Fic: Cross Multiplication, Part Two
Nov. 15th, 2006 07:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quasar273Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SG-1, The Sentinel
Title: Cross Multiplication, Part Two
Author: Quasar
Rating: R
Pairing: John/Rodney, Jim/Blair
Date written: November 2006
Length: ~20,000 words (whole story)
Summary: After being returned to his own universe, John Sheppard finds that everything has changed.
Notes: This is a sequel to Cross Product, and may not make much sense unless you read that one first. However, having been written for NaNoWriMo, this story has a different, lazy, rambling style, with minimal editing. Caveat lector.
Link to Part One
When John finally tracked down which lab Rodney was working in, he found him surrounded by other scientists.
"John!" Rodney said, beaming. "Come look at this. I had the ATA therapy and it worked, see?" He waved at a glowing green thing stuck to his chest. "I have the Ancient gene now, just like you!"
"Great," said John weakly. Hailey had pointed out they'd given the therapy to over a hundred of the members of the original expedition, and only had one case that might have been an adverse reaction, maybe. It was perfectly safe. Right?
"I actually found this back in Antartica," Rodney burbled on cheerfully. "I meant to bring it on the expedition, but of course I didn't get to come along." He shot a glare at one of the other scientists. "And I never had a chance to give it to anyone else, seeing how I was confined to the infirmary at the time."
"Cool," said John. "So you found a . . . glowy brooch thing."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "It's a personal shield. Here, Simpson, show him." He turned to a blonde woman who stood back from the crowd, watching.
With a glint in her eye that made John a little uncomfortable -- wasn't she one of the women from the anti-man table that morning? -- Simpson picked up a heavy wrench-like tool from a table nearby and threw it hard at Rodney. It hit something with a green flash and rebounded like a rubber ball, nearly hitting someone else. The other scientists shied away, muttering in annoyance.
Rodney grinned at John, almost glowing himself. "See? I'm invulnerable. Come on, try it. Hit me!"
"Uh . . ." John glanced around at the others in the room, uncertain.
"Just do it! Hit me!"
John hauled off and threw a punch, but not full strength. That turned out to be a good thing, since it felt approximately like hitting a concrete wall. "Ow," he said, shaking out his hand.
"Isn't that cool?"
"Yes, Rodney, it's very cool. What else can it do?"
"Well, I found a description of it in the Ancient database, but it isn't all translated yet. But apparently it should be able to block almost any physical attack, and most energy attacks as well. It can even protect against hard vacuum, although I'd only have enough air for a minute or two."
"Any physical attack? Like . . . a car crash?"
"Or a bullet!" Rodney quivered with excitement.
"Well, I don't have a gun," John said. Neither did any of the scientists in the room -- he wasn't sure when he'd made note of that fact, but apparently his brain was getting back into combat-readiness, because he had noticed. "What about, say, falling from a height?"
Rodney's eyes lit up wickedly. "There are balconies in the mess. No, wait -- the Gate room!"
John nodded. "Or the hatch from the jump-- the Gateship bay. That would make an impression."
They headed out into the corridor, considering ever more dramatic possibilities for testing the device. They hadn't gone far before they ran into someone John recognized. "Hey, John!" he called.
Markham turned around. He was, as John had noted at breakfast, armed with a nine-mil in a thigh holster. John guessed it went back to the seige he had heard about, with Wraith beaming in all over the city until they got the shields working. Anyone might get into the habit of going armed at all times after something like that.
"Give me your gun," John said.
Markham looked doubtful.
"C'mon, I know how to handle it," John insisted. "I just want to show McKay here something." He held out his hand.
Markham slowly unsnapped his holster and feld the gun out.
John turned and eyed McKay critically while he thumbed the safety off, then without fanfare aimed the gun on a glancing trajectory toward his left leg and fired.
The bullet bounced off the shield with a green flare and ricocheted three times before flattening itself on a wall.
Markham jumped and yelled, "What are you doing?!" and reached for his gun.
"It worked!" Rodney reported happily, patting his leg with a series of dull green glows.
"Cool," said John, grinning. He thought about trying again on a more critical area, but he didn't want to take chances with another ricochet. And it went against all of his instincts to shoot a friend in the chest, anyway.
Just then Markham grabbed him and started wrestling for the gun. "Hang on a sec," John said, wanting to get the safety set first.
"What are you doing? You're nuts!" Markham insisted, not backing off.
"He's fine, it was just an experiment," John insisted.
"So you missed! I'm not giving you a second chance to shoot an unarmed man!"
"Hey, I'm fine!" Rodney was yelling, adding to the mix.
"Okay, careful, I just want to safe it before --"
"Hold it right there!" someone yelled from down the corridor.
John turned to see the balding man from earlier -- Captain Ellison -- breathing hard as if he'd just sprinted up some stairs and aiming a gun directly at John. Surprise loosened him up enough for Markham to get the gun away, fortunately without pulling the trigger against John's finger. The lieutenant stepped back and aimed his gun at John as well.
John held up his hands. "Hey, easy, it's just a little misunderstanding --" he began.
"Oh my god, don't shoot him, he just got here, we need him!" Rodney yelled in panicked tones.
John tried instinctively to get between Rodney and the weapons, then remembered the shield and stepped aside. Maybe he should be pulling Rodney in front to protect him.
"Captain, he tried to shoot Doctor McKay," Markham said darkly.
"No he didn't!" Rodney yelled.
"I didn't," said John more quietly, trying to project calm. "It was just an experiment. We're testing an Ancient device that Dr. McKay found." His prospects for continued employment in Atlantis were looking pretty poor, and he hadn't even signed a contract yet.
"It's true!" Rodney exclaimed. "It's a personal shield, see?" He slapped at his chest and triggered a green flash. "Bullets can't hurt me. Try to shoot me and you'll see!"
"I'm more worried about them shooting me at the moment," John murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
"No one's going to shoot anyone," Ellison said, lowering his weapon. "Stand down, Lieutenant," he said, and Markham moved back.
Running footsteps heralded the arrival of the scientist with the Hawaiian shirt who had been in on the debate earlier. "Jim, are you okay?" he panted. "What happened?"
"No big deal, Chief," Ellison said. "Just a little, uh . . . disagreement."
"-- Misunderstanding," said John at the same moment.
"-- Experiment!" Rodney added, half a beat behind.
"No one's hurt," said Ellison. "Lieutenant, you can go back to work. I'll have a little talk with these two about proper gun safety protocol." He moved toward John and Rodney with eyes narrowed. John was just resigning himself to a dressing down on his first -- zeroth, actually -- day in his new job, when Ellison's nostrils flared and his eyes went wide. In a second he had his gun up again and pointed at Rodney.
"Step away from him," he said in a low voice.
"What? Wait," said John, torn between an instinct to protect Rodney and the realization that the scientist was the safest of them all if that gun went off.
Rodney was lifting his hands slowly, confused.
"Get back!" Ellison said more sharply. "He's a Goa'uld!"
"He -- what?" John was more baffled than ever.
Rodney dropped his hands, indignant. "I am not!" he yelled.
Markham, halfway along the corridor, turned back and raised his weapon as well.
"I'm not a Goa'uld!" Rodney repeated.
"Down. Get down!" Ellison shouted at him. "On the floor!"
"Now, wait a second here," John tried.
"I'm not!" Rodney insisted.
In a move too quick to follow, Ellison grabbed Rodney and threw him down to the floor. Rodney yelled incoherently, and the shield flared. Markham and the other scientist were both moving in and speaking over each other. John yelled, "Let him go!" and reached for Ellison, but the other man threw him off.
Then there was a moment of stillness: Rodney was spreadeagled on the floor with Markham's gun trained on him and Ellison's hand on the back of his neck. John, Rodney, and the other scientist were all talking at once.
Ellison pulled back suddenly and got to his feet, looking confused. "He's not," he said quietly. Then, loud enough to carry, "He's not a Goa'uld!"
Everyone shut up.
"Well, I tried to tell you!" Rodney protested, climbing to his feet and brushing himself off pointlessly.
"But . . . you were, weren't you?" said Ellison. "You have naqadah in your blood."
Rodney looked miserable. "I . . . well, yes, I might have been, sort of, you know -- possessed. But only for three days!"
"What are you talking about?" John demanded, completely baffled.
"I remember," said the second scientist suddenly. "Dr. McKay was slated to come with the expedition originally, but Colonel Carter discovered the day before our departure that he'd been implanted with a Goa'uld."
"It was removed within two days!" Rodney said.
The other scientist looked upset. "Supposedly the, uh, the Trust was trying to plant someone on the expedition."
"Wouldn't have worked," said Ellison shortly. "If Carter hadn't figured it out first, I would have."
"Guess the Trust didn't realize we'd have your abilities on our side, sir," said Markham.
John was completely baffled. What abilities? "Implanted?" he asked. "Possessed? What the hell is this?"
Rodney sighed, looking more tired than angry now. "I'll explain it later, John."
"That thing," said Ellison, waving at the device on Rodney's shirt. "That green thing -- it's interfering with the way you smell. That's why I couldn't tell it wasn't a current implantation."
Rodney patted his chest. "This is the personal shield. It can stop bullets. And energy blasts."
Ellison's eyebrows went up. "Really? Sounds useful."
"It, uh, it imprints on a single user, though," Rodney said a little diffidently. "This is the only one we've found, so far."
"And you imprinted it on a scientist?" Ellison snorted. "Typical."
Rodney pulled himself up. "I'm the one who found it, naturally I got to be the first to try it." He didn't mention that he'd found it a couple of years ago, John noticed.
Ellison turned his glower on John. "And you. You decided to test this thing with Lieutenant Markham's gun?"
John tried to look innocent. "He said it could stop bullets. If he was wrong, I would have barely winged him in the leg."
"And you knew the ricochets wouldn't hit anyone because . . . ?"
John could only wince at that, because the man definitely had a point.
Ellison sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "All right. You --" He pointed at Rodney. "Take that thing off. And you." He turned back to John and considered him with narrowed eyes. "You're joining the expedition?"
"Dr. Weir just hired me," John confirmed.
"Right. Firing range, tomorrow morning, seven o'clock. I don't care how much training you've had before, you're going to get a gun safety lecture tonight."
"Yes, sir." John sighed. Funny how this job was just like being back in the Air Force again, only he'd been busted down to lower rank than anyone else.
"Um," said Rodney. "I think I have a problem here." He was grabbing for the device on his chest, but he couldn't get to it because the shield was in the way.
-----
Dr. Beckett wasn't particularly worried about Rodney's problem. "The gene therapy isn't instantaneous," he chided. "I'm sure I told you to wait at least twenty-four hours before trying to use any Ancient technology."
"But you also said it might start to work before that!" Rodney protested.
"Aye, but not very reliably. As ye've just found out. Most ATA therapy recipients find their control is quite shaky for the first few days, and improves slowly after that. There's a reason we don't let people try flying the Gateships for a week after getting the injection."
"A week?!" Rodney yelled.
"Fortunately," Beckett went on, "Unlike keeping a Gateship in the air, ye don't need one hundred percent reliability to get that shield to turn off. I'm sure it'll come off within the next day or two."
"That's not much better!" Rodney said. "Two days? I could starve to death."
Hardly starve, John thought. "Well, at least you'd get pretty dehydrated," he conceded, and then frowned. "Wait, can you piss with that thing on?"
Rodney looked more horrified than ever.
"See if you can spit," John urged him.
"What? I need to conserve water, here!" Rodney said.
"One spit isn't going to dry you up," said John. "But it will tell us if your bodily fluids can get out through the shield."
Rodney looked around, grabbed a little basin, and spat into it. "Ha!" he said. "That works."
"So you should at least be able to piss," John mused. "If you can open your fly, that is . . ."
Rodney groaned. "I can't. I already tried to take my shirt off, and I can't grab on to it."
Beckett was standing to one side, watching them. "There is one thing that might help ye get the shield off a bit sooner . . ." he began.
"What?" Rodney demanded. "Tell me, I'll try anything!"
The doctor shrugged. "There's been some indication that the kinds of controls people tend to have trouble with in those first few days are cases where their conscious intentions and their unconscious desires are out of line."
Rodney stared at Beckett as if he were crazy. "What, you think I subconsciously want to fall into a hypoglycemic coma?"
"Hardly that. But perhaps the shield makes ye feel a bit safer?"
John thought that sounded like a possibility, given how much shooting and other drama there had apparently been when Colonel Sheppard's strike team came through the Gate.
Rodney snorted, obviously not agreeing. "Right, danger of dehydration, starvation and soiling myself sounds just great to me. Very safe!"
Beckett sighed. "Well, if ye want, I could set up a meeting for ye with Dr. Heightmeyer, our psychologist. Identifying and resolving any such subconscious conflicts might help."
Rodney gave an elaborate sigh. "I said I'd try anything. But psychology is an even more superstitious voodoo field than medicine."
Beckett looked sour. "Why, thank ye, Rodney. So lovely to have ye back with us again -- we've missed all your sweet compliments these last two years."
So Beckett must have known Rodney fairly well before the expedition left Earth. And thinking of that made John think of the conversation they'd had on the way to the infirmary. He turned to Rodney. "Actually, I'm more worried about what you were telling me earlier, about that Goa'uld thing." He was almost certain he'd pronounced that wrong. "Does Dr. Beckett know about the trouble you had after the extraction?"
Beckett frowned. "No, I did not know. The SGC neglected to send medical records along with the new personnel who came through the Gate."
"He said he needed PT for a year afterwards," John supplied. "He could barely walk at first."
"I could walk!" Rodney corrected. "It was mostly just fine motor control that I had trouble with. Something about the timing of voluntary muscle movements in my cerebellum. But it's all healed up now!"
"If it was in your cerebellum, ye would have needed to rebuild those neural control circuits," said Beckett thoughtfully. "Once ye get that shield off, come back here and we'll do some thorough tests to see how well ye've recovered."
"I'm fine," Rodney growled, and turned a glare on John. "Thanks a lot, Benedict Arnold," he muttered.
John shrugged.
-----
John went to lunch on his own, since Rodney was meeting with the Heightmeyer person and couldn't eat anyway. He had something that appeared to be a sandwich, but only the mustard was easily identified; the green-flecked bread, meat, and lacy lettuce stuff all unfamiliar. It tasted reasonably good, though, so he mentally marked it as one of the mess hall's better efforts and went back to ask the cooks what kind of meat it was. They called it a skeel: a large game animal from the mainland, they said, hunted by the Athosians. Uh-huh.
John was about to pass by the desserts since he wasn't really into sweet stuff, but then he hesitated. Rodney did like sweets. But Rodney couldn't eat right now. But maybe that would be fixed soon.
That was where John got the idea.
He carried the cup of vanilla-like custardy stuff back to his quarters, then headed for the lab where he'd found Rodney before. Rodney wasn't there, but one of the other scientists directed John to a different lab nearby, where he found Rodney in full voice arguing with what seemed to be ten other people. John looked more closely and realized it was actually just an argument between Rodney and the woman who'd thrown the wrench at him -- Simpson, was it? -- while lots of other people looked on. Simpson and Rodney both appeared to be releasing lots of aggression, and the onlookers probably hadn't had anything so interesting to watch in months, so John quietly propped himself against a wall and waited.
Eventually Simpson hurled out of the room after accusing Rodney of interfering with their research even though he was obviously completely ignorant of the Ancients' approach to science. Everyone else drifted away, and Rodney settled himself at a laptop and started to type furiously.
"Hey," said John behind his shoulder.
"What!" Rodney yelled, turning. "Oh, it's you."
"Yeah. How did, um . . . " No, John supposed Rodney wouldn't appreciate being asked about his appointment with the psychologist. "So, you still have the, um, thing, huh?" He waved at Rodney's green-jeweled chest.
"Of course I still have it," Rodney growled, fingers never pausing in their attack on the keyboard. "The woman is a witchdoctor. She probably keeps a collection of shriveled testicle sacs in her desk drawer."
Uh-oh. Heightmeyer must have been running the anti-man therapy groups. Maybe she was even a member, in the way that Cadman had implied someone -- men, probably the Genii that had recently taken over the city? -- had given the women good cause for their attitude. But that didn't help Rodney.
"So, uh, when do you think you'll be taking a break?" John asked.
"From what?" Rodney didn't look up from the laptop.
John waved vaguely around the room. "From . . . work?"
"Oh. Probably sometime after midnight."
"What?!" John yelped.
Rodney shrugged. "It's not as if I can have dinner. Or coffee. Or even a bathroom break. I doubt anyone here has cigarettes even if I could smoke one -- or wanted to. So I might as well keep working until I pass out from low blood suger."
"Uh . . . huh. And you don't think taking a short rest would make it possible for you to work longer?"
"No, I don't." Rodney turned his head irritably and bellowed, "Mason! Why hasn't anyone developed a decent search interface for this database?"
A voice from behind some equipment muttered, "Maybe because the Ancients were so cryptic about everything we can't even tell what most of the entries are about?"
Rodney grumbled and typed something even more vehement.
"Okay, well, see you later," said John lamely.
Rodney grunted.
John went back to his quarters and considered leaving Rodney to cope by himself. But he really didn't have anything else to do, and he was curious whether his idea would work. So he opened up the laptop Rodney had left for him that morning, figured out how to access his account, and fired off an email:
Rodney, I know how to get that thing off your chest. Come see me in my room. -John
Then he made some preparations and flopped down on the bed to wait.
And wait. And wait.
He was torn between sending Rodney another email or just saying to hell with it when the door slid open at last.
"What are you talking about?" Rodney snapped without preamble. "I have important research to do and you --" He froze, staring at John.
John stretched lazily and pushed the sheet a little lower -- he'd gotten chilly lying there in just his skin.
Rodney's mouth moved, but nothing came out.
John reached for the little dish of custard he'd set next to the bed. He swirled the spoon in it (a plastic spoon, unfortunately, which wasn't quite so sexy) and lifted it to his mouth, first licking delicately at the custard and then closing his lips around the spoon and sucking as he pulled it slowly free. He licked his lips thoughtfully. "This stuff is pretty good, actually," he said.
Rodney was still staring, face beginning to turn pink.
With the second spoonful, John accidentally-on-purpose let a little glob of custard fall onto his chest. He looked down at it with a pout. "Too bad you can't help me with that," he said. "Or with this." He ran a finger along his dick, which had gotten pretty bored waiting for Rodney but was now showing definite signs of renewed interest.
Unfortunately, it was the same hand holding the spoon, and the sharp plastic edge scraped over his balls. John yelped and jumped and fumbled the custard dish, which arced through the air, flipping over several times and splattering yellow gunk all over his thighs and the sheets before landing upside-down right on his dick.
"Um." John glanced at Rodney, who was bright red now.
A strange little squeak made it past Rodney's lips, and then he broke down completely, doubled over with laughter so hard he couldn't even speak.
"Excuse me," said John carefully. "I could use a little help here?" He lifted the pudding dish carefully, but it was too late; the custard had all escaped and was currently working its way down into the crack between his balls and his thigh.
Rodney waved a hand incoherently, still laughing. "You think that's s-s-s-sexy?" he gasped.
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" John protested.
"What?" Rodney managed to stop laughing just long enough to give John a confused look.
John pointed at the floor, where the green brooch thing that Rodney had been wearing on his chest was now lying, dark and inert.
Rodney picked it up, staring as he turned it in his fingers.
"Hey, don't put it back on!"
"Not going to." A little dazedly, Rodney set the device on the table beside John's bed and laid a finger on the empty dish sitting next to it. "I can eat now. Food!"
"Uh, this is all I've got here." John waved at himself.
Rodney's eyes narrowed. "That's not lemon, is it? Because I'm deathly allergic to citrus."
John rolled his eyes. "I did remember that, yes. This is vanilla."
"Mmm, vanilla . . ." Rodney pounced.
It was farce as much as -- or perhaps more than -- it was sex. Rodney was genuinely bent on eating as much of the custard as he could get his lips on. John was mostly bent on not being tickled to death. He squirmed and giggled and tried to direct Rodney to areas more interesting to him, but Rodney was concentrating on the places with the most custard. Finally John flipped Rodney over and gave him the same treatment, only with a little more sex in mind, and things progressed satisfactorily from there. It was obvious that the small amount of custard that remained would not be adequate as lube, so John settled for a nice session of sixty-nine and made a mental note to make nice with some of the nurses in the infirmary.
-----
Rodney dragged John off to a late lunch/early dinner after that. John began to worry that he was going to get fat, associating with Rodney. He'd have to find out where the Daedalus crew exercised. He suspected he'd need to get in shape a little bit before he'd be ready to work out with the Marines.
"Hey, what's the deal with Ellison?" he asked Rodney, thinking of his appointment the next morning.
"Hrmm?" said Rodney around a fat sandwich of skeel meat. He swallowed hard. "Ellison's head of security in the city."
"Okay. But which service is he in?" John didn't take the man for Air Force, but there was something about him that wasn't quite like a Marine, either.
"He'v naw," Rodney mumbled.
"He's not? But everyone calls him Captain Ellison."
"He's retired, or something. Former Navy. Or Army. Or maybe Marines, I forget. Not Air Force, I would remember that. Anyway, he's been out of the military for a while, I think."
"Huh." John was familiar with retired officers (honorably retired, at least) being called by their former rank, but not usually in a professional capacity.
Rodney downed another enormous bite and added, "He's also an ex-cop. Police captain in Portland or somewhere."
John's brows flew up. "Okay, I can see why he's suited for the security job, but what's he doing on the expedition in the first place? I mean, there aren't a lot of cops in this group, are there?"
"No, it was some complicated story." Rodney went through another round of chewing and swallowing while John waited. "The Trust wanted them for something."
"The Trust?" John remembered Markham mentioning something about that, and the other scientist's upset reaction. "Aren't they the ones who, um . . . " He waved at Rodney vaguely.
"Kidnapped and implanted me, yes. They're an offshoot of a former faction of the NID." Rodney looked for a moment as if the topic might have soured his appetite, but hunger won out and he grabbed one of the fried purple starchy sticks.
"Ah, the No Initials Department." John shook his head in puzzlement. "What the hell would they want with a police captain, though?"
"How should I know? I never understood what they wanted with an astrophysicist, after all. Anyway, Ellison and Sandburg were guests of the SGC for protection from the Trust at the time the expedition was planning to leave, and somehow they ended up volunteering. I don't really know any more than that."
"Who's Sandburg?"
Rodney sighed. "Ellison's partner? Guy with the curly hair?"
"Oh, right." That must be the color-blind scientist. "Wait, so they were police partners?" Since when did a police captain have a partner? "I thought Sandburg was a scientist."
Rodney waved two purple fries dismissively. "He's got a degree in one of the soft sciences -- archeology or something. But yes, he was a cop, the Trust kidnapped him too, and he hangs out with Ellison more than with the archeologists. Really, John, that's all I know. I met them once before the expedition left, and twice since we got here."
"Okay. I guess I can find out more if I need to." So Ellison was former military (not Air Force) and a former cop; that might give John a little guidance on how to placate the guy.
John mused that a lot of people here seemed to have long, complicated stories. He felt as if he'd stepped into the middle of a long book. Or maybe a soap opera.
Part Three
Title: Cross Multiplication, Part Two
Author: Quasar
Rating: R
Pairing: John/Rodney, Jim/Blair
Date written: November 2006
Length: ~20,000 words (whole story)
Summary: After being returned to his own universe, John Sheppard finds that everything has changed.
Notes: This is a sequel to Cross Product, and may not make much sense unless you read that one first. However, having been written for NaNoWriMo, this story has a different, lazy, rambling style, with minimal editing. Caveat lector.
Link to Part One
When John finally tracked down which lab Rodney was working in, he found him surrounded by other scientists.
"John!" Rodney said, beaming. "Come look at this. I had the ATA therapy and it worked, see?" He waved at a glowing green thing stuck to his chest. "I have the Ancient gene now, just like you!"
"Great," said John weakly. Hailey had pointed out they'd given the therapy to over a hundred of the members of the original expedition, and only had one case that might have been an adverse reaction, maybe. It was perfectly safe. Right?
"I actually found this back in Antartica," Rodney burbled on cheerfully. "I meant to bring it on the expedition, but of course I didn't get to come along." He shot a glare at one of the other scientists. "And I never had a chance to give it to anyone else, seeing how I was confined to the infirmary at the time."
"Cool," said John. "So you found a . . . glowy brooch thing."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "It's a personal shield. Here, Simpson, show him." He turned to a blonde woman who stood back from the crowd, watching.
With a glint in her eye that made John a little uncomfortable -- wasn't she one of the women from the anti-man table that morning? -- Simpson picked up a heavy wrench-like tool from a table nearby and threw it hard at Rodney. It hit something with a green flash and rebounded like a rubber ball, nearly hitting someone else. The other scientists shied away, muttering in annoyance.
Rodney grinned at John, almost glowing himself. "See? I'm invulnerable. Come on, try it. Hit me!"
"Uh . . ." John glanced around at the others in the room, uncertain.
"Just do it! Hit me!"
John hauled off and threw a punch, but not full strength. That turned out to be a good thing, since it felt approximately like hitting a concrete wall. "Ow," he said, shaking out his hand.
"Isn't that cool?"
"Yes, Rodney, it's very cool. What else can it do?"
"Well, I found a description of it in the Ancient database, but it isn't all translated yet. But apparently it should be able to block almost any physical attack, and most energy attacks as well. It can even protect against hard vacuum, although I'd only have enough air for a minute or two."
"Any physical attack? Like . . . a car crash?"
"Or a bullet!" Rodney quivered with excitement.
"Well, I don't have a gun," John said. Neither did any of the scientists in the room -- he wasn't sure when he'd made note of that fact, but apparently his brain was getting back into combat-readiness, because he had noticed. "What about, say, falling from a height?"
Rodney's eyes lit up wickedly. "There are balconies in the mess. No, wait -- the Gate room!"
John nodded. "Or the hatch from the jump-- the Gateship bay. That would make an impression."
They headed out into the corridor, considering ever more dramatic possibilities for testing the device. They hadn't gone far before they ran into someone John recognized. "Hey, John!" he called.
Markham turned around. He was, as John had noted at breakfast, armed with a nine-mil in a thigh holster. John guessed it went back to the seige he had heard about, with Wraith beaming in all over the city until they got the shields working. Anyone might get into the habit of going armed at all times after something like that.
"Give me your gun," John said.
Markham looked doubtful.
"C'mon, I know how to handle it," John insisted. "I just want to show McKay here something." He held out his hand.
Markham slowly unsnapped his holster and feld the gun out.
John turned and eyed McKay critically while he thumbed the safety off, then without fanfare aimed the gun on a glancing trajectory toward his left leg and fired.
The bullet bounced off the shield with a green flare and ricocheted three times before flattening itself on a wall.
Markham jumped and yelled, "What are you doing?!" and reached for his gun.
"It worked!" Rodney reported happily, patting his leg with a series of dull green glows.
"Cool," said John, grinning. He thought about trying again on a more critical area, but he didn't want to take chances with another ricochet. And it went against all of his instincts to shoot a friend in the chest, anyway.
Just then Markham grabbed him and started wrestling for the gun. "Hang on a sec," John said, wanting to get the safety set first.
"What are you doing? You're nuts!" Markham insisted, not backing off.
"He's fine, it was just an experiment," John insisted.
"So you missed! I'm not giving you a second chance to shoot an unarmed man!"
"Hey, I'm fine!" Rodney was yelling, adding to the mix.
"Okay, careful, I just want to safe it before --"
"Hold it right there!" someone yelled from down the corridor.
John turned to see the balding man from earlier -- Captain Ellison -- breathing hard as if he'd just sprinted up some stairs and aiming a gun directly at John. Surprise loosened him up enough for Markham to get the gun away, fortunately without pulling the trigger against John's finger. The lieutenant stepped back and aimed his gun at John as well.
John held up his hands. "Hey, easy, it's just a little misunderstanding --" he began.
"Oh my god, don't shoot him, he just got here, we need him!" Rodney yelled in panicked tones.
John tried instinctively to get between Rodney and the weapons, then remembered the shield and stepped aside. Maybe he should be pulling Rodney in front to protect him.
"Captain, he tried to shoot Doctor McKay," Markham said darkly.
"No he didn't!" Rodney yelled.
"I didn't," said John more quietly, trying to project calm. "It was just an experiment. We're testing an Ancient device that Dr. McKay found." His prospects for continued employment in Atlantis were looking pretty poor, and he hadn't even signed a contract yet.
"It's true!" Rodney exclaimed. "It's a personal shield, see?" He slapped at his chest and triggered a green flash. "Bullets can't hurt me. Try to shoot me and you'll see!"
"I'm more worried about them shooting me at the moment," John murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
"No one's going to shoot anyone," Ellison said, lowering his weapon. "Stand down, Lieutenant," he said, and Markham moved back.
Running footsteps heralded the arrival of the scientist with the Hawaiian shirt who had been in on the debate earlier. "Jim, are you okay?" he panted. "What happened?"
"No big deal, Chief," Ellison said. "Just a little, uh . . . disagreement."
"-- Misunderstanding," said John at the same moment.
"-- Experiment!" Rodney added, half a beat behind.
"No one's hurt," said Ellison. "Lieutenant, you can go back to work. I'll have a little talk with these two about proper gun safety protocol." He moved toward John and Rodney with eyes narrowed. John was just resigning himself to a dressing down on his first -- zeroth, actually -- day in his new job, when Ellison's nostrils flared and his eyes went wide. In a second he had his gun up again and pointed at Rodney.
"Step away from him," he said in a low voice.
"What? Wait," said John, torn between an instinct to protect Rodney and the realization that the scientist was the safest of them all if that gun went off.
Rodney was lifting his hands slowly, confused.
"Get back!" Ellison said more sharply. "He's a Goa'uld!"
"He -- what?" John was more baffled than ever.
Rodney dropped his hands, indignant. "I am not!" he yelled.
Markham, halfway along the corridor, turned back and raised his weapon as well.
"I'm not a Goa'uld!" Rodney repeated.
"Down. Get down!" Ellison shouted at him. "On the floor!"
"Now, wait a second here," John tried.
"I'm not!" Rodney insisted.
In a move too quick to follow, Ellison grabbed Rodney and threw him down to the floor. Rodney yelled incoherently, and the shield flared. Markham and the other scientist were both moving in and speaking over each other. John yelled, "Let him go!" and reached for Ellison, but the other man threw him off.
Then there was a moment of stillness: Rodney was spreadeagled on the floor with Markham's gun trained on him and Ellison's hand on the back of his neck. John, Rodney, and the other scientist were all talking at once.
Ellison pulled back suddenly and got to his feet, looking confused. "He's not," he said quietly. Then, loud enough to carry, "He's not a Goa'uld!"
Everyone shut up.
"Well, I tried to tell you!" Rodney protested, climbing to his feet and brushing himself off pointlessly.
"But . . . you were, weren't you?" said Ellison. "You have naqadah in your blood."
Rodney looked miserable. "I . . . well, yes, I might have been, sort of, you know -- possessed. But only for three days!"
"What are you talking about?" John demanded, completely baffled.
"I remember," said the second scientist suddenly. "Dr. McKay was slated to come with the expedition originally, but Colonel Carter discovered the day before our departure that he'd been implanted with a Goa'uld."
"It was removed within two days!" Rodney said.
The other scientist looked upset. "Supposedly the, uh, the Trust was trying to plant someone on the expedition."
"Wouldn't have worked," said Ellison shortly. "If Carter hadn't figured it out first, I would have."
"Guess the Trust didn't realize we'd have your abilities on our side, sir," said Markham.
John was completely baffled. What abilities? "Implanted?" he asked. "Possessed? What the hell is this?"
Rodney sighed, looking more tired than angry now. "I'll explain it later, John."
"That thing," said Ellison, waving at the device on Rodney's shirt. "That green thing -- it's interfering with the way you smell. That's why I couldn't tell it wasn't a current implantation."
Rodney patted his chest. "This is the personal shield. It can stop bullets. And energy blasts."
Ellison's eyebrows went up. "Really? Sounds useful."
"It, uh, it imprints on a single user, though," Rodney said a little diffidently. "This is the only one we've found, so far."
"And you imprinted it on a scientist?" Ellison snorted. "Typical."
Rodney pulled himself up. "I'm the one who found it, naturally I got to be the first to try it." He didn't mention that he'd found it a couple of years ago, John noticed.
Ellison turned his glower on John. "And you. You decided to test this thing with Lieutenant Markham's gun?"
John tried to look innocent. "He said it could stop bullets. If he was wrong, I would have barely winged him in the leg."
"And you knew the ricochets wouldn't hit anyone because . . . ?"
John could only wince at that, because the man definitely had a point.
Ellison sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "All right. You --" He pointed at Rodney. "Take that thing off. And you." He turned back to John and considered him with narrowed eyes. "You're joining the expedition?"
"Dr. Weir just hired me," John confirmed.
"Right. Firing range, tomorrow morning, seven o'clock. I don't care how much training you've had before, you're going to get a gun safety lecture tonight."
"Yes, sir." John sighed. Funny how this job was just like being back in the Air Force again, only he'd been busted down to lower rank than anyone else.
"Um," said Rodney. "I think I have a problem here." He was grabbing for the device on his chest, but he couldn't get to it because the shield was in the way.
-----
Dr. Beckett wasn't particularly worried about Rodney's problem. "The gene therapy isn't instantaneous," he chided. "I'm sure I told you to wait at least twenty-four hours before trying to use any Ancient technology."
"But you also said it might start to work before that!" Rodney protested.
"Aye, but not very reliably. As ye've just found out. Most ATA therapy recipients find their control is quite shaky for the first few days, and improves slowly after that. There's a reason we don't let people try flying the Gateships for a week after getting the injection."
"A week?!" Rodney yelled.
"Fortunately," Beckett went on, "Unlike keeping a Gateship in the air, ye don't need one hundred percent reliability to get that shield to turn off. I'm sure it'll come off within the next day or two."
"That's not much better!" Rodney said. "Two days? I could starve to death."
Hardly starve, John thought. "Well, at least you'd get pretty dehydrated," he conceded, and then frowned. "Wait, can you piss with that thing on?"
Rodney looked more horrified than ever.
"See if you can spit," John urged him.
"What? I need to conserve water, here!" Rodney said.
"One spit isn't going to dry you up," said John. "But it will tell us if your bodily fluids can get out through the shield."
Rodney looked around, grabbed a little basin, and spat into it. "Ha!" he said. "That works."
"So you should at least be able to piss," John mused. "If you can open your fly, that is . . ."
Rodney groaned. "I can't. I already tried to take my shirt off, and I can't grab on to it."
Beckett was standing to one side, watching them. "There is one thing that might help ye get the shield off a bit sooner . . ." he began.
"What?" Rodney demanded. "Tell me, I'll try anything!"
The doctor shrugged. "There's been some indication that the kinds of controls people tend to have trouble with in those first few days are cases where their conscious intentions and their unconscious desires are out of line."
Rodney stared at Beckett as if he were crazy. "What, you think I subconsciously want to fall into a hypoglycemic coma?"
"Hardly that. But perhaps the shield makes ye feel a bit safer?"
John thought that sounded like a possibility, given how much shooting and other drama there had apparently been when Colonel Sheppard's strike team came through the Gate.
Rodney snorted, obviously not agreeing. "Right, danger of dehydration, starvation and soiling myself sounds just great to me. Very safe!"
Beckett sighed. "Well, if ye want, I could set up a meeting for ye with Dr. Heightmeyer, our psychologist. Identifying and resolving any such subconscious conflicts might help."
Rodney gave an elaborate sigh. "I said I'd try anything. But psychology is an even more superstitious voodoo field than medicine."
Beckett looked sour. "Why, thank ye, Rodney. So lovely to have ye back with us again -- we've missed all your sweet compliments these last two years."
So Beckett must have known Rodney fairly well before the expedition left Earth. And thinking of that made John think of the conversation they'd had on the way to the infirmary. He turned to Rodney. "Actually, I'm more worried about what you were telling me earlier, about that Goa'uld thing." He was almost certain he'd pronounced that wrong. "Does Dr. Beckett know about the trouble you had after the extraction?"
Beckett frowned. "No, I did not know. The SGC neglected to send medical records along with the new personnel who came through the Gate."
"He said he needed PT for a year afterwards," John supplied. "He could barely walk at first."
"I could walk!" Rodney corrected. "It was mostly just fine motor control that I had trouble with. Something about the timing of voluntary muscle movements in my cerebellum. But it's all healed up now!"
"If it was in your cerebellum, ye would have needed to rebuild those neural control circuits," said Beckett thoughtfully. "Once ye get that shield off, come back here and we'll do some thorough tests to see how well ye've recovered."
"I'm fine," Rodney growled, and turned a glare on John. "Thanks a lot, Benedict Arnold," he muttered.
John shrugged.
-----
John went to lunch on his own, since Rodney was meeting with the Heightmeyer person and couldn't eat anyway. He had something that appeared to be a sandwich, but only the mustard was easily identified; the green-flecked bread, meat, and lacy lettuce stuff all unfamiliar. It tasted reasonably good, though, so he mentally marked it as one of the mess hall's better efforts and went back to ask the cooks what kind of meat it was. They called it a skeel: a large game animal from the mainland, they said, hunted by the Athosians. Uh-huh.
John was about to pass by the desserts since he wasn't really into sweet stuff, but then he hesitated. Rodney did like sweets. But Rodney couldn't eat right now. But maybe that would be fixed soon.
That was where John got the idea.
He carried the cup of vanilla-like custardy stuff back to his quarters, then headed for the lab where he'd found Rodney before. Rodney wasn't there, but one of the other scientists directed John to a different lab nearby, where he found Rodney in full voice arguing with what seemed to be ten other people. John looked more closely and realized it was actually just an argument between Rodney and the woman who'd thrown the wrench at him -- Simpson, was it? -- while lots of other people looked on. Simpson and Rodney both appeared to be releasing lots of aggression, and the onlookers probably hadn't had anything so interesting to watch in months, so John quietly propped himself against a wall and waited.
Eventually Simpson hurled out of the room after accusing Rodney of interfering with their research even though he was obviously completely ignorant of the Ancients' approach to science. Everyone else drifted away, and Rodney settled himself at a laptop and started to type furiously.
"Hey," said John behind his shoulder.
"What!" Rodney yelled, turning. "Oh, it's you."
"Yeah. How did, um . . . " No, John supposed Rodney wouldn't appreciate being asked about his appointment with the psychologist. "So, you still have the, um, thing, huh?" He waved at Rodney's green-jeweled chest.
"Of course I still have it," Rodney growled, fingers never pausing in their attack on the keyboard. "The woman is a witchdoctor. She probably keeps a collection of shriveled testicle sacs in her desk drawer."
Uh-oh. Heightmeyer must have been running the anti-man therapy groups. Maybe she was even a member, in the way that Cadman had implied someone -- men, probably the Genii that had recently taken over the city? -- had given the women good cause for their attitude. But that didn't help Rodney.
"So, uh, when do you think you'll be taking a break?" John asked.
"From what?" Rodney didn't look up from the laptop.
John waved vaguely around the room. "From . . . work?"
"Oh. Probably sometime after midnight."
"What?!" John yelped.
Rodney shrugged. "It's not as if I can have dinner. Or coffee. Or even a bathroom break. I doubt anyone here has cigarettes even if I could smoke one -- or wanted to. So I might as well keep working until I pass out from low blood suger."
"Uh . . . huh. And you don't think taking a short rest would make it possible for you to work longer?"
"No, I don't." Rodney turned his head irritably and bellowed, "Mason! Why hasn't anyone developed a decent search interface for this database?"
A voice from behind some equipment muttered, "Maybe because the Ancients were so cryptic about everything we can't even tell what most of the entries are about?"
Rodney grumbled and typed something even more vehement.
"Okay, well, see you later," said John lamely.
Rodney grunted.
John went back to his quarters and considered leaving Rodney to cope by himself. But he really didn't have anything else to do, and he was curious whether his idea would work. So he opened up the laptop Rodney had left for him that morning, figured out how to access his account, and fired off an email:
Rodney, I know how to get that thing off your chest. Come see me in my room. -John
Then he made some preparations and flopped down on the bed to wait.
And wait. And wait.
He was torn between sending Rodney another email or just saying to hell with it when the door slid open at last.
"What are you talking about?" Rodney snapped without preamble. "I have important research to do and you --" He froze, staring at John.
John stretched lazily and pushed the sheet a little lower -- he'd gotten chilly lying there in just his skin.
Rodney's mouth moved, but nothing came out.
John reached for the little dish of custard he'd set next to the bed. He swirled the spoon in it (a plastic spoon, unfortunately, which wasn't quite so sexy) and lifted it to his mouth, first licking delicately at the custard and then closing his lips around the spoon and sucking as he pulled it slowly free. He licked his lips thoughtfully. "This stuff is pretty good, actually," he said.
Rodney was still staring, face beginning to turn pink.
With the second spoonful, John accidentally-on-purpose let a little glob of custard fall onto his chest. He looked down at it with a pout. "Too bad you can't help me with that," he said. "Or with this." He ran a finger along his dick, which had gotten pretty bored waiting for Rodney but was now showing definite signs of renewed interest.
Unfortunately, it was the same hand holding the spoon, and the sharp plastic edge scraped over his balls. John yelped and jumped and fumbled the custard dish, which arced through the air, flipping over several times and splattering yellow gunk all over his thighs and the sheets before landing upside-down right on his dick.
"Um." John glanced at Rodney, who was bright red now.
A strange little squeak made it past Rodney's lips, and then he broke down completely, doubled over with laughter so hard he couldn't even speak.
"Excuse me," said John carefully. "I could use a little help here?" He lifted the pudding dish carefully, but it was too late; the custard had all escaped and was currently working its way down into the crack between his balls and his thigh.
Rodney waved a hand incoherently, still laughing. "You think that's s-s-s-sexy?" he gasped.
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" John protested.
"What?" Rodney managed to stop laughing just long enough to give John a confused look.
John pointed at the floor, where the green brooch thing that Rodney had been wearing on his chest was now lying, dark and inert.
Rodney picked it up, staring as he turned it in his fingers.
"Hey, don't put it back on!"
"Not going to." A little dazedly, Rodney set the device on the table beside John's bed and laid a finger on the empty dish sitting next to it. "I can eat now. Food!"
"Uh, this is all I've got here." John waved at himself.
Rodney's eyes narrowed. "That's not lemon, is it? Because I'm deathly allergic to citrus."
John rolled his eyes. "I did remember that, yes. This is vanilla."
"Mmm, vanilla . . ." Rodney pounced.
It was farce as much as -- or perhaps more than -- it was sex. Rodney was genuinely bent on eating as much of the custard as he could get his lips on. John was mostly bent on not being tickled to death. He squirmed and giggled and tried to direct Rodney to areas more interesting to him, but Rodney was concentrating on the places with the most custard. Finally John flipped Rodney over and gave him the same treatment, only with a little more sex in mind, and things progressed satisfactorily from there. It was obvious that the small amount of custard that remained would not be adequate as lube, so John settled for a nice session of sixty-nine and made a mental note to make nice with some of the nurses in the infirmary.
-----
Rodney dragged John off to a late lunch/early dinner after that. John began to worry that he was going to get fat, associating with Rodney. He'd have to find out where the Daedalus crew exercised. He suspected he'd need to get in shape a little bit before he'd be ready to work out with the Marines.
"Hey, what's the deal with Ellison?" he asked Rodney, thinking of his appointment the next morning.
"Hrmm?" said Rodney around a fat sandwich of skeel meat. He swallowed hard. "Ellison's head of security in the city."
"Okay. But which service is he in?" John didn't take the man for Air Force, but there was something about him that wasn't quite like a Marine, either.
"He'v naw," Rodney mumbled.
"He's not? But everyone calls him Captain Ellison."
"He's retired, or something. Former Navy. Or Army. Or maybe Marines, I forget. Not Air Force, I would remember that. Anyway, he's been out of the military for a while, I think."
"Huh." John was familiar with retired officers (honorably retired, at least) being called by their former rank, but not usually in a professional capacity.
Rodney downed another enormous bite and added, "He's also an ex-cop. Police captain in Portland or somewhere."
John's brows flew up. "Okay, I can see why he's suited for the security job, but what's he doing on the expedition in the first place? I mean, there aren't a lot of cops in this group, are there?"
"No, it was some complicated story." Rodney went through another round of chewing and swallowing while John waited. "The Trust wanted them for something."
"The Trust?" John remembered Markham mentioning something about that, and the other scientist's upset reaction. "Aren't they the ones who, um . . . " He waved at Rodney vaguely.
"Kidnapped and implanted me, yes. They're an offshoot of a former faction of the NID." Rodney looked for a moment as if the topic might have soured his appetite, but hunger won out and he grabbed one of the fried purple starchy sticks.
"Ah, the No Initials Department." John shook his head in puzzlement. "What the hell would they want with a police captain, though?"
"How should I know? I never understood what they wanted with an astrophysicist, after all. Anyway, Ellison and Sandburg were guests of the SGC for protection from the Trust at the time the expedition was planning to leave, and somehow they ended up volunteering. I don't really know any more than that."
"Who's Sandburg?"
Rodney sighed. "Ellison's partner? Guy with the curly hair?"
"Oh, right." That must be the color-blind scientist. "Wait, so they were police partners?" Since when did a police captain have a partner? "I thought Sandburg was a scientist."
Rodney waved two purple fries dismissively. "He's got a degree in one of the soft sciences -- archeology or something. But yes, he was a cop, the Trust kidnapped him too, and he hangs out with Ellison more than with the archeologists. Really, John, that's all I know. I met them once before the expedition left, and twice since we got here."
"Okay. I guess I can find out more if I need to." So Ellison was former military (not Air Force) and a former cop; that might give John a little guidance on how to placate the guy.
John mused that a lot of people here seemed to have long, complicated stories. He felt as if he'd stepped into the middle of a long book. Or maybe a soap opera.
Part Three
