Ardhanarishvara Part Twenty-Six
Previously: After a casualty among the marines and the loss of a valuable jumper, the SGC and IOA, with Elizabeth's endorsement, shut down the campaign to wipe out skour on Heka. Forty plus girl children were removed and relocated to Xa and the team reunited behind Teyla's plan to inform the Xa and encourage them to take over actions against Heka. Rodney and Ronon called it quits amicably and Rodney and Sheppard started back on the path to re-establishing their relationship, while Teyla suffered rejection at the hands of Captain Leitmann. The authors apologize for the long wait between posts. But the end is pretty seriously fucking nigh!
Parts 1-20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
~*~
"And PXR-783?"
"Empty, sir."
Huh. Sheppard leans a little more firmly against the doorjamb and eyes Lorne, who is sitting at the desk and rifling through the foot-high stacks piled up on it. It's Sheppard's own commander-of-Atlantis desk, but Lorne is doing her commander-of-Atlantis paperwork right now, so that's okay. "Despite the outpost?"
In this galaxy, abandoned Ancient outposts attract people like flies: otherwise perfectly nomadic tribes of hunters and farmers, wannabe aristocrats with eugenics programs, woman-haters so backwards they're just shy of the Bronze Age.…
"Yeah. I was a little surprised myself." Lorne frowns, most likely thinking what Sheppard's thinking. "But we scouted the area and scanned for life signs; no one to be found."
"So it was some Lost World creatures' hunting ground?"
"No, sir." The distracted expression on Lorne's face fades a little, replaced by his far more familiar half-smirk. "No large predators, and before you ask: no virulent diseases or even nasty fungi, either."
So it's not just the location of an outpost but pretty much a cakewalk of a planet. "We haven't checked the outpost itself yet, have we?" she asks, knowing she sounds more than a little eager but not giving a flying fuck.
"Nope. Sir." Lorne leans back a little but catches himself before tipping the really comfortable chair back in front of his commanding officer.
"Guess it sounds like just the place to stretch our legs…say, tomorrow. Almost no prep required." Sheppard can't help the happy little grin finally spreading on her face. She loves Atlantis, but as nice and thoroughly mutual that is, she's very much into the exploration part of this whole adventure, too. "Elizabeth will agree."
Lorne rubs the back of his head and looks a little hesitant. "Sir, you do know that tomorrow's also the check-up mission to Xa?"
The mission to - right. "I know that." And now she also knows why Lorne's looking at her like that. Tomorrow, Teyla and Ronon are already scheduled to join Lieutenant Cadman's team: Ronon because she's a familiar, not to mention popular face on Xa, and Teyla because he's still bugged about the way he's been treated by the Xa and really wants to change that. Okay, so maybe he didn't put it quite like that, but Sheppard knows that's what Teyla really meant when he mumbled something about, adding yet another much-needed perspective to the negotiations. She privately thinks she's getting pretty good at Teyla-English, these days. Back to the Lonely Outpost Mission. "It's just a quick trip; we don't need Teyla and Ronon, just gotta take Rodney." Sheppard thinks for a split-second. "By the way, why didn't you explore the outpost the first time?"
"I'd declared the trip to PXR-783 a military-only scouting mission in the first place, so I didn't bring Dr. Vogel."
Okay. It's pretty rare since the SGC has always had a good track record with scientists on gate teams, but Sheppard's never bothered to make that an official directive, and if Lorne decided not to endanger the German scientist, that's cool. "Did you take any newbies?"
Lorne shakes his head. "After the mention of the outpost in the database, no. I took Sergeant Miller instead." He waggles his eyebrows, and yeah, Sheppard gets it. Green teams and planetary outposts don't mix. Lorne reads case reports and has himself contributed to the Missions Gone Wild (And Not In A Good Way) stories floating around the city, after all. "Of course, looking back, that place would've been a good chance to take some of the green boys off-world without trouble."
Sheppard gives him an easy smile. "I like the way you think."
~*~
Just like that first time of stepping through the cascading blue, Sheppard looks back. Only this time, there's no SGC, no silent crowd of expectant eyes. Five's not a crowd, after all: two new guys, two Pegasus vets, and a lieutenant she's had her eye on for a off-world team leader. They're all coming through the stargate with her and Rodney; she figures they just about make up for not having Ronon along. As for Teyla, well, nothing makes up for not having him around, so Sheppard didn't even try to fill in that empty spot. They're hardly anticipating the necessity to negotiate with or shoot trees, which Lorne swore up and down were the only living things on PXR-783.
And then, Sheppard is already blinking into the morning sun of a foreign planet and taking a few steps down an Ancient, not-metal platform, fingers on the trigger of her P90. Towering trees surround them on three sides, the kind that would make redwoods green with envy if they weren't that color already. Lorne got this part right, obviously. She twists to check on her team, especially the wide-eyed sergeant with the bald head - Thomas? Thorne? - when she hears the yell.
"That one! That one!" A man's voice, fast and forceful. "Don't shoot him or the woman!"
Already ducking down and raising her P90, Sheppard feels more than a little pissed about being 'the woman,' but if it means not getting shot, she can live with it.
Then the blue blast hits her, and it quickly becomes a moot point.
~*~
She comes around to the typical numbness of a Wraith stunner blast followed by the pins and needles of nerves back online to find herself lying in a cell with her head in Rodney's lap. She knows it's Rodney's lap even before she opens her eyes because he has his fingers in her hair, petting her awkwardly while babbling. Also, she's alarmingly familiar with the twin scents of Rodney's sweat and fright. She recognizes the scent of wood, too, something a bit like pine.
"No, really, she's the Colonel's sister - twins! They're twins. I mean, why do you think he puts up with me? It's only for her, because we're married; yes, that's right. Oh, I know, some people would think I could have done better than someone in the military, but she's really quite bright -"
Sheppard's only half-awake, but she snorts at that. Rodney McKay, master of backhanded compliments. No wonder his thing with Katie went south so fast.
"Awake?" says a voice she vaguely thinks she should recognize.
Deciding it'll be smarter to play along with Rodney until she has a better handle on the situation, she gropes for Rodney's hand and squeezes it. "Rodney?"
"Of course it's - I'm here. Darling!"
She isn't quite sure whether she or Rodney will choke on that first, awkward as he sounded with just this endearment. Rodney can deliver a hundred insults, most of them made up on the spot without a second's thought, each of them pretty creative, but come to think of it, she hasn't ever heard him use pet names of any sort.
"John's going to be pissed at you," she says, voice still rough from the shock to her nervous system.
Rodney's hand tightens on hers. It's actually a nice sensation, or would be, in other circumstances. "I know." It sounds genuine, but well, it probably is. That she isn't going to like this charade and what Rodney does in its course - yeah, it's a pretty safe bet.
"You’re supposed to be Colonel Sheppard's sister? Actually married to him?"
Sheppard manages to get her eyes open and blink the speaker into focus. Oh. Oh shit. She thought the guy was psychotic the first time they met: when he stuck their entire team in collars and low-rent bondage gear while playing amateur psychologist with Rodney. Glancing around as well as she can from her prone position, she sees she's back in another makeshift hut, too. Déja fucking vu. Just when she's about to thank her lucky stars that at least there are no collars or ropes on her or Rodney this time, she realizes why: The walls of the hut are fortified with iron bars run into the packed earth so deep that even Ronon might not have gotten them out. Someone planned this, really planned it, and much better than last time.
"Yeah," she answers Torrell's question, "I must've been drunk then, but I'm kinda fond of him now." It occurs to her that while she hasn't needed to marry Rodney since the sex switch, they are married, to each other and Teyla and Ronon, on that planet with the neon-blue earthworms, though that bit never made it into the reports going back to Earth.
Rodney squeezes her hand again. A little too firmly this time, but it's not like she's easily broken. She just smiles up at him, ignoring their captor and flexing her fingers, because it's the truth. She is fond of him; not that she'd ever just say that if it weren't to needle the latest jackass to take them prisoner.
"That's Torrell," Rodney says, as if Sheppard wouldn't recognize him. Of course, if she were her sister.… Between the stunner hangover and the situation, keeping what she knows and what she isn't supposed to know straight is going to be hell. "John and I told you all about him, remember?"
"I remember," she nods, meaning she remembers that she isn't supposed to know. Maybe they can turn that into a strength under the circumstances. She lifts her head and scrambles for a less pathetic position. "Hey, where's n- where's the rest of the team?"
"Safe and sound." Torrell narrows his eyes; it's probably meant to be menacing but only make him look more like the crazy-ass bandit he is. "You should worry about yourselves now."
Sheppard can do that. Mostly because she actually believes the guy, believes that the rest of the team is fine. Last time, Torrell wasn't on a murderous rampage, either, and he didn't break the deal they had. This level of forethought makes it unlikely Miller, Stevenson, Thorne, Hounsou, and Jimenez have been killed just because Torrell was overwhelmed. "Okay," she drawls. "What do you want this time?"
Torrell grins through his beard at her. Surprisingly white, good teeth. All the better to eat you with, my dear. Sheppard presses her lips together. Olesia was pretty technically advanced until the Devil they'd made a deal with came back to bite them in the ass. Torrell probably had had good dental care. Ronon too, come to think of it, since Sateda was no slouch before it was culled. Teyla's teeth must be just good genetics or the little bitty bit of Wraith in her DNA making her immune to cavities, and wouldn't that be cool? She's drawn back to the present, back to the way Torrell keeps leering at her, his big-toothed grin again reminding her unpleasantly of fairy tales, and not the Disney versions.
Okay, so maybe she's still a little loopy from the stunner; she's not usually musing on Pegasus dental care. Rodney stiffens against her and starts to pull at her so she sits up between his legs, leaning back against his chest, his hands curled around her waist and one thigh in an unconsciously - or maybe very consciously - protective gesture while Torrell looks her over approvingly. Way too approvingly.
Crap. This sort of thing never happened to Jack O'Neill, or at least wasn't in the reports she got to read.
"At first I wanted Eldon back. He was useful," Torrell says. "But now I have Dr. McKay here, and I suspect he'll be much more productive."
"Like I'd help you," Rodney declares. His arm tightens around Sheppard's waist. She doesn't quite know how, but her hand finds his forearm where Kolya's man left scars. She rubs it, hoping he'll get the message: Relax and do what we have to to get through this until we figure a way out or rescue comes. It's an elaborate message to deliver with just her fingertips and the canvas of Rodney's arm, but Rodney's mind is all about the elaborate; he'll get it.
Torrell's grin gets wider in a way that Sheppard really doesn't like. "Oh, I think you will, McKay. Just think what your brother-in-law would do if anything happened to your wife." He's all but twirling his moustache. Sheppard knows this can only mean bad news. She begins to push herself up from the dirty floor when Rodney is already half on his feet, hurrying to step between her and Torrell. She glares at him for a moment, or, actually, at his back before getting up, too.
"What do you want, then?" Rodney demands, more than a little pissed off, and she can't help but find it reassuring. Incompetent alien scientists, dubious chieftains, crazy-ass kidnappers; Rodney will treat them all with the same scorn.
"Your assistance." Yeah, Torrell is way too pleased with himself. "Just yours, by the way. I already sent your soldiers back home."
"Oh, good - nonono, wait, bad; did they tell you what and where home was?" Rodney's eyes widen. "Under torture? Oh, God, they wouldn't have said anything otherwise; they're marines, super-soldiers, after all, so what did you -"
"Relax, Dr. McKay." Torrell laughs; the bastard is enjoying himself. "Do I look like I'll try to take on an advanced settlement with just my men and the arms we have here? I remember your spaceship, your tech, and your weaponry."
Sheppard makes a mental note to remind Elizabeth of the stupidity of her policy of hiding all the aforementioned things. They obviously demand respect from people like Torrell.
"Anyway, that's the only thing I'm trying to take. Gave your soldiers clear instructions to bring weapons and food plus Eldon in exchange for you."
Okay, scratch that mental note.
"Are you out of your m- wait, why am I even asking; obviously you are! How can you think our leader will bow to your demands? She hasn't given up against the Wraith in the past, and pardon me, but you don't really measure up to them."
Torrell snorts. "A bonus if she yields, but mostly, I gave a little show for your soldiers. They should be impressed enough that no army of yours will storm my camp any time soon."
That doesn't sound good. Sheppard stares at Torrell and decides, to hell with this third-rate play with Rodney as some blustering champion; she needs to know, too. "Are you saying what you really want is us?"
"Both of you…though in very different ways."
It's a good thing Sheppard hasn't eaten for a few hours, and Rodney's choked-off gasp indicates similar feelings of indigestion, or maybe indignation.
"Relax, McKay. I don't want much."
"Just the - the starships from the sky, huh?" Rodney stabs his fingers heavenward. "Much as that must pain you, Khomeini, even I cannot build any piece of technology from sticks and rocks and metal bars."
"We got everything we need right here." Torrell's lip is curling, expectant and amused. Waiting for his star pupil to get it.
"The outpost, Rodney," Sheppard says quietly. "He wants you to fix it up for him."
"Of course." The left side of Rodney's mouth begins to slant downwards at the same time as his eyes roll up. "I only have to restore an Ancient outpost to working order and create weapons out of whole cloth; why, yes, that should take no time - or effort - at all!"
To be fair, it sounds pretty much like the stuff Sheppard and the rest of Atlantis expect of him every day.
"Try it, Dr. McKay, or I'll think of something to persuade you." Another more than meaningful glance at Sheppard. "Or someone."
Only Atlantis does it without the 'turn your wife over to me for fun and games' threats. Sheppard really doesn't like those. Rodney seems to feel even more strongly; he goes red-faced, then pale, and when he throws up his hands, even his fast words and exasperated tone cannot quite cover the fact that they are shaking a little. "Okay, okay, fine! Lead the way."
Unfortunately, when Torrell does just that, he's aided by a couple of Wraith-stunner-carrying bandits whose weapon muzzles make Sheppard take a long step back until she leans against wood and metal. A verbally protesting Rodney is directed out of the hut, probably towards the outpost.
Torrell doesn't leave immediately though, instead supervises the little parade by bellowing out orders, hands on his hips and insufferably smug expression on his face. He hangs back when his men have left with Rodney and gives her another long look. Sheppard kind of wishes Torrell would drag her off for some attempted slap-and-tickle already since she is planning to surprise the hell out of him; then it'll just be a matter of rescuing Rodney from the motley crew's clutches and strolling back to the stargate.
So she forces a smile on her face, even gives him the eye to hurry things up. But Mata Hari she isn't, because Torrell just furrows dark brows and leaves the hut.
Sheppard sighs and lets her head thump against the wooden wall behind her. It's gonna be a long day. And she's got dirt down the back of her T-shirt.
Turns out she's right about long day.
Some time in the afternoon, one of Torrell's men comes by with a jug of water and a loaf of bread, not to mention the really annoying habit of making groping motions in her general direction while grinning like a fool. Sheppard glowers at him until he leaves but regrets it about three hours later, after rattling at each single iron bar - twice - and pacing the twenty square feet of the cell-slash-hut twenty times as often. There's nothing in it but a bucket, the plate of food, and one cot. The irony of the cot still being bigger than the Ancient-style beds at home isn't lost on her; she's never gotten why the Ancients wanted to sleep in beds sized for twelve-year-olds. Also, all her yelling doesn't do anything but make her hoarse. Either there's only the small group she's seen escort Rodney, or the horde has set up camp somewhere else. Eventually, she just lets herself slide down the wall and sits down on the hard-packed dirt floor, waiting for Rodney and conjuring up a dozen methods of dealing with Torrell; it's a good way to pass the time, not to mention potentially useful. When Rodney returns in the company of five heavily armed bandits, sweaty and frown-y, his hair sticking up as if he's been running his fingers through it all day, Sheppard feels immediately relieved, grateful, and pretty damn pissed about being reduced to that. So maybe her greeting sounds less enthusiastic than it is. "Hey, Rodney."
His eyes sweep over her, head to toe and back for good measure, and for this brief moment, they're sharp and very blue in his reddened face. "Sheppard - you're okay, right?"
"Sure. Just bored."
A snort from Rodney; his shoulders slump visibly. "Oh, please, I wish I even knew how to spell that any more. Defunct Ancient machinery and inept non-assistants, one of whom almost blew up the outpost by pressing an emergency button like a lab rat waiting for a treat - hey, I'm so taking you along tomorrow, no matter what Torrell says; you do have a half a brain, after all.""
Whatever "So, did you activate anything?" Sheppard peers over Rodney's shoulder to where a few of Torrell's men are still standing guard, but they aren't too close. Still, better to be quiet, so she steps closer. Her lips are almost, but not quite brushing Rodney's ear. "Maybe a weapon system we can turn against them?"
"Hah!" Rodney's hiss is loud enough that some burly blond bandit turns and narrows his eyes at them. Sheppard puts her best Who, me? expression on, and it works like a charm because the guy shrugs and returns to chatting with his buddy. Thank God Rodney catches a clue and lowers his voice, whispering to Sheppard now, the warm gust of his breath against her earlobe making her shiver a little. "There are no fucking weapons. It’s an agricultural monitoring station! It's set up to gather pollen counts, of all things!"
"So," John drawls, "it's best if we don't share that with the class."
Rodney doesn't even bother with a sarcastic remark; he just nods, and there's that persistent little frown again. "Torrell wouldn't believe us, anyway. Those villains never do."
Villains? Sheppard imagines Torrell with a Snidely Whiplash mustache and muffles a snicker. Rodney wouldn't appreciate, and the situation isn't really that funny. More than one commander has accused Sheppard of having an inappropriate sense of humor. "We string him along till reinforcements arrive; does that sound like a plan?"
"A very bad one, but yes, yes, what else is there to do, with all these clubbed cavemen watching our every move?"
"Well, that's settled, then." She's not sharing her plot to surprise Torrell with Rodney just yet. From his reactions so far, that aspect of Torrell's threats seems to be really bad for Rodney's blood pressure, and besides, no matter what he says, he does sucks at keeping secrets that aren't government-related.
To her surprise, when Rodney starts yawning after wolfing down the half of the loaf she'd left for him, she joins him. Maybe it's the stress, or maybe Torrell put Pegasus valerian in the bread dough - she really feels like a nice, long nap will make everything seem just a little brighter.
The thing is, it shouldn't be comfortable, between sharing and being held prisoner, between the bedding smelling suspiciously musty and Sheppard being depressingly sure she is going to need to be deloused again once they're home, but she falls asleep next to McKay - okay, very close - to McKay and sleeps like a baby.
She wakes the next morning with Rodney's hand on her breast and his morning hard-on fitted against her, too. It's not deliberate - Rodney is definitely asleep, with regular snuffing snore-noises - but it reminds her of exactly what she's missing and inadvertently leaves her squirmy, wet, and frustrated with herself and Rodney. When she pushes herself off and away, busily straightening her clothes in the other corner of the cell, she thinks she sees a brief flash of confusion on his face.
Thank God when Torrell comes back with a bunch of his guys and breakfast, he grudgingly agrees that Sheppard joining Rodney for the outpost tinkering might be for the better. Obviously, Torrell suspects she's pretty smart and knows some basics of Ancient machinery, which is good (she'd rather be out and do something, even if it's 'hand-me-that' duty with McKay with heavily armed apes in the background) and bad (he'll be expecting some trick on her part, which makes her plan harder). Still, there's not much they can do right now, and it's just good to be out there, occasionally even forgetting the guards and the all-around crapitude of their situation when bickering over consoles, under doorways, or in tiny tech rooms.
The next night comes surprisingly fast, and so does the need to lie down on the same cot again. If they weren't sleeping in their dirty clothes and being kept hostage and all, she's pretty sure she'd have made a move on Rodney by now. All the proximity, all that watching Rodney being frightfully competent even under pressure - well, especially under pressure - well, she's just that horny, which no one had bothered to warn her about, not even Cadman. Also, Rodney makes it worse by behaving. Not only is he not trying to get her in the sack - fine, he actually has her in the sack, he just isn't trying to take advantage - he's pretty much treating her the way he would have treated Colonel Sheppard before. So she's annoyed and frustrated yet almost content. She loves Teyla and Ronon, but she's alway had the most fun when it's just her and Rodney slapping together some insane plan to save the day.
Torrell does drag her off on the third day, large fingers digging bruises into the skin of her left wrist, telling Rodney to get the weapons online or suffer the consequences. Sheppard goes along with it, wide-eyed and head bent prettily, until they're in Torrell's quarters, where he has a large bed, a desk, and a handsome collection of weaponry, including their own. He pushes her into the middle of the room but doesn't throw her on the bed to have his wicked way with her; instead, he takes a half-step towards the desk strewn with papers. Maybe he means to make her solve some puzzle, maybe he just wants to chat about the secrets of Atlantis, but Sheppard finds she doesn't care one bit. She knees him in the goolies, cracks him over the back of the neck with both hands in a fist, and finishes the job with one of the handy Wraith stunners.
Stuns him with it, that is, not cracks his skull open like a coconut, though she thinks about that for a moment or two. Torrell is a skeevy bastard, and really, after the Kolya business, pre-emptive enemy removal sounds like a good idea. But of course Elizabeth wouldn't approve. What's more, Teyla wouldn't approve. Torrell isn't the sort you want wandering the galaxy armed and angry, but he hasn't actually hurt her or Rodney yet, so she resists temptation.
She gears up and adds a nice selection of goodies to her own regular arsenal, wondering if she could let her hair grow out to maybe hide knives in it à la Ronon…but no, any coiffure dense enough to hide weaponry would probably require too much product. Rifle stunner, hand stunner, a couple of Wraith grenades, extra throwing knife, extra throat-cutting knife, a stiletto that fits nicely down her boot next to her ankle, P90 clipped to the front of her tac vest, and she feels more like herself. The rest of Torrell's men aren't expecting anything, so she goes through them like the proverbial knife through butter.
Pokes her head out the door and spots two guards at the end of the corridor, same place they were when Torrell dragged her in. It's child's play to stick a stunner out the cracked open door and knock them both out. She's pretty good at moving quietly, even if she isn't at Ronon's level of lethal silence, but frankly she could sound like a herd of elephants and still take these guys out. They aren't exactly from the bad guy varsity, too busy bitching and playing some kind of Pegasus gambling game involving chanting and flipping some sort of dice in the air and snatching as many of them as possible from each other. She stuns five more of them and disarms them, dice clicking under her boots when she keeps walking along the corridor. Guess that means she wins. The weapons she hides in an empty room, because there's well-armed and then there's carrying too much to get at any one thing. Two more zaps from around a corner and the guards on the control room are down and out. She steps over their bodies and arrives in the outpost control room just in time for Rodney to say, "It's about time, Colonel!"
"What?"
Rodney stabs his finger down on a large, triangular orange crystal in the center of the console he's reduced to spaghetti connections. A whooping alarm starts. It's immediately familiar; the Ancients used the same sirens in all their facilities, and they always mean, Get Your Asses Out NOW.
"What did you do?" Sheppard demands.
"Set up a power overload, of course! Let's get out of here, because this is going to be a hole in the ground in thirteen point four three," McKay says, snapping his fingers. "Four one minutes. We're on the clock."
"You were doing this while I was with Torrell?" she asks but tosses McKay his pack, then his P90.
He drops the pack catching the weapon - well-prioritized - and gives her a wide-eyed look. "You were with him? That's - well, actually, I knew all along you could take him in your sleep." He glances at his watch. "Thirteen point three - you know what, let's just get out of here!" The intent expression on his face as he surveys her kind of gives away that he was worried, but he still gets full points for not fussing about it.
Sheppard grins. "After you, Rodney."
The trip back to the stargate is anticlimactic in its ease. It's afternoon, and the light is green-tinged under the vast canopy, but more than enough to avoid tripping over any roots or vines. The local bugs must love sweat, because the worst thing they encounter is a persistent swarm of gnat-things that they both slap away without any effort. No one is shooting at them, hell, no one is chasing them, the only thing hurrying their stroll through the woods is Rodney's countdown down to boom time. Rodney dials Atlantis, Sheppard sends her IDC through, and then they are tripping the light fantastic through the roller-coaster green of wormhole travel to walk out into the gateroom…where everyone from Ronon to Teyla, from Zelenka to Chuck, from Elizabeth to Lorne plus a platoon of geared up marines stare at them.
Sheppard can't resist. "Hey guys, going somewhere?"
Elizabeth is darting down the last few stairs to hug them both. Teyla touches foreheads with Sheppard, then Rodney. Lorne gestures for the platoon to stand down while Ronon gives Sheppard a slit-eyed look - most likely disgruntled because she didn't get to shoot anyone - and an answer: "To rescue you."
She grins and declares, "No need. We're just fine."
"Are you certain?" Yeah, Ronon has been looking forward to getting some target practice.
Rodney pipes up, "Other than being threatened, manhandled and held captive for three days."
"Oh, c'mon," Sheppard says with a smile, delighted, she admits to herself, that they got out of it on their on this time. Great as it is to know your people would always come for you, it's even better to not need them to. "Rodney blew up the outpost and I kneed a guy in the nuts." She shrugs easily. "It was a walk in the park."
Elizabeth purses her lips, but the relief is so obvious on her face that it still looks oddly happy. "Rodney, what have I told you about blowing things up?"
Rodney squinches up his face, but he's pretty close to bouncing on his toes, riding the same adrenaline high as Sheppard. He offers, "Don't do it in Atlantis?"
Without missing a beat, Sheppard adds. "Aw, Mom," letting the whine she's come to dislike in this body creep into her voice. And, yes, there's that look on Elizabeth's face every superior officer she ever had had at one point or another. Lectures on appropriate professional behavior loom in her future. It's been a while since Elizabeth took her to task, though, and she's betting she can plead exhaustion-related failure of her brain-to-mouth filter. It usually works for Rodney.
"Sorry," Rodney mutters and then adds with a whine, "But we were escaping!"
Elizabeth covers her mouth, and yeah, there's definitely a smile forming behind her hand. "John, can you sum up the situation?"
"Apart from how Lorne's gonna need to do a lot of PT with Ronon, not to mention getting his eyes checked?"
"Apart from that, yes."
Sheppard runs a hand through her hair. "Everybody completely missed the band of ex-Olesian marauders camped outside the damn outpost waiting for someone to come along. Torrell and his merry men were armed and ready when we walked through the gate."
"I remember Torrell. What happened to him?" Teyla's voice is serious.
"I stunned him and left him." Torrell and a dozen others who probably never came around in time to get out of the outpost before Rodney's power overload made it go boom. Not that she's going to mention that.
Rodney's face is grimmer, too, as they share a quick glance, silently agreeing to leave that sort of detail out of any report. It's not the same out in the field; sometimes staying alive means hurting other people. Elizabeth knows it intellectually but not in the way they do. She isn't the one pulling the trigger, not the one bleeding, not the one with the nightmares. Okay, fine, not those nightmares; hers are probably bigger in scope.
"Weasel," Rodney mutters. "His kind always manages to get out of the trap."
"Weren't you the ones trapped?" Elizabeth says somewhat delicately, but her expression conveys most of all that there's a huge load off her chest now that they are back safely. There's little doubt she was worried sick while they were gone.
Sheppard nods. "He's bound to come crawling out of the woodwork again sooner or later." What? He could. She'd only stunned him; he might've had time to evacuate. "It was an ambush," Sheppard says. "Start to finish. Torrell was looking to replace Eldon with someone as good or better, found the outpost and thought if he snagged someone from Atlantis he'd be fixed one way or the other. So after he spotted Lorne's team he just sat and waited for us to come back."
Elizabeth looks a little surprised. "We heard their demands, but of course we didn't disclose Eldon had relocated to Hoff, nor did we turn over the weapons they wanted."
"Good," Sheppard says, and she means it.
"Yes." A tight expression passes over Elizabeth's face. "We figured it was probably a bluff, but he said he'd found another explosives expert and rigged your cell, John." Implied: What if it had been true? "What I don't understand is that they sat there waiting for a potential victim with the gene? They could have waited till the end of time."
"Nah, that was just a bonus. They were using the place as a base of operations," Sheppard tells her. "Pretty much acting like a bunch of gate pirates. Raiders, you know?"
"From the reports, that doesn't surprise me," Elizabeth muses.
"I can't believe Lorne's team missed the signs someone was using that place," Rodney says, of course, he of the grudges.
"Hey, it was shielded. Your LSD didn't pick them up either."
"He's still getting cold showers for the next month."
Ronon grins at that, but Lorne winces theatrically, proving he has sharp ears too. He gives Sheppard a begging look, but she shrugs and mutters so low only he can hear her, "I had to pretend to be Rodney's wife. Cold showers and KP, Major."
Lorne smirks at her, knowing Sheppard's just talking trash. She's never handed out punishments for anyone making an honest mistake and Rodney would never interrupt the delicate balance of Atlantis' systems for petty revenge. Well, he would, but Lorne really doesn't rate it.
"Gentlemen," Elizabeth chides, but Ronon cuts in.
"So, you're both okay?"
"Besides the lice," Rodney says.
Elizabeth's face when she remembers hugging them both - well, it's something. Ronon also backs away not-so-subtly; getting the dreadlocks deloused last time took four days in a quarantine room, and they were vaguely green from the chemicals for a month. Carson swore he'd shave Ronon's head the next time.
Sheppard feels a little disgusted - and itchy - herself. "I've got bites in places I don't want to think about."
"Infirmary, now," Elizabeth says. "I need to go by my quarters, but I'll meet you after your exams for a full debrief."
And if anyone thinks she isn't off to scrub herself, he or she's deaf and blind, Sheppard knows. Elizabeth takes off while Ronon and Teyla keep a wide birth escorting the two of them to the infirmary.
"So how'd you get away?"
"Oh, we told Torrell Rodney and I were married," Sheppard says airily.
That choking sound wasn't coming from Teyla, was it?
"They stuck us in the same cell at night. It was easy enough to come up with a plan."
"Okay," Ronon says, nodding.
"We're quite good at coming up with eleventh-hour plans together, even if I say so myself," Rodney adds with more than a touch of smugness. "Nearly telepathic."
Sheppard just grins, the full impact of being home hitting her slowly but with more force for it. Impulsively, she hooks her arm through Rodney's. "You owe me a honeymoon, though, darling."
Rodney stumbles at that, making Teyla, who's just caught himself, snort inelegantly.
They're at the infirmary by then. When Carson pokes his head out, it's obvious he's overheard. "Have you hit your head again then, Colonel?"
Sheppard slows her step and jerks a lazy thumb at Rodney. "Nah. We both got stunned, but that was three days ago."
Sheppard still has her arm brushing Rodney's; she feels almost a weary sense of relief in retrospect. She hadn't realized the pressure of captivity, hadn't let herself realize it, she thinks. But now she keeps thinking, of Rodney and his absolute confidence in her, the confidence she has in him. It's good to be back on the same wavelength. She's missed it.
Sheppard says softly, so that no one else hears, "If I didn't say thanks before.…"
Rodney seems to tense, but still, he leans in almost imperceptibly.
"…I have to tell you thanks for letting me take care of myself."
"You - " Rodney swallows. "You're welcome. I - well, of course! You're supposed to take care of me. That's your job, while I am obviously the brains of the operation, you're still the brawn." His chin comes up. "That's the way it is."
There isn't time to say anything else as they've fallen into Carson's clutches and he's demanding they strip and offer up sacrifices of blood and other bodily fluids to the medical gods.
~*~
Sheppard answers her door to find Rodney on the other side. She isn't entirely sure why she lets Rodney into her quarters, but she does and finds herself facing him in the center of the dimly lit room.
Elated as she was right after returning, she feels off-balance now. She's weirdly glad she didn't have sex with Rodney while they were captives, but she still wishes they had. It would have been easier and she could have blamed it on stress and proximity. She still wants to have sex with him, and could, but now it'd be a real, deliberate choice based on their - Sheppard grimaces even though there's no one to even hear the thought - relationship.
So, the r-word:
The chess game after team night with Teyla had gone well - she beat him three games running, actually. She's hung out in the labs, which has the added benefit of keeping her away from Elizabeth. Cadman and her team went to Xa and returned. Teyla seems to be over Leitmann. They've survived Torrell. She's pretty sure the smart thing to do now would be stick with the status quo. Things are working again for the team as a whole. Things are good between them, too, now.
But.
Rodney is looking around the room as if he hasn't seen it before, his mouth working and his hands opening and closing at his sides. If he starts bobbing from foot to foot, she's going to figure he needs to pee, otherwise she has to assume he's trying to say something that embarrasses him.
Sheppard sighs. "McKay, if you came to do a fish imitation, I'm really impressed."
"What?"
Rodney manages confused and irritated in just one pinch-browed expression. Sheppard suppresses a smile. She's had to face one thing in the last weeks: She's missed Rodney. Missed sex with him, too, but mostly missed just hanging out and sharing the same jokes, the same frustrations and discoveries. All the stuff that they did before she got changed into a woman. All the stuff they've been doing on and off again for the last week since the team meeting in Teyla's rooms.
Of course, she'd run away and go to clown school before she'd talk about these feelings of hers. Talking. That's all right only as long as someone else is doing it, or as long as she can get Teyla to finish all her sentences. Rodney's good at talking, too. Therefore, he should do it.
"Rodney. Talk."
"I, uh, I - I get it," Rodney blurts out. He waves his hand at her, then around in a circle. "You're fine with hanging out with me during team nights, playing chess in the mess hall, facing nasty enemies with me and even doing what's very masculine and definitely not cuddling on cots in cells yadda yadda yadda, but don't want to be treated like a girl. Ever. And, you know, I can do that. Or, that is, not do that, to be precise."
Um. Rodney's shown the fact he can do that pretty effectively during their capture, but it's nice to have Rodney tell it, too.
He frowns, still seated in his train of thought. "It would probably be easier for me, anyway, than trying to act - well, however it is women want their boyfriends to act."
Sheppard just blinks while he hesitates. Boyfriend? Sweet Jesus, did Rodney really consider himself her boyfriend during the time when they - when they were fucking? She's not sure, but this is Rodney, so that might actually have been an apology. He gives her that one-breath-from-crying look that melted her bad temper back when she still had a dick. It still does, now.
"Just…does this mean no more sex? Ever?"
Of course, that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Is Rodney McKay going to get any? Sheppard folds her arms in front of her and glares at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and burgeoning hostility. "McKay -"
Rodney holds up his hands in the universal sign for Don't Hit Me. "Hey, I'm a guy. You wanted me to treat you like you're still a guy." He has the gall to look smug as he adds, "Guys want sex."
Despite herself, Sheppard lets out a little snort of laughter. She mutters to herself, "Why am I sleeping with Rodney McKay?"
Rodney gets this smug, delighted look suddenly.
"What?" Sheppard demands.
He points at her. "Sleeping. No past tense."
Sheppard puts a hand over her eyes. "Christ." She splays the fingers and peers through them at Rodney, who is still grinning. "Why did I say that?"
"It's the McKay Experience." Rodney actually gestures to himself, in a Vanna White sweeping Look At the Goods motion.
Sheppard scowls and sets her hands on her hips; another habit picked up from Rodney. He's under her skin; she's never sure if she likes that or wants to exorcise everything that he's affected. "You're kidding." One look at Rodney's slowly crumpling features and she realizes, "You're not kidding." She rubs at the back of her neck, watching him through her lashes. "Fuck. I'm not kidding either, Rodney. Just so we're perfectly clear: Don't patronize me, don't forget I'm the ranking military officer, and Jesus, the time where you acted like I needed help walking out of the jumper? Whoever the hell you think needs that, it isn't me." It's on the tip of her tongue already, how he put his hand on the small of her back, but that - she's reluctant to call him on something that wasn't too bad, in a way, just making her squirm and feel decidedly weird. So she just breathes out and adds, "Just act like you did on the last mission."
Rodney stares back. "Okay," he finally replies. It's the straight set of his shoulders that convinces Sheppard Rodney means it. She nods, thinking, what, did she expect Rodney to be adept at this? She's floundering here, so of course Rodney is, too.
Rodney is still serious when he adds, "I will back off. You know. In public." He bounces a little in place and gives her a hopeful look. "But in private? About the sex?"
She doesn't roll her eyes, but it's a near thing. Then, suddenly, it's funny. Why the hell not? There's nothing she likes better than wrong-footing Rodney, anyway. With a shrug, she says, "Why not?" and pulls off her top. Besides, guys aren't the only ones who like sex, not by a long shot. She's missed it, too, not just since their time in a cell. Maybe missed it more than as a guy, and that is just too weird to contemplate.
"Now?" The jaw drop is a thing of beauty, Sheppard decides, but so is the broad smile. "Oh, oh, okay, that's the Colonel I - really approve of," Rodney says. Sheppard quirks an eyebrow, which Rodney completely misses, since his stare is locked on her chest and the black cotton sports bra she has on. It's irritating enough to make her ignore the thing he almost said, though she files it away.
"Rodney?"
"Hmm?"
"Rodney?" Sheppard steps up to him. Thank God, Completion didn't rob her of her height; she's still just a little taller than Rodney and it's easy to smack the back of his head, just like always. Rodney's hand flies to his head, and he looks outraged. "That is on the list of things you have to quit doing."
"What? Also, ow, important brain here, you know." He points at her. "Anyone would stare at you if you took off your shirt, even Elizabeth. Besides, we're not in public."
"I'm just saying," Sheppard thoughtfully bites her bottom lip, "when we are, don't stare at me like that. Don't stare at all, in fact." At Rodney's increasingly unhappy expression, she flashes a smile at him, complete with lifted eyebrows. "Hey, I know you can do it."
Rodney puffs out an affronted breath. "I get that - wait, you do?"
Sheppard keeps smiling and jokes, "Do a good job, and there might be a blow job in it for you."
"Oh wow, really?"
She opens her mouth to say, C'mon, no, of course I was joking. She's never done it and really, she hasn't been too interested in trying…but a glance at Rodney shows he's interested. Enthusiastically interested.
A couple of weeks ago she'd never even slept with a man, but when she did, it wasn't an utter disaster. Far from it. So…maybe?
Rodney's hands are at his belt while Sheppard's still thinking.
"Let's get on with it, I promise to be the perfect model of proper behavior from here on out," Rodney says. Slither goes the belt, and he pops open the top button on his pants. A wave of nervousness hits Sheppard. She looks around her room. The guitar, the surfboard, the Johnny Cash poster…none of them offer any help. The bed -
"You, uh, want to do it right here?" she asks, gesturing at the bare floor and the room at large.
Rodney blinks, his hands pausing over the zip on his pants. "Why not?"
"Wouldn't the bed be better?" She moistens her lips, which just draws Rodney's attention to her mouth. His drops open a little and he presses the heel of his palm over his fly with a cut-off gasp that tells Sheppard how much he wants this. Enough to make her nervous as hell, enough to even think about backing out. To think of saying, 'Rodney, sorry, I just can't; it was a joke,' but he'd never let her live it down. She swallows, and that starts a whole new train of thought that has her palms sweating.
First things first, she'll burn that bridge when she gets there, and so on. Her knees creak when she gets down on them in front of Rodney, wish she'd insisted on the bed or that the Ancients had gone in for carpet. Bony knees and bare floors are not a happy combination. Plus the stiff, regulation boots she's wearing are killing her ankles in this position already. It's too damn cool without her shirt, too - unless that's psychological - and she's getting goosebumps on her arms.
She has a fairly detailed idea of what she should be doing, but theory and practice aren't that close. She flashes back to Rodney on his knees in the gear room, the want on his face, and looks up. He looks like that, like she's something he needs more than food or Nobel Prizes or oxygen. It makes it a little easier to brace her hands on his hips.
The temperature in the room rises. That's better. She wasn't even really aware of modifying the environmental setting, but knows she must have. The connection to the city's systems has been stronger and even less conscious since the six months she was trapped in the Ancients' cloister; Completion hasn't affected the ATA at all.
Rodney's breath whistles out as she fumbles at his fly, pulling his pants down his thighs. That's followed by these soft, eager little pants as Sheppard peels his boxers down too, carefully drawing the elastic out so it doesn't catch on his hard-on. She hasn't even touched him yet and he's already into it, already enjoying himself, turned on by the thought of getting blown by her. She remembers blow jobs being nice and good and hot back when she was guy, but maybe it's better and different for Rodney or maybe so because it's her giving it. That's reason enough to continue, she thinks, even though she's eye to eye with his erection now and, God, how is she getting all of that in her mouth?
It's actually intimidating. Did her dick look that big from this perspective? No way to know, especially now.… She squeezes her thighs together, and that feels good, but she still misses her dick. Dicks are easy; stroke them and they're happy. Not that she can't stroke her pussy, but right now, she cannot spare that kind of attention. Sheppard licks her lower lip. She should be able to apply some old experiences, right? She takes a deep breath and exhales.
Rodney's dick bobs when the warm air hits it.
"Sheppard," Rodney moans. "You want to get on with it?"
She glances up. "I'm getting there."
"A little quicker? Please?"
"Jeez, Rodney." She looks back at his erection. "Who's giving this blow job?"
"No one, so far," Rodney grumbles.
"Well, and that's how it's going to stay if you don't ease off."
The disappointment on Rodney's face morphs into something else Sheppard can't read. She can still see the lust, but there's something else. "You don't really want to do this, do you?"
She licks her lips again and ducks her head, but that puts her eye level with the eagerest part of Rodney's anatomy, red and probably almost aching by now.
"I just haven't. Before."
"Well, you've gotten them, haven't you?"
"Yes, Rodney, but it's a little different from this perspective."
She squares her shoulders. Takes hold of his cock by the base, inspiring a whimper from Rodney, which she takes as encouragement, and tries a tentative lick. The way he groans in response makes her want to do it again, especially when he shivers too. She adds a little stroke with her hand as she licks the head again. It's not bad; soft, soft, hot skin stretched taut over firm flesh. Time for the next step, she decides, and takes the head in her mouth, giving it a little swirl with her tongue, too. Rodney jolts his hips forward so fast she's gagging, scraping her teeth over him and then Rodney's yelling and jerking away.
"Ow! Ow, ow, watch the teeth!"
Sheppard sits back with her butt on the heels of her boots and returns Rodney's affronted look with her own. "Don't gag me next time." She'd been getting into it, despite the weirdness, but now, as far as she's concerned, the mood is gone.
"Okay, okay, I just expected a little more proficiency -"
"Christ, Rodney, I said I'd never done this before. No one's born a cocksucker."
Rodney snorts. "I guess not." His dick is still hard, bobbing a little in time to his breathing. He gives it a comforting pat and Sheppard nearly snickers. Instead she rubs her hand over his thigh.
"Trying again."
"Fine, fine, but this is turning out to be one of the worst fantasies come to life I've ever had. One of my best jerk-off scenarios is ruined."
"That just breaks my heart," Sheppard tells him with the most earnest expression she can muster, before sucking the head of his cock into her mouth, which precludes her adding anything else, and seems to shut Rodney up, too.
This time Rodney doesn't jerk forward, doesn't move at all except for muscles quivering in his thighs. Sheppard takes it slow, and is getting into it again, until she tries to take him too deep and gags herself again.
"How do porn actresses do this?" she asks, frowning.
Rodney's cock has no answers, but up above, Rodney makes an uncomfortable noise before answering, "I don't actually know." She curls her hand around Rodney's dick and begins a slow twist and pull stroke. His breath hitches. "Yes, well, thank you for that much at least," he mutters. "Come on, I'm not that big. I mean, yes, I have a very impressive and manly penis, but it isn't extraordinary in length or girth."
Sheppard tips her face up and works her jaw, trying to loosen up the muscle.
"Manly? Doesn't that go without saying?"
"Whatever. Just - could you go back to, you know, sucking?"
"It's not that damn easy."
"Well, then - practice makes perfect. Even I have spent hours on getting the equations for Starling's theorem right."
"Starling's theorem of what?" Sheppard asks. "Jerking off?" She lets go of him.
"No, wait, stop; don't be like that?"
"Like what, Rodney?"
"Like a girl!"
Sheppard narrows her eyes. He didn't say that. He did. Sex isn't worth this. Cadman has her connection on the Daedalus who smuggles things in; she'd get Sheppard a vibrator for a price. Or maybe for free, if Sheppard explained it was the vibrator or McKay. She gets up and dusts off her knees. Finishes by crossing her arms under her breasts and giving Rodney the steeliest look she can manage. "That has to be the stupidest thing you have ever said, Rodney." No wonder women hate men sometimes.
Rodney seems to have grasped the idea that he just stepped in it up to his neck. "Sheppard -"
"Newsflash, McKay," she says, "the tits aren't just cosmetic."
"Oh, come on, you know what it's like to get left like this," Rodney implores. This being standing in the middle of Sheppard's room with his pants down to his knees and a hard-on, apparently, and no, not really. Sheppard usually took care of things in the shower in the morning. Until lately, flying had been better than most of the sex she - he had had. Still, that has to hurt. And it wasn't really bad to do this to Rodney, not as such, even if it's not like she owes Rodney an orgasm or anything. Besides, she made the offer, and backing out would kind of make her a cocktease, wouldn't it?
"Okay, but no more commentary on my technique."
"No more. I promise."
"And we do this on the bed."
Rodney nods.
"Because it's not as if you have a PhD in cocksucking."
"Well, if there was one, I would -"
Sheppard watches him gulp and decides to let it slide, except, hey, she has to put up with that mouth all the damn time, she should get some use out of it.… "With whom?" she asks, giving him her own version of the glare of death.
Rodney's face is already flushed, but he turns redder. "You! I mean - not like this, obviously.…"
"Obviously."
"But theoretically, maybe, after you're back to being the regular you?" A determined look flashes over his face. "Because you know, it's not completely new to me. There may have been, uh, one or the other blowjob. From a guy, this guy I was working - anyway, it was a while ago, but I wouldn't be at all averse to trying it out the other way, too. And okay, shutting up about other people now." Rodney snaps his mouth shut and starts cataloging the contents of the room again.
Sheppard walks over to the bed. Rodney glances at her sidelong, but she knows her face is blank. She's still processing. Okay, so Rodney isn't entirely - fine. That's good. She really - part of her still just figured Rodney was in it for sex with anyone, well, anyone female. After all, he's been leering at - and sleeping with at least once apparently - Ronon, too. Not to mention he's always been in obvious awe of Teyla and has been crushing on Carter since Sheppard's known him.
"You could act a little more enthusiastic," Rodney adds, startling her out of her own thoughts. "Sheppard?"
"Uh." She's really not sure what to say, or what to think, actually. The thought of herself - back, a guy again, with cock and stubble and everything…well, being a guy is great; she was happy that way for thirty-six years, but being a guy with Rodney? Apart from the obvious problems considering her job, that is.
She doesn't know…except there's a heat in growing inside at the thought. Would sucking Rodney's cock be any different? Each time she's thought of it - in the closet, most recently - she's shoved the thought into a box and locked it up before it could take hold. This time she doesn't. It would still be Rodney, nothing about him is going to change. She'll be the different one, the one in a body that hadn't made Rodney hot before. Or had it? She's ignored a lot of things deliberately for years, because she didn't want to think about what it meant to notice the way Rodney looked at her - him - before. She slumps down on to the edge of the bed. "I don't know, Rodney."
She's staring at the floor when he joins her, holding his pants up enough that he can walk, and normally that would be hilarious, but right now? Not so much, because she's the one feeling guilty. Turns out she's the one who's been playing at this.
"So, is this just a buddy fuck? Temporary? Because I'm convenient?" Rodney asks, and his voice cracks. "You get me off and I get you off. Feeling horny tonight, Sheppard?"
"Right, because I suck off all my buddies when I'm horny, because I get so fucking much out of it. You've never been convenient, McKay!" She's a little surprised by the vehemence of her own reaction. But it's true. Rodney - Rodney is the least temporary, least convenient person she knows; this can't just be the body. If it was the body, well, there are other good-looking men on the science staff, even if she exempted all the military, and couple of them have even propositioned her in the last couple of weeks. Harper even got her up to his quarters. Plus, there's Ronon, who actually cares, too. It would be easier if she blamed this on hormones, circumstance, hell, the phases of the moons. But no. Even in the last half hour, she's still oddly happy that Rodney seems to be thinking of something sort of…permanent.
Rodney's still staring at her with apprehension and a sort of wounded look that she wants to erase; she wants to touch him in reassurance, not just to hold onto something for her own sake. Rodney tentatively touches her hair, then cups her head gently until she's resting her cheek against his side, right where his waist is a little soft.
"Oh, ah - okay. Whatever." His hand stays in her hair, stroking through the strands with just the right amount of pressure. "I mean, of course I'm not convenient. I am the smartest man in the galaxy. And I'll probably give a better blow job than you do."
Sheppard snickers, suddenly feeling lighter. So, maybe she's been carrying this idea that Rodney just wanted the body with the boobs around since, well since she noticed him looking at her, and now, she can let it go. "Yeah, right." She laughs, leaning her forehead into his hip. "Probably. They were cool but, you know, not that big a deal."
"What? Really?"
Head shake. She keeps her voice low, lips against Rodney skin. "I'll let you change my mind."
"Wow." Rodney goes on petting her hair, his fingers straying down to her neck, then into her hair again. It feels good enough that she almost wants to hum. "That's - yes." His fingers still. "Wait - what were your favorite things?"
Sheppard turns her head to look up, vaguely annoyed that he stopped petting. Rodney's peering down at her in honest, scientific curiosity. She opens her mouth to answer and realizes he will, no doubt, store this information away for future reference, and, God, she didn't know Rodney could pay attention to any person like that. "Just, you know. Stuff."
Rodney's always thought Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard was some great stud, but once she answers, he's going to reassess all the data, and know Sheppard's never experimented much, never really cared about it a great deal. It's why she understood Rodney from the first: Rodney has things he wants and things he likes, and sex was one of those things in the second category: nice, but not necessary.
She wonders if she looks as uncomfortable as she feels right now and thinks she probably does. Rodney's pretty good at reading her after two years, which is…well, Rodney's never paid enough attention to anyone else to learn their tells, has he?
His hand is still on her head, fingers threaded through her hair, and he's thinking.
"You can tell me," he says, "really." Imploring, a little pleading.
She would, she really would, only, "Rodney, I don't know." So much for the stud image. She's actually been better at sex as a girl, which is something she is never going to admit even to herself again.
He blinks once, then nods as if Sheppard just said something he thought himself. "Well," he says in that fake hearty, slightly condescending way of his, that Sheppard, God help her, finds almost sweet, "I am the foremost scientist in two galaxies. We'll figure it out."
Great. Now she's an experiment. He'll probably show up at her door tomorrow with a list of simulations to run. Although, really, she can't suppress a slight shiver at that. The kind of intense attention Rodney pays to his experiments….
"…in the meantime," Rodney is saying, "Blow job? Remember?"
Sheppard turns her head and contemplates Rodney's still happy erection. It actually looks sort of appealing. "Yeah, okay. Sit down and I'll give it a shot."
"Good, good. Just remember, no teeth this time."
~*~
Part 27
Parts 1-20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
~*~
"And PXR-783?"
"Empty, sir."
Huh. Sheppard leans a little more firmly against the doorjamb and eyes Lorne, who is sitting at the desk and rifling through the foot-high stacks piled up on it. It's Sheppard's own commander-of-Atlantis desk, but Lorne is doing her commander-of-Atlantis paperwork right now, so that's okay. "Despite the outpost?"
In this galaxy, abandoned Ancient outposts attract people like flies: otherwise perfectly nomadic tribes of hunters and farmers, wannabe aristocrats with eugenics programs, woman-haters so backwards they're just shy of the Bronze Age.…
"Yeah. I was a little surprised myself." Lorne frowns, most likely thinking what Sheppard's thinking. "But we scouted the area and scanned for life signs; no one to be found."
"So it was some Lost World creatures' hunting ground?"
"No, sir." The distracted expression on Lorne's face fades a little, replaced by his far more familiar half-smirk. "No large predators, and before you ask: no virulent diseases or even nasty fungi, either."
So it's not just the location of an outpost but pretty much a cakewalk of a planet. "We haven't checked the outpost itself yet, have we?" she asks, knowing she sounds more than a little eager but not giving a flying fuck.
"Nope. Sir." Lorne leans back a little but catches himself before tipping the really comfortable chair back in front of his commanding officer.
"Guess it sounds like just the place to stretch our legs…say, tomorrow. Almost no prep required." Sheppard can't help the happy little grin finally spreading on her face. She loves Atlantis, but as nice and thoroughly mutual that is, she's very much into the exploration part of this whole adventure, too. "Elizabeth will agree."
Lorne rubs the back of his head and looks a little hesitant. "Sir, you do know that tomorrow's also the check-up mission to Xa?"
The mission to - right. "I know that." And now she also knows why Lorne's looking at her like that. Tomorrow, Teyla and Ronon are already scheduled to join Lieutenant Cadman's team: Ronon because she's a familiar, not to mention popular face on Xa, and Teyla because he's still bugged about the way he's been treated by the Xa and really wants to change that. Okay, so maybe he didn't put it quite like that, but Sheppard knows that's what Teyla really meant when he mumbled something about, adding yet another much-needed perspective to the negotiations. She privately thinks she's getting pretty good at Teyla-English, these days. Back to the Lonely Outpost Mission. "It's just a quick trip; we don't need Teyla and Ronon, just gotta take Rodney." Sheppard thinks for a split-second. "By the way, why didn't you explore the outpost the first time?"
"I'd declared the trip to PXR-783 a military-only scouting mission in the first place, so I didn't bring Dr. Vogel."
Okay. It's pretty rare since the SGC has always had a good track record with scientists on gate teams, but Sheppard's never bothered to make that an official directive, and if Lorne decided not to endanger the German scientist, that's cool. "Did you take any newbies?"
Lorne shakes his head. "After the mention of the outpost in the database, no. I took Sergeant Miller instead." He waggles his eyebrows, and yeah, Sheppard gets it. Green teams and planetary outposts don't mix. Lorne reads case reports and has himself contributed to the Missions Gone Wild (And Not In A Good Way) stories floating around the city, after all. "Of course, looking back, that place would've been a good chance to take some of the green boys off-world without trouble."
Sheppard gives him an easy smile. "I like the way you think."
~*~
Just like that first time of stepping through the cascading blue, Sheppard looks back. Only this time, there's no SGC, no silent crowd of expectant eyes. Five's not a crowd, after all: two new guys, two Pegasus vets, and a lieutenant she's had her eye on for a off-world team leader. They're all coming through the stargate with her and Rodney; she figures they just about make up for not having Ronon along. As for Teyla, well, nothing makes up for not having him around, so Sheppard didn't even try to fill in that empty spot. They're hardly anticipating the necessity to negotiate with or shoot trees, which Lorne swore up and down were the only living things on PXR-783.
And then, Sheppard is already blinking into the morning sun of a foreign planet and taking a few steps down an Ancient, not-metal platform, fingers on the trigger of her P90. Towering trees surround them on three sides, the kind that would make redwoods green with envy if they weren't that color already. Lorne got this part right, obviously. She twists to check on her team, especially the wide-eyed sergeant with the bald head - Thomas? Thorne? - when she hears the yell.
"That one! That one!" A man's voice, fast and forceful. "Don't shoot him or the woman!"
Already ducking down and raising her P90, Sheppard feels more than a little pissed about being 'the woman,' but if it means not getting shot, she can live with it.
Then the blue blast hits her, and it quickly becomes a moot point.
~*~
She comes around to the typical numbness of a Wraith stunner blast followed by the pins and needles of nerves back online to find herself lying in a cell with her head in Rodney's lap. She knows it's Rodney's lap even before she opens her eyes because he has his fingers in her hair, petting her awkwardly while babbling. Also, she's alarmingly familiar with the twin scents of Rodney's sweat and fright. She recognizes the scent of wood, too, something a bit like pine.
"No, really, she's the Colonel's sister - twins! They're twins. I mean, why do you think he puts up with me? It's only for her, because we're married; yes, that's right. Oh, I know, some people would think I could have done better than someone in the military, but she's really quite bright -"
Sheppard's only half-awake, but she snorts at that. Rodney McKay, master of backhanded compliments. No wonder his thing with Katie went south so fast.
"Awake?" says a voice she vaguely thinks she should recognize.
Deciding it'll be smarter to play along with Rodney until she has a better handle on the situation, she gropes for Rodney's hand and squeezes it. "Rodney?"
"Of course it's - I'm here. Darling!"
She isn't quite sure whether she or Rodney will choke on that first, awkward as he sounded with just this endearment. Rodney can deliver a hundred insults, most of them made up on the spot without a second's thought, each of them pretty creative, but come to think of it, she hasn't ever heard him use pet names of any sort.
"John's going to be pissed at you," she says, voice still rough from the shock to her nervous system.
Rodney's hand tightens on hers. It's actually a nice sensation, or would be, in other circumstances. "I know." It sounds genuine, but well, it probably is. That she isn't going to like this charade and what Rodney does in its course - yeah, it's a pretty safe bet.
"You’re supposed to be Colonel Sheppard's sister? Actually married to him?"
Sheppard manages to get her eyes open and blink the speaker into focus. Oh. Oh shit. She thought the guy was psychotic the first time they met: when he stuck their entire team in collars and low-rent bondage gear while playing amateur psychologist with Rodney. Glancing around as well as she can from her prone position, she sees she's back in another makeshift hut, too. Déja fucking vu. Just when she's about to thank her lucky stars that at least there are no collars or ropes on her or Rodney this time, she realizes why: The walls of the hut are fortified with iron bars run into the packed earth so deep that even Ronon might not have gotten them out. Someone planned this, really planned it, and much better than last time.
"Yeah," she answers Torrell's question, "I must've been drunk then, but I'm kinda fond of him now." It occurs to her that while she hasn't needed to marry Rodney since the sex switch, they are married, to each other and Teyla and Ronon, on that planet with the neon-blue earthworms, though that bit never made it into the reports going back to Earth.
Rodney squeezes her hand again. A little too firmly this time, but it's not like she's easily broken. She just smiles up at him, ignoring their captor and flexing her fingers, because it's the truth. She is fond of him; not that she'd ever just say that if it weren't to needle the latest jackass to take them prisoner.
"That's Torrell," Rodney says, as if Sheppard wouldn't recognize him. Of course, if she were her sister.… Between the stunner hangover and the situation, keeping what she knows and what she isn't supposed to know straight is going to be hell. "John and I told you all about him, remember?"
"I remember," she nods, meaning she remembers that she isn't supposed to know. Maybe they can turn that into a strength under the circumstances. She lifts her head and scrambles for a less pathetic position. "Hey, where's n- where's the rest of the team?"
"Safe and sound." Torrell narrows his eyes; it's probably meant to be menacing but only make him look more like the crazy-ass bandit he is. "You should worry about yourselves now."
Sheppard can do that. Mostly because she actually believes the guy, believes that the rest of the team is fine. Last time, Torrell wasn't on a murderous rampage, either, and he didn't break the deal they had. This level of forethought makes it unlikely Miller, Stevenson, Thorne, Hounsou, and Jimenez have been killed just because Torrell was overwhelmed. "Okay," she drawls. "What do you want this time?"
Torrell grins through his beard at her. Surprisingly white, good teeth. All the better to eat you with, my dear. Sheppard presses her lips together. Olesia was pretty technically advanced until the Devil they'd made a deal with came back to bite them in the ass. Torrell probably had had good dental care. Ronon too, come to think of it, since Sateda was no slouch before it was culled. Teyla's teeth must be just good genetics or the little bitty bit of Wraith in her DNA making her immune to cavities, and wouldn't that be cool? She's drawn back to the present, back to the way Torrell keeps leering at her, his big-toothed grin again reminding her unpleasantly of fairy tales, and not the Disney versions.
Okay, so maybe she's still a little loopy from the stunner; she's not usually musing on Pegasus dental care. Rodney stiffens against her and starts to pull at her so she sits up between his legs, leaning back against his chest, his hands curled around her waist and one thigh in an unconsciously - or maybe very consciously - protective gesture while Torrell looks her over approvingly. Way too approvingly.
Crap. This sort of thing never happened to Jack O'Neill, or at least wasn't in the reports she got to read.
"At first I wanted Eldon back. He was useful," Torrell says. "But now I have Dr. McKay here, and I suspect he'll be much more productive."
"Like I'd help you," Rodney declares. His arm tightens around Sheppard's waist. She doesn't quite know how, but her hand finds his forearm where Kolya's man left scars. She rubs it, hoping he'll get the message: Relax and do what we have to to get through this until we figure a way out or rescue comes. It's an elaborate message to deliver with just her fingertips and the canvas of Rodney's arm, but Rodney's mind is all about the elaborate; he'll get it.
Torrell's grin gets wider in a way that Sheppard really doesn't like. "Oh, I think you will, McKay. Just think what your brother-in-law would do if anything happened to your wife." He's all but twirling his moustache. Sheppard knows this can only mean bad news. She begins to push herself up from the dirty floor when Rodney is already half on his feet, hurrying to step between her and Torrell. She glares at him for a moment, or, actually, at his back before getting up, too.
"What do you want, then?" Rodney demands, more than a little pissed off, and she can't help but find it reassuring. Incompetent alien scientists, dubious chieftains, crazy-ass kidnappers; Rodney will treat them all with the same scorn.
"Your assistance." Yeah, Torrell is way too pleased with himself. "Just yours, by the way. I already sent your soldiers back home."
"Oh, good - nonono, wait, bad; did they tell you what and where home was?" Rodney's eyes widen. "Under torture? Oh, God, they wouldn't have said anything otherwise; they're marines, super-soldiers, after all, so what did you -"
"Relax, Dr. McKay." Torrell laughs; the bastard is enjoying himself. "Do I look like I'll try to take on an advanced settlement with just my men and the arms we have here? I remember your spaceship, your tech, and your weaponry."
Sheppard makes a mental note to remind Elizabeth of the stupidity of her policy of hiding all the aforementioned things. They obviously demand respect from people like Torrell.
"Anyway, that's the only thing I'm trying to take. Gave your soldiers clear instructions to bring weapons and food plus Eldon in exchange for you."
Okay, scratch that mental note.
"Are you out of your m- wait, why am I even asking; obviously you are! How can you think our leader will bow to your demands? She hasn't given up against the Wraith in the past, and pardon me, but you don't really measure up to them."
Torrell snorts. "A bonus if she yields, but mostly, I gave a little show for your soldiers. They should be impressed enough that no army of yours will storm my camp any time soon."
That doesn't sound good. Sheppard stares at Torrell and decides, to hell with this third-rate play with Rodney as some blustering champion; she needs to know, too. "Are you saying what you really want is us?"
"Both of you…though in very different ways."
It's a good thing Sheppard hasn't eaten for a few hours, and Rodney's choked-off gasp indicates similar feelings of indigestion, or maybe indignation.
"Relax, McKay. I don't want much."
"Just the - the starships from the sky, huh?" Rodney stabs his fingers heavenward. "Much as that must pain you, Khomeini, even I cannot build any piece of technology from sticks and rocks and metal bars."
"We got everything we need right here." Torrell's lip is curling, expectant and amused. Waiting for his star pupil to get it.
"The outpost, Rodney," Sheppard says quietly. "He wants you to fix it up for him."
"Of course." The left side of Rodney's mouth begins to slant downwards at the same time as his eyes roll up. "I only have to restore an Ancient outpost to working order and create weapons out of whole cloth; why, yes, that should take no time - or effort - at all!"
To be fair, it sounds pretty much like the stuff Sheppard and the rest of Atlantis expect of him every day.
"Try it, Dr. McKay, or I'll think of something to persuade you." Another more than meaningful glance at Sheppard. "Or someone."
Only Atlantis does it without the 'turn your wife over to me for fun and games' threats. Sheppard really doesn't like those. Rodney seems to feel even more strongly; he goes red-faced, then pale, and when he throws up his hands, even his fast words and exasperated tone cannot quite cover the fact that they are shaking a little. "Okay, okay, fine! Lead the way."
Unfortunately, when Torrell does just that, he's aided by a couple of Wraith-stunner-carrying bandits whose weapon muzzles make Sheppard take a long step back until she leans against wood and metal. A verbally protesting Rodney is directed out of the hut, probably towards the outpost.
Torrell doesn't leave immediately though, instead supervises the little parade by bellowing out orders, hands on his hips and insufferably smug expression on his face. He hangs back when his men have left with Rodney and gives her another long look. Sheppard kind of wishes Torrell would drag her off for some attempted slap-and-tickle already since she is planning to surprise the hell out of him; then it'll just be a matter of rescuing Rodney from the motley crew's clutches and strolling back to the stargate.
So she forces a smile on her face, even gives him the eye to hurry things up. But Mata Hari she isn't, because Torrell just furrows dark brows and leaves the hut.
Sheppard sighs and lets her head thump against the wooden wall behind her. It's gonna be a long day. And she's got dirt down the back of her T-shirt.
Turns out she's right about long day.
Some time in the afternoon, one of Torrell's men comes by with a jug of water and a loaf of bread, not to mention the really annoying habit of making groping motions in her general direction while grinning like a fool. Sheppard glowers at him until he leaves but regrets it about three hours later, after rattling at each single iron bar - twice - and pacing the twenty square feet of the cell-slash-hut twenty times as often. There's nothing in it but a bucket, the plate of food, and one cot. The irony of the cot still being bigger than the Ancient-style beds at home isn't lost on her; she's never gotten why the Ancients wanted to sleep in beds sized for twelve-year-olds. Also, all her yelling doesn't do anything but make her hoarse. Either there's only the small group she's seen escort Rodney, or the horde has set up camp somewhere else. Eventually, she just lets herself slide down the wall and sits down on the hard-packed dirt floor, waiting for Rodney and conjuring up a dozen methods of dealing with Torrell; it's a good way to pass the time, not to mention potentially useful. When Rodney returns in the company of five heavily armed bandits, sweaty and frown-y, his hair sticking up as if he's been running his fingers through it all day, Sheppard feels immediately relieved, grateful, and pretty damn pissed about being reduced to that. So maybe her greeting sounds less enthusiastic than it is. "Hey, Rodney."
His eyes sweep over her, head to toe and back for good measure, and for this brief moment, they're sharp and very blue in his reddened face. "Sheppard - you're okay, right?"
"Sure. Just bored."
A snort from Rodney; his shoulders slump visibly. "Oh, please, I wish I even knew how to spell that any more. Defunct Ancient machinery and inept non-assistants, one of whom almost blew up the outpost by pressing an emergency button like a lab rat waiting for a treat - hey, I'm so taking you along tomorrow, no matter what Torrell says; you do have a half a brain, after all.""
Whatever "So, did you activate anything?" Sheppard peers over Rodney's shoulder to where a few of Torrell's men are still standing guard, but they aren't too close. Still, better to be quiet, so she steps closer. Her lips are almost, but not quite brushing Rodney's ear. "Maybe a weapon system we can turn against them?"
"Hah!" Rodney's hiss is loud enough that some burly blond bandit turns and narrows his eyes at them. Sheppard puts her best Who, me? expression on, and it works like a charm because the guy shrugs and returns to chatting with his buddy. Thank God Rodney catches a clue and lowers his voice, whispering to Sheppard now, the warm gust of his breath against her earlobe making her shiver a little. "There are no fucking weapons. It’s an agricultural monitoring station! It's set up to gather pollen counts, of all things!"
"So," John drawls, "it's best if we don't share that with the class."
Rodney doesn't even bother with a sarcastic remark; he just nods, and there's that persistent little frown again. "Torrell wouldn't believe us, anyway. Those villains never do."
Villains? Sheppard imagines Torrell with a Snidely Whiplash mustache and muffles a snicker. Rodney wouldn't appreciate, and the situation isn't really that funny. More than one commander has accused Sheppard of having an inappropriate sense of humor. "We string him along till reinforcements arrive; does that sound like a plan?"
"A very bad one, but yes, yes, what else is there to do, with all these clubbed cavemen watching our every move?"
"Well, that's settled, then." She's not sharing her plot to surprise Torrell with Rodney just yet. From his reactions so far, that aspect of Torrell's threats seems to be really bad for Rodney's blood pressure, and besides, no matter what he says, he does sucks at keeping secrets that aren't government-related.
To her surprise, when Rodney starts yawning after wolfing down the half of the loaf she'd left for him, she joins him. Maybe it's the stress, or maybe Torrell put Pegasus valerian in the bread dough - she really feels like a nice, long nap will make everything seem just a little brighter.
The thing is, it shouldn't be comfortable, between sharing and being held prisoner, between the bedding smelling suspiciously musty and Sheppard being depressingly sure she is going to need to be deloused again once they're home, but she falls asleep next to McKay - okay, very close - to McKay and sleeps like a baby.
She wakes the next morning with Rodney's hand on her breast and his morning hard-on fitted against her, too. It's not deliberate - Rodney is definitely asleep, with regular snuffing snore-noises - but it reminds her of exactly what she's missing and inadvertently leaves her squirmy, wet, and frustrated with herself and Rodney. When she pushes herself off and away, busily straightening her clothes in the other corner of the cell, she thinks she sees a brief flash of confusion on his face.
Thank God when Torrell comes back with a bunch of his guys and breakfast, he grudgingly agrees that Sheppard joining Rodney for the outpost tinkering might be for the better. Obviously, Torrell suspects she's pretty smart and knows some basics of Ancient machinery, which is good (she'd rather be out and do something, even if it's 'hand-me-that' duty with McKay with heavily armed apes in the background) and bad (he'll be expecting some trick on her part, which makes her plan harder). Still, there's not much they can do right now, and it's just good to be out there, occasionally even forgetting the guards and the all-around crapitude of their situation when bickering over consoles, under doorways, or in tiny tech rooms.
The next night comes surprisingly fast, and so does the need to lie down on the same cot again. If they weren't sleeping in their dirty clothes and being kept hostage and all, she's pretty sure she'd have made a move on Rodney by now. All the proximity, all that watching Rodney being frightfully competent even under pressure - well, especially under pressure - well, she's just that horny, which no one had bothered to warn her about, not even Cadman. Also, Rodney makes it worse by behaving. Not only is he not trying to get her in the sack - fine, he actually has her in the sack, he just isn't trying to take advantage - he's pretty much treating her the way he would have treated Colonel Sheppard before. So she's annoyed and frustrated yet almost content. She loves Teyla and Ronon, but she's alway had the most fun when it's just her and Rodney slapping together some insane plan to save the day.
Torrell does drag her off on the third day, large fingers digging bruises into the skin of her left wrist, telling Rodney to get the weapons online or suffer the consequences. Sheppard goes along with it, wide-eyed and head bent prettily, until they're in Torrell's quarters, where he has a large bed, a desk, and a handsome collection of weaponry, including their own. He pushes her into the middle of the room but doesn't throw her on the bed to have his wicked way with her; instead, he takes a half-step towards the desk strewn with papers. Maybe he means to make her solve some puzzle, maybe he just wants to chat about the secrets of Atlantis, but Sheppard finds she doesn't care one bit. She knees him in the goolies, cracks him over the back of the neck with both hands in a fist, and finishes the job with one of the handy Wraith stunners.
Stuns him with it, that is, not cracks his skull open like a coconut, though she thinks about that for a moment or two. Torrell is a skeevy bastard, and really, after the Kolya business, pre-emptive enemy removal sounds like a good idea. But of course Elizabeth wouldn't approve. What's more, Teyla wouldn't approve. Torrell isn't the sort you want wandering the galaxy armed and angry, but he hasn't actually hurt her or Rodney yet, so she resists temptation.
She gears up and adds a nice selection of goodies to her own regular arsenal, wondering if she could let her hair grow out to maybe hide knives in it à la Ronon…but no, any coiffure dense enough to hide weaponry would probably require too much product. Rifle stunner, hand stunner, a couple of Wraith grenades, extra throwing knife, extra throat-cutting knife, a stiletto that fits nicely down her boot next to her ankle, P90 clipped to the front of her tac vest, and she feels more like herself. The rest of Torrell's men aren't expecting anything, so she goes through them like the proverbial knife through butter.
Pokes her head out the door and spots two guards at the end of the corridor, same place they were when Torrell dragged her in. It's child's play to stick a stunner out the cracked open door and knock them both out. She's pretty good at moving quietly, even if she isn't at Ronon's level of lethal silence, but frankly she could sound like a herd of elephants and still take these guys out. They aren't exactly from the bad guy varsity, too busy bitching and playing some kind of Pegasus gambling game involving chanting and flipping some sort of dice in the air and snatching as many of them as possible from each other. She stuns five more of them and disarms them, dice clicking under her boots when she keeps walking along the corridor. Guess that means she wins. The weapons she hides in an empty room, because there's well-armed and then there's carrying too much to get at any one thing. Two more zaps from around a corner and the guards on the control room are down and out. She steps over their bodies and arrives in the outpost control room just in time for Rodney to say, "It's about time, Colonel!"
"What?"
Rodney stabs his finger down on a large, triangular orange crystal in the center of the console he's reduced to spaghetti connections. A whooping alarm starts. It's immediately familiar; the Ancients used the same sirens in all their facilities, and they always mean, Get Your Asses Out NOW.
"What did you do?" Sheppard demands.
"Set up a power overload, of course! Let's get out of here, because this is going to be a hole in the ground in thirteen point four three," McKay says, snapping his fingers. "Four one minutes. We're on the clock."
"You were doing this while I was with Torrell?" she asks but tosses McKay his pack, then his P90.
He drops the pack catching the weapon - well-prioritized - and gives her a wide-eyed look. "You were with him? That's - well, actually, I knew all along you could take him in your sleep." He glances at his watch. "Thirteen point three - you know what, let's just get out of here!" The intent expression on his face as he surveys her kind of gives away that he was worried, but he still gets full points for not fussing about it.
Sheppard grins. "After you, Rodney."
The trip back to the stargate is anticlimactic in its ease. It's afternoon, and the light is green-tinged under the vast canopy, but more than enough to avoid tripping over any roots or vines. The local bugs must love sweat, because the worst thing they encounter is a persistent swarm of gnat-things that they both slap away without any effort. No one is shooting at them, hell, no one is chasing them, the only thing hurrying their stroll through the woods is Rodney's countdown down to boom time. Rodney dials Atlantis, Sheppard sends her IDC through, and then they are tripping the light fantastic through the roller-coaster green of wormhole travel to walk out into the gateroom…where everyone from Ronon to Teyla, from Zelenka to Chuck, from Elizabeth to Lorne plus a platoon of geared up marines stare at them.
Sheppard can't resist. "Hey guys, going somewhere?"
Elizabeth is darting down the last few stairs to hug them both. Teyla touches foreheads with Sheppard, then Rodney. Lorne gestures for the platoon to stand down while Ronon gives Sheppard a slit-eyed look - most likely disgruntled because she didn't get to shoot anyone - and an answer: "To rescue you."
She grins and declares, "No need. We're just fine."
"Are you certain?" Yeah, Ronon has been looking forward to getting some target practice.
Rodney pipes up, "Other than being threatened, manhandled and held captive for three days."
"Oh, c'mon," Sheppard says with a smile, delighted, she admits to herself, that they got out of it on their on this time. Great as it is to know your people would always come for you, it's even better to not need them to. "Rodney blew up the outpost and I kneed a guy in the nuts." She shrugs easily. "It was a walk in the park."
Elizabeth purses her lips, but the relief is so obvious on her face that it still looks oddly happy. "Rodney, what have I told you about blowing things up?"
Rodney squinches up his face, but he's pretty close to bouncing on his toes, riding the same adrenaline high as Sheppard. He offers, "Don't do it in Atlantis?"
Without missing a beat, Sheppard adds. "Aw, Mom," letting the whine she's come to dislike in this body creep into her voice. And, yes, there's that look on Elizabeth's face every superior officer she ever had had at one point or another. Lectures on appropriate professional behavior loom in her future. It's been a while since Elizabeth took her to task, though, and she's betting she can plead exhaustion-related failure of her brain-to-mouth filter. It usually works for Rodney.
"Sorry," Rodney mutters and then adds with a whine, "But we were escaping!"
Elizabeth covers her mouth, and yeah, there's definitely a smile forming behind her hand. "John, can you sum up the situation?"
"Apart from how Lorne's gonna need to do a lot of PT with Ronon, not to mention getting his eyes checked?"
"Apart from that, yes."
Sheppard runs a hand through her hair. "Everybody completely missed the band of ex-Olesian marauders camped outside the damn outpost waiting for someone to come along. Torrell and his merry men were armed and ready when we walked through the gate."
"I remember Torrell. What happened to him?" Teyla's voice is serious.
"I stunned him and left him." Torrell and a dozen others who probably never came around in time to get out of the outpost before Rodney's power overload made it go boom. Not that she's going to mention that.
Rodney's face is grimmer, too, as they share a quick glance, silently agreeing to leave that sort of detail out of any report. It's not the same out in the field; sometimes staying alive means hurting other people. Elizabeth knows it intellectually but not in the way they do. She isn't the one pulling the trigger, not the one bleeding, not the one with the nightmares. Okay, fine, not those nightmares; hers are probably bigger in scope.
"Weasel," Rodney mutters. "His kind always manages to get out of the trap."
"Weren't you the ones trapped?" Elizabeth says somewhat delicately, but her expression conveys most of all that there's a huge load off her chest now that they are back safely. There's little doubt she was worried sick while they were gone.
Sheppard nods. "He's bound to come crawling out of the woodwork again sooner or later." What? He could. She'd only stunned him; he might've had time to evacuate. "It was an ambush," Sheppard says. "Start to finish. Torrell was looking to replace Eldon with someone as good or better, found the outpost and thought if he snagged someone from Atlantis he'd be fixed one way or the other. So after he spotted Lorne's team he just sat and waited for us to come back."
Elizabeth looks a little surprised. "We heard their demands, but of course we didn't disclose Eldon had relocated to Hoff, nor did we turn over the weapons they wanted."
"Good," Sheppard says, and she means it.
"Yes." A tight expression passes over Elizabeth's face. "We figured it was probably a bluff, but he said he'd found another explosives expert and rigged your cell, John." Implied: What if it had been true? "What I don't understand is that they sat there waiting for a potential victim with the gene? They could have waited till the end of time."
"Nah, that was just a bonus. They were using the place as a base of operations," Sheppard tells her. "Pretty much acting like a bunch of gate pirates. Raiders, you know?"
"From the reports, that doesn't surprise me," Elizabeth muses.
"I can't believe Lorne's team missed the signs someone was using that place," Rodney says, of course, he of the grudges.
"Hey, it was shielded. Your LSD didn't pick them up either."
"He's still getting cold showers for the next month."
Ronon grins at that, but Lorne winces theatrically, proving he has sharp ears too. He gives Sheppard a begging look, but she shrugs and mutters so low only he can hear her, "I had to pretend to be Rodney's wife. Cold showers and KP, Major."
Lorne smirks at her, knowing Sheppard's just talking trash. She's never handed out punishments for anyone making an honest mistake and Rodney would never interrupt the delicate balance of Atlantis' systems for petty revenge. Well, he would, but Lorne really doesn't rate it.
"Gentlemen," Elizabeth chides, but Ronon cuts in.
"So, you're both okay?"
"Besides the lice," Rodney says.
Elizabeth's face when she remembers hugging them both - well, it's something. Ronon also backs away not-so-subtly; getting the dreadlocks deloused last time took four days in a quarantine room, and they were vaguely green from the chemicals for a month. Carson swore he'd shave Ronon's head the next time.
Sheppard feels a little disgusted - and itchy - herself. "I've got bites in places I don't want to think about."
"Infirmary, now," Elizabeth says. "I need to go by my quarters, but I'll meet you after your exams for a full debrief."
And if anyone thinks she isn't off to scrub herself, he or she's deaf and blind, Sheppard knows. Elizabeth takes off while Ronon and Teyla keep a wide birth escorting the two of them to the infirmary.
"So how'd you get away?"
"Oh, we told Torrell Rodney and I were married," Sheppard says airily.
That choking sound wasn't coming from Teyla, was it?
"They stuck us in the same cell at night. It was easy enough to come up with a plan."
"Okay," Ronon says, nodding.
"We're quite good at coming up with eleventh-hour plans together, even if I say so myself," Rodney adds with more than a touch of smugness. "Nearly telepathic."
Sheppard just grins, the full impact of being home hitting her slowly but with more force for it. Impulsively, she hooks her arm through Rodney's. "You owe me a honeymoon, though, darling."
Rodney stumbles at that, making Teyla, who's just caught himself, snort inelegantly.
They're at the infirmary by then. When Carson pokes his head out, it's obvious he's overheard. "Have you hit your head again then, Colonel?"
Sheppard slows her step and jerks a lazy thumb at Rodney. "Nah. We both got stunned, but that was three days ago."
Sheppard still has her arm brushing Rodney's; she feels almost a weary sense of relief in retrospect. She hadn't realized the pressure of captivity, hadn't let herself realize it, she thinks. But now she keeps thinking, of Rodney and his absolute confidence in her, the confidence she has in him. It's good to be back on the same wavelength. She's missed it.
Sheppard says softly, so that no one else hears, "If I didn't say thanks before.…"
Rodney seems to tense, but still, he leans in almost imperceptibly.
"…I have to tell you thanks for letting me take care of myself."
"You - " Rodney swallows. "You're welcome. I - well, of course! You're supposed to take care of me. That's your job, while I am obviously the brains of the operation, you're still the brawn." His chin comes up. "That's the way it is."
There isn't time to say anything else as they've fallen into Carson's clutches and he's demanding they strip and offer up sacrifices of blood and other bodily fluids to the medical gods.
~*~
Sheppard answers her door to find Rodney on the other side. She isn't entirely sure why she lets Rodney into her quarters, but she does and finds herself facing him in the center of the dimly lit room.
Elated as she was right after returning, she feels off-balance now. She's weirdly glad she didn't have sex with Rodney while they were captives, but she still wishes they had. It would have been easier and she could have blamed it on stress and proximity. She still wants to have sex with him, and could, but now it'd be a real, deliberate choice based on their - Sheppard grimaces even though there's no one to even hear the thought - relationship.
So, the r-word:
The chess game after team night with Teyla had gone well - she beat him three games running, actually. She's hung out in the labs, which has the added benefit of keeping her away from Elizabeth. Cadman and her team went to Xa and returned. Teyla seems to be over Leitmann. They've survived Torrell. She's pretty sure the smart thing to do now would be stick with the status quo. Things are working again for the team as a whole. Things are good between them, too, now.
But.
Rodney is looking around the room as if he hasn't seen it before, his mouth working and his hands opening and closing at his sides. If he starts bobbing from foot to foot, she's going to figure he needs to pee, otherwise she has to assume he's trying to say something that embarrasses him.
Sheppard sighs. "McKay, if you came to do a fish imitation, I'm really impressed."
"What?"
Rodney manages confused and irritated in just one pinch-browed expression. Sheppard suppresses a smile. She's had to face one thing in the last weeks: She's missed Rodney. Missed sex with him, too, but mostly missed just hanging out and sharing the same jokes, the same frustrations and discoveries. All the stuff that they did before she got changed into a woman. All the stuff they've been doing on and off again for the last week since the team meeting in Teyla's rooms.
Of course, she'd run away and go to clown school before she'd talk about these feelings of hers. Talking. That's all right only as long as someone else is doing it, or as long as she can get Teyla to finish all her sentences. Rodney's good at talking, too. Therefore, he should do it.
"Rodney. Talk."
"I, uh, I - I get it," Rodney blurts out. He waves his hand at her, then around in a circle. "You're fine with hanging out with me during team nights, playing chess in the mess hall, facing nasty enemies with me and even doing what's very masculine and definitely not cuddling on cots in cells yadda yadda yadda, but don't want to be treated like a girl. Ever. And, you know, I can do that. Or, that is, not do that, to be precise."
Um. Rodney's shown the fact he can do that pretty effectively during their capture, but it's nice to have Rodney tell it, too.
He frowns, still seated in his train of thought. "It would probably be easier for me, anyway, than trying to act - well, however it is women want their boyfriends to act."
Sheppard just blinks while he hesitates. Boyfriend? Sweet Jesus, did Rodney really consider himself her boyfriend during the time when they - when they were fucking? She's not sure, but this is Rodney, so that might actually have been an apology. He gives her that one-breath-from-crying look that melted her bad temper back when she still had a dick. It still does, now.
"Just…does this mean no more sex? Ever?"
Of course, that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Is Rodney McKay going to get any? Sheppard folds her arms in front of her and glares at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and burgeoning hostility. "McKay -"
Rodney holds up his hands in the universal sign for Don't Hit Me. "Hey, I'm a guy. You wanted me to treat you like you're still a guy." He has the gall to look smug as he adds, "Guys want sex."
Despite herself, Sheppard lets out a little snort of laughter. She mutters to herself, "Why am I sleeping with Rodney McKay?"
Rodney gets this smug, delighted look suddenly.
"What?" Sheppard demands.
He points at her. "Sleeping. No past tense."
Sheppard puts a hand over her eyes. "Christ." She splays the fingers and peers through them at Rodney, who is still grinning. "Why did I say that?"
"It's the McKay Experience." Rodney actually gestures to himself, in a Vanna White sweeping Look At the Goods motion.
Sheppard scowls and sets her hands on her hips; another habit picked up from Rodney. He's under her skin; she's never sure if she likes that or wants to exorcise everything that he's affected. "You're kidding." One look at Rodney's slowly crumpling features and she realizes, "You're not kidding." She rubs at the back of her neck, watching him through her lashes. "Fuck. I'm not kidding either, Rodney. Just so we're perfectly clear: Don't patronize me, don't forget I'm the ranking military officer, and Jesus, the time where you acted like I needed help walking out of the jumper? Whoever the hell you think needs that, it isn't me." It's on the tip of her tongue already, how he put his hand on the small of her back, but that - she's reluctant to call him on something that wasn't too bad, in a way, just making her squirm and feel decidedly weird. So she just breathes out and adds, "Just act like you did on the last mission."
Rodney stares back. "Okay," he finally replies. It's the straight set of his shoulders that convinces Sheppard Rodney means it. She nods, thinking, what, did she expect Rodney to be adept at this? She's floundering here, so of course Rodney is, too.
Rodney is still serious when he adds, "I will back off. You know. In public." He bounces a little in place and gives her a hopeful look. "But in private? About the sex?"
She doesn't roll her eyes, but it's a near thing. Then, suddenly, it's funny. Why the hell not? There's nothing she likes better than wrong-footing Rodney, anyway. With a shrug, she says, "Why not?" and pulls off her top. Besides, guys aren't the only ones who like sex, not by a long shot. She's missed it, too, not just since their time in a cell. Maybe missed it more than as a guy, and that is just too weird to contemplate.
"Now?" The jaw drop is a thing of beauty, Sheppard decides, but so is the broad smile. "Oh, oh, okay, that's the Colonel I - really approve of," Rodney says. Sheppard quirks an eyebrow, which Rodney completely misses, since his stare is locked on her chest and the black cotton sports bra she has on. It's irritating enough to make her ignore the thing he almost said, though she files it away.
"Rodney?"
"Hmm?"
"Rodney?" Sheppard steps up to him. Thank God, Completion didn't rob her of her height; she's still just a little taller than Rodney and it's easy to smack the back of his head, just like always. Rodney's hand flies to his head, and he looks outraged. "That is on the list of things you have to quit doing."
"What? Also, ow, important brain here, you know." He points at her. "Anyone would stare at you if you took off your shirt, even Elizabeth. Besides, we're not in public."
"I'm just saying," Sheppard thoughtfully bites her bottom lip, "when we are, don't stare at me like that. Don't stare at all, in fact." At Rodney's increasingly unhappy expression, she flashes a smile at him, complete with lifted eyebrows. "Hey, I know you can do it."
Rodney puffs out an affronted breath. "I get that - wait, you do?"
Sheppard keeps smiling and jokes, "Do a good job, and there might be a blow job in it for you."
"Oh wow, really?"
She opens her mouth to say, C'mon, no, of course I was joking. She's never done it and really, she hasn't been too interested in trying…but a glance at Rodney shows he's interested. Enthusiastically interested.
A couple of weeks ago she'd never even slept with a man, but when she did, it wasn't an utter disaster. Far from it. So…maybe?
Rodney's hands are at his belt while Sheppard's still thinking.
"Let's get on with it, I promise to be the perfect model of proper behavior from here on out," Rodney says. Slither goes the belt, and he pops open the top button on his pants. A wave of nervousness hits Sheppard. She looks around her room. The guitar, the surfboard, the Johnny Cash poster…none of them offer any help. The bed -
"You, uh, want to do it right here?" she asks, gesturing at the bare floor and the room at large.
Rodney blinks, his hands pausing over the zip on his pants. "Why not?"
"Wouldn't the bed be better?" She moistens her lips, which just draws Rodney's attention to her mouth. His drops open a little and he presses the heel of his palm over his fly with a cut-off gasp that tells Sheppard how much he wants this. Enough to make her nervous as hell, enough to even think about backing out. To think of saying, 'Rodney, sorry, I just can't; it was a joke,' but he'd never let her live it down. She swallows, and that starts a whole new train of thought that has her palms sweating.
First things first, she'll burn that bridge when she gets there, and so on. Her knees creak when she gets down on them in front of Rodney, wish she'd insisted on the bed or that the Ancients had gone in for carpet. Bony knees and bare floors are not a happy combination. Plus the stiff, regulation boots she's wearing are killing her ankles in this position already. It's too damn cool without her shirt, too - unless that's psychological - and she's getting goosebumps on her arms.
She has a fairly detailed idea of what she should be doing, but theory and practice aren't that close. She flashes back to Rodney on his knees in the gear room, the want on his face, and looks up. He looks like that, like she's something he needs more than food or Nobel Prizes or oxygen. It makes it a little easier to brace her hands on his hips.
The temperature in the room rises. That's better. She wasn't even really aware of modifying the environmental setting, but knows she must have. The connection to the city's systems has been stronger and even less conscious since the six months she was trapped in the Ancients' cloister; Completion hasn't affected the ATA at all.
Rodney's breath whistles out as she fumbles at his fly, pulling his pants down his thighs. That's followed by these soft, eager little pants as Sheppard peels his boxers down too, carefully drawing the elastic out so it doesn't catch on his hard-on. She hasn't even touched him yet and he's already into it, already enjoying himself, turned on by the thought of getting blown by her. She remembers blow jobs being nice and good and hot back when she was guy, but maybe it's better and different for Rodney or maybe so because it's her giving it. That's reason enough to continue, she thinks, even though she's eye to eye with his erection now and, God, how is she getting all of that in her mouth?
It's actually intimidating. Did her dick look that big from this perspective? No way to know, especially now.… She squeezes her thighs together, and that feels good, but she still misses her dick. Dicks are easy; stroke them and they're happy. Not that she can't stroke her pussy, but right now, she cannot spare that kind of attention. Sheppard licks her lower lip. She should be able to apply some old experiences, right? She takes a deep breath and exhales.
Rodney's dick bobs when the warm air hits it.
"Sheppard," Rodney moans. "You want to get on with it?"
She glances up. "I'm getting there."
"A little quicker? Please?"
"Jeez, Rodney." She looks back at his erection. "Who's giving this blow job?"
"No one, so far," Rodney grumbles.
"Well, and that's how it's going to stay if you don't ease off."
The disappointment on Rodney's face morphs into something else Sheppard can't read. She can still see the lust, but there's something else. "You don't really want to do this, do you?"
She licks her lips again and ducks her head, but that puts her eye level with the eagerest part of Rodney's anatomy, red and probably almost aching by now.
"I just haven't. Before."
"Well, you've gotten them, haven't you?"
"Yes, Rodney, but it's a little different from this perspective."
She squares her shoulders. Takes hold of his cock by the base, inspiring a whimper from Rodney, which she takes as encouragement, and tries a tentative lick. The way he groans in response makes her want to do it again, especially when he shivers too. She adds a little stroke with her hand as she licks the head again. It's not bad; soft, soft, hot skin stretched taut over firm flesh. Time for the next step, she decides, and takes the head in her mouth, giving it a little swirl with her tongue, too. Rodney jolts his hips forward so fast she's gagging, scraping her teeth over him and then Rodney's yelling and jerking away.
"Ow! Ow, ow, watch the teeth!"
Sheppard sits back with her butt on the heels of her boots and returns Rodney's affronted look with her own. "Don't gag me next time." She'd been getting into it, despite the weirdness, but now, as far as she's concerned, the mood is gone.
"Okay, okay, I just expected a little more proficiency -"
"Christ, Rodney, I said I'd never done this before. No one's born a cocksucker."
Rodney snorts. "I guess not." His dick is still hard, bobbing a little in time to his breathing. He gives it a comforting pat and Sheppard nearly snickers. Instead she rubs her hand over his thigh.
"Trying again."
"Fine, fine, but this is turning out to be one of the worst fantasies come to life I've ever had. One of my best jerk-off scenarios is ruined."
"That just breaks my heart," Sheppard tells him with the most earnest expression she can muster, before sucking the head of his cock into her mouth, which precludes her adding anything else, and seems to shut Rodney up, too.
This time Rodney doesn't jerk forward, doesn't move at all except for muscles quivering in his thighs. Sheppard takes it slow, and is getting into it again, until she tries to take him too deep and gags herself again.
"How do porn actresses do this?" she asks, frowning.
Rodney's cock has no answers, but up above, Rodney makes an uncomfortable noise before answering, "I don't actually know." She curls her hand around Rodney's dick and begins a slow twist and pull stroke. His breath hitches. "Yes, well, thank you for that much at least," he mutters. "Come on, I'm not that big. I mean, yes, I have a very impressive and manly penis, but it isn't extraordinary in length or girth."
Sheppard tips her face up and works her jaw, trying to loosen up the muscle.
"Manly? Doesn't that go without saying?"
"Whatever. Just - could you go back to, you know, sucking?"
"It's not that damn easy."
"Well, then - practice makes perfect. Even I have spent hours on getting the equations for Starling's theorem right."
"Starling's theorem of what?" Sheppard asks. "Jerking off?" She lets go of him.
"No, wait, stop; don't be like that?"
"Like what, Rodney?"
"Like a girl!"
Sheppard narrows her eyes. He didn't say that. He did. Sex isn't worth this. Cadman has her connection on the Daedalus who smuggles things in; she'd get Sheppard a vibrator for a price. Or maybe for free, if Sheppard explained it was the vibrator or McKay. She gets up and dusts off her knees. Finishes by crossing her arms under her breasts and giving Rodney the steeliest look she can manage. "That has to be the stupidest thing you have ever said, Rodney." No wonder women hate men sometimes.
Rodney seems to have grasped the idea that he just stepped in it up to his neck. "Sheppard -"
"Newsflash, McKay," she says, "the tits aren't just cosmetic."
"Oh, come on, you know what it's like to get left like this," Rodney implores. This being standing in the middle of Sheppard's room with his pants down to his knees and a hard-on, apparently, and no, not really. Sheppard usually took care of things in the shower in the morning. Until lately, flying had been better than most of the sex she - he had had. Still, that has to hurt. And it wasn't really bad to do this to Rodney, not as such, even if it's not like she owes Rodney an orgasm or anything. Besides, she made the offer, and backing out would kind of make her a cocktease, wouldn't it?
"Okay, but no more commentary on my technique."
"No more. I promise."
"And we do this on the bed."
Rodney nods.
"Because it's not as if you have a PhD in cocksucking."
"Well, if there was one, I would -"
Sheppard watches him gulp and decides to let it slide, except, hey, she has to put up with that mouth all the damn time, she should get some use out of it.… "With whom?" she asks, giving him her own version of the glare of death.
Rodney's face is already flushed, but he turns redder. "You! I mean - not like this, obviously.…"
"Obviously."
"But theoretically, maybe, after you're back to being the regular you?" A determined look flashes over his face. "Because you know, it's not completely new to me. There may have been, uh, one or the other blowjob. From a guy, this guy I was working - anyway, it was a while ago, but I wouldn't be at all averse to trying it out the other way, too. And okay, shutting up about other people now." Rodney snaps his mouth shut and starts cataloging the contents of the room again.
Sheppard walks over to the bed. Rodney glances at her sidelong, but she knows her face is blank. She's still processing. Okay, so Rodney isn't entirely - fine. That's good. She really - part of her still just figured Rodney was in it for sex with anyone, well, anyone female. After all, he's been leering at - and sleeping with at least once apparently - Ronon, too. Not to mention he's always been in obvious awe of Teyla and has been crushing on Carter since Sheppard's known him.
"You could act a little more enthusiastic," Rodney adds, startling her out of her own thoughts. "Sheppard?"
"Uh." She's really not sure what to say, or what to think, actually. The thought of herself - back, a guy again, with cock and stubble and everything…well, being a guy is great; she was happy that way for thirty-six years, but being a guy with Rodney? Apart from the obvious problems considering her job, that is.
She doesn't know…except there's a heat in growing inside at the thought. Would sucking Rodney's cock be any different? Each time she's thought of it - in the closet, most recently - she's shoved the thought into a box and locked it up before it could take hold. This time she doesn't. It would still be Rodney, nothing about him is going to change. She'll be the different one, the one in a body that hadn't made Rodney hot before. Or had it? She's ignored a lot of things deliberately for years, because she didn't want to think about what it meant to notice the way Rodney looked at her - him - before. She slumps down on to the edge of the bed. "I don't know, Rodney."
She's staring at the floor when he joins her, holding his pants up enough that he can walk, and normally that would be hilarious, but right now? Not so much, because she's the one feeling guilty. Turns out she's the one who's been playing at this.
"So, is this just a buddy fuck? Temporary? Because I'm convenient?" Rodney asks, and his voice cracks. "You get me off and I get you off. Feeling horny tonight, Sheppard?"
"Right, because I suck off all my buddies when I'm horny, because I get so fucking much out of it. You've never been convenient, McKay!" She's a little surprised by the vehemence of her own reaction. But it's true. Rodney - Rodney is the least temporary, least convenient person she knows; this can't just be the body. If it was the body, well, there are other good-looking men on the science staff, even if she exempted all the military, and couple of them have even propositioned her in the last couple of weeks. Harper even got her up to his quarters. Plus, there's Ronon, who actually cares, too. It would be easier if she blamed this on hormones, circumstance, hell, the phases of the moons. But no. Even in the last half hour, she's still oddly happy that Rodney seems to be thinking of something sort of…permanent.
Rodney's still staring at her with apprehension and a sort of wounded look that she wants to erase; she wants to touch him in reassurance, not just to hold onto something for her own sake. Rodney tentatively touches her hair, then cups her head gently until she's resting her cheek against his side, right where his waist is a little soft.
"Oh, ah - okay. Whatever." His hand stays in her hair, stroking through the strands with just the right amount of pressure. "I mean, of course I'm not convenient. I am the smartest man in the galaxy. And I'll probably give a better blow job than you do."
Sheppard snickers, suddenly feeling lighter. So, maybe she's been carrying this idea that Rodney just wanted the body with the boobs around since, well since she noticed him looking at her, and now, she can let it go. "Yeah, right." She laughs, leaning her forehead into his hip. "Probably. They were cool but, you know, not that big a deal."
"What? Really?"
Head shake. She keeps her voice low, lips against Rodney skin. "I'll let you change my mind."
"Wow." Rodney goes on petting her hair, his fingers straying down to her neck, then into her hair again. It feels good enough that she almost wants to hum. "That's - yes." His fingers still. "Wait - what were your favorite things?"
Sheppard turns her head to look up, vaguely annoyed that he stopped petting. Rodney's peering down at her in honest, scientific curiosity. She opens her mouth to answer and realizes he will, no doubt, store this information away for future reference, and, God, she didn't know Rodney could pay attention to any person like that. "Just, you know. Stuff."
Rodney's always thought Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard was some great stud, but once she answers, he's going to reassess all the data, and know Sheppard's never experimented much, never really cared about it a great deal. It's why she understood Rodney from the first: Rodney has things he wants and things he likes, and sex was one of those things in the second category: nice, but not necessary.
She wonders if she looks as uncomfortable as she feels right now and thinks she probably does. Rodney's pretty good at reading her after two years, which is…well, Rodney's never paid enough attention to anyone else to learn their tells, has he?
His hand is still on her head, fingers threaded through her hair, and he's thinking.
"You can tell me," he says, "really." Imploring, a little pleading.
She would, she really would, only, "Rodney, I don't know." So much for the stud image. She's actually been better at sex as a girl, which is something she is never going to admit even to herself again.
He blinks once, then nods as if Sheppard just said something he thought himself. "Well," he says in that fake hearty, slightly condescending way of his, that Sheppard, God help her, finds almost sweet, "I am the foremost scientist in two galaxies. We'll figure it out."
Great. Now she's an experiment. He'll probably show up at her door tomorrow with a list of simulations to run. Although, really, she can't suppress a slight shiver at that. The kind of intense attention Rodney pays to his experiments….
"…in the meantime," Rodney is saying, "Blow job? Remember?"
Sheppard turns her head and contemplates Rodney's still happy erection. It actually looks sort of appealing. "Yeah, okay. Sit down and I'll give it a shot."
"Good, good. Just remember, no teeth this time."
~*~
Part 27