m serious, Sheppard.”
“I wasn’t,” Sheppard repeats seriously.
“Good,” says McKay.
The door slides shut behind them.
They don’t sleep.