SGA FIC: The Alien Priestess Is Always The First To Know

[scribblinlenore]

Title: The Alien Priestess Is Always The First To Know
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG
Summary: A prequel to Bric-a-Brac Childbearing. How Rodney finds out he's having his baby!

Note: Okay, I have no one but myself to blame for continuing this. *g*



The Alien Priestess Is Always The First To Know
By Lenore

The first Thursday of every month was "Find Out Something New About Atlantis" day--threats from the Wraith and other imminent disasters notwithstanding--and Rodney had long believed that nothing could spoil his enjoyment of a day spent with Colonel Sheppard, exploring the far reaches of the city, never knowing what they might find, perhaps nothing more than a long corridor of empty storerooms, or hopefully, one day, some gem of knowledge squirreled away in a long lost laboratory that would ultimately help them turn the tide of the war with the Wraith.

At least he'd thought nothing could ruin it until the first Thursday of the month rolled around, and Kavanaugh insisted on coming along.

"The area you called dibs on has signs of research activity," Kavanaugh insisted whenever Rodney barked at him that he wasn't allowed to tag along. "I have just as much right to see what's there."

Sheppard just shrugged, and Kavanaugh had gloated, and now Rodney was saddled with the person he least liked in all of Atlantis when he was supposed to be monopolizing the attention of the person he most liked. He fumed about it the whole, long way out to Tower Four.

The most irksome part was that Sheppard really didn't seem to mind. He just clapped Rodney on the back and said cheerfully, "Maybe we'll find a disintegrator ray or something." And made conversation with Kavanaugh, asking if he was much of a fan of the new Dr. Who.

They poked through several empty rooms, and this was irritating enough without the whistling sound of Kavanaugh's breathing, his sinuses apparently acting up on him. At last, though, they opened a set of doors and found something on the other side, although it looked more like an art gallery than a scientific facility, a lone object suspiciously like a vase sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the room.

"Cool," Sheppard said, predictably.

At the same time Kavanaugh mused, "I wonder if the Ancients considered pottery an art form."

They both started toward the object with their hands out.

Sometimes Rodney felt as if he could rant about the dangers of unidentified Ancient artifacts until he was out of breath and had lost his voice and his blood pressure had risen a good dozen points, and everyone around him would still behave as if they'd gone suddenly deaf or lost all comprehension of English. This was one of those times. For all Kavanaugh and Sheppard knew, that innocent-looking vase might actually be an Ancient disintegrator ray. Luckily for them, Rodney got there first, thinking "off, off" at the thing, managing to wrestle it away from the other two.

Apparently not quickly enough, though, because the vase began to buzz, sending pulses through Rodney's fingertips that traveled down his arms, and then there was a flare of light, like a flashbulb going off. A flashbulb with the magnitude of, oh, say, the sun, that Rodney felt as much as saw, a strange warmth all the way down to the pit of his stomach.

He blinked, blinded for several seconds afterwards, and then Sheppard said "everybody okay?" and it occurred to Rodney that maybe he should put down the Ancient technology and back away from it slowly.

"Are you crazy?" His glower took in both Sheppard and Kavanaugh.

Sheppard, at least, had the good grace to duck his head sheepishly. "Sorry. I kind of forgot I'm not supposed to do that."

Kavanaugh, on the other hand, puffed up like an indignant rooster. "I don't see why you get to decide--"

"Because I'm smarter than you." Rodney turned on his heel. "I think that's enough exploring for one day, don't you, Colonel?"

They backtracked their way out of there, and Rodney brought along the Ancient device for cataloguing, since whatever it had done didn't appear to have caused any harm, thinking "off, stay off!" at it the whole way just to be on the safe side. Sheppard offered to go brief Elizabeth. "Not that there's much to tell her," he added with a shrug.

Rodney headed to the lab, none too confident about the project he'd left in the hands of his minions while he was gone. He deposited the Ancient vase-that-wasn't-a-vase into the box of artifacts labeled "Who knows?" and thought no more about it.

Several weeks later, Atlantis was hit hard by a spate of intergalactic flu, mostly likely brought onto the station by some traders from Boolia who had the temerity to appear in perfect health themselves. Almost the entirety of Rodney's staff was felled by the bug, and Rodney did his best to keep from gloating about the superiority of his own immune system, a smart decision as it turned out, since about a week into the epidemic he started throwing up.

He reported to the infirmary, and by the time Carson finished examining him, he was frowning. "I really can't say I see anything wrong with you."

Rodney harrumphed, "Maybe you didn't use enough eye of newt. Your voodoo is clearly on the fritz."

"Other than your usual charming personality, of course," Carson added a caveat.

Rodney would have fired back with a biting retort, but he was suddenly too busy upchucking all over Carson--which, he thought with some satisfaction when he'd finished, settled that argument.

Carson looked woefully down at his splattered uniform. "You just have to have the last word, don't you, Rodney?"

He packed Rodney off with some annoyingly useless instructions about getting enough rest and taking plenty of liquids. "You need four years of medical school to come up with that?" Rodney grumbled to himself as he trudged back to his quarters.

By afternoon, he felt his old self again and disregarded Carson entirely and went back to work. Maybe it was just the six-and-half hour version of the intergalactic flu, and he felt quite pleased with the efficiency of his white blood cells. But the next morning, he was once again prostrate before the Ancient plumbing, and the next morning, and the next several after that. Finally, he stormed back to the infirmary, pointed a finger insistently at Carson. "Make the vomiting stop. Do it now!"

Carson's reaction to the tirade was merely to raise an eyebrow. "Still not feeling better?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Of course, I'm not feeling better! Why else would I be here?"

"All right, all right, Rodney," Carson clucked at him. "There's no need to get snippy. Here." He rummaged around in the drug cabinet. "Anti-nausea medication. Should help you make it through until the virus passes. Come back if you're still not over it in a couple of days."

The pills mostly did the trick, although whatever Jenkins the mess sergeant had done to the sausage at breakfast the next morning gave Rodney a moment or two of queasy uncertainty. Still, he saw no reason why he should stay home from the mission they had scheduled for that day, especially given the promising energy readings they'd picked up from the MALP, so he suited up and headed off with the rest of his team.

The stargate was in the middle of wilderness, the planet verdant, with tall trees sprouting huge hand-shaped leaves, a deep carpet of grass covering the ground, strewn with fallen petals from the riot of flowers that grew everywhere. Rodney greatly feared for his allergies.

According to Teyla, the planet was known as Miraada. The Athosians had visited a time or two, but had not developed a trading relationship. "The Miraadans are a deeply religious people," she explained. "They do not seem to have much interest in mixing with those from other worlds. I fear we may have difficulty finding a way to engage them."

"Oh, please." Rodney waved his hand dismissively. "Just point Colonel Sheppard at whoever is in charge, and he'll do that fawning, charming smile thing he does so well, and," Rodney snapped his fingers, "we're up close and personal with the Ancient technology."

Sheppard cast an irritated glance at him. "Are you sure you have us going in the right direction?"

Rodney huffed, "Yes! But if it makes you feel better, I can double check." He pulled the life signs detector from his tac vest. "See! We're going in exactly the right--" Suddenly he caught a whiff of something putrid and overwhelming, that reminded him very unhappily of the seeds from a ginkgo tree. "God! That's disgusting."

Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon all looked confused.

"What?" Sheppard asked.

"That stink!" Rodney said incredulously.

They seemed genuinely not to know what he was talking about, which was incredible, since the smell was getting worse, and suddenly Rodney was doubled over, losing his breakfast in a convenient bush.

"I thought you said you were over the flu," Sheppard's tone was a battleground between concern and accusation.

"I am!" Rodney insisted, between sips of water. "Jenkins did something truly reprehensible to those sausage links this morning. They're frozen. You'd think he could manage to warm them up without disaster. It's a wonder he hasn't poisoned us all by now."

Sheppard narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but he jerked his head toward the path for them to continue on. They cleared a clump of trees, and the town came into sight, rows of thatched structures that must have been the Miraadan's homes, little more than huts really, in the shadow of a great structure that was clearly of Ancient design, its spires pushing up toward the sky.

Rodney consulted the scanner and began to wave his hand excitedly. "There! That's where the energy reading is coming from. We need to get into that building."

Teyla cautioned, "That is the Miraadan's temple, their place of worship. They are most selective about who they allow inside."

"We could always shoot our way in," Ronon said, perfectly seriously.

"I'd prefer if the Ancient technology weren't riddled with bullets by the time I get to it," Rodney said sarcastically and turned to the Colonel, "Can't you go-- be you?"

Sheppard made a face at him, but he did go, and his smarmy charms worked the usual magic. A temple attendant named Grodifur assured them, with many shy smiles directed at Sheppard, that it was not at all the Miraadans' usual practice to allow strangers into their holy place, but since they were pilgrims who had journeyed so far in search of enlightenment, then they would be rewarded with a glimpse inside.

The Miraadans had obviously done some redecorating; the usual minimalist Ancient interior was made far less minimal with brightly colored urns, and towering vases of greenery and flowers, and some truly unfortunate sculpture.

Godifur whispered, his expression reverential, "You are most fortunate. Our high priestess will shortly make her appearance, to offer the afternoon prayer."

Even as he said it, there was the telltale whoosh of doors opening from somewhere deep inside the building, the sound of footsteps along a corridor, a draft of air...that carried the same sickening scent that had made Rodney so violently ill earlier. He desperately looked around, but no one else showed any hint of a reaction. He clenched his hands into fists, fighting down the rising nausea. An anticipatory murmur moved through the Miraadans who were gathered there, and the doors at the end of the room slid open. There was a rustling of fabric, a woman making her entrance, and then Rodney couldn't fight it any longer. He wheeled around and threw up violently, and the rustling fabric sound retreated, doors closing, and the Miraadans around them grew restless with indignation and disappointment.

"You have defiled the temple!" Godifur shouted.

Rodney groaned miserably and vomited again.

"You will be punished for your insolence!" Godifur charged at him, having snatched up a rod from somewhere. He brought it down on Rodney fiercely, catching his back and shoulder.

Rodney threw up his hands to protect his face. "Ow!"

"Hey!" Sheppard moved quickly, stationing himself between Rodney and the outraged Miraadan. "He couldn't help it. So just put that down." He rested a hand on his P-90 to emphasize his point.

Godifur hesitated, but did lower the rod at last. "You must leave at once."

"Yeah, yeah." Sheppard darted a quick glance at Rodney, and Rodney must have looked as bad as he felt, because Sheppard curled a hand around his shoulder. "We're going."

Outside, a fresh waft of stink-scent hit Rodney, and he doubled over yet again. Teyla rubbed his back, murmuring something in Athosian that sounded as if it might be used to comfort a distressed child or a skittish cat. There was nothing left in Rodney's stomach, and he endured several waves of the dry heaves before he was finally able to straighten up again. He took a deep breath and another, and finally his stomach felt a little calmer.

Ronon was trying, not all that successfully, to hold back a smile. "Told you it was a bad idea to wolf down your food the way you do."

Rodney glared, and was just about to fire off a comeback of the "pot calling the kettle black" variety when Sheppard interrupted, "Let's fall back to the gate. Rodney, we need to get you to Carson. We can return with Zelenka and try to beg another chance to get inside the temple."

Rodney snapped, "I just needed a minute! I'm fine now and perfectly capable--"

"You've thrown up four times," Sheppard reminded him.

"Exactly!" Rodney insisted. "I'm all finished now!"

The argument that would have naturally ensued was preempted when Godifur came running down the temple stairs and over to their group, panting by the time he reached them.

"What's wrong now?" Sheppard asked, arms crossed over his chest. "We're not defiling the grass, are we?"

Against all odds, Godifur ducked his head meekly. "Forgive me. The priestess has been most cross that I sent you away. All who bring new life are, naturally, most welcome in the temple. I just did not realize that among your people it is your men who bear your young." He darted a glance shyly at Rodney and then quickly looked away.

"Um--?" Rodney wasn't sure how to clear up the misunderstanding without once again being labeled a temple defiler.

Godifur continued on, "The priestess sent me to offer you a private audience with her, so that she might bless your child." He added quickly, in case it was not readily obvious, "It is a great honor."

Rodney weighed the embarrassment of having the story spread all over Atlantis that he'd been mistaken for pregnant versus the opportunity to investigate the energy readings coming from inside the temple. It took, perhaps, a split second to decide what was more important. "Show me to the blessing."

John shot him an annoyed look. "Not by yourself. I'll go with you."

"I'm afraid that's quite impossible," Godifur insisted, but then a hesitant, almost disappointed expression crossed his features. "Unless...you are the one who got him with child?"

Rodney answered hotly, "Just because Captain Kirk here has no doubt left a string of love children across the galaxy, doesn't mean I--"

But Teyla drowned him out, "Yes, indeed. Colonel Sheppard is a most proud expectant father."

Sheppard followed her lead, "That's right." He slung an arm across Rodney's shoulders. "Very proud."

Godifur's face crumpled a little more, now that his crush had been revealed as somebody else's baby daddy. He let out his breath and squared his shoulders with as much dignity as he could muster. "Come this way."

Rodney hissed at Sheppard as they followed, "What was that?"

Sheppard glared right back at him. "I could ask you the same thing! You know perfectly well I haven't--" He pressed his mouth into a thin line. "Never mind. You want into that temple, and you're not going alone. So try to look a little happier to be expecting my bundle of joy."

Rodney answered with a look that, if the universe liked him even a little bit, would have had the power to kill. They went through a side entrance into the temple, and Rodney quickly pulled out his scanner, and forgot all about how annoying the Colonel was in his excitement over the readings. "We're getting close," he whispered.

Godifur pointed them to a door. "The priestess awaits you."

Rodney started forward, but Sheppard caught him by the sleeve. "I'll take point." He wore the stern, in-charge expression that Rodney knew better than to argue with.

Inside was what looked to have been an Ancient lab once upon a time, a data console lit up and still active, the source of the energy readings. The place had been converted into an altar room of some sort, with tapestries and even larger vases of flowers and more of those ungainly sculptures. The priestess was a slight woman, her graying hair pulled back into a tidy bun, her dark eyes bright with good humor, her face softly lined, lending her an air of wisdom.

She greeted them warmly, "Bringers of life, you are most welcome here. Most welcome."

"Uh-- thanks?" Rodney said uncertainly.

The priestess smiled. "You wish the blessing of the temple upon your child?"

"Sure. Okay. Why not," Rodney said. "And while we're here, maybe we could--"

That's when it hit him, that same sickening stench, yet again, and his stomach turned over violently. "Oh God," he moaned.

Sheppard was quick to his side. "What?"

"That repulsive odor! Are you seriously telling me you don't smell that?"

The priestess looked puzzled, just for a moment, and then she broke into a comprehending smile. "The acasia flowers. I've never thought they had any scent, but I have heard pregnant women complain about them. The senses are always so much more acute when one is in your condition."

She nodded to one of her attendants, who quickly moved around the room, pulling stalks from vases, and took the offending flowers from the room.

"Oh, thank God," Rodney said when they were gone.

"Here. This will help." The priestess held out a bowl of something weedy smelling.

Sheppard put a hand on Rodney's arm to keep him from accepting it. "What is that?"

"Do not worry," the priestess assured him. "There is nothing here that is harmful. It is a tea that Miraadan women drink to help settle their stomachs when they are newly with child."

She nodded for Rodney to take the bowl, and he shrugged at Sheppard, and drank it. At least it didn't taste too revolting.

The priestess smiled once again. "Now for the blessing."

"And when we're done," Rodney said, as she laid her hands on his belly. "Maybe we could have a closer look at that console-- uh, your altar?"

They left several hours later, Rodney with his tablet filled with data downloaded from the console. "It looks like notes for a more efficient process to manufacture ZPMs," Rodney read as he walked with the others back to the stargate. "We might finally be able to make our own!"

Sheppard looked amused. "So I take it this means you're feeling better?"

"What? Oh." Rodney waved his hand. He'd forgotten all about the morning's unpleasantness. "I must have been allergic to those horrible weeds."

Back in Atlantis, he suffered through an even more thorough than usual post-mission physical at Sheppard's insistence.

"You barfed in their temple," the Colonel reminded him when Rodney tried to protest.

Ronon grinned. "You did look kind of green there for a while, McKay."

"It is for the best if you allow Dr. Becket to run some tests, Rodney," Teyla ganged up on him as well.

"I tell you Jenkins did something terribly wrong to the food at breakfast!" Rodney turned to Carson, "You're the closest thing we have to a Health Department around here. Are you going to do something about that or not?"

"Now, now," Carson said with the exaggerated doctorly calm that always drove Rodney crazy. "Let's not accuse the poor mess sergeant before we know what we're dealing with."

Rodney sighed heavily and put up with the poking and prodding and medieval bloodletting.

In the end, Carson just looked puzzled. "I can't find a thing wrong with you."

Rodney slid down from the exam table. "Finally."

He hurried off to the lab to get his entire team busy analyzing the data he'd retrieved. When he came through the door, he noticed that Simpson was furtively chewing, trying to conceal her lunch behind a stack of lab reports.

"What have I said about eating in the lab?" he snapped. "Do you have any idea what stray crumbs could do to 10,000 year old--" A wave of nausea cut him off before he could finish the tirade. "What are you eating?" he demanded of Simpson, with a horrified stare.

"Just-- a cheeseburger," she said guilty.

Beneath the stink of grease, Rodney could smell everything that had been cooked on the grill in recent memory, eggs from several breakfasts ago, onions for yesterday's Philly steak sandwiches, the especially stomach-turning odor of the fish they'd had last Thursday.

"Does that terrifying excuse for a chef never clean the kitchen?" Rodney wondered aloud.

"What?" Simpson looked confused.

Everyone stared at Rodney as if they thought maybe, just possibly, he'd lost his mind. And then it hit him. He could smell the fish from last Thursday, and apparently no one else could. The senses are always so much more acute when one is in your condition.

"No, no, no!" He clutched at his stomach.

"Are you all right, Dr. McKay?" Miko fluttered around him. "You're very pale."

He made a mad dash over to the box of "Who knows?" artifacts, picked through it, and gingerly pulled out the so-not-a-vase, practically shrieking in his head, "off, off, stay the fuck off."

"Can I help you with something, Dr. McKay?" Simpson asked a little uncertainly.

"Yes!" he answered frantically. "You can scan in the image of this...thing and help me find it in the Ancient database. Just don't touch it. Trust me. That's the last thing you want to do."

Simpson gave him a cockeyed look, but apparently she was trying to atone for her earlier infraction of the lab rules, because she did what he said without pestering him with a million questions.

"Here," she said, pointing to the screen that displayed the relevant entry from the database.

Rodney's Ancient was rudimentary at best, and the Ancients weren't exactly known for their straightforward communication style, but he could piece together enough to figure out that he was in trouble, in the after school special sense of the term.

"Are you all right?" Simpson frowned at him.

Miko joined in the concern, "You are even paler now."

"I have to--" Rodney turned and ran all the way back to the infirmary.

Carson didn't immediately grasp the gravity of the situation. "Go away, Rodney. I'm too busy for your ridiculous jokes."

It took some rather loud ranting and a few insults to Scotland to make Carson realize that he was perfectly serious.

"But how would that--" Carson stared at him.

"This is the Ancients, remember?" Rodney snapped.

Carson still had some of the blood he'd drawn from Rodney earlier, and he went off to test it, patting Rodney on the shoulder. "I'm sure you're all worked up over nothing."

When he returned, his expression was far less confident.

"Oh, God," Rodney groaned.

"Don't start panicking just yet," Carson told him. "Maybe the sample got tainted somehow, or you came into contact with something on the planet that's causing a false positive, or--" he trailed off feebly.

"I'm totally screwed!" Rodney flailed with his hands.

"Let's get you up on the table. I need to perform an ultrasound."

The jelly was cold, and Rodney stared up at the ceiling as Carson moved the instrument over his belly, afraid of what he might see if he looked at the monitor.

"Oh," Carson said abruptly, confirming Rodney's worst fears.

"Tell me."

"It's...well--"

"Oh for God's sake." Rodney opened his eyes and turned to look at the screen.

Carson pointed. "This organ? Shouldn't be there. Not in a man, anyway. And this--" He indicated a tiny blob. "Well-- I'd say you're about five and half weeks along."

"This is not happening," he muttered under his breath. "Not happening."

There were steps, and then the curtain was pulled back. "Doc? They said in the lab that McKay was here."

God. It was Sheppard. Of course, it was.

Carson moved to block Sheppard's view of the exam table. "Colonel, you're intruding on Rodney's privacy. You'll have to leave. Right this minute."

Sheppard planted his feet. "If there's something the matter with Rodney, if the Miraadans did something to him, I need to know about it."

Rodney knew that tone of voice all too well, knew that Sheppard wasn't going anywhere until he was satisfied that Rodney was okay, and really, it was no wonder that Sheppard's commanding officers had always found him so insubordinate.

He crooked his arm over his eyes and told Carson with a resigned sigh, "Just tell him. He won't go away until you do."

"Are you sure you want me to do that, Rodney?" Carson asked.

"He'll find out soon enough anyway. Everyone will."

"What?" Sheppard demanded tensely.

"There was an Ancient device, and--" Carson cleared his throat. "It seems we have something of a medical miracle on our hands."

Rodney took his arm away from his face. "Could you be any more vague?" He met Sheppard's concerned gaze. "I'm not dying. I'm not even sick. So you can stop worrying that I'm going to ask you to give my eulogy. I'm just, surprise!, pregnant. With a baby growing in a mysterious new organ I'm not even supposed to have. All thanks to the wonders of Ancient technology."

He laughed, and the more he thought about it, the funnier it seemed, in a bitter sort of way, and the harder and more hysterical his laughter became.

Sheppard just stood there, poleaxed, his eyes huge, mouth hanging open. When he did finally manage to speak, he said simply, "I'll just--" He jerked his thumb.

Rodney nodded. "Yes, yes. Go away. By all means."

Carson finished the exam and let Rodney get dressed. "I know this is a lot to take in-- If it's any comfort, you appear to be in perfectly good health and the baby is developing normally. I'll start you on some pre-natal vitamins, that is," he hesitated, "if you're planning to keep the baby?"

"I don't know," Rodney said miserably. "How am I supposed to know what to do?"

Carson patted his shoulder and walked him out. Rodney was surprised--although maybe he shouldn't have been--to find Sheppard still there, skulking around the waiting room.

"Are you all right?" Sheppard asked, not quite looking at Rodney.

Rodney shrugged. He had no idea how to answer that question.

"Rodney, I feel like we should inform Dr. Weir about what's happened," Carson said cautiously, as if expecting a fight.

But Rodney had none left in him. "Fine." He pinched the bridge of his nose. The smell of disinfectant was starting to give him a headache.

Carson went off to his office to radio Elizabeth in private. It didn't take long for her to appear in the infirmary.

She put a hand on Rodney's arm, her voice very kind, "How are you doing, Rodney?"

"Everyone keeps asking that."

She patted him. "I've asked Dr. Zelenka to find out everything he can from the Ancient database." Before Rodney could react, she headed him off, "He's your friend, and he'll protect your privacy. We need to understand as much about this as possible. So why don't we all go sit down together and see what we can figure out?"

Rodney numbly followed her to the conference room. Sheppard sat across from him at the table, still looking shell-shocked. Radek joined them shortly, and Elizabeth asked, "So what can you tell us?"

"It appears that this was one of the measures the Ancients were undertaking to counteract a declining fertility rate. Increasing the number of people who could, um," Radek darted an apologetic glance in Rodney's direction, "bear children."

"Anything else?" Elizabeth prompted.

"The Ancients, as usual, were not big on details, but from what I could untangle, the device requires two people to activate it. The first person to touch it is the one who's--" He looked down at the table. "Impregnated. Using a mix of both people's DNA."

"So--" Carson started and then stopped.

"God," Sheppard muttered under his breath.

"Rodney," Elizabeth said very gently. "Do you know who touched the device after you did?"

Rodney shook his head. How was he supposed to know? They'd all three reached for it at the same time.

"It was either me or Dr. Kavanaugh," Sheppard took charge of answering, for which Rodney was ridiculously grateful. "It's impossible to be sure which."

"We'll be able to do a DNA test when the baby's born," Carson said. "I mean, if--"

"I don't want to kill it," Rodney blurted out, with surprising certainty.

If this decision had anything to do with the possibility that it was Sheppard's baby he was carrying, he preferred not to think too much about it.

Elizabeth nodded. "Then we'll reassess your work load as-- things progress and reassign some of your responsibilities as needed." She hesitated. "That just leaves the issue of informing Dr. Kavanaugh. He should know that he might be--"

Rodney groaned loudly.

Sheppard spoke up quickly, "Can we deal with that later? Rodney's had kind of a long day."

"Of course," Elizabeth agreed. She gave Rodney a sympathetic smile. "Get some rest."

"Come on." Sheppard put a hand on Rodney's back, guided him out of the room, down the hall, and all the way to his quarters.

Rodney sank down heavily onto his bed. Sheppard sat down beside him, and there was a long, awkward pause before Sheppard ventured a shaky, "Don't worry, Rodney. I'll take care of everything."

Rodney snorted and turned to tell him that this wasn't like those any of those other times he'd come charging to the rescue, but Sheppard...wouldn't look at him. He was focusing on a spot just past Rodney's shoulder, the way he often did with other people, and had never done with Rodney. Maybe it wasn't much, the fact that Sheppard never avoided his gaze, but it belonged to Rodney, and losing that...well, he felt it, painfully.

"If you don't mind, I'm kind of tired," he said stiffly.

"Oh. Sure. Sorry." Sheppard quickly got to his feet. "I'll let you get some sleep." He paused at the door. "It's going to be okay. Rodney."

His eyes were carefully trained on the floor at Rodney's feet.

The doors snicked closed behind him, and Rodney thought, "No, it's really not."