Chapter One: Doranda

The briefing hadn't gone well. But then, he hadn't expected that it would.

No, Elizabeth had said. You can run all the simulations that you want, but I've made my decision. The answer's no.

The only light in the hallway was the soft glow of the ever-present bubbling pillars, and a few strips of dim track lighting to keep people from walking into walls. He passed a young lab tech lost in examination of one of the pillars -- she was one of the new people in Hydrology, fresh off the Daedalus. He didn't acknowledge her; she didn't even see him.

They could have powered the whole place effortlessly. Never had to worry about storms or depleted ZPMs or Wraith, ever again. The solution was in the palm of his hand -- the answers to the calculations that even the Ancients couldn't solve. And no one would listen to him.

The answer's no.

Sheppard had sat in on the meeting, at Elizabeth's request. Rodney wasn't sure why. The Colonel had not been back to Doranda since the initial survey. Had not been there for the test firing ... for Collins' death.

A small knot of Marines walked past him. They started laughing after they went by. He'd caught some sideways glances, not particularly friendly, and wondered if they were talking about him behind his back.

He wasn't sure whether it bothered him that they might be. He had little but contempt for the military in the city. The new people weren't the same, and the old ones had ... changed.

They'd all changed.

He wandered by one of the darkened rec rooms. A quick and unexpected flash of memory caught him -- lounging on a couch with his laptop, nitpicking the special effects in some inane B-movie, while Sheppard threw popcorn at him and Ford laughed and Teyla tried to mediate between the three of them.

But these days, the place was military-only. It didn't have a "CIVILIANS NOT ALLOWED" sign, but everyone knew. The scientists had their own areas of the city; the military had others. There wasn't any overt hostility if someone strayed into the wrong lounge or the wrong side of the cafeteria -- just cool stares and a general cessation of conversation.

It seemed like a very long time ago when they'd all been in this together.

In those days, the team movie nights had been an imposition on his work-time, deeply resented. But still, Sheppard or Ford had come down to the labs on a regular basis and rousted him from some vital-to-the-safety-of-the-city project in order to drag him off to see an inane movie that he'd seen a hundred times. He'd never stopped complaining, and yet they'd never stopped coming to find him.

So many were gone -- so many dead.

Ford. Grodin. All the many casualties of the Wraith siege and before.

Collins.

He left the rec room behind with barely a twinge. The memories that it represented belonged to a different time in his life -- before the Wraith siege, before the deaths, before Everett and the Daedalus arrived to disrupt their tight, insular little world. Going through the gate, going out with Sheppard's team, was work these days. It was something he did because it was his job, not because he enjoyed it. His real life was in the labs. He'd considered, several times, turning in a request to Elizabeth to be taken off the team. It had never made much sense sending the head of the science department offworld. He wasn't sure what kept him going -- stubbornness, a sense of duty, an unwillingness to let go of the past.

His wandering steps turned in the direction of the cafeteria, hoping it would be deserted at this time of night. Though it was dim and quiet, a little group of scientists sat near one wall, papers spread on the table in front of them. He recognized Radek among them, and was briefly tempted to go over and join them, to lose himself in a discussion of theoretical energy physics.

But any discussion among the scientists tonight would no doubt turn to Collins' death, and he couldn't ... deal with that right now. Not when the answers that could have saved Collins' life were staring him in the face, and Elizabeth wasn't willing to listen to him.

Another brick in the wall ...

McKay took a muffin, and retreated without being seen, to continue on his silent tour of the sleeping city. For a moment, he considered going down to the workout room to see if Teyla was still up, before remembering that she was offworld at the moment with Ronon the Barbarian. She wasn't all that useful for bouncing off ideas, and she couldn't possibly have the slightest comprehension of the strategic importance of Doranda ... but she was comforting to be around. He told himself it didn't matter, but that didn't necessarily make it true.

He still got along with Teyla. He wouldn't say that they were friends, exactly -- but then, he knew, they never had been, and maybe that was why he still got along with her now. They had nothing in common, and the growing strain between the teammates only served to cast their differences into sharper relief. But Teyla smiled at him when he happened to see her in the cafeteria, and that was nice. They weren't the sort of buddies who went out of their way to sit together at lunch or hang out after work. But with everything else falling apart, they still managed to be amiable co-workers.

Tonight, though, Teyla was off somewhere with the caveman, and he felt an unexpected pang that bordered on betrayal.

Still a sore point ... Ronon. Of all the people Sheppard could have picked to replace Ford -- why him?

McKay hadn't even known that Sheppard had (inexplicably) invited Ronon to be on the team until they'd all shown up for their first mission together. That had been -- awkward. The first thing Rodney had done after they got back was storm up to Weir's office to lodge a complaint. Elizabeth had listened to him rant and then leaned forward and said softly, "Rodney, John's your team leader. The decision about who goes on your team is his, not yours. And I approved it."

"Yes, but damn it, Elizabeth! He invited a freaking barbarian and didn't even ask the rest of us!"

"It's not your call, Rodney. I'm inclined to agree with you that John ... could have handled the situation a little better, but I'm not going to second-guess the way he handles his team. I approved his selection of Ronon for the team, so if you want to be angry at someone, I'm as much of a target as John."

McKay rocked back on his heels, caught between anger and a sharp, unexpected hurt as the meaning of her words sunk in. "You knew and you didn't tell me?"

Elizabeth sighed. She looked suddenly very, very tired. "I told you, Rodney: I won't second-guess John's decisions when it comes to his team. I'll have a talk with him about openness and communication within the team, but ultimately, I'm not going to micromanage him. Do you think you can accept that?"

As if he had a choice.

Of course the entire gateroom -- including the rest of Sheppard's team -- had heard his tirade. McKay wondered if it was just his imagination that Ronon loomed in a somewhat more threatening way at the post-mission debriefing. For his part, Rodney was determined to cut the caveman not an inch of slack. So Sheppard intended to replace Ford with someone who didn't even understand basic hygiene, did he? That was just fine, but McKay didn't have to talk to him.

Luckily not talking to Ronon had proven astonishingly easy. The only time they ever saw each other was during their missions, and since Ronon spoke approximately one word per hour, conversation with him wasn't a huge threat. On Atlantis, Ronon's life intersected McKay's to an even lesser degree than Teyla's did.

And Sheppard, well -- the less said of Sheppard, the better.

Sheppard. Hmm ... maybe ... McKay slowed, stopped, and stood in the corridor, eating his muffin and thinking.

Elizabeth trusted Sheppard. She listened to him. Not as much as she once had, but then, none of them ... but that train of thought was going nowhere.

Maybe he could get Sheppard to talk to her -- intercede on his behalf.

He walked briskly towards Sheppard's quarters before he could lose his nerve, running over possible scenarios in his mind. If this didn't work, he could always go to Caldwell, go over Elizabeth's head and play the military card. The idea gave him a cold satisfaction that somehow left a bitter taste in his throat.

This is important, McKay, he told himself. More important than you or Elizabeth ... or Sheppard ... and a hell of a lot more important than your squeamishness about doing what needs to be done.

He paused outside Sheppard's door. For a tempting instant he thought about just skipping Sheppard and going straight to Caldwell. He hated to think of the amount of interference he'd have to endure if the military got hold of the project, but they could definitely trump Elizabeth.

He had a feeling, though, that if he did that, it would be the final nail in the coffin of his good relations with Atlantis's civilian leader.

And if Sheppard ever finds out you're using him, you'll be lucky if he doesn't just shoot you.

He wished he could just ask. There had been a time when Sheppard really might have gone to bat with Elizabeth for him. Now, though ... now he couldn't even think what arguments he might use. In fact, he had no idea how much Sheppard actually knew about the whole Arcturus situation.

After the initial survey when they'd discovered the Ancient installation, Sheppard hadn't been back to Doranda -- Lorne's team had been sent along instead, to help the scientists explore the facility. Heaven knew what he'd been doing instead; paperwork, maybe, or training recruits. It was pretty clear that the thrill of discovery wasn't a big issue for Sheppard, not these days; ever since Ford, the man had pulled back, retreated into his G.I. Joe persona. He was a lot more conscientious about his duties than he'd ever been, as if he had come to the conclusion that all the deaths over that first year could have been prevented if only he'd dotted another i, crossed another t. It was a much more detail-oriented John Sheppard who ran the Atlantis military these days -- a lot more responsible, a lot more mature, and one hell of a lot less fun. McKay never would have guessed that he'd miss the irresponsible, annoying version of Sheppard, but he couldn't imagine the more adult Sheppard ever throwing him off an Atlantis balcony or wanting to explore an alien hatch.

This would be the first time they'd actually talked to each other, one-on-one, in ... months, perhaps.

If he gave himself another minute to think, he was going to walk away.

McKay screwed up his courage and knocked on the door.

There was a long silence, and Rodney realized, belatedly, that waking up a person to get a favor out of them was probably not the world's greatest strategy. Especially when that person didn't really like him all that much to begin with.

Then the door whisked back, and Sheppard stood in a cool blue pool of light. He was fully clothed and didn't look recently awoken, or murderous. Puzzled and slightly annoyed, yes, but not about to lunge through the doorway and knock Rodney on his ass for waking him up. Peeking around him, McKay could see a book lying open on the bed.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. This better be good, that look said.

And McKay's carefully planned speech -- involving Harry Daghlian, Louis Slotin, the Manhattan Project and lives sacrificed in the name of science -- flew straight out of his head. Rather than a string of half-truths and carefully selected facts calculated for maximum emotional manipulation, he found himself, unexpectedly, speaking the truth.

"I know you don't trust me, not really." He spoke quickly, before he could lose his nerve. There was a flash of something in Sheppard's eyes -- maybe pain, maybe anger, maybe a little of both. "You and I both know it's true."

Sheppard's arms were folded across his chest like a barricade -- hostile, defensive. "Then why are you here?"

"Because I --" And here he faltered, his supreme self-confidence breaking down. There were words, on the tip of his tongue, that would turn Sheppard to his side. He knew it. He just didn't know what to say, or if he dared say it. And with a growing sense of dismay, he realized that he didn't even know why he'd come here.

It had been easy to imagine manipulating Sheppard when he wasn't standing face to face with him. Now ... now he felt like a man leaning over the edge of a precipice and starting to slide.

If he couldn't make this work, he was going to have to go to Caldwell. Elizabeth couldn't seem to understand -- willfully refused to understand -- the importance of the breakthrough the Ancients had very nearly made on Doranda. It could make the difference in the war effort -- could be the distinction between victory or defeat at the hands of the Wraith. They couldn't walk away now, not knowing, never knowing, letting Collins die for nothing and leaving a puzzle unsolved.

Sheppard was still watching him. He hadn't run him off, and almost for the first time since the whole thing with Ford, McKay wondered if something might still be salvaged of what they'd once had. If only he could make him understand ... and believe. Not by manipulation, but by reaching down and pulling out the well-hidden inner scientist that he'd occasionally glimpsed lurking behind Sheppard's shuttered hazel eyes. Once upon a time, he might have been able to do that. Maybe he still could.

"Can I come in?" he asked hopefully.

Sheppard's answer was quick, flat and immediate. "No."

"Fine." He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself, but instead the desperation spilled out of him in a stream of words that, he feared as he listened to himself babble, made even less sense than usual. "Listen, the Doranda thing ... I can make it work. I know how to do it. I've been over the Ancient's calculations. Three times. I know where they went wrong. I know how to fix it. All I need is to get Elizabeth to --"

"Wait, wait, wait." Sheppard raised a hand. "What are you saying here, McKay? You think you can make this work when the Ancients couldn't?"

"Well, yes, because they were wrong. And I'm not saying that I'm smarter than they were ... necessarily ... but I've got the benefit of hindsight. I know how to make it work, Sheppard. And this is big. This is the wheel, the light bulb, the hot dog big."

He was getting caught up in it, but instead of seeing his own enthusiasm reflected back from Sheppard's face, as he had hoped, all he saw was suspicion. "McKay, one of your men died today."

Oh, that was fine coming from Sheppard; he hadn't even been there, hadn't seen it. Every time he closed his eyes, McKay was haunted by Collins' smoking body, and he suspected it would be a long time before he could sleep without nightmares. This was not something he wanted to get into right now, not with Sheppard. He didn't dare. He was too afraid of breaking down to let himself go there, and so he waved a dismissive hand. "I know, I know, I know, Colonel. But Collins' death is a pointless waste of life unless something comes of this. Don't you get it? There's no better memorial than to make the project work. He'd want this."

The invisible wall between himself and Sheppard seemed to have widened. "Would he, really. Asked his family about that?"

"Damn it, would you forget Collins for a minute? That isn't what matters here! This is so much more." Why couldn't any of them understand? "Even if we can't safely operate Project Arcturus at anywhere near its full capacity, it could still generate the power of a dozen ZPMs. We can power the shield indefinitely. We can make Atlantis fly. We can win the war against the Wraith. Big guns, Colonel, to make hiveships go boom. You know Caldwell's not going to let this go. This'll happen whether Elizabeth gives the okay or not. It's just a question of whether it happens now or later."

Something dark had come into Sheppard's eyes, and he nodded slowly. "You mean whether you get to work on it, or whether they send a team out from Earth once Caldwell gets the all-clear. Is that what it's about?"

"Well -- partly -- and I'd be lying if I didn't see a Nobel Prize in this -- but that's not what I -- Colonel? Hey! Wait!" Sheppard had reached to close the door; McKay jammed a hand in the way, stopping it. "Hey! We're not done here!"

"I think we are."

That was Sheppard's "I'm not kidding here, don't mess with me" tone of voice. There were times when McKay was willing to push back, but he'd already withdrawn his hand before he could think about it, and the door snapped shut in his face.

"It's not about the fucking Nobel!" he shouted at the door. It remained closed. "Son of a ..." He wasn't sure if he meant Sheppard, or himself, or the situation in general.

He wondered if Caldwell was still awake.

"I want him off my team."

Elizabeth finished typing a line on the report she was working on, before looking up at Sheppard hovering at the other side of her office.

"Does this have anything to do with Doranda?" After denying Rodney's request for more time to study the Ancient weapon, she'd ordered the address locked out of the database. Caldwell might have that order rescinded on his next trip from Earth, but that was six weeks away and she didn't plan to worry about it until it happened.

He just nodded, tight-lipped, and she saw her own strain echoed in the too-hard lines of his face. Once upon a time, they'd all thought that re-establishing contact with Earth would be the answer to their prayers -- that the cavalry would swoop in to save them, and all the fear and stress and chronic shortages would be a thing of the past. But that was before they'd learned, firsthand, what the residents of the Pegasus Galaxy had been dealing with throughout their history. They'd all lost friends in the siege, lost peers and co-workers who had become like family members. They were at war, and at long last, that cruel reality had finally sunk in. It was a little ironic, to Elizabeth, that they'd all laughed more, enjoyed life more, back in the days when they were on their own and surrounded by enemies on all sides. In a way, having a lifeline to Earth had done nothing more than make them all acutely aware of how isolated they really were.

"He came to my quarters last night."

"Rodney?"

Sheppard nodded. "Wanted to convince me to give the project on Doranda another try. Says he thinks he can fix what the Ancients screwed up."

Elizabeth grinned a little, despite the grim set to Sheppard's jaw. "Well, that's Rodney, John -- he doesn't do things by halves."

"Elizabeth -- he doesn't care. About Collins' death. A man is dead, one of his people, and to him, it's just an interesting scientific puzzle. It's the outcome of an experience, something to mark down on a clipboard before he moves on to the next part of the experiment. He wants to get a Nobel Prize out of this, and he doesn't care who has to die to make that happen."

Elizabeth folded her hands atop her desk, putting the report aside to focus her mind on the problem at hand. She had seen Rodney's face when he'd come back from Doranda -- the raw pain in his eyes. Sheppard hadn't been there to see; he had been training a group of the new Marines, having left scientist-babysitting duties on Doranda to Lorne's team. "John, you know Rodney..."

"Do I? In a way I feel like I never really saw him until last night, Elizabeth. The person that I thought I knew ..." He drew a deep breath and let it out, a bit shakily. "Either the person I used to know never existed, or doesn't exist anymore. The man I spoke to last night -- Elizabeth, I don't want that man covering my back offworld."

Elizabeth nodded once, slowly. "Request denied."

He laughed, a short bark of disbelief. "You think this is a joke?"

"No, John. But I need you to understand that yours is the flagship team of Atlantis. I need the best and brightest out there representing us. I certainly won't go behind Rodney's back and yank him off the team unless you can give me a damn good reason for it."

"Because I think he's a security risk? You don't believe that's a good enough reason?"

"No, John. Maybe that's your latest excuse, but you and I both know that you want him off your team because your friendship's fallen through and now the two of you don't get along. And, I'm sorry, but that is juvenile and silly. You're thirty-eight years old and a military leader, not a fourteen-year-old girl. Whatever personal problems you two have, for God's sake act like adults about it. You can work with someone you don't like. People do it all the time."

The thin line of his lips had grown thinner. "I see."

"Do you? I've given you a lot of autonomy in who you choose to have on your team. I even let you put Ronon on there, against my better judgment. But this is petty, and I refuse to allow you to let your personal problems interfere with your ability to do your job." Seeing the rigidity of his shoulders, she backed off a little -- she had no desire to push him to an explosion. "If you can come back in a few days, a week, a month, and tell me the same thing, and give me good reasons, then I'll talk to Rodney. In the meantime, I'll consider your request; I promise that I will. But this is not something that I want to see done in haste, John."

He just nodded sharply, and turned his back on her, leaving her office with a swift stride. Elizabeth let out a long sigh and tried to focus on her paperwork. She'd just gotten into the biologists' figures on Athosian grain yields when a soft tap on her office door distracted her again.

"Dr. Weir?" It was Caldwell. Just the person she didn't want to see. "We're leaving for Earth shortly. I wanted to know if you've changed your mind regarding Doranda."

She shook her head. "I'm more convinced now than ever that Project Arcturus is a mistake."

He sighed. "I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. You may not believe me, but I don't want to make an enemy out of you. But, if this can turn the tide in the war against the Wraith, let alone our enemies back in the Milky Way galaxy -- you have to understand why I can't let this go, and neither can the Pentagon."

Elizabeth folded her hands and gave him a polite smile. "Helping the U.S. military acquire bigger and better weapons has never been the purpose of this expedition. I am convinced that the dangers of Project Arcturus outweigh its possible benefits."

"Even if your top scientific advisor says otherwise."

Her heart went cold. This was what she'd been afraid of. "Did he talk to you?"

Caldwell nodded. "This morning. He says he knows why the project failed for the Ancients, and he's confident he can make it work."

Damn it, Rodney. It was what she'd feared. When he couldn't get her on his side, he'd gone to the military -- first John, and now Caldwell. "Unfortunately, confidence is not something Dr. McKay is in any short supply of."

Caldwell raised his eyebrows. "I was under the impression you'd hand-picked the people for this expedition, Dr. Weir. Is this how much faith you have in them?"

She could tell that her smile had become very fixed. "I know my people, Colonel. You do not. I know their strengths ... and their weaknesses. That doesn't mean I don't trust them. It only means that I know the areas where I can trust them less. If you fight me on this one, Colonel, trust that I will fight back."

Caldwell inclined his head with a small smile on his face. "I'd better get back to my ship, Dr. Weir. I'll see you in six weeks. I hope we'll be able to come to an understanding by that time."

Elizabeth watched him leave. She tried to get back to her paperwork, but her brain was having none of it, and eventually she left her laptop open on her desk and walked out to stand against the balcony, watching the gateroom.

It depressed her to see that the delineation between military and civilian had become even more pronounced than the last time she'd specifically looked for it. She remembered a time, not too long ago, when the Marines guarding the gateroom had talked and joked with the computer techs while they all passed the long slow days between crises. Now, though, there may as well have been barricades between them, for all the notice they took of each other. If her chief scientist had begun exploiting those divisions for his own gain, then it was to her, the leader of the city, that the real blame fell.

For a year, they'd all been equals -- pioneers in a brave new galaxy. The castes and cliques of Earth had been left behind along with everything else. But the cracks had begun to show during the Wraith siege, and now that the Daedalus was bringing fresh crew members, the egalitarian citywide family atmosphere had faded away. In a lot of ways, Elizabeth thought, the groups took their cues from their leaders. It had been common, once, to see Sheppard hanging around the labs, but as his relations with McKay grew more strained, those times became rare and tapered off altogether. Rodney had made his dislike of the military clear from the get-go, but it was hard to take him seriously on that subject when he spent most of his free time hanging out in the lounge watching movies with one or more members of the military he claimed to despise. These days, it seemed that he'd decided to act on his beliefs. It had been months since she'd seen Rodney pass a civil word with anyone in the military, including his team, when they weren't on a mission together. And rarely enough even then.

She leaned on the railing, disheartened and just a little bit afraid. If they couldn't make a go of a civilian-run base in the Pegasus Galaxy, she had no doubt that the military would take it over. And the consequences of that frightened her.

Chapter Two: Theories

As Elizabeth had feared, Caldwell came back, six weeks later, with new orders from Earth. They were to re-establish contact with the Doranda system and continue the Arcturus experiment.

"I do not like the results we are seeing here, Rodney," Zelenka pointed out as they pored over their figures, late at night.

"It could work," McKay snapped. But privately, he had to agree. During the past six weeks, in between missions, they'd done a lot of checking and double-checking of the figures he'd initially come up with, and his ardor for the project had cooled considerably. At first he'd laughed off Radek's theory about unpredictable particles, but it was starting to look more and more likely. Not that he could tell Radek that he'd been right all along; it would make the man completely insufferable.

"Rodney." Radek caught at his sleeve, gripping his arm until McKay raised tired eyes to his friend's face. "Last time, Collins died. We now know why he died, what killed him. We cannot guarantee the same will not happen to us. In fact, equations indicate it will happen to us, sooner or later."

"So we find a way to stabilize it." McKay detached Radek's hand from his arm with a hard shake; he hated being touched. "We can't walk away from something this big. In fact, we're basically being ordered not to." He heaved a sigh and stared at his watch. "Meanwhile, in five hours I'm going through the gate to yet another godforsaken planet that doesn't have a ZPM, so this will just have to wait until I get back."

Zelenka curled his hands around his mug of cold coffee, and looked away from the exhaustion in McKay's face. "How much thought have you given to quitting Sheppard's team?"

McKay's head snapped up. "None at all," he said, unconvincingly.

"Rodney, a blind man can see you do not like going offworld. You go with them because you want to be first, because you must be first to push every button. You know it is true. But you are needed here more than you are needed there."

McKay's eyes were fixed on a point somewhere on the wall, past Zelenka's shoulder. "It wasn't always that way," he said in a voice so soft he could barely be heard.

Zelenka wondered, with a twinge of pain, to what extent his friend was rewriting the past to suit his own ego. As far as he could tell, Rodney had never liked going offworld, and Zelenka couldn't blame him; his own single trip through the gate, so far, had been terrifying and overwhelming. It was certainly true that in the past, the head scientist had seemed to get a lot more out of it than he did these days. But, from Zelenka's point of view, McKay's natural habitat had always been the labs; the gate trips had always been just interludes during which the rest of them had to muddle through without the chief scientist -- and Zelenka lived in terror that something would happen to McKay, and the crushing responsibility for Atlantis would come down on his own shoulders. The idea of having McKay on Atlantis full-time was a huge weight off his mind.

Of course, telling him that would be the surest way to guarantee that the contrary scientist would hardly be seen on Atlantis again. Zelenka had no desire to push him either way, but he could definitely see which way the wind was blowing. There was a persistent rumor around the labs that Sheppard had asked to have Rodney taken off his team and Elizabeth had refused. Zelenka wasn't sure how much credence to put in it, but he could tell that it was really just a matter of time.

"So ... where are you going, tomorrow?"

"Some backwater forest planet with nothing whatsoever of interest." McKay pushed himself away from the lab counter with a sigh. "It'll be fun. The awkward silences in the puddlejumpers are my favorite parts. The last time we went through the gate, Sheppard threatened to duct-tape my mouth shut if I didn't stop talking. Claimed I'd talked nonstop during an entire three-hour jumper flight. As if!"

"As if," Zelenka agreed, his mouth quirking.

"I just like to fill the gaps in the conversation. And lately, it's been nothing but gaps."

"You don't have to like the people you work with, Rodney." He was thinking of certain people around the labs. Not Rodney; he actually did like Rodney, even the cooler and more distant Rodney who had slowly emerged in the wake of Collins' death. But there were certain other scientists who could take a one-way trip to Earth on the next flight of the Daedalus without causing him to weep.

"I'm well aware of that." McKay's shoulders slumped, just a little. "Suppose I should sleep, or there won't be enough caffeine in the world to deal with Sheppard tomorrow."

"Well, at least there's plenty of coffee, with the new shipment from the Daedalus," Zelenka offered.

McKay heaved another sigh. "Yeah, and as if I don't have enough to worry about, I'll get to spend the entire time offworld trying to figure out a way to tell Caldwell that we need more time before we start up the Arcturus project again."

Zelenka grinned. Even as tired as Rodney looked, it was impossible to resist the temptation to twist the knife just a little bit. "So you admit that I am right?"

McKay flinched as if stung by an insect. "You? About what?"

"That it is too dangerous until we solve the problem of radiation."

Rodney tossed his hand in the air with a dismissive snort. "According to my theories, yes."

"Your theories? If we are awarded Nobel for this, my name will be first."

"In your dreams, Radek."

Zelenka watched him slouch out of the lab, and wondered what the hell was really bothering the man. If it was this gate team business, hopefully he'd see the light and quit the team before he made everyone else in the labs miserable.

It hadn't escaped Zelenka's notice that some of the gate teams had a startlingly close bond. SGA-6, for example, the team with Dr. Benham. Or Lorne's team. But there were others who merely tolerated each other, and from what he'd been able to tell, Sheppard's team was one of those.

It was too bad. But then, as abrasive as Rodney was, it was hardly surprising. The man could try the patience of a saint. Zelenka liked him -- he was a big enough man to admit it to himself, though he'd rather be slowly baked over hot coals than admit it to Rodney -- but he couldn't blame Sheppard's team if they barely tolerated him. There were plenty of people in the labs who felt that way about him, too.

Zelenka sighed and rubbed his gritty eyes. He'd done enough calculations for one night. Doranda would still be there in the morning.

He didn't see Rodney all the next day, until finally spotting him across the cafeteria that evening. Crossing with his tray, he saw that the other scientist looked exhausted; there were even -- Radek raised an eyebrow -- sticks in his hair? He was cramming food into his mouth with single-minded intensity.

"Rodney," Zelenka greeted him.

"Mph," McKay managed, and cleared his throat with a swig of coffee.

"How is the ZPM search coming?"

McKay snorted. "We're not actually searching for ZPMs at the moment, more's the pity. We're back to pick up Carson; well, Sheppard is -- there's hardly any point in me going back with them. And the food on that planet is absolute swill."

Zelenka slid his tray onto the table. "You are back for Dr. Beckett? Someone is hurt?"

"No ... well, not yet ... suffice it to say that we found this kid Wraith on the planet and now Sheppard's got some kind of hare-brained idea about a drug that can stop the Wraith from feeding on humans--" McKay paused to take a huge bite of his sandwich, oblivious to Zelenka's open-mouthed stare of shock. "Oh," he said, through the mouthful, "and their day-night schedule happens to be completely reversed from ours, so right now I've got the worst case of jet-lag ever. Or would it be gatelag? And I think I've got blisters from tramping around in the woods. Did I mention the food is lousy?"

"A child Wraith? Did you say a way to stop --"

"Forget the Wraith; that's not important. Let Colonel Flyboy and the goon patrol deal with it." McKay pushed back his chair and stood up with the half-sandwich in his hand. "I think I've solved our unpredictable-particles problem on the Arcturus project. It came to me while we were traipsing around in the woods -- not like there's anything else to think about, since Ronon and Teyla are about as good at making conversation as a couple of tree stumps, and Sheppard's turned into a G.I. Joe action figure ..." Still talking, apparently not noticing that his audience was sitting back at the table gaping at him, McKay took off across the cafeteria.

"You have -- Rodney, wait!" Hastily grabbing a roll from his tray, abandoning the rest of it, Zelenka pursued his boss across the cafeteria. "You have a way to stop the radiation?"

McKay spun around, all bright, smug animation. As insufferable as he could be in that mode, Zelenka couldn't help being glad to see that look on his face again -- it was the first time that Rodney had really been that enthusiastic about anything in months.

"We don't stop it. We just get rid of it."

Zelenka shook his head. "We have been through that, Rodney; we cannot reliably shield against it, and even if we could shunt it somewhere else, there is nowhere to send it where it would not threaten us."

McKay snapped his fingers. "Oh, yes, there is."

"Where, then?"

"We build a bridge to another universe."

Sometimes he had no idea where Rodney's leaps of logic took him. "Excuse me, a what?" Zelenka followed him out into the corridor.

"A bridge. It came to me on the planet, like I said." McKay stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth so that he could gesture with both hands. His next few words were hopelessly garbled, until he swallowed. "-- is a spacegate planet, and I've been tossing around this idea -- well, all right, it's Carter's idea if you get technical about it, but that's neither here nor there -- where was I?"

"Carter's idea," Zelenka prompted him.

"Yes, right -- the idea is to build an intergalactic gate bridge, using spacegates -- I doubt if Earth is going to be willing to devote any kind of serious resources to it in the near future, so it's really just academic at this point, but anyway, going through the spacegate got me thinking about the interstellar bridge idea, and then suddenly it hit me." He snapped his fingers. "We channel the particles into some other space-time, so they don't affect ours! Just like a-- a faucet! Only for lethal doses of radiation rather than water ... actually it's probably a bad example ..."

Zelenka stared at him. "Is that even possible?"

"Good question, but it's more than we had before. I need to set up some computer models and see how we might be able to get it to work."

Following him towards the labs, Zelenka's brain whirled around the idea. It was crazy. It couldn't possibly work. The trouble was, he couldn't come up with a good idea why it wouldn't work, aside from the sheer insanity of it. "The particles, wouldn't they cause a rather serious problem in other spacetime reality?"

"Only if it's inhabited, and the odds of that are about a billion to one."

"Assuming infinity realities, I do not like those odds."

"Feel free to take your cloud of gloom elsewhere then, Radek. This has real potential. If we can --" He paused, and raised a hand to reach for his radio. "Yeah, McKay."

Zelenka wasn't wearing a radio at the moment, so he got to hear half of a brief conversation. Rodney sounded tired and annoyed, before he finished with a short, "Yeah," and disconnected with a slap of his hand.

"You are needed elsewhere?"

"No ... no, I'm not." Regret mingled with the annoyance on McKay's expressive face; Zelenka wondered if Rodney had the slightest idea how easy he was to read. "Sheppard's team is leaving to drag Carson back to the Planet of the Wraith. Just wanted to know if I was staying behind."

"And you are?"

McKay's spine stiffened. "Of course I am. There's nothing for a physicist to do in that miserable forest, and I have far more important work here."

He turned his back and slapped open the door to the labs -- angrily, it seemed to Zelenka, following him inside.

Radek, the wimp, slunk off to his quarters around midnight, but McKay was far too wired to sleep. The mission to Ellia's planet was the furthest thing from his mind as he scribbled equations and wrote computer code as fast as his fingers could fly.

Sometime towards morning, he fell asleep for a couple of hours at his computer, waking up with gritty eyes and a caffeine headache as the early shift of lab techs began to file into the room. They gave him a wide berth. Someone had the forethought to start a fresh pot of coffee, though, and McKay swooped down upon it, then went back to look over the results of the rough simulations he'd started running before he fell asleep. There were still a number of problems to resolve, but everything looked very hopeful.

This could actually work.

He couldn't wait to present his findings to Elizabeth and Caldwell. Elizabeth had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since he'd gone above her head -- oh, sure, she'd been polite in the meetings and all, but cool formality had replaced the friendliness they'd once had. Maybe this would make her wake up to reality. It was time for the woman to stop being petty and face up to the fact that she'd almost let the find of the century -- no, the millennium, slip through her fingers.

This ... this was why he shouldn't be on the field teams. He was wasted there. Someone else could do the legwork; he should be here, in the labs, working on important -- hell, civilization-shaping breakthroughs like this one. Who had once said that a man can't serve two masters? That was exactly what he'd been trying to do, and it was time to quit it. He hadn't enjoyed going out with Sheppard's team in months, and he was far more useful here. Time to stop fooling around.

He typed out a quick email to Elizabeth, requesting that he be reassigned to Atlantis full-time, and hit Send before he could have second thoughts.

Now then. As much as he hated to stop working, he was shaky from lack of food and sleep, with his internal clock still screwed up from that damned planet yesterday. A shower and breakfast sounded like a good idea, and then he'd round up Radek and they could start preparing a report to give to Elizabeth and Caldwell. There was no particular hurry; from what he'd heard, the Daedalus would be in orbit for another few days, at least.

In the middle of breakfast, he glanced up to see Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon file into the cafeteria. They headed for the military side, of course. Since the lines between military and civilian had started to crystallize, McKay hadn't eaten with his team very often. No point to it, really.

At least they were back. He wondered if they'd found out anything useful. Teyla and Ronon both looked dragged-down and tired, but Sheppard seemed fresh and bouncy as ever. Actually ... more so than usual. He looked cheerful. McKay hadn't seen that look on his face in awhile.

He tried not to tune in on their voices, but still they drifted to him, through the murmur of background noise. Sheppard's disturbingly perky voice, in particular.

"Wanna go for a run after breakfast, Ronon?"

McKay's mouth twisted a little bit. Sheppard and Ronon had certainly bonded lately, in a very manly, grunting-and-shooting-stuff kind of way. It was yet another thing to dislike about the big oaf.

"Thinkin' about catching a little sleep, actually," Ronon rumbled.

"I'm sure we are all tired," Teyla said diplomatically. "It has been a very long and ... difficult day."

"I'm not tired."

"Yeah," Ronon said. "We noticed."

McKay saw Teyla glance his way, and hastily looked down at his food. Somehow the scrambled eggs -- real eggs! from the Daedalus! -- had lost some of their appeal. Sooner or later, he was going to have to tell them that he'd quit the team. Or maybe they would hear it from Elizabeth first. Selfishly, he hoped so. That way, he wouldn't have to see their reactions. The next time he ran into them, by accident, somewhere around Atlantis, it would all be over. They could just all say hello and goodbye, and go their separate ways. Well, Ronon would probably grunt, but it amounted to the same thing.

His mind's eye, refusing to cooperate with his efforts at denial, summoned up a mental parade of their faces as Elizabeth told them the news. Teyla looked sad, in a fetching and wistful kind of way. Ronon just looked relieved; he'd never liked McKay any more than McKay liked him. And Sheppard ...

He realized that he had no idea how Sheppard would react. Regretful? Relieved? Angry? Yeah ... anger was probably a given.

Maybe he'd just stay out of Sheppard's way for a while.

He picked up his tray and slunk out of the cafeteria, rudely rebuffing a couple of geologists who made the mistake of saying good morning to him.

Behind him, he heard Ronon say something, too low to make out the words. Sheppard and Teyla both laughed. Light and happy, the way they used to.

It didn't hurt. He was over it.

That evening, Elizabeth finally managed to locate him. Up to that point, he'd been doing a fairly good job of avoiding everyone. He was off in one of the less-frequented labs, troubleshooting one of the stickier areas of the bridge theory -- namely, what sort of physical equipment it was going to take in order to accomplish it. He'd turned off his radio, but that wasn't entirely unusual; he often did that when he was in single-minded pursuit of a problem and needed to concentrate.

"Rodney? Do you have a moment?"

At least it wasn't "Dr. McKay." Not yet. He looked up to see her standing in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her, back stiff.

"Okay, who ratted me out?"

A slight smile curved her lips. "Ah, so you are avoiding me, then? And a lady never reveals her sources."

Zelenka. Had to be, the little Czech stool pigeon. "Well, since you're here, I take it that you, uh -- I mean, did you --"

"Get your email? Yes, Rodney, I did. Actually, that's what I wanted to talk about."

He gestured at the lab stool across from him. Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I have a meeting with John and Carson in a few minutes. I don't intend to debate you on this, because I really have felt this coming for a long time. I just wanted to ask if you're sure, Rodney."

"I am." He hadn't really been sure until he said it, but it felt right. His chest still hurt with a tight, constricting pain, but some of the iron bands eased, just a little bit.

Elizabeth nodded, briefly. "I don't know if I should tell you this, but after Doranda, John asked to have you removed from the team."

It shouldn't hurt. It really shouldn't. "Did he, now."

"He did. I told him that I wouldn't do it behind your back."

"Well ... thanks." For extending me a little bit of common courtesy, when Sheppard wouldn't.

"And I think the same applies here," she continued. "I'll accept your resignation, Rodney, but only after you talk to John about this. Which I'm guessing you haven't done."

Damn. Hoisted by his own petard. "Do you really think that's necessary?" He was whining, and he knew it; he hated hearing that tone in his own voice. "If he's asked to have me taken off already, it's not like he's going to say no."

"This is about openness, Rodney, and communication within the team -- and the city. I can't have my head scientist and my leading military officer at each other's throats. If you end this badly, you may not be able to work together, and Atlantis has more than enough problems without that."

Annoyingly, he knew she was right; that didn't mean he couldn't argue about it, though. "Come on, Elizabeth, we're adults. We can handle it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes, because sneaking around behind your team leader's back, and then hiding from me because you knew I'd call you on it, smacks of responsible, adult behavior, Rodney."

"Oh, come on now, that's unfair --"

"Is it?" She flinched, and reached for her radio. "Yes, I'll be right there." Turning to Rodney, she said, "I have to go; this is rather important. If you like, you can come. John will be there; the meeting is about him, actually. You two could talk afterwards."

About Sheppard? Now, why didn't he like the sound of that. On the other hand, whatever they were talking about, it was evident that he hadn't been originally invited, and damned if he was going to drop in like a poor relation. He'd just wheedle the details out of Carson later. "No. I need to finish this up."

Elizabeth hesitated, as if she wanted to say something else. Then she just nodded, and left.

Being off Sheppard's team turned out to be a tremendous relief, although technically, McKay knew that he wasn't really off, yet ... not until he talked to Sheppard, which he kept putting off. No offworld assignments had come down the line yet, which was interesting -- he knew he should ask Elizabeth about that, but he didn't really want to talk to her at the moment, either. Maybe Radek had dropped a word with her about the importance of their current project, so she'd had the team stand down. Or something. He didn't know and didn't care. Arcturus was consuming all his waking time, to the point that he completely forgot to ask Carson what that meeting with Weir had been about. Actually, he hadn't seen Carson in days -- probably the doctor had lab work of his own to keep him busy, if that Wraith thing had panned out at all. One of these days he'd need to ask, but right now, he was living, breathing and sleeping Arcturus.

The "bridge" idea sounded simple, and on its most basic level, it was. But like so many simple things, implementation was turning out to be a bugger. McKay figured that months of work still lay ahead of them. But all he needed was to know if the damn thing would work, so that he could give that information to Caldwell to take back to Earth.

Of course, people still kept interrupting him for stupid problems that they could have figured out in five seconds if they'd just used their brains for thinking rather than calling the labs in search of a head scientist who had better things to do. One of these problems -- a simple short in a power coupling that was causing erratic equipment malfunctions -- took him up to the gateroom; it was the first time he'd been out of the immediate area of the labs in days. Oblivious though he might be, he couldn't help noticing the extra-heavy guard on the gateroom -- there were armed soldiers standing at attention everywhere, it seemed. Straightening up from the malfunctioning console after fixing it, he asked Chuck, "Are we expecting an attack, or something?"

"What?" the tech asked in confusion, then followed McKay's eyes to the extra guards. "Oh, no, sir. That's standard now that Colonel Caldwell's in charge. He thought our gateroom security was too light before."

McKay had stopped listening at "Caldwell's in charge." What the hell? Had he fallen asleep and woken up in the Twilight Zone? He tapped his radio. "Elizabeth! Sheppard!"

Weir's voice answered. She sounded exhausted. "Rodney, this had better be important."

"What the heck is this crap about Caldwell being in charge of the military? Is this someone's idea of a joke?"

There was a long, dead silence. Then Carson's voice broke in, "Rodney, I'd like to see you in the infirmary before you embarrass yourself further."

"Not now, Carson. I want to talk to Elizabeth."

"She's down here already, Rodney. That's where most of us are. Now move your stubborn arse, would you?"

"Sheppard's turning into a bug and nobody told me?"

He'd run to the infirmary, flat out, with all kinds of horrible scenarios spinning through his mind: a disease spreading through Atlantis, a terrible accident offworld ... but the truth had turned out to be both a huge relief and just about the most disturbing thing he'd ever heard.

In fact, he thought at first it was a joke; it had to be a joke. Even for the Pegasus Galaxy, this was a little too crazy. But the grimness in Carson's eyes, the fine lines of exhaustion in his face ... and the tension in the others around them, in Elizabeth and Teyla and Ronon and Carson's staff ... all let him know that something was terribly wrong.

And he had been the last to know.

He couldn't figure out whether to be angry at himself, or at them.

"Where is he now?"

"He's in his quarters, under guard." Carson leaned against a countertop, and rubbed his hand across his face, where a light spray of stubble was beginning to show.

"What -- you're holding him prisoner?" McKay just couldn't wrap his mind around this. It was too much.

"He still has free run of Atlantis," Elizabeth said, stepping forward. "But he's to be kept under guard at all times. We have no idea to what extent this is affecting his mind, as well as his body."

"Well, you're going to stop it, right?" McKay turned to Carson. "You can fix it, right?"

Carson sighed. There was a look on his face that McKay hadn't seen since Hoff; he looked tired and, disturbingly, old. "That's what we're trying to do, Rodney. Actually, I'd like to bring your science team in on this. The medical staff is coming up with nothing, and there might be something in the Ancient database that could help."

"Yes, yes, of course. Why the hell didn't you ask me sooner?" He still couldn't believe they'd left him out of the loop.

Carson's grip on the edge of the countertop tightened. "We didn't really know the extent of the problem until just a few hours ago. At this point, it looks like he's got -- days, no more."

"What do you mean, 'he's got days'? Days until what?"

"Rodney --" Elizabeth began, sounding impatient.

"He knows what I mean, Elizabeth," Carson interrupted her, in a soft and apologetic tone. "You do, don't you, Rodney? In a few days, whatever makes him John Sheppard -- it's going to be gone."

"You mean he'll be dead." Dead was bad, but ... he could almost cope with dead. If he didn't think about it too much.

"Eventually," Carson said, which wasn't comforting at all.

McKay was aware that everyone seemed to be watching him expectantly. He could feel the weight of Teyla and Ronon's stares in particular -- and he wondered if Elizabeth had told them that he'd asked to quit the team yet, until realizing that no, of course she hadn't; she was waiting until he talked to Sheppard. Who was currently mutating into a bug ... Wraith ... thing.

"So," he said, rubbing his hands together with a confidence he didn't feel. "You guys have a plan yet?"

The idea of bringing back Iratus eggs was completely insane. A plan only Carson could love. Unfortunately, it was also the only thing they -- and Sheppard -- had.

McKay didn't go along, of course. There would be no possible way that he could help; he'd only get underfoot and make it harder for the military-types and Carson to do their jobs. Not that he'd put it in those terms, of course. Clearly, he was much more useful here on Atlantis, searching the database for any hint that the Ancients had had to deal with this sort of thing before.

There was no reason to go, every reason to stay. So why did it feel so wrong, that his team were out there risking their lives to save Sheppard's, while he sat in a safe, comfortable lab?

They weren't his team anymore, he reminded himself, sitting back and rubbing at his sore eyes. They were just ... people, with whom he had once ... traveled ... places. Yeah.

Looking up from his computer, he jumped to see a figure standing in the doorway. Sheppard. At least, he thought it was Sheppard; it wore a hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with the USAF logo, the hood pulled so far forward that only a pointed chin was visible. A burly Marine hovered in the corridor just outside.

"Colonel?"

Sheppard pushed back the hood just a little. His face was turned, so that McKay could only see one side of it. What he could see looked normal, though. Maybe Carson was exaggerating the severity of the problem.

"Looking for Beckett," Sheppard said. There was something a little ... off about his voice. It was too rapid, with an unusual throatiness to it.

"He's offworld, hunting Easter eggs." And there it was again, that flicker of guilt that he couldn't quite deny.

"Oh. Right." Sheppard ducked his head away, an oddly diffident gesture from the normally confident pilot. "I didn't realize that he -- I mean, I knew Teyla and Ronon were, but Carson -- I wasn't expecting that."

Sheppard didn't ask why McKay wasn't out there, egg-hunting with the rest of them, and in a way that was even worse. Guilt rose up and nearly choked him. Perhaps that was why he blurted it out, the thing he hadn't meant to mention: "I quit the team."

"What?" Sheppard's head came up, the hood falling back, and Rodney blanched from the scaly blue skin that was revealed. He didn't mean to; he just couldn't control his reaction. He saw Sheppard's face flicker at that, becoming harder, as the Colonel reached up to raise the hood again, and looked away.

"Well." Sheppard sounded almost amused. "It's a pointless gesture, Rodney; without me, there's not exactly a team anymore, is there?"

The grim fatalism pissed off McKay: as if they weren't doing everything in their power to find a cure, as if they wouldn't find a cure at all. As if Sheppard could just discuss his own demise in that flippant tone -- it was stupid, idiotic ... and nothing made him angrier than blatant stupidity, especially from someone who he knew wasn't stupid at all. "It was before that," he snapped. "I turned in my resignation to Elizabeth days ago. And she approved it. Just said I had to talk to you before it'd be official. So -- here I am, talking to you."

"Oh," was all Sheppard said, and that single little word made McKay even angrier. The very least that Sheppard could do was have the decency to ask questions. Or maybe fight back. It felt too much like kicking him while he was down, doing this now. And yet his mouth just kept motoring on.

"Yes, 'oh', Colonel. And Elizabeth told me that you asked to have me removed from the team already --" oops, maybe that had been in confidence, but it was too late now "-- so I figured you'd be pleased. There just hasn't really been a good time to tell you."

"No ... I suppose that's true."

The silence stretched uncomfortably between them. The worst part, McKay thought, wasn't the anger. There wasn't really a lot of anger in this, not as much as there should have been, and that was the worst part of it all. A strong friendship, like the one they'd once had, could survive rage. What it couldn't survive was indifference, and that was what it had become.

He stared at Sheppard and realized that he was looking at a stranger. Not because of the blue scales; he didn't really care about that. Well, all right, he did care about it, because it was creepy and weird and also, it was killing Sheppard. But above and beyond that ... he didn't really know the man standing across the room from him. He'd known him once, known him well. But they didn't know each other anymore.

"When Carson comes back, I'll be in my quarters," Sheppard mumbled, and turned away. It was only after he'd vanished from sight that McKay realized Sheppard had probably thought he'd been staring at the blue scales on his face and neck.

"Rodney, you ass." He buried his face in his hands, briefly, then turned back the database with his shoulders resolutely squared.

"I put him in a medically-induced coma for now. I was afraid he might break through the restraints."

Behind the curtain and the Marines guarding it, Carson's voice was faintly audible. Lorne smiled apologetically at McKay and spoke, obscuring whatever Caldwell said in response. "I'm sorry, Doc. Colonel Caldwell's orders -- everyone has to leave."

McKay jerked his head at the curtain, belligerent and stubborn and not even sure why, except that anger gave him something to cling to. He hadn't spoken to Sheppard since telling him of his decision to leave. "I'm not trying to stay. I just want to know why they stayed."

"Colonel's orders," Lorne repeated, his eyes sympathetic, but implacable. Behind the curtain, Elizabeth's voice could be heard, asking quietly: "So what now?"

McKay turned on his heel and left. He strode past Teyla and Ronon, hovering in the corridor, forming their own little circle of grief and fear. Once, he might have been a part of that, but he could tell that theirs was a private sort of sorrow. There was no deliberate effort to exclude him, and Teyla gave him a sympathetic look as he passed, but he could sense that this was a place where only Sheppard's friends were welcome -- and he wasn't one of them.

Didn't want to be one of them.

He'd always had a bit of contempt for people who hovered around hospitals hanging over their comatose loved ones -- unconscious people didn't require moral support, it was that simple, and if you really were too upset to do anything useful, the very least you could do was wait at home rather than hanging around the hospital getting in the way. Knowing that he himself had done that exact thing in the past -- after Sheppard's first bug incident, for example -- only made him more irritated, both with himself and with irrational idiots who thought that the infirmary staff wanted them underfoot. Teyla and Ronon ... fools, both of them.

He went back to his quarters and took a long shower, just standing under the water with his face upturned, trying to wash away the mental image of Sheppard writhing against the restraints. It was a lousy way to die, and even if he'd never given a damn about the man, he wouldn't have wanted to see someone die that way. It was worse, far worse, to see those wild, hate-filled yellow eyes in the barely-recognizable face of someone he'd once ... known. He still felt guilty for not having gone along on the Iratus bug egg-hunt. There was no reason why he should have, and he knew it. But still.

Standing under the warm, cleansing cascade, he found himself thinking of his mother -- it had been years since he'd dwelled on that. He was surprised at how much power the lingering grief still had over him. They'd been enemies when she died, his mother and himself; it had been years since they'd spoken, divided by too many cutting remarks, too many little betrayals and cruelties. He had come to visit her, though, in the final days of her cancer, even after promising himself that he wouldn't. He still felt sick with the memory of how he'd stood in the doorway of her hospital room, trying and failing to see the strong, abrasive woman he'd once known in the pale shadow that trembled in the hospital bed. He hadn't spoken to her, and she'd died, days later, without ever knowing that he had come.

The rifts had been too deep to mend, he had decided; all he could have achieved by trying to bridge them was to have one final fight with a dying woman.

Deathbed reconciliations might play out fine in the movies, but in Rodney's experience, it was just one more thing that didn't work out in the real world.

He stepped out of the shower when he started to shiver, and was toweling himself off when his radio crackled on the bedside table.

"Rodney? It's Elizabeth." She sounded breathless, excited. "I'm sorry to wake you. I know it's late. But Carson has an idea that he thinks could help Sheppard's condition."

He froze with one hand holding the towel and the other holding his radio against his ear, unable to suppress a sudden, quick smile or the hopeful "Really?" that her words startled out of him. Getting himself back under control, and reminding himself that whatever they'd come up with was exceedingly unlikely to work, he added, "Don't tell me that you're letting Carson play at science again."

"Just come up to my office, Rodney, please. Weir out."

He stood for a moment, just staring at the radio in his hand, heart beating fast and not quite sure what he was feeling.

Two weeks.

Long time to avoid the infirmary.

He'd been busy, though. He'd had a report on Caldwell's desk before the Daedalus had left for Earth, and in between the usual minor crises, he and Zelenka had been working on the plans for the bridge.

McKay was pretty sure that, after another trip back to check their plans against the existing equipment on Doranda, they'd be ready to start building the thing. He was especially proud of having managed to modify their "best case scenario" design into something that could be done with the materials available on Atlantis and Doranda.

He had waited until after the Daedalus had broken orbit to give his report to Elizabeth -- because he was still afraid that she'd try to go over his head, try to stop him. With the report already winging its way towards Earth through hyperspace, he hoped that she'd be too concerned about presenting a united front to the oversight committee and the SGC to try and pull rank on him through the Stargate. So far, this seemed to be correct.

He might be getting better at this whole manipulating-people thing, because he thought he'd found the string to pull in order to get Elizabeth to cooperate with his plans for Project Arcturus. She was afraid of losing Atlantis to the military. He hadn't realized the depth of it, until he'd gone to Caldwell to get the Arcturus project re-opened. He also hadn't realized how tenuous her control of Atlantis had really become until the last couple of weeks. Sheppard's people had never been more than nominally under her control, but with Sheppard in the infirmary, he'd noticed that the military had pretty much been doing their own thing in "their" areas of Atlantis. No one saluted when Elizabeth walked into a room; no one stood up. Sheppard would probably try to put a stop to that once he was back in charge, but there was only so much he could do to reign in the runaway train of public sentiment.

Elizabeth Weir was very much a woman walking a razor's edge. Her control was slipping; Atlantis was fragmenting. And McKay, well ... he felt like an absolute louse for using it against her, but he told himself that the Arcturus project made it worth a little bit of harmless -- well, it wasn't even manipulation, was it? Just nudging. This project was bigger than any of them. When history judged them, the benefits of their work would far outweigh any minor damage that had been caused along the way.

They had to make this work. For Earth, for the Pegasus Galaxy and the war against the Wraith ... for all of them.

"Dr. McKay?"

His head snapped up from his computer screen. He'd been drifting, staring at a screensaver. He was tired. Hadn't been sleeping well. Too much working. Too much thinking.

Teyla stepped cautiously into the lab. She wasn't comfortable here; her usual grace and composure did not hide her obvious tension as she carefully avoided the busy lab techs and the unfamiliar equipment.

McKay tried to recall if he'd ever seen her in the labs before, and drew a blank.

"Teyla?"

She smiled at him, but it seemed strained. "Colonel Sheppard was released from the infirmary today."

"Oh, was he?" Damn. Avoiding the infirmary was relatively easy, although it did mean that he only saw Carson in passing in the cafeteria. Now he'd have no idea where Sheppard might turn up next.

"He appears to be doing well." Teyla looked away from him, uncomfortable in a way that he hadn't seen on her before. "He told me that you have resigned from the team."

Oh, damn. With everything that had been going on, he had completely forgotten that Teyla and Ronon didn't know. "I was going to tell you," he said, wondering if he sounded as lame as he felt.

The strained smile was back in place. "I know that you would have."

"It's just -- I'm needed here, you know, and it doesn't make sense to send the head scientist and Atlantis's chief military officer offworld on the same team ... You understand, right?"

"I understand, yes," she said.

To his dismay, there was hurt in her brown eyes -- of all the things he'd been expecting, that hadn't been one of them, and somehow, it cut him to the quick. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault, but, as usual, the words weren't right.

"You'll need another scientist, of course. I mean, now that I'm gone. I was -- I'm thinking Zelenka. He's been reluctant to go offworld, and maybe this is just the opportunity that he needs. You know, to build up his confidence and all --"

He talked faster as she slipped towards the door, smiling an apologetic yet final goodbye.

"Yes," she said as he paused for breath, "Zelenka seems intelligent and competent. He will not be you, though, Rodney."

She was gone before he could respond to this -- before he could even consider it. He had hoped that they would miss him, of course. But somehow, he hadn't really expected it, and for an instant he couldn't breathe.

For an instant he wondered if he was making the right decision.

Clenching his teeth, he spun around on the lab stool and began swiftly typing on his computer. An email, very short, addressed to Sheppard. You'll need a scientist for your team. How about Radek?

To his surprise, the answer came back almost immediately. One word.

Fine.

Just that.

McKay tried to tell himself that he'd won that round. Inexplicably, it felt more like losing.

As planets went, Doranda was just as bleak and miserable as McKay remembered from the last time they'd been there. Low, slate-colored clouds sent a dull rain pattering across the ruins as Lorne landed the jumper outside the main complex of buildings.

When they'd closed up shop after Collins' death, they had powered down the research facility, but left it ready to come back up at a moment's notice. McKay flipped switches and watched with satisfaction as the consoles sprang to life again. Zelenka really should be here, but he was offworld with Sheppard's team -- his second mission since the team had been cleared for duty again.

Lorne and his men paced around the room, glancing nervously at the consoles. Lorne, after all, had been present for the experiment that killed Collins, since Sheppard hadn't accompanied them on that trip; the Major had firsthand reason to be wary of Arcturus. "Everything in the green, Doc?"

"Everything's peachy," Rodney muttered, distracted as he checked the readouts. He frowned. Something wasn't adding up here.

"Doc?"

"The auxiliary power is lower than it should be." Scowling now, he began calling up log files. "Either there's something draining power, or the facility was brought online while we were gone, and then put back into standby mode."

"Wraith?" Lorne asked, looking around.

"Wraith," McKay scoffed. "That's you grunts' answer for everything."

"So it's not Wraith?"

"What, am I psychic now? I don't know if it's Wraith or not! And I'll never find out if you don't let me work."

The log files showed clearly that someone had been in the facility while they'd been gone. Several times, in fact. He couldn't tell more about it than that, though. If the facility had a security system, they'd never found it. There hadn't seemed to be any reason to look for one; the gate was in orbit, and the Wraith left this planet alone, since there was no food for them here. Doranda was uninhabited; they'd scanned from orbit, and scanned again before landing today.

Of course, there were ways of fooling life sensors ...

Just as the thought crossed his mind, one of the Marines came running full-tilt into the room. "Major! You need to have a look at this."

Lorne frowned and followed the man out of the room, with McKay bringing up the rear. They climbed a set of stairs to a balcony looking down over the ruined city. The Marine pointed, but he didn't really have to. It was pretty obvious what he was pointing at.

There was another ship in the city.

They hadn't seen it, flying over, because it was under the cover of a leaning, ruined building, but from this angle it could be seen clearly. It was of a completely different design than either the Wraith darts or the puddlejumpers -- a long, sleek, glossy blue shape that reminded Rodney of a speedboat. It looked as if it had once been beautiful, although now it was old and battered, with scorch marks and repaired places on its hull.

McKay tore his eyes away from the ship to check his scanner. Widening it out to its broadest range, he shook his head. "No life signs, but there is a very faint power reading from the ship. It might be running some kind of shield that blocks our sensors."

"You are correct."

The voice was low, male and completely unfamiliar. As it spoke, several soldiers stepped into view, surrounding them on the balcony.

McKay's first thought was Crap, Genii! -- but then he realized that these people weren't Genii. They were tall and dark, with long braided hair on both the men and the women. They wore loose BDU-style clothing of a rough brown fabric, with heavy jackets over that, and their weapons were slender and pointed -- obviously designed to fire energy, not projectiles.

"Drop your weapons and equipment, please." The speaker was an older man, about Caldwell's age, with a gray-streaked beard and a firm, military bearing. A woman hovered behind him. Unlike the others, she wasn't armed, but she carried a small device in her hands and all her attention was fixed on it.

McKay looked down at the LSD, then up at them, then down at the scanner again. It still showed just the five of them -- himself plus Lorne's team. "That's not possible," he began, then pointed at the woman. "Hey, you're jamming us, aren't you? What's that you've got there? It looks Ancient --"

"I said, drop your weapons!" the older man snapped. He nodded to a younger woman holding a gun, and she fired at one of the Marines as Lorne began to shout a warning. Red light stabbed from the pointed tip of her gun. The Marine screamed and fell, convulsing, his P90 dropping from his fingers and skittering across the floor of the balcony.

"Son of a bitch!" Lorne snapped, kneeling next to his man. The Marine writhed and then went limp, twitching. "Harrison -- talk to me. Harrison? Brian?"

"On this setting, the first shot will only cause pain, incapacitating him. Further shots will kill him. Now, drop your weapons."

Teeth clenched, Lorne nodded to the rest of his men, who laid down their guns. Rodney belatedly realized that this probably meant him too, and struggled with his P90 for a moment before getting it off over his head.

"Equipment too," the man ordered, nodding to McKay's scanner. "Larissa, take that. You might be able to use it."

McKay snorted. "Hardly," he sneered as the woman darted forward. "It takes a special gene that you don't have -- or ... maybe you do," he finished lamely, when she took it out of his hand and the screen continued to glow.

The woman's dark eyes went very wide. "You have the mark of the Ancestors, like me," she breathed, looking from the LSD's glowing screen to Rodney's face.

"Step away from him, Larissa," the older man told her, and she reluctantly took a few steps backward.

The strangers confiscated their guns and packs, and lined them up, sitting, in the middle of the floor. The Marine who had been stunned appeared to be recovering, though he still trembled and leaned weakly against Lorne.

"This is extremely rude," Rodney informed his captors, glaring up at them.

"McKay," Lorne muttered, "shut up."

A smile twitched at the edge of the commander's lips. "If armed strangers invaded your world, what would you do ... McKay? Now, Larissa's going to scan you with something that'll tell us who and what you are, and if you check out, then maybe we can talk."

"What do you mean, who and what -- hey, wait a minute, are you saying you're Dorandan? Ow!" Larissa had just jabbed him in the arm with a device that resembled a voltmeter with a needle on one end. "You didn't say it was going to hurt," he muttered, rubbing his arm. "Hey, is that thing sanitary?"

"Don't worry, I only need a tiny sample." She studied the results and then repeated the process down the line. "They all have the Ancestors' mark, Seng," she told the older man. "But otherwise they are human, not truly of the Ancestors. And there is no Wraithsign among them at all."

"Five of you, all with the Ancestors' mark? How extraordinary." The older man, Seng, jerked his head at his men, who withdrew respectfully. "You may get up, and come downstairs. We'll talk."

It turned out that these people were, indeed, Dorandan, although not originally. According to Seng, their ancestors had come through the Stargate several generations ago, fleeing a culling that had left their homeworld barren.

"We were very highly advanced, my people," Seng told them. They were gathered in a long room downstairs in the facility; it might once have served as an Ancient conference room. As a good-faith gesture, their gear and weapons had been returned to them, although Larissa still eyed McKay's scanner longingly.

"There were many among us in those days who had the Ancestors' mark, as I do now," Larissa explained. "Our world had many of the Ancestors' machines, and we learned to repair and use them. The Wraith tried to destroy us, but there was a great battle and we won, destroying two of their hiveships in the process." She smiled, almost wolfishly. "It was a great victory for our people, and the Wraith feared us. We hoped they would leave us alone. Instead, they sent those with the Wraithsign among us."

"Wraithsign?" Lorne asked.

"Spies." Seng fingered his gun as he talked. "Just as Larissa's line have the Ancestors' mark, those who bear the Wraithsign have the Wraith mark in them. They can speak to the hiveships with their minds, and they can also be controlled."

"Wraith DNA," Rodney said, excited. "Like Tey--" He snapped his mouth shut at Lorne's warning glare.

"Like whom?" Seng asked.

McKay waved a hand at him. "Nevermind, go on. We've also, um, met people who have Wraith DNA -- your Wraithsign. Continue, don't mind me."

After a moment, Larissa picked up the story again. "There is probably no need to tell you what happened, then, if you have experience with Wraithsign traitors. They sabotaged our weapons, betrayed our secrets to the Wraith, and left us helpless against the next culling. Of our great world, all that remained were a handful of survivors who fled through the gate in what ships we could salvage. We found Doranda a dead world, as the old stories claimed, but the next one in the system turned out to be able to support life, and we have lived there ever since. The Wraith believe this system to be uninhabited, so they do not bother us."

McKay nodded slowly. "We scanned for life signs on Doranda, but didn't try any of the planets without a Stargate."

"We were aware when you came," Seng said. "There is always a small garrison stationed here on Doranda, to guard against the Wraith in case they ever find us."

Larissa frowned reproachfully at him. "And, primarily, to explore Doranda and glean technology that can help us survive. Life on our new homeworld is very hard, and there are not many of us. Anything that we can find here may mean the difference between life and death when the next long-cold comes."

McKay recognized the familiar signs of the same military-civilian divide that plagued Atlantis. Seng's solders were stationed here to guard against Wraith, but they were also supposed to guard Larissa and her scientists ... and didn't seem thrilled about it. "We didn't see your life signs here."

Larissa smiled and reached up to her shoulder, touching a small round object pinned to her jacket that looked purely ornamental. "This was one of our greatest finds in the ruins. We can --"

"Larissa." Seng spoke sharply, glaring at her. "I do not know if it's in our best interests to tell the strangers everything."

She glared back. "They're clearly as advanced as we are, Captain Seng, and maybe they know things that can help us. The long cold is only one turn away."

"Long cold?" Lorne asked.

Larissa's brow wrinkled. "Doranda's sun is dying, Major. There are severe heat fluctuations that affect our world very badly. We have learned to predict the cold cycles, but it is still very difficult for us to deal with. In geological time, it will be millions of years before this system is completely uninhabitable, but in the short term, we barely manage to cling to life on our world. We come to this world in the hopes of finding technology that will enable us to increase our crop yields during the cold times, or perhaps even stabilize the sun's energy output, if that is possible."

McKay raised a hand to indicate the facility around them. "But you never explored this? I'd think this'd be the first place you'd come! When we got here, though, it looked like nobody'd been in here in millennia."

"We had actually declared this part of the ruins off-limits," Larissa admitted. "Several other areas are designated that way, too. In our early explorations, we found all the bodies here, and clear evidence of a technology that we did not understand. It seemed prudent to avoid the more dangerous areas until we had explored the rest. And there are many ruined cities on this world. The idea of investigating this place had never even occurred to me until I saw your ships coming and going from here, half a turn ago."

"Ha! And the irony of it all is that the solution to your problems was right here under your nose the whole time."

"What?" Larissa asked, her eyes widening, while Lorne gave McKay a curious look.

"There's a power source upstairs, probably capable of keeping your entire planet running during the cold season." McKay pointed over their heads. "Good thing you and your little gang of alchemists never tried to power it up, because you'd probably have killed yourselves just like the Ancients did, but we've solved the problems of running the thing without creating lethal doses of radiation -- well, mostly solved the problem, but I think we're pretty much there."

Larissa's eyes had gone so huge that the whites showed all the way around them. She exchanged a stunned glance with Seng. "And you can make this work?"

McKay laughed. "That's exactly what we came here to do."

"There are people on Doranda?"

"Believe me, Elizabeth, we're as surprised as you are." Rodney leaned back in his chair. Elizabeth regarded him across her desk, looking tired and unenthusiastic.

"And they don't have a problem with you continuing your experiments?"

McKay laughed in disbelief. "A problem with it? Elizabeth, they're welcoming us with open arms!" Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, considering Larissa's cautious optimism and Seng's fairly open suspicion. Still, the idea of unlimited power had been a very easy sell. "Larissa -- she's the head of what I might loosely term their 'scientists' -- has pretty much given us an all-clear and offered any help that we need. If they can really do everything they've promised, it might cut the time to build the bridge in half."

Elizabeth drew a deep breath and let it out again. "You're sure it's safe, Rodney? We aren't going to have another Collins incident?"

"For the last time, Elizabeth, of course it's safe. Cross my heart, and all of that. What do you think I'm going to do, blow up the planet?"

"I certainly hope not."

"Of course not. We've resolved the problem that killed Collins; that's what the bridge is designed to fix. We flip the switch, the lights come on, and we're heroes on Doranda and on Earth."

"I just hope it's that simple, Rodney. I really, really hope so."

Of course it wasn't that simple. But the problems that they encountered were relatively easy ones to resolve, especially with the willing cooperation of the Dorandans.

The Dorandan settlement turned out to be even smaller than Larissa and Seng had implied -- only a few hundred people on a rocky, barren world that was only marginally more hospitable than Doranda itself. Still, in the centuries since fleeing their original homeworld, the Dorandans had clung tenaciously to the knowledge they had brought with them. Scientists were revered, and although the small settlement had no formal leader, Larissa and Seng seemed to share a leader's duties between them.

Seng remained cool about Arcturus, but Larissa offered her help willingly, bringing in the rest of her leading scientists and helping the Atlanteans search for useful raw materials from the ruined city. In McKay's opinion, the scientific knowledge of the Dorandans still left a lot to be desired, but Larissa turned out to be bright and quick-learning, and she already had a working knowledge of written Ancient that surpassed anyone on Atlantis besides McKay and Weir.

While Larissa and McKay got along well, relations between the Dorandans and the Atlanteans overall were strained. It was obvious that Seng did not trust them -- there were always a couple of armed Dorandan guards hanging around whenever Larissa and her scientists came to help -- but it was equally obvious that the lack of trust went both ways. Three weeks into the construction of the bridge, the Dorandans still had not been offered their own IDC or the gate address of Atlantis. Since they had their own spaceships and were at least potentially capable of retrieving addresses from the spacegate, Elizabeth asked the science teams not to dial directly to Atlantis from the Doranda system, instead gating to the Alpha site and from there to Atlantis.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if we could just quit this cloak-and-dagger stuff," McKay complained as he reported in from the Alpha site. It was raining softly, a light mist settling on the metal skin of the jumper. "I mean, we've been working side-by-side with these people for weeks and Larissa keeps asking me when she's going to get to see the city of the 'Ancestors'. How much point is there --"

"How many times have we been betrayed, Rodney?"

"Okay, point. But if they were going to try something, wouldn't they have done it by now? Besides, they've got a lot more to lose than we do. It's true that we stand to gain a lot from getting the Arcturus project up and running, but we're talking about the survival of their people here!"

"Speaking of which, have they allowed you to visit their settlement yet?"

McKay heaved a sigh. Trust Elizabeth to pick at the one thing that still bothered him, too. "No, but I haven't really tried, either. I mean, we are working, you know. There's not exactly time for sightseeing."

"It's the lack of trust that concerns me more."

He threw up his hands in the air, forgetting that she couldn't see him over the radio. "So they don't like outsiders, big deal! Their whole civilization was destroyed by these 'Wraithsign' people; I can see how something like that could make a person a bit suspicious."

"And they still insist on scanning every new person we send for Wraith DNA."

He sighed again. "Yes, yes, they do. But it's hardly a problem. The only person on Atlantis with Wraith DNA is Teyla, and we've all agreed that Teyla stays home, so what they don't know won't hurt them. As far as the settlement goes, we've confirmed from orbit that the life sign readings on their world check out with what they've told us about their people."

"But we know they can conceal life signs, Rodney. And they still haven't told you how they do that, have they?"

He rolled his eyes, again forgetting that body language was wasted on her. "It's hardly a secret; it's a device that Larissa wears. True, she hasn't let me take a look at it, but we haven't let them near the jumpers, either."

"Which brings me back to the overall lack of trust."

"You know what? Forget it. You guys can play spies all you like. I just want to finish this project before I die of old age. Speaking of which, Sheppard needs to stop hogging Zelenka. I need him here for a couple of days."

"He's currently offworld, but when he gets back, I'll send him your way for a while."

"Offworld? Again? Now where is he?"

"He's investigating the Ancient ship with his team and the Daedalus."

McKay froze with his hand resting on the DHD. "Ancient ship? What Ancient ship?"

"The Aurora. Rodney, we've been sending you reports; haven't you been reading them? I know Zelenka sent you a detailed report on the Aurora data, and I also sent along a formal request to have Radek offworld for a couple of days investigating the ship, and you signed off on it."

He really needed to stop signing things without reading them. "Why didn't anyone tell me? And why are you sending Zelenka? I should be there!"

Elizabeth's tone became very patient. "We did tell you; Zelenka is there because you authorized him to be there; and Rodney, you can't assign him to field work and then pull him every time that he finds something you want to look at. You can't have it both ways."

"I'm not doing that," he muttered, feeling heat rise in his face. "I just -- damn it, Elizabeth, an Ancient ship! One of their ships! Do you know what kind of valuable information could be on it? Radek doesn't have the experience!"

"He's been going out in the field for almost a month now. He's got a lot more experience than you think, Rodney."

The tidal wave of jealousy and resentment that swept through McKay left him shaken and shocked. He liked Zelenka, he trusted Zelenka ... and still, at that moment, he had an overwhelming urge to chuck the man out an airlock. Because he should be there, and he bitterly resented Zelenka for going in his place.

Damn it, Rodney, you made your choice.

"When he gets back, I want him on Doranda," he said stiffly.

"I think we can manage that."

It had been a useless, wasted trip -- a journey through hyperspace only to spend less than half an hour on the Aurora, frantically searching for anything that might be helpful in the fight against the Wraith, before the Daedalus had been forced to blow it up to keep it out of Wraith hands. Zelenka was still haunted by the memory of all those bodies, sealed in their stasis pods. He knew that all of those people had been beyond help for many years, but it still felt as if his team had left them to die.

He also couldn't shake the feeling that if Rodney had been there, he would have been able to get at least some information from the ship's computers. In the time he'd had, Zelenka had not been able to get past the tight security on the ship's database and logs in order to download any of it. There were obviously access codes, probably known only the to the ship's officers, but it wasn't as if they had any way of asking them, and he hadn't been able to find a back door in.

"Ain't your fault, Doc."

Zelenka looked up at Ronon in surprise. He hadn't realized that his state of mind was so obvious. "I am fine."

Ronon just patted him roughly on the shoulder, as the white light caught them and beamed them into the gateroom.

The first thing he heard was, "Radek!"

Great. The last person he wanted to see was charging down the gateroom steps in full-on bull-in-a-china-shop mode. "Caldwell's transmission said he blew up the Ancient ship. Blew up the ship! What is wrong with you people? Why didn't you stop him?"

Beside him, Zelenka was aware of Sheppard going tense. Perhaps unconsciously, Teyla and Ronon moved closer in, presenting a united front -- the team joining together against a common adversary. It felt strange to Zelenka to be included in that, a part of something greater than himself. Strange ... but nice.

Confronted by their unity, McKay came to an abrupt halt, faltering in his tirade. The quick flash of pain in his eyes was swiftly masked by anger. "Damn it, Radek, I can't believe that you didn't even consult with me before charging off to explore the find of the decade! You may be in the field but I'm still your superior --"

"I sent you a report days ago, Rodney," Zelenka said quietly. "We also spoke briefly before I left for mission. You are so wrapped up in Arcturus project that you are rubber-stamping everything and paying no attention to what people tell you."

McKay stuttered briefly and then managed to swing his tirade in a different direction. "And that's another thing -- you're running around offworld when we're about to fire up the project and I need you on Doranda. And you know that -- you've seen the project timeline --"

Sheppard steered Zelenka past McKay with a hand on his arm. "It's been a hell of a day, Rodney, and we don't have time for this. We're due for a briefing with Elizabeth, and then I need a shower and some sleep."

McKay ignored Sheppard, as if he hadn't spoken. "Get back here, Radek! We aren't finished!"

Radek stopped, swinging around; in nearly two years, obeying that voice had become instinctual. Sheppard, halfway up the stairs, had stopped too, turning around. Zelenka felt suddenly like a tasty morsel pinned between two angry dogs. This had nothing to do with himself and Rodney, he realized, and everything to do with Rodney and the Colonel. He didn't want to be in this position; he just desperately wanted to be anywhere else. As he floundered for something to say, he heard Sheppard speak from the steps above him. "Didn't I just say we were done here, McKay?"

Rodney's glare swept them all with withering fury. "Yeah," he said. "I guess we are." And he turned and stalked out of the gateroom.

Later, after a long shower and a meal in the cafeteria with his team, Zelenka cautiously approached the labs. He slunk in expecting wrath, but instead, McKay was cool and efficient. He wanted Radek on Doranda in the morning. He'd need this, and this, and this completed before then. Dismissed.

It was so different from Radek's usual conversations with Rodney that he was left in shock -- he just agreed, numbly, and began to complete Rodney's "to do" list without arguing. When he looked up, McKay had left and he was alone in the lab.

He'd been on the receiving end of McKay's anger often enough, but this ... this was something different. Something cold, and hard. Professional jealousy? He knew McKay wasn't above that. But as he teased it around in his mind, he realized that it was much simpler and more personal than that.

Rodney had assigned Radek to Sheppard's team. And as terrified as Radek had been at first, he'd come to enjoy it -- and, he thought, to fit in. He remembered the way that Sheppard's team had interacted over the last few months before Rodney had quit: the strain, the coolness, the palpable sense of tension. With Zelenka in the mix, the team worked together much more smoothly, and he thought it must be visible to everyone ... especially Rodney.

Sheppard was still distant. He wasn't unfriendly, but Radek didn't think the Colonel would ever be close to him -- or to anyone, probably. However, they had begun to find a comfortable working relationship. They didn't joke in the field, the way that Zelenka remembered Rodney and Sheppard used to do. But they could work together efficiently and smoothly.

Radek fit with the team in a way that Rodney no longer could. And, he thought with a heavy heart, Rodney would probably never forgive him for it.

He'd gained a team ... but lost a friend.

"Okay! Fleischman, you've got the radiation monitors? You calibrated those last night, right? Greta -- Girda -- damn it, what is that woman's name -- you there, put those in the -- damn it, that's fragile! Be careful, you ham-handed idiot!"

Sheppard sat back in Jumper One's pilot seat and let the activity in the jumper bay flow around him. He couldn't help smiling a little. There was something oddly pleasant and comforting about listening to McKay ranting at his underlings.

Even after all that had happened, it still sounded like home.

Of course, he hardly ever saw Rodney these days, and when they were in the same room, they couldn't seem to pass a civil word, beyond the bare minimum necessary to get through the staff meetings. After the Aurora mission briefing, Elizabeth had taken Sheppard aside. "John, I heard Rodney in the gateroom today ..."

"I imagine everyone heard him."

"I'm very serious about this, John. The two of you have to be able to work together, for Atlantis's sake."

It had been a while since he'd talked to Elizabeth one-on-one. In fact, the last time he could specifically remember was when she'd come to see him in his quarters while he was, not to put too fine a point on it, turning into a giant bug. There had been some brief, awkward infirmary visits -- she'd bring him a book, or something he needed from his quarters, and they'd fumble through some uncomfortable pleasantries before she retreated again. After that, well ... things had been busy, between dealing with all the innumerable duties that had piled up during his Gregor Samsa period, and trying to prepare Zelenka for field work. He just hadn't had time for relaxing.

Looking at Elizabeth now, he could see fine lines around her mouth that he didn't remember. There were blue shadows under her eyes. She looked strained and tired, and much older than the last time he'd seen her. And maybe that was why he didn't argue, didn't try to protest that it was Rodney's fault and not his.

"I'll try," was all he said.

So here he was, in the pilot's seat, preparing to fly to Doranda and watch the scientists flip some switches before going home. They'd have no shortage of security; Lorne's team and Sgt. Bradbury's team would both be there, as well as a couple of personal guards for Elizabeth. Sheppard didn't care what anyone said -- he didn't trust the Dorandans any farther than he could throw them. And the entire command crew was going to be on Doranda during the test: Elizabeth, himself and Rodney, plus Zelenka who was basically the science department's second-in-command and a member of his team.

He understood that they couldn't take Teyla because of her Wraith DNA, but he'd argued with Elizabeth about having Ronon along, finally backing down when she pointed out that the big Satedan was still a loose cannon and very prone to overreact to minor slights. This was a sensitive diplomatic situation and she did. Not. Want. Ronon. There.

He had to admit, privately, that she was right. But he didn't like it.

McKay's nonstop ranting came closer and finally plunked into the co-pilot's seat next to him. "-- and tell Dr. Vogel to forget looking for the damn mice, that's what the lab techs are for. We're leaving as soon as the GAH!"

He'd just turned and noticed Sheppard sitting next to him.

"No, I wasn't talking to you, obviously. Leaving in exactly one minute and anyone who's not on board is staying behind. McKay out." He slapped the radio and then gave Sheppard one of his familiar disgruntled looks. "Why are you here? I was expecting Lorne."

Sheppard just shrugged. "Needed another pilot. I was available."

McKay eyed him suspiciously. "You haven't been back to Doranda since the initial survey."

"Well, maybe it's time I saw what was so important."

The scientist stared at him for a moment longer, then hmph'd and activated his radio again, haranguing someone else for being late.

It was more than one minute, but less than five, before the three jumpers lifted off and gated through to the Doranda system. As they came in low over the ruined city, Sheppard realized that he'd unconsciously tensed up, the way that the body braces for an impact. It was as if he expected something bad to happen.

Zelenka had spent quite a bit of time that morning at breakfast trying to convince him that they'd covered every possible contingency. "I would not say it is impossible for something to go wrong, Colonel, but it is very unlikely. And you know that I am not -- that I do not make such assertions lightly."

I am not Rodney, he'd almost said.

Beyond his initial comments, McKay hadn't said a word to Sheppard since they had lifted off from Atlantis. Casting a quick sideways glance at the scientist, Sheppard saw that he was engrossed in his laptop, going through some kind of checklist on the screen.

It was so familiar, so comfortable, having Rodney there in the co-pilot's seat, just like old times. He had to fight off the temptation to crack some kind of stupid joke just to get Rodney wound up. But this wasn't the time or the place, and the scientist on his team now was Zelenka.

This was temporary.

The Dorandans were already in the control room of the Arcturus facility when the Atlanteans entered. There were just two of them today, a tall and attractive woman who must be Larissa, and an older, bearded man that Sheppard presumed was Seng. Larissa smiled brilliantly upon seeing Rodney, but her smile faltered as the others entered the room.

"You have brought more people than I expected," she said.

Elizabeth extended a hand. "Hello, Larissa. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Weir. We've spoke over the radio, but never in person. It's a pleasure to meet you at last."

Larissa smiled, a bit uncertainly, and accepted the hand awkwardly. "It is an honor to meet you, as well. You understand that we will need to scan you and each of your new people for Wraithsign?"

Weir just nodded. "I've been told. Please, go ahead."

Larissa tapped a handheld object, about the size of a paperback book, against Weir's upper arm, and nodded as she examined the screen. "Thank you. I apologize; it is just a formality."

"I understand." Rubbing a hand against her arm, Elizabeth watched with intense eyes as Larissa went to each of the Marines in Bradbury's team, tapping the device against their arms. Then it was Sheppard's turn.

"Hi. I don't believe we've met. I'm John Sheppard, the military commander of Atlantis."

"It is an honor, Colonel." She wasn't the most beautiful woman he'd seen, but she was certainly striking, with almond-shaped eyes and long hair done up in many tiny braids that had been arranged in an elaborate coiffure on top of her head. One shoulder of her bulky brown jacket was decorated with an egg-shaped object that Sheppard would have taken for an ornament or some sort of rank insignia, if McKay hadn't tipped him off that these people used an Ancient device to scramble life signs readings.

It was one of the many things he didn't trust about them. The jacket was another; it looked positively made for hiding concealed weapons.

The device touched his arm and he felt a quick sting. Larissa looked at the display and her eyes widened, just a bit. Then her face became calm again. "He's clean," she told Seng.

Sheppard offered her his most charming smile and then looked past her at McKay. He frowned to see Rodney staring at him with an "Oh shit" look on his face.

"What's the matter with you?"

McKay opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, glanced at Larissa, and waved his hand dismissively. "Tell you later," he said, and turned to ask Zelenka a question about particle flow control.

Sheppard frowned after him, but McKay was already off in scientist happyland and Larissa looked to be joining him there, so he wandered over to Seng. "Hi. Colonel Sheppard. Military commander of Atlantis."

Seng gave him a direct stare from under lowered brows. "Captain Seng. Commander of the Dorandan Defensive Guard."

Sheppard leaned against the nearest console and assessed the man with a quick glance. About Caldwell's age, but very fit; despite the age difference, Sheppard wouldn't want to tangle with him. One of those long energy weapons he'd read about in Lorne's report was strapped in a holster on the soldier's back; another, pistol-shaped one rested at his hip. Well, Sheppard had his P90 and Beretta, so he supposed that made them even.

"So, you on scientist babysitting detail, too?" He offered a grin. Seng didn't grin back.

"This is very important to my people, Colonel. We take it very seriously." His stare got a little more intense on the "very seriously" part, and then he strolled off.

"Friendly sort," Sheppard muttered. He wandered over to see what the scientists were doing.

McKay and Zelenka were arguing over some minor point of the power feedback protocols. There was a hard edge to their raised voices that Sheppard couldn't remember hearing from their arguments before. Deciding that he didn't want to get involved, he went to the viewport that looked into the generator chamber.

It was incredibly different than the last time he'd seen it. Rather than sitting alone in an empty room, the core module had been wrapped in a series of what looked to Sheppard like alternator armatures. There were other things too -- protrusions where there had been only smooth walls, fat bundles of wires running to the armatures, and more.

He drifted off to prop up a wall and stay out of the way. Elizabeth was feigning polite interest in the various displays that Larissa seemed eager to show her. Every once in a while, the Dorandan scientist glanced in Sheppard's direction. One time, their eyes met and he offered her a smile. She smiled back, a bit too quick and bright, and then looked away.

Maybe she thinks you're attractive, he thought hopefully.

Boredom began to set in. He scratched surreptitiously at his healing forearm. Carson said the mark from Ellia's attack would fade in time, and it did seem to be slowly going away, but it still itched like a mother.

His fingers paused in mid-scratch as a very unpleasant thought occurred to him. Was it possible that enough of the Iratus alterations remained for his DNA to show up on Larissa's scanner as Wraith?

Ridiculous, he told himself, utterly ridiculous. For one thing, she would surely have said something if she got an anomalous reading ... wouldn't she? He couldn't imagine that she would allow a suspected spy to hang around during the testing of an extremely powerful weapon.

On the other hand, he asked himself what he would do if someone came to visit Atlantis and their scans turned up something weird and suspicious about their genetic makeup. It was possible that they'd just lock up the person or send them back through the gate. But ... it was also possible that they'd do nothing and simply allow the person to go about their daily business -- with a guard quietly tailing them.

He threw a glance at Seng and saw that the man's intense gray eyes were fixed on him.

Ridiculous. Carson had assured him that his DNA was ... what had he said? Mostly normal.

How normal was "mostly"?

And how sensitive were the Dorandans' scanners?

"Okay, people!" McKay announced to the room. "All lights are green. We're going to start bringing up the power, very slowly. You all know where you're supposed to be. On my mark ... three, two, one ... mark."

A deep, low thrumming began. Sheppard could feel it through the soles of his feet. He hadn't been there when Collins had died, but he still felt his body tensing. He'd read the report from Lorne's team. He knew how fast it had changed on them.

"Five percent power and holding steady," McKay reported. "Containment field is holding. All lights are green."

Zelenka looked up from his boards. "No radiation. The bridge is working."

"Power up to ten percent."

The thrumming increased. Sheppard could feel it in his teeth now.

"Ten percent and ... containment holding steady."

Several people in the room let out sighs of relief. Sheppard's eyes flicked to Larissa and he saw that she was staring at the ruddy glow visible through the containment chamber's small viewport, her eyes wide and excited. Captain Seng was doing the same. His sense of unease flickered again.

"-- weapon, Colonel?"

Sheppard realized that McKay was talking to him. "What?"

The scientist rolled his eyes and sighed. "I said, we need someone with the gene to do a test shot with the weapon. Care to blow something up?"

He couldn't help himself; a little-kid grin slipped out at the whole idea -- I get to fire a big space gun! -- and for just an instant, the corners of Rodney's mouth quirked up too. Then the grin vanished, as if McKay had remembered where he was and who he was with.

It had been so easy once, that back-and-forth between them.

The sense of fun had evaporated. Sheppard stepped up to the console that McKay indicated. It was simple to use, just like the targeting system in the jumpers. "What do you want me to shoot at?"

McKay sighed impatiently. "It doesn't matter. Any piece of debris will do."

He chose a derelict Wraith dart, and told the weapon, Destroy that thing.

It did.

The screens showed him a simultaneous simulation of the blue beam streaking up from the gun atop the facility, and the target evaporating into the darkness of space. "Wow," he whispered. "Cool."

McKay was silent for a moment, staring over his shoulder at the display, which now showed one less blip. Then he spun on Zelenka. "Well? Anything?"

"Not even a single dip in power. Containment field holding." The Czech scientist looked up, and a grin broke across his face. "I think we've done it."

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then jubilation broke out across the room. Larissa flung her arms around Rodney and squeezed him, to his obvious embarrassment and dismay. All around the room, people were laughing and shaking hands. Something struck Sheppard as odd about the scene, but it took him a moment to place it. For just that one moment, there was a total lack of boundaries between military and civilian. There was an excited female scientist hugging Lorne, and next to them, one of Lorne's team shaking hands with another of the scientists. Around the room, the scene was repeated. Then people slowly began to come back to themselves, to remember their places, to retreat to their own kind.

We really have lost a lot, haven't we? Sheppard thought in amazement.

Elizabeth beckoned him from across the room. When he was close enough, she said, "Sorry to cut out on you, but it looks as if everything's running smoothly and I have a massive stack of reports with my name on them back at home. Rodney's so excited right now that I don't think he'd notice if I took a swan dive from the top of the building."

Sheppard shrugged. "Now that the big moment is over, I doubt if there's much to see here for us non-science types."

"Are you coming back also?"

He'd been planning on it. He was just going to come for the button-pushing, and then head back to Atlantis, leaving Lorne's team for security. But unease continued to nag at him. He didn't want to leave while the Dorandans were still in the facility.

"Nah, I think I'll stick around for a little while. You might want to get back to your paperwork, but I make a habit of avoiding mine."

She smiled. "Not lately, thank God. I'm actually very impressed, John; you've had every single report and requisition in on time lately, and with all the i's dotted and the t's crossed, too."

"Hey, yet another reason for some downtime. I've earned it."

Elizabeth looked around at the gray walls. "Well, if you want to take your vacation time here ... who am I to stop you. See you back on Atlantis."

She left with Bradbury's team and, as it turned out, most of the extraneous scientists. Soon the only people left in the facility were McKay, Zelenka, Lorne's team, and Sheppard. And, of course, the Dorandans.

"Skeleton crew?" Sheppard inquired, wandering over to McKay.

Handwave. "It's not as if there's anything to do here; we're just running along at ten percent power. Right now, I need people back on Atlantis, crunching numbers. We collected a huge amount of data during the initial firing-up and that test shot, and I need those analyzed yesterday to make sure everything is running as smoothly as it looks and that we're not, oh, tearing a hole in the fabric of space-time, or something."

"Is that possible?"

McKay just gave him the "are you an idiot?" look, and went back to studying his readouts. Sheppard looked around for the Dorandans. Larissa was looking over some printouts with Zelenka. Captain Seng had vanished.

Sheppard moseyed over to Lorne.

"Hey, Major."

"Hey, sir."

"You didn't happen to see where Seng went, did you?"

"No, sir. Sorry." Lorne straightened, and his hand slipped down to his P90. "Is there a problem?"

"I really, really hope not, but I'd kinda like to know where he went, if you catch my drift."

"Can't blame you for that, sir. Any specific orders?"

"Not really, no ... just take your men and poke around outside a little bit. I'd be particularly interested to know if we have any other company hiding anywhere. We've scanned for lifesigns, but I hear they can conceal theirs."

Lorne's mouth twisted. "You hear right, sir."

"Be careful, Major, and check in frequently."

"Yes, sir."

Lorne's team left, and Sheppard went to check on the scientists again. "Everything still good?"

"Are you planning to ask every five minutes?" McKay demanded.

"You'll have to excuse me if the words 'hole in the fabric of space-time' make me a bit nervous, Rodney."

McKay drew his head back and glared.

"So," Zelenka interrupted nervously. "Anyone up for some food?"

The four of them sat in a circle on the floor and shared MREs. Larissa nudged at her food curiously, and then dug into without a complaint. She was, Sheppard couldn't help noticing, sitting as far away from him as she could get without being conspicuous about it.

She'd definitely seen something she didn't like on her scanner.

He saw that Rodney was looking at her, also, with a speculative sort of expression. And Sheppard had opened his mouth to say something, when one of the consoles began to beep.

The four of them were on their feet in an instant, scattering the remains of their meal. McKay, Zelenka and Larissa all clustered around the offending console, staring at the displays.

McKay pointed at something. "Well, that's--"

"Highly anomalous," Zelenka finished.

"What is?" Sheppard demanded. "If we're about to blow up, I'd really like to know."

McKay gave him an exasperated look. "We're not about to blow up. At least ... I don't think so."

"You wouldn't believe how much less than comforting that is, Rodney."

Once again, Zelenka spoke quickly in an attempt to head off an argument in the making. "We are simply seeing some odd readings. The energy in the containment field spiked, and it should not have done that."

Sheppard looked back and forth between them. They didn't appear as alarmed as he thought they ought to be if the universe was about to collapse. "Is this the sort of spike that happens right before we all die?"

"I certainly hope not," Rodney said, and then was interrupted by a loud gasp from Larissa.

She was pointing across the room with one hand over her mouth.

They all looked.

Over by the wall where Lorne's team had been standing earlier, there was a -- darkness. Sheppard could think of no other way to describe it. It reminded him vaguely of the energy creature that they'd unwittingly freed on Atlantis: a shadow with nothing to cast it, a scrap of night set loose in the daytime.

"Rodney," Sheppard said in a low voice, "what the hell is that?"

McKay was staring wildly at his readouts. His voice rose and cracked with terror. "It's something that shouldn't exist!"

"Like, say -- a hole in the fabric of fucking space-time?"

"Mmmaybe?" McKay offered in a tiny voice. Larissa made a small, terrified squeaking sound.

Then there was a ... shudder. Sheppard couldn't explain it any other way. Things shivered around them, through them. And the darkness changed, so rapidly he couldn't follow it with his eyes -- it collapsed in on itself, coalesced and was gone.

Leaving someone standing in the room.

Sheppard's eyes told him what his brain couldn't quite accept. The person standing across the room from them, swaying and staring at them with wild blue eyes, was Rodney McKay -- a terrified-looking Rodney McKay, wearing something which was most definitely not an Atlantis scientist's uniform.

He stood for a moment, swaying, staring, his mouth open as if he wanted to say something but couldn't quite find the words. Then he managed to say, "Oh, I -- you -- oh no, not again ..." right before he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

For a moment, nobody moved. Zelenka was, surprisingly, the first to start reacting again: he ran across the floor and knelt beside the man who looked so much like McKay, and reached out a nervous hand to nudge at his shoulder. "Rodney?" he asked shakily.

This seemed to snap Rodney -- the real Rodney -- out of his paralysis. "Clearly he's not me. I'm me. Standing right here. He's someone else."

"About that fabric of space-time thing, McKay ..."

Rodney pressed his hands against his temples. "Please don't say alternate universe. Don't say it. Please."

"Is such a thing even possible?" Larissa asked.

"As it happens, yes, yes it is. The SGC has ended up with alternate versions of themselves on multiple occasions." McKay heaved a sigh, and took one final nervous look at the board full of displays, all of which were reading comfortably green once again. "I'm telling you, we'd better not end up with a doppelganger of me every time we fire up this thing, that's all I have to say ..."

His voice cracked, but just a trifle. Considering the circumstances, Sheppard thought that they all were doing a remarkable job of staying calm. His own fingers twitched on his P90.

The three of them crossed the room and stood over the unconscious alt-Rodney. There was no doubt about it: definitely McKay, or at least, a McKay. Zelenka had slipped out of his jacket and wadded it up under alt-Rodney's head.

"His pulse is strong," Zelenka said. "I do not know why he fainted. Shock from his journey, perhaps, from wherever he has come."

"Passed out," McKay murmured stiffly. "Not fainted."

Larissa knelt down beside the unconscious man. "He does look like you. That is very, very strange." She plucked very lightly at the alt-Rodney's sleeve. "This is not the color that your scientists wear, though."

McKay crouched cautiously, his curiosity overcoming his obvious wariness. He glanced down at his own, science-yellow uniform. The other Rodney was wearing command blue, Elizabeth's color. "Maybe in his Atlantis, he's in charge of the expedition."

Sheppard's lips twitched in spite of himself. A sarcastic comment hovered on his tongue, but he bit it back, and the smile faded. This wasn't a time for jokes. "We oughta have Carson take a look at him. Think we should take him back, or bring Carson here?"

McKay spun on him, his eyes wide and startled. "You want to take him to Atlantis?"

"Why not?"

"Colonel! We haven't got a clue who or what he is! He could have diseases! He could explode!"

Sheppard sighed. "Elizabeth can make that decision. We at least need to let her know what's going on. Go use the DHD in one of the jumpers to dial the gate and call her."

"What, me?"

"Does everything have to be a goddamn fight with you, McKay?"

Rodney frowned at him. Sheppard wondered if it was just his imagination that McKay looked as tired as he, himself, felt. The past few months had been hellish on all of them, and things just didn't seem to be getting any easier.

Before McKay could respond, their radios crackled.

"Dr. McKay, Dr. Zelenka, this is Lorne. Is Colonel Sheppard in there with you?"

They all looked at each other, and Sheppard touched his radio. "This is Sheppard. I'm here. Why?"

There was a brief pause before Lorne answered. "Because you're out here too, sir. Only ... you're dead."

It turned out that Lorne's team had found a crashed puddlejumper in the ruins of the city. Or, rather, it had found them -- damn near crashed on top of them, from the sound of things.

When Sheppard and McKay arrived on the scene, leaving Zelenka and Larissa in charge of calling Weir about the unconscious alt-Rodney, they found Lorne's team hovering at a safe distance around a smoking, crumpled jumper sticking half in and half out of one of the buildings.

"I have no idea where it came from, sir," Lorne told Sheppard. "I'd swear on a whole stack of Bibles and my grandmother's grave that it just came out of thin air. One minute we're walking along, the next minute it nearly took off Harrison's hat and crashed into a building not twenty feet away from us."

Sheppard approached the jumper cautiously, leaping back as a piece of debris toppled from higher up on the building and smashed to the ground. Behind him, McKay made a small squeak.

"It's kind of unstable," Lorne added, unnecessarily. "I got close enough to see that you were, well, had been, flying it. I mean, someone who looked like you, that is. Clearly it isn't you, so I figured I'd radio for instructions before, well, doing anything."

Sheppard jumped up on a fallen section of wall so that he could see through the windshield. Presumably this was the vantage Lorne had used. The windshield was a spiderweb of cracks, the jumper's interior dim and filled with smoke, but he could see the twisted, blood-covered body of the pilot. Part of the jumper's roof had buckled on top of him.

McKay made another small sound and Sheppard cast an automatic glance sideways, to see that the scientist had gone white. Seeing his own double hadn't had this much of an effect on him. Sheppard wondered if it was the sight of blood that did it. It sure as hell wasn't the fact that it was him; he knew how McKay felt about him, these days.

"I'd like to get in there, sir," Lorne said.

"So would I, Major. Have you tried opening the hatch?"

Lorne nodded. "It's jammed."

More pieces of the building clattered down around them as they picked their way across the rubble. Sheppard expected McKay to retreat to the street outside, but to his surprise, the scientist stayed behind him. There was a soft whisper of sound as he drew the LSD from his jacket, and then an exclamation of surprise.

"He's alive," McKay said, speaking for the first time since they'd seen the crashed jumper. The whole situation seemed to have actually shut him up. Sheppard wondered if there was any way it could be made into a permanent condition.

"Alive? You're kidding. You saw him; he's a mess." Sheppard tapped at the hull, trying to find a manual release for the ramp. The jumper wasn't responding to him at all; it must have completely lost power in the crash.

When McKay spoke again, he sounded hostile. "The scanner doesn't lie, Colonel." And neither do I, his tone implied.

Sheppard was in no mood to deal with a McKay snit, so he ignored him instead. "Lorne, if we can't get this open, we're going to need a cutting torch. And we'd also better get Beckett down here."

"Colonel." McKay again. "I think we need to consider what we're doing here. This guy could be -- I mean, we don't have any idea what effect these people could have on our reality, if people they actually are. We're just lucky they didn't come from a -- an antimatter universe and annihilate us on contact. They could have bacteria we're not resistant to. They could come from an Atlantis where everyone is evil ..."

Sheppard rested his hand against the hull for a moment, then turned to look at Rodney. "You want us to leave an injured man to die? Is that what you're saying?"

"No -- no, you know that's not what I meant ... I just mean we need to keep in mind that there could be a lot of danger here, that's all --"

A sharp crash made them both jump. Sheppard looked up towards the front of the wrecked jumper as Lorne appeared around the end. "Colonel, the windshield was damaged enough that I've managed to break it. We can get in that way."

As he trotted around to the front of the jumper, Sheppard tapped his radio. "Zelenka? You get through to Elizabeth yet?"

"I did," the Czech reported. "Dr. Beckett should be on his way in a jumper."

"Tell them to fix on our lifesigns and land as close to our position as they can. We've got a very badly injured alternate me out here to match our alternate McKay in there."

After a brief, stunned pause, Zelenka said, "Right."

Sheppard jumped up on the front end of the puddlejumper and knelt to peer down inside. There was broken glass everywhere; getting in without getting cut to ribbons would be a neat trick. "And, Radek? I want that machine shut down immediately."

Rodney squawked, "Hey!"

"Not negotiable, not until we understand more about what's happening. Got it?"

There was a small, unhappy sigh over the radio. "Yes. I will do it. Larissa will not like this."

"I don't care what Larissa likes. I care about making sure the universe doesn't unravel. Sheppard out."

As he broke the connection, McKay said from below him in a disgusted voice, "It's not going to unravel the universe, Sheppard."

"How do you know? Did you know it would do this, McKay?" Using the tail of his jacket to protect his hands, he broke off more of the glasslike material, pushing it out of the way until he cleared an opening that he could climb through.

"I can go in first, sir," Lorne offered.

Sheppard shook his head. "No. You stay out here, keep an eye on things."

He slid through the opening and landed feet-first on the damaged console. Electrical smoke made him cough. His doppelganger was half in and half out of the seat, his torso twisted around at an alarming angle to his legs. Sheppard leaned over him, bracing one hand against the back of the jumper's seat and using the fingers of his free hand to feel for a pulse on the bloody neck. He found it, but it was rapid, erratic and faint. When the alternate Sheppard breathed, blood bubbled on his lips; Sheppard couldn't tell if it was from internal bleeding or because of the blood running into his mouth from one of the ragged, ugly gashes on his head.

"Crap, he's really hurt bad, isn't he?" McKay's voice was soft and scared. Sheppard looked up to see the scientist awkwardly balanced in the opening in the windshield.

Rather than answering him, Sheppard tapped his radio. "Radek, Beckett needs to know that if he isn't here soon, he may as well not bother coming at all."

It wasn't Zelenka's voice that answered, but rather, the gravelly voice of Sgt. Bradbury. "Actually, sir, we're above you now. We just got a fix on your life signs and we're going to try landing in the street."

"Be careful, sergeant; the last thing we need is another crashed jumper."

"Don't put any pressure on him now, Colonel," Beckett snapped over the radio.

Sheppard grinned, and slid down beside the seat, finding purchase for his feet. The jumper was tilted at an angle with its nose pointed up. He braced himself on the seat behind the pilot's, but he wondered why he was bothering to stay -- it wasn't as if his meager first aid skills could do anything at all to help the injured man.

It wasn't just him, though. In a shower of broken glass, McKay landed heavily on the console.

"I thought I told you to stay outside."

McKay raised a finger. "You told Lorne to stay outside. Didn't say a thing to me."

"That's great, but I hope you're up on your tetanus shots, because there are a lot of things to impale yourself on down here."

McKay shivered, his face pale, and with great care he maneuvered himself to rest against the co-pilot's seat. He leaned over and touched the injured Sheppard's face lightly.

"Don't go poking at him, McKay."

Rodney jumped. "I was just checking for a pulse!"

"I already did."

McKay chewed on his lip, then looked around in shock as Sheppard carefully stepped off the seat that was supporting him and, hanging onto a cargo net, slid deeper into the jumper's smashed body. "Where are you going?"

"Checking to make sure there's nobody else in here."

The body of the jumper was a total loss. The ceiling was buckled -- he'd though from the outside that it had crushed the alternate Sheppard's body, but it had actually caved in behind him. The gloom beneath it was lit by the lurid flicker of sparking electrical wires. Sheppard ducked to avoid them, feeling thankful that, unlike a car or a plane, there was nothing in the jumper that was in danger of exploding. At least ... he didn't think so. "Hey, McKay?"

"Yeah?" came Rodney's tense voice from the front of the jumper.

"This thing isn't going to explode, is it?"

"How should I know?"

Not comforting. "All I want to know is how likely it is."

"Not very," McKay said, and just as Sheppard was relaxing a little: "Well, unless the malfunctioning equipment somehow sends the wrong signal to the drones. But that's unlikely. At least, I think it's unlikely ..."

Sheppard sighed and pushed his way past a cargo hatch that had buckled inward on impact, nearly touching the opposite side of the jumper. "Thanks for the comforting thought, Rodney."

"You asked!"

W