SGA: Face Value, 1 of 2
About a month ago, nestra mentioned that her birthday was coming up on June 4th. I mentally sifted through the story ideas floating through my head, focused on the little tiny McKay/Sheppard one, and started writing it.

Of course, it greeeeeeeeeeeeeew, and it is now long past the 4th. And, because of the way the fannish hivemind works, everyone else posted stories with the same theme last week for the flashfic challenge.

But happy belated birthday! And thanks for Polyamorous Recs! And happy June to everyone else.

Title: Face Value
Slash, rated R-ish.
Set around six months after Siege part II, but without spoilers beyond that. (Any future events extrapolated from Siege I/II.)

Summary: "Yes, I think one telepath per Atlantis is enough," Elizabeth said. One too many, she murmured internally.



Rodney was occupied with clutching the device and shouting, "Reverse! Take it back! Before my brain fries to a crisp!" as they walked down the hallway, so it was Zelenka who radioed Elizabeth.

"Er, Dr. Weir?" he said. "We wished to keep you informed. Dr. McKay has encountered a small problem with an Ancient device, and I am escorting him to infirmary now."

Frantic thought wasn't working. Rodney glared at the device and then stopped to thump his head against the wall. Maybe that would jostle something in or out of place. "This is awful," he said. Two marines passed them, and the small glances they exchanged contained a world of unspoken amusement about the scientists' little dramas. Rodney glared at them. He wasn't being hysterical over nothing, dammit. "I am going to die," he muttered.

"You are not going to die," Zelenka said firmly, and then, to Weir, "It is not exactly a threatening problem, I don't think."

"You were the one who raised the possibility of exploding brains!" Rodney yelled.

"Small possibility!" Zelenka said to him. In response to something Weir had said, he replied, "No, no, he is mobile and capable of speech, and there is no evidence that the device is having detrimental effect on him. He is overthinking the slim possibility of catastrophic brain overload resulting in stroke or other damage and ignoring the part where I thought it most unlikely."

"I don't think I got that part," Rodney said. "That must have been the part that was in Czech--"

Zelenka ignored him. "Is quite interesting, in fact, and maybe not a problem at all."

"--whereas the visual image of my brains exploding all over the lab came across very clearly!"

"He has simply acquired limited telepathic ability," Zelenka explained to Elizabeth. He took a measuring look at Rodney. "It may be better if people stay away from infirmary, actually, unless they think in a language he does not know or do not have thoughts to hide." He listened for a moment, and Rodney caught a tinge of relief. "We will meet you there shortly then." He clicked his radio off. "Come along, let us get you sorted out."

"Not a problem at all, hmph. You absolutely can't deny you're worried, because I know better," Rodney said.

Zelenka looked at him steadily. "If you can pick up worry, you can also pick up that I think you will probably be fine." And Rodney could, really: Zelenka's verbal thoughts were a stream of Czech that Rodney couldn't tap into, but the incomprehensible words were flavored with a current of worry, curiosity, and reassurance. "We will get you checked out because any tampering with the brain of course carries risks, but no doubt your first thoughts about this device being incredibly neat will prove right."

Those hadn't been quite his first thoughts when he'd touched the device and his world had opened up. He'd thought at first that the device improved hearing, actually, because all of a sudden he'd had more input than he knew what to do with, a constant buzz of sound from all around him, with occasional flashes of specific voices from people in rooms far away rising up out of the hum. Then he'd realized that Zelenka's thoughts weren't matching his spoken voice and understood the truth, and yes, his thoughts then had been on the jubilant side, because this was so cool. "Wait, what? My first thoughts? How would you--you didn't touch this when I wasn't looking, did you?"

Zelenka snorted. "I did not need a mind-reading device to know what your thoughts upon acquiring telepathy were." And a visual image floated up, Rodney with an expression that was a mixture of fascination, excitement, and smugness. "Your face was obvious enough.”

***

"Dear god," Carson said when they'd reached the infirmary and explained the problem, taking a step backward. Rodney hadn't been specifically aware of Carson's thoughts before that point--maybe interest in whatever he'd been reading whenever they'd interrupted him?--but as soon as Carson understood the problem, his thoughts instantly became loud and strident and intrusive. Also not relevant to the situation: BROCCOLI BROCCOLI BROCCOLI.

"Stop that! You shouting about broccoli is not going to be at all helpful," Rodney said, and Zelenka sent them both questioning glances while Carson took another step backwards. Rodney winced and slumped over a lab table, burying his head in his arms. "And no, adding other vegetables for variety doesn't make it better."

"Oh, dear, the implications for doctor-patient confidentiality are just--" Carson said and wrung his hands, and his alarm nearly swamped Rodney. OTHER THINGS think of other things POTATOES POTATOES POTATOES.

Rodney thumped his head against the table and snapped, "Carson, calm down, I'm not getting any information about your patients. And turn down the volume, because your mental shrieking about potatoes is giving me a headache."

"Headache?" Zelenka questioned sharply, and Rodney caught increased concern in the tone of his thoughts, and a quick flash of Johnson, Wagner, Hayes, Dumais, grief.

"Figurative," Rodney said hastily, raising his hands in apology and ignoring both Carson's vocal indignant exclamation that he wasn't shrieking and the continued, if slightly softer, mental litany of vegetables.

Relief from Zelenka, followed quickly by curiosity. "You are not receiving all of Dr. Beckett's thoughts then, is that correct? We can conceal thoughts from you if we focus our minds on something else?"

"Huh. Yes? I don't know. You try it." Dual tracks of thoughts from Zelenka, in English this time, like the audio track of a movie with a soundtrack underneath. "Uh, you're hungry for mashed potatoes--thanks a lot, Carson, now we're all starving--and you don't want me to know that it's just as well I don't speak Czech or else I'd have heard the thought about--hey!"

Zelenka shrugged in not-particularly-remorseful apology as his thoughts went back to indecipherable Czech. "No, you are picking up everything from me." He eyed Carson speculatively. "But you were only getting very surface layer of his thoughts. Interesting."

Rodney was still glaring at Radek. "And people claim you're the nice one." He only got another shrug and a montage of images of himself stomping around and yelling at lab assistants in return.

Carson breathed a sigh in relief. "You're saying he cannot trample through my mind willy-nilly?"

Irritated, Rodney said, "I'm not getting anything from you except veg--actually, now I'm not getting much at all." This was interesting. Was Carson simply more resistant to the idea of having his mind read while Zelenka was relying on the language barrier to protect his privacy? Or could the ATA gene affect the brain in such a way as to form a natural mental wall? "It's weird, in fact, because there's a sense of something, I get a vague sense that you're worried about this, but I can't access anything more. It's like hearing bits of a song when the person next to you at the bus stop has headphones on."

Rodney took a few steps closer to Carson and then stepped back again. "It's not affected by proximity, because I can get clearer thoughts from people in the next room and much further away than that." He winced. "One of your nurses is thinking about the treatment of bloody gunshot wounds, what lovely visuals. And...oh," he winced again, "Elizabeth'll be here in a minute."

Zelenka sighed. "She will not be happy about this development, I do not think."

"No," Rodney said, as Elizabeth came into view, striding towards the door of the infirmary. "She's definitely not."

Rodney wasn't in the mood to be lectured, and so he started talking before Elizabeth, who was radiating protectiveness, fury, and fear in equal measures, even opened her mouth. "Yes, obviously we need to be careful around alien artifacts, but in this case I just picked up the object to move it, and it wasn't like they had an instruction manual nearby, which was exceedingly unhelpful, let me just say. No, of course I don't keep the owner's manuals for products right on top of them for easy reference, but that isn't the same thing at all, because my VCR doesn't change the way my brain functions on a whim! The point is, I wasn't stupid enough to try to activate a device without knowing what it did, it just turned on, which, let me add, is further evidence of shoddy workmanship on their part."

"All right, Rodney, I believe I get it," Elizabeth said. As her relief grew (well, if he's able to distribute blame to the Ancients, he's probably all right), her anger at their perceived carelessness lessened, although she was still thinking, with an intensity that scorched him, We cannot afford to lose more people to these kinds of avoidable accidents. This is not acceptable. "You are all right?"

Zelenka said, "There is no evidence of any problems yet, but we should check his brain. Perhaps Dr. Beckett can do that, and I will explain what we have found out already, and we can examine Ancient database instructions for a way to reverse this." And…was that…did Zelenka? Was Rodney misreading that? Rodney blinked. It was hard to tell, but there was definitely a tinge of something in Zelenka's mind when he spoke to Elizabeth. Huh.

And also--Rodney turned to Elizabeth indignantly. "Of course I've tried deactivating it mentally! I've been trying ever since Zelenka pointed out the possible cumulative effects this might have on a human brain that isn't designed for it. Do you think I want my mind to go kablooey because it's receiving too much input?" He flushed. "It's not like that time; that had its benefits. But even if this isn't dangerous, it's not what it's cracked up to be, it's not fun. Maybe it would be if I could shut it off or focus it, but right now everyone's thoughts are like a bunch of gnats that I can't swat away. It's, there isn't…it's not like that."

"No, of course not," Elizabeth agreed, but the incident with the personal shield was still uppermost in both of their minds, and some corner of Elizabeth's mind was still reserving judgment. He crossed his arms and felt glad that she couldn't sense the shame he was feeling, and the resentment. He'd been a coward then, but he'd made up for it, hadn't he? It somehow made it worse that he could feel the depth of Elizabeth's regard for him, the professional respect and the protective concern. If she had thought badly of him in general, he could have dismissed her, but she thought highly of him, maybe more highly than he'd suspected, and still she thought--.

Zelenka cleared his throat. "The conceptual problem is not to turn the device off." He gestured to the device, lying on Carson's lab table looking small and innocuous, the size and shape of a coaster. "The device lit up briefly when it activated, but then became inert, and has remained so since. It is not sending--" he gestured with both hands, as if holding out words, a spark of frustration in his mind as he sorted through English words to find the right one, "sending continuous signal. It made adjustment to his brain," he gestured to his own head, "and then the light went out. It is not the device we must shut off, but whatever switch it flipped in Rodney's brain."

"Exactly," Rodney said. "That's, um, the part we haven't figured out yet. Though I'm sure--" Oh, well, that was nice. He nodded at Elizabeth. "Thank you for your confidence."

She eyed him. "I think we may need to impose a few guidelines for the duration of this unintentional experiment, and one of them--"

"Right, of course," he agreed. She looked at him pointedly. "Oops, sorry, that was what you meant, wasn't it?"

"I would prefer that you respond to what I choose to say rather than any stray thought that happens to cross my mind, yes," Elizabeth said.

"That's fair," Rodney said. "I can manage that." And, oh, oh! That was a completely unfair test of his self-control. He whipped around and glowered at Zelenka, who smiled slightly and thought unrepentantly, in clear English, that Rodney might only manage that feat with the aid of duct tape over his mouth.

Elizabeth was amused and curious about whatever Zelenka had said that had caused such a reaction on Rodney's part, and Carson was smothering a smile, too. Rodney was glad for the distraction when the infirmary doors opened again to reveal Sheppard, and--ooh, cool! "What's going on?" Sheppard said. "Elizabeth said you'd had some problems with the Ancient tech?"

"Rodney can read minds now," Carson said. Sheppard took a step back--that reaction was going to get very old, very fast--and looked slightly dismayed.

"That's disconcerting," he said.

"No, it's fascinating," Rodney said, and turned to Zelenka. "The colonel, it's like he--"

"Hold up, privacy!" Sheppard said, raising his hands defensively. "I'm not feeling a need for you to share my thoughts with the group here!"

"No, that's the point, it's like you don't have a single thought in your head," Rodney said. "Since the evidence doesn't point to you being that abysmally stupid--"

"Gee, thanks," Sheppard said.

"--combined with Carson's comparative mental opacity, is almost surely due to the ATA gene," Zelenka finished.

"Even more so than Carson, though--with him, I'm getting a buzz of something, whereas with the colonel it's just, wow," Rodney's hands sketched out a square in front of him, "big block of blank space with no brain activity whatsoever."

"Huh," Sheppard said, and look vaguely relieved, and Elizabeth thought wryly, well, isn't he the lucky one. Sheppard took a few more steps into the room and raised an eyebrow at the device. "This the thing that did it to you?"

"Yes," Rodney said. Sheppard was stepping closer to it and peering at it, and Rodney rushed into speech. "What are you doing? Don't touch! Step back!" Because oh, god, he didn't want his own mind read by anyone, but especially not Sheppard, that way led to exposure and possible humiliation and certain awkwardness. Except wait, he had the gene himself and that would be a protection, wouldn't it? But it wasn't natural, and now that he'd started thinking about what he didn't want Sheppard to know it was a very big elephant in the room that would probably be on every single layer of his thoughts, and-- "No touching!"

Sheppard didn't step back, but he ostentatiously clasped his hands behind his back. "Look, ma, no hands."

"Yes, I think one telepath per Atlantis is enough," Elizabeth said. One too many, she murmured internally.

"Indeed, since we haven't ruled out negative side effects," Carson said.

"Exactly," Rodney said. "We haven't ruled out the device's brain-exploding properties yet, so I think we'll all keep our hands clear, all right, Colonel? And speaking of brain-exploding possibilities, you all could stand to be a little more concerned, you know, and I would like my brain scanned now."

***

Carson concluded that Rodney's brain wasn't in any danger, although he recommended frequent checkups if this continued for long.

Which it would, because--Rodney stared at Elizabeth where she was sitting at the lab table with Zelenka and Sheppard, having pulled up the schematics for the device in the database, because, no, no, no. He couldn't deny there was something a little bit fun and titillating (if slightly squirm-inducing since he knew he would guard his own privacy zealously if circumstances were reversed) about getting a glimpse into people's thoughts. But he'd only been doing it for an hour or so, and he was already tired of the buzz that surrounded him, the mélange of boredom and worry and interest and stress that people were experiencing all over the city. He could sort of ignore the people in the outlying areas if he focused on the thoughts of the people in the same room as him, but they were still there, and--

"Something wrong?" Sheppard asked, looking back and forth from Rodney to Elizabeth's sympathetic look. "This isn't permanent, right? 'Cause McKay's already looking kind of stressed already."

"Not permanent, no," Elizabeth said. "But I don't think there is a way to shut this down before it's run its course--and that's going to be approximately a week if I've converted the time units correctly."

Sheppard frowned. "No shut off mechanism? Isn't that sort of--"

"Shoddy workmanship!" Rodney put in.

"--short-sighted on their part?"

"Not necessarily, not the way they used it," Elizabeth said, her eyes bright with interest. She was intrigued by this glimpse into their culture, and enjoying the chance to use her skills in speaking Ancient; it made a change from her usual bureaucratic responsibilities. Rodney sighed and pulled up the stool next to Sheppard to listen to facts he'd already gleaned from her thoughts, and Carson propped his elbows on the lab table to listen in as well. "They primarily used the device for two functions. First, when they needed a way of communicating at long range where portable devices weren't convenient. As we've gathered, their minds had natural barriers against being read by telepathic means that humans, most humans anyway," she nodded in Sheppard's direction, "don't have. While an Ancient who used the device was capable of receiving thoughts sent to them, they weren't bombarded by everyone's thoughts. If two people used the device--or a team of people--it allowed them to send and receive messages purposefully."

Like Ancient walkie-talkies--are you getting this, McKay? Uh, Sally sells seashells--

"--by the seashore," Rodney finished, and was the recipient of three concerned glances (Carson, Zelenka, and Elizabeth) and one intrigued one (Sheppard).

Elizabeth stopped talking in surprise at the apparent non sequitur. "Rodney?" she asked.

"My fault," Sheppard said, waving a hand. "Little thought experiment there."

Elizabeth nodded in comprehension. "Yes, you can send specific thoughts his way if you want to, although he won't be able to eavesdrop on your other thoughts. And if you had touched the device--which you won't--the link would work both ways."

"Could have its advantages over radios," Sheppard said.

"It couldn't be broken or stolen or lost offworld like a radio, and electromagnetic interference wouldn't jumble it," Carson agreed. "Quite clever."

"Yes. And it lasted for about seven days, you see, because they wanted the ability to last for a fairly long time without a need for the device itself. But there wasn't a specific need for a shut-off switch," Elizabeth added in a tone of apology, "because they simply wouldn't use their capabilities when whatever task they'd used it for was over."

"Great," Rodney said glumly, but he'd pretty much resigned himself by this time; he'd already gotten that explanation several minutes before she'd said it.

Zelenka tilted his head, and yes, there was definitely something there when he talked to Elizabeth. "You originally said two functions, didn't you? Communication and what?"

Elizabeth's face got a little grimmer; she wasn't comfortable with this aspect of it. Too much potential for abuse, and even under ideal circumstances, invasive. "They used it in their criminal justice system. In conjunction with," she frowned, "I'm not entirely sure whether it was another device or a drug of some sort. I think a drug. It lowered another person's mental barriers."

Carson's eyes narrowed. "That's a bit disturbing."

"They used it on suspects and witnesses, to determine the truth of allegations. All they had to do would be to ask a question and pick up the answer from the person's brain. Like a very efficient lie detector test."

Sheppard's eyebrows raised. "Did the accused have to consent or were the Ancients less picky about forcing people to incriminate themselves than we are?"

"The database doesn't go into that level of detail, but I don't get the sense that consent was required, no. They didn't have the same level of concern we have for protecting the rights of the accused, since they were sure their methods of proving a person's guilt were foolproof," Elizabeth said.

"Very effective, of course," Carson said, "but..." his voice trailed off.

They all stared at the device, contemplating the ways of the Ancients.

"Their investigators could ask anything once they had the person drugged, couldn't they?" Rodney put in after a moment. "They wouldn't have to limit their questions to the crime. Plus, if the investigator held a grudge against the accused--'hey, have you ever thought bad things about me? I see. Did you commit the crime? Yes, of course you did. Let's lock him up.' What a racket."

"There are all sorts of warnings about the proper regulations for its use," Elizabeth said. "I gather the penalties for misusing it were severe."

Sheppard snorted. "Whenever there are lists of warnings against doing stuff, it only means someone already tried them. And probably succeeded."

"Not to mention that someone with a device could slip the drug to someone else without them even realizing it to get handy blackmail material," Rodney added.

"Yes," Elizabeth said, and leaned forward across the table, her face and thoughts suddenly focused. Rodney felt Sheppard stir restlessly beside him, as if reacting to the shift in intensity. "You wouldn't want untrustworthy people to have access to this device. And we'll be in that position of vulnerability with you, Rodney."

Rodney leaned forward himself and nodded. "I won't abuse it," he promised, trying to match her gravity, to convey the same level of truth he was getting from her with only his face and voice.

She nodded. "I trust that. Trust you." She did, and it felt like a weight. She wanted to keep him close to the infirmary in case of unforeseen side effects. But if she didn't trust him, he'd already be on his way to a deserted place on the mainland for a week-long camping trip, accompanied by a marine with the ATA gene for protection against animals or accidents. "That said, I think it's important to establish some ground rules for this."

He already knew them; she'd been refining and rehearsing them in the back of her mind for some time now. Respond to speech and not thought. Do not reveal anything of what you learn to others, even if it seems innocuous. (An exception to be made for someone about to cause physical harm to him/herself or others.) If someone under your supervision has negative thoughts about you, do not let it color your interactions with them--react only to actual behavior. Do not correct mistakes or misapprehensions even if you know better. Do not ask specific questions geared to bring a topic to someone's mind if you think the person prefers privacy on that topic. No offworld missions for the duration, both because she wanted him close to the infirmary but also because this seemed underhanded, if advantageous. Checkups twice a day from Carson.

Sensible rules for the most part; he was ready to agree to them already. But if he didn't let her spell them out, she'd think he was blowing them off, not to mention breaking the first one, and so he said, "Okay," and listened.

***

Having a superpower should be fun, or at the very least fascinating in an angst-and-dilemma causing way, but it turned out to be sort of boring.

Elizabeth made a city-wide announcement about the problem, and for a moment Rodney was almost deafened by people thinking of all the things they wouldn't want him to know. Fortunately, it mostly got jumbled into a big muddle of petty secrets.

At least two people had little crushes on him, though. How about that.

Most of the marines took the development in stride; quite a few of them had we've-seen-everything-at-the-SGC-and-we-won't-let-ourselves-be-fazed reactions. Most of the scientists were very, very curious, if a little bit more freaked out on the whole about issues of mental integrity. A handful of people--Kate Heightmeyer, for example, thinking of confidentiality issues--decided to take advantage of Elizabeth's comment that this might be a good week to build relations with the Athosians.

And then, surprisingly quickly, things went back to normal.

He and Sheppard played around with his new ability in the early afternoon; he took a radio and Sheppard took his mind and they wandered in opposite directions, stopping at intervals to test Rodney's range. He was hearing thoughts from a lot of people as he strolled down the hallways (boredom; Freecell; impatient wait for the Daedalus, which had left two days ago on a supply run, to return with Preparation H), but Sheppard's voice in his head felt strangely intimate, intentional and pitched for Rodney alone. Rodney could picture the amused expression on his face that would match his tone of voice as he made a comment about feeling like the Verizon guy, can you hear me now?

Rodney clicked his radio on. "I can, and you only get to make that joke once."

Yeah, yeah. You know, this wouldn't be bad if it worked the way it's supposed to. I can see the usefulness. No static.

"Yeah," Rodney said, and kept walking. (Archaeological work; Minesweeper; mental memoir-writing; inaccurate and poorly reasoned physics; report-writing; reading of an article in an anthropological journal.)

A few minutes later: If you're getting this, complete the phrase: We hold these truths to be--

"Hello, Canadian here?"

I won't hold it against you if you throw an 'eh' in there somewhere.

Rodney rolled his eyes and continued walking. "And now I'm seeing the drawbacks of the device. Having to listen to your attempts at humor in two mediums." (An unhealthy interest in plant innards; offworld mission prep; second-guessing the decision not to return home on the Daedalus; satisfaction at tracking down a discrepancy in a spreadsheet; sexual fantasy of a threesome variety, with improbably bending limbs.)

Further on: Hey, does this account for distance? Am I sounding fainter the further away I get?

"Other people are, but not you. Probably something to do with intention. You're coming through loud and clear." And close, somehow, as if it were one of those times when they were standing side to side or Sheppard was leaning over his shoulder to look at something, when he was aware of Sheppard not visually but simply as solid, warm presence. The clarity of it made Rodney think idly that this could replace phone sex any day. He stopped for a moment, appalled, before he remembered the mind-reading wasn't reciprocal. Thank god.

They confirmed that they could communicate across a distance of several miles before it sputtered out, and then reconvened at Rodney's lab. Sheppard scratched the back of his head and said, "You know, there's not really--"

"--a lot more we can do with this," Rodney agreed.

"Not so much, no. You'd think there would be," Sheppard said, and gestured to the door. "I should get back to those duty rotation assignments. So, uh, have fun? And, I don't know, don't let your new superpowers turn you into an evil cartoon villain."

"I'll try very hard," Rodney said. "Now please excuse me while I go practice my evil laugh."

"See you later, then."

In the evening, the city's temperature controls went haywire again--they'd had more glitches since the weather had gotten extremely hot and humid this past month--and Rodney and Zelenka got sidetracked from their other work to fix that. Zelenka, bless him, had raised a hand when Elizabeth mentioned the restriction against correcting people while they worked and said, "For myself, I grant you permission while we are working. If you see--hear?--me making a mistake, inform me. I would prefer not to waste time." Elizabeth hadn't quite approved, but it was a relief to Rodney not to have to bite his tongue around one person, at least. Rodney was more than willing to let people fuck up their personal lives, but it caused him pain to stand idly by while his colleagues persisted with professional errors.

Not that Zelenka made mistakes, but they ended up working more productively if Rodney responded to thoughts as he picked them up instead of waiting for Zelenka to spell things out. After a while Zelenka stopped talking at all, just thought wordless concepts and equations and visuals at him, and when they'd fixed the problem and were grinning at each other in satisfaction, Zelenka had said-thought, a little wistfully, that it was "not a bad way to work," without the constant low-grade effort of translation into English.

It could have been a better day, but it could have been worse. Any day his brain didn't explode had to be considered a success by some standard. After another brain scan in the infirmary, Rodney headed off to bed, disgruntled but coping.

Of course he couldn't get to sleep. Earpieces and music turned up high on his iPod couldn't drown out thoughts that were being channeled directly to his head. He thought, a bit grimly, that he could read for a while until enough people went to sleep that the noise lessened.

He was part of the way through Pratchett's Mort when he realized that the barrage wasn't going to let up. As they drifted off to sleep, people's thoughts slowed down--and then they began to dream.

***

He caught a whiff of alarm from Carson when he went in for the morning's checkup. "How are you feeling? Headaches? Nausea?"

"Fine," Rodney said wearily. "Yeah, I know, I look like crap. I didn't sleep. It was like trying to sleep in the middle of a party. A very surreal, non-linear party with giraffes and water slides and people's third grade teachers popping in unexpectedly."

Carson's eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh dear. You can hear dreams, too?"

"Yes," Rodney said grimly. "And if you think listening to people describe their dreams is usually excruciatingly boring…"

Though it hadn't been the dreams that were the true problem but the nightmares. Most dreams were fragmentary, whispers that it was easy enough to ignore; nightmares were far less frequent, but they came through as strongly as screams. It had been a full six months since the Wraith attack, but they lived always under threat of another one. Rodney had ended up sitting with his back to the wall from three am until dawn, arms curled around his drawn-up knees, in a cold sweat from other people's fears about the Wraith.

The day didn't improve from there.

To begin with, people were avoiding him. Well, good, that cut down on the amount of stupidity he had to deal with. He just wished that people weren't being such idiots about it, giving him a wide berth as they passed him in the halls as if that amount of physical proximity made a difference. As if averting their eyes would do a bit of good.

Then a field team came back from a mission that had concluded in a rockslide, resulting in one dislocated shoulder, one twisted ankle, and lots of scrapes and bruises. Their hurt didn't transmit to him as physical pain, but it made him itchy and uncomfortable nonetheless. Elizabeth was stressed because of it, too, rigorously examining how they might have prevented the occurrence. Then one of the MALPs went through the Gate and promptly had a little breakdown, spinning around in circles, which made the team who had been prepared to go through the Gate fractious while Rodney figured out the problem. Then the lights on one floor started flickering at irregular intervals. More irksome, they never were able to pinpoint what was causing the problem; it spontaneously fixed itself when Sheppard came to check on him ("Still telepathic, not evil yet." "I see, just cranky then.") and leaned in what was apparently the right way on a wall panel.

Plus, the novelty of telepathy had completely worn off, and he'd come to the conclusion that most people's thoughts were profoundly boring. "You know what it's like?" he asked Elizabeth when she came to talk to him during the evening checkup at the infirmary. "An endless cocktail party, and you're stuck listening to your supervisor's wife yammering about, I don't know, her new curtains."

"Curtains?" She was skeptical of the idea that the best and brightest of their respective fields were spending their time in Atlantis thinking of curtains.

"The curtains are metaphorical," he said. "Also the supervisor's wife. And I don't have to feign interest in order to avoid being fired; in fact, I'm supposed to pretend I don't hear her at all while she natters on. Okay, it's not an exact analogy, but still, cocktail party from hell."

Also, it was a cocktail party where people felt free to share their sexual fantasies, which was another thing that was better in theory than in practice. Sure, it was basically free porn, and some of it nicely creative, but some of it came from people whom he didn't want to put in a sexual context, thank you very much. Plus, the number of people on base who ogled Sheppard was appalling. (Realistically it wasn't much more than a handful but it felt like more.) Most of them didn't even know him, just saw the smile and the saunter and the effortless charm. Completely inappropriate. And juvenile. And irritating. And distracting.

Rodney decided to go to bed early, hoping to fall sleep before most of the rest of the base. He was tired enough, he thought, to sleep through the noise of their waking thoughts, and if he were asleep himself, their dreams couldn't bother him.

He did sleep for a few hours this time. When he woke again near midnight, his fists were clenched tight in his pillow and he was sobbing harshly. Because the Wraith were coming and he could not find a gun, and when he did his fingers were clumsy and the bullets spilled over the floor and they were the wrong size and would not fit; because he was in his childhood home, watching his mother's eyes glow gold; because he was walking through Atlantis, and it was abandoned and cold, and something dark and shapeless was coming through the hallways; because the humans stalking down the halls of Cheyenne Mountain weren't humans but Wraith; because his team had abandoned him offworld and he could not remember the Gate address to dial; because the Wraith were coming and he was swaddled in a cocoon, unable to move; because the Wraith were coming and he was running down the halls but not nearly fast enough; because the Wraith had come, and they surrounded him, and one of them smiled and put a hand through his chest to his heart.

***

He stayed up and worked and drank a lot of coffee after that. By the time he checked in with Carson in the morning, he had gotten a second wind and was consequently wired and chipper and feeling just fine.

For some reason, this seemed to alarm people.

Carson brought up the idea of sedatives, which Rodney vehemently refused. He needed more lucidity to sort through people's thoughts without letting them overwhelm him, not less.

Elizabeth asked him if anything were wrong and wasn't at all reassured by his answer of, "nothing to speak of! Well, nothing I can speak of, what with keeping everyone's secrets." Possibly the way he mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key was a little over the top.

Zelenka eyed him dubiously and said, "Well, we have all spent weeks without much sleep before; I am sure you will make it through one more," and then hinted at the need for someone to do nice, unchallenging, routine maintenance checkups on the puddlejumpers and the chair. Rodney considered the way his thoughts were skittering about and let himself be steered in that direction.

Sheppard agreed to help with the chair diagnostics, which was useful; also, when Rodney balked at the idea of going to the crowded mess hall at lunchtime, Sheppard went and brought back rubbery lasagna and apples for both of them. They took a break to sit and talk about which superpowers would have the broadest range of applicability, which turned out to be the fun part of the day.

Rodney had been feeling less than charitable towards Sheppard, primarily out of residual irritation over last night's lighting problem. It offended his scientific sensibilities to write reports that sounded like accounts of faith healing. ("And lo, all hail the mighty Sheppard, for he descended from the control room, and laid his hands upon the defective part, and a miracle did happen!") Also, somehow having proof that people fell for Sheppard's hero persona grated on his nerves. Because yes, he had a bit of a thing for Sheppard himself, and he didn't like the sensation of being one of a crowd, as if the feelings that had blindsided him a few months ago were nothing more than a common crush.

But he couldn't sustain irritation faced with Sheppard himself, who brought him lunch and made him grin with his comments about the pros and cons of invisibility and lobbed back Rodney's sharper comments without taking offense. Who was, despite the careless flyboy image, so damned responsible when it came to tedious tasks like running diagnostics. They tender to bicker about priorities in the field, when Rodney wanted to explore something further because it was nifty and Sheppard wanted to know what it could be used for before committing resources. But ask Sheppard for his time and his ATA gene for something related to the city's defenses or improved functioning and he did it, attentively and without fuss.

If you'd asked Rodney before this week whose mind he would want a sneak peak into, he probably would have said Sheppard's. In some ways, though, he felt glad that he hadn't gotten one. For one thing, getting a definitive negative answer to the question about whether Sheppard did guys would have been much too depressing to deal with this week. For another, he would have missed this, Sheppard relaxed around him and not edging away uncomfortably like everyone else. And Rodney guessed he didn't need one. He knew Sheppard as well as anyone, and he was deeply certain that there was nothing in Sheppard's mind that would alter his genuine liking and respect for the other man.

He had liked Sheppard almost from the beginning, certainly long before he'd wanted to have sex with him. That had never changed, even if it had gotten tangled with other things in the past few months, with a visceral appreciation for the expressive face and the strong shoulders and the way Sheppard moved as if he were comfortable in his body. Rodney felt a little melancholy and a little hopeful as he sat there, listening to a ridiculous assertion about the value of x-ray vision that Rodney was going to enjoy refuting. Eventually the more inconvenient longings would have to subside from lack of encouragement. He would stop wanting to, say, trace the musculature of Sheppard's arm, sliding fingers over wrist and forearm and up underneath the edge of Sheppard's t-shirt. But he would still have Sheppard himself, with his sense of the absurd and his familiar sarcasm and his basic decency and competence, and that was worth something. That was worth a lot.

***

Atlantis Team 4 reported in from an offworld mission not long after Rodney and Sheppard finished the chair, which meant that Sheppard was called away for the briefing and Rodney started the puddlejumpers alone. He managed the first five before he started crashing hard, and so he headed back to his quarters, ate a few powerbars for dinner, and toppled into bed. He was going to go to sleep. He absolutely was. The constant background noise didn't matter, and he could get a few hours of sleep in before everyone else started going to bed.

He was actually almost drifting into a nice haze when the sense of someone else's distress reached him and jerked him fully awake.

He buried his head underneath his pillow (irrational, but no one was here to call him on it), waiting for the man to continue down the hallway, for his thoughts to Doppler into a more ignorable murmur as he moved further away. But of course he stopped in front of Rodney's door instead. By the time he'd worked up the courage to knock, Rodney had gotten out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants over his boxers and moved towards the door himself.

Lieutenant Cobb looked tense, not fearful, but that was a front; he'd been scared for three days now, waiting for the axe to fall, for Sheppard or Bates or Weir to call him in with grave or disgusted faces, for the rumors to start and spread. He hadn't gone to the Athosians because he hadn't wanted to draw attention to himself, hadn't wanted to seem to have something to hide.

Someone to hide.

The other man's anxiety wormed around Rodney's nerve endings, infecting him; he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he looked at Cobb's slightly sunburned nose, his gangly limbs, his stiff posture as he braced himself for the worst. Cobb knew that Dr. Weir had said that McKay was under orders not to reveal any secrets he learned, but that referred to petty stuff, and maybe it didn't cover this, maybe it didn't cover things you could be prosecuted for. He couldn't wait any longer for the Sword of Damocles to drop. "I have to talk to you," Cobb said.

Rodney stepped backwards into his room. Cobb followed him, mute and fidgety, clenching and unclenching his fists, flinching when Rodney shut the door. So damned young, maybe twenty-five, twenty-six, small town kid.

"Are you, do you," Cobb swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing, "do you know why I'm here?"

"Yes," Rodney said, adding hastily, "It's all right." He was supposed to wait for spoken words, but Cobb's face had paled at the confirmation and his fear was choking him from further speech, and this wasn't acceptable, wasn't bearable for either of them. "Don't worry. It's all right."

Chin up, facing the firing squad. "Are you gonna tell?"

"Of course not," Rodney said. Cobb wasn't convinced; the fear backed off a little, but he seemed to have spent the last three days working himself into a frenzy, and he wouldn't be easily calmed. "Of course not. I--okay, first of all, I'm not military, I'm not even American, why would I want to be responsible for enforcing their rule? Second, it's a stupid rule. Third, it's not my business. Fourth, it's not something that affects the way you do your job, so why should I care? Fifth, it's--seriously, I need to say this again, it's not my business. Sixth, I may have a reputation as kind of an asshole, but I don't know where you got the impression that I get my kicks from going around randomly destroying people's lives."

Relief seeped into Cobb's mind as Rodney spoke. "You…you're okay with it? You honestly don't care?"

"No," Rodney said. He almost blurted out something about understanding exactly where Cobb was coming from, anything to alleviate that terrible fear, but caught himself. He didn't know Cobb, really, and his partner, one of the geologists, wasn't necessarily someone Rodney knew and trusted enough to out himself as bi to. Rodney might technically be a civilian contractor, but the military could make the decision to pull him back from Atlantis at any time. "Also, aside from the fact that I do, in fact, have more morals than a cockroach, I wouldn't want to deal with Dr. Weir's reaction if I decided to start spilling other people's secrets. She wouldn't appreciate it, believe me."

Color was returning to Cobb's face. "No, I, I figured she might not, because maybe it wouldn't be a big deal for a civilian like her, but once it became common knowledge..." The grim future spooled out in his mind: awkwardness and ostracization on base, and then worse, being sent back on the Daedalus, getting a dishonorable discharge, being separated from his partner, having to face his family.

"No one's going to find out anything through me."

"All right," Cobb said, and his Adam's apple bobbed again; he turned his face away to hide his relief. "Um, thank you." His gratitude nearly swamped Rodney. Cobb's brain had been churning out thoughts of attempted blackmail and exposure; even his best-case scenario had involved a humiliating amount of begging and pleading and shame.

"It's common decency," Rodney snapped. "It's not something you need to thank me for."

He watched more tension drain out of Cobb, though fear still niggled at him. Rodney said, "If you had any other concerns, you should bring them up. Out loud, I mean. I'm not supposed to just fill in the blanks and reply to your thoughts."

Cobb was so, so young. He bit his lip and thought about politeness.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Sometimes it's better to clear the air."

Cobb blushed and shifted from foot to foot. "It's--you might not mean to let anything slip, but you do, um, talk an awful lot. Sir."

"I've also worked on classified projects for the US government for a long time now," Rodney said. "Think it through, Lieutenant. Would they keep me around, no matter how intelligent I am, if I were prone to babbling out state secrets? And believe me, their secrets were bigger and more interesting than yours."

Cobb actually grinned at him, mostly in disbelief. "I guess so. I should have--" he paused. "I should have listened to him when he said that you, uh, probably spent your time worrying about other stuff."

Well, no, what his partner had actually said was that McKay could be a petty asshole, but not that particular kind of petty asshole. Rodney let it pass, though. "Exactly. Now...go away and let me worry about those other things."

When Rodney had ushered him out and shut the door behind him, he leaned his head against the door. His stomach hurt, as if all Cobb's anxiety from the past three days had leeched into him. And Rodney hadn't even noticed him: one person out of several hundred, and not someone he knew beyond a name on the duty roster. He hadn't asked for, and didn't want, that kind of power over someone whom he didn't care all that much about. And his eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, and he was sick of people's concerns, and this was scheduled to last for four more days and--

"No," Rodney said out loud, and went looking for Elizabeth.

She and Sheppard were in the conference room, talking about mission scheduling, and he walked in and said, "I've had enough. I want out of here."

"Rodney?" Elizabeth asked.

"I am sick of this," he said, and made a slicing motion with his hand. "I have had enough of the, the, the," he gestured with both hands to express the enormity of it, "the everything. I don't want to do it anymore. I'll take a jumper, go somewhere on the mainland for the next four days, and check in every day to let you know I'm all right."

She frowned. "I'm not comfortable with you being that far away from the infirmary if something goes wrong. Nor am I comfortable with you being alone." But he was looking awfully exhausted; it might not be good for him to stay either. She could send one of the pilots with the genes with him...still...

"My brain isn't showing any signs of deteriorating," Rodney said. "Plus, if the increased input is doing any kind of damage, then it's better if I'm far away from the source of it, isn't it? It'll be nice and peaceful, plus everyone who went away to visit the Athosians will be able to come back. It'll benefit everyone."

She was definitely weakening as she studied him, brow wrinkling as she ran down possible drawbacks. She only needed that extra bit of persuasion, and if it came from a disinterested source, so much the better. Rodney cast a pleading look at Sheppard and said, "Help me out here."

Sheppard tilted his head in consideration. "What about the abandoned wing out near the southeast pier? That might be far enough away from people but close enough to transporters in case of emergency."

"I said help, not improvise," Rodney said.

But Sheppard was merrily forging on, "And that way you could move back and forth to the rest of the city when you wanted to."

Elizabeth looked skeptical. "I considered that at one point, but are you sure that's a good idea? We're only maintaining minimal power in that section, and we still haven't explored it fully." That part of the city had been residential, and plainly scavenged for parts by the Ancients near the end of their time in Atlantis. Their own people had gotten the transporters and some of the other controls up and running again when they'd explored there, enough to realize that there was little of use to be found, but they'd never gotten around to fixing up all the lights, temperature controls, and door activators. Still, it would be closer than the mainland, and Rodney would be more capable than anyone else in figuring out how to jury rig whatever else they might need.

Sheppard said, "Transporters work. And it's still cooler than outside." He glanced at Rodney. "Unless you seriously want to spent four days roasting on an isolated part of the mainland. It's, like, 90 degrees out there, and you know how you start whining and reminiscing about Canadian winters when we go places that are that hot."

"The puddlejumper has temperature controls," Rodney argued weakly, though he saw Sheppard's point. The puddlejumpers weren't so spacious that he wanted to spend the next four days stuck inside one, sharing space with some pilot who would probably resent being assigned McKay-babysitting duty.

Elizabeth glanced at Sheppard. "I don't like the idea of him being by himself in an abandoned part of the city, though, especially given the medical concerns. We'll have to send someone to accompany him."

Sheppard shrugged. "Easy enough. I can get tonight's shift; see who's free tomorrow during the day."

Elizabeth nodded. "Rodney?"

"Oh, fine," he said. "But if it's not far enough away, I'm taking a jumper out."

"All right," Elizabeth said. "But let's try this first." She raised her eyebrows at Sheppard. "I'm not sanguine about the idea of you both being so far from the rest of the city. Check in with security every four hours, all right?"

***

The lights remained dim as they walked through the hallways, the Ancient equivalent of emergency lighting. It was also a little warmer here than in the rest of the city, where they kept it cooler for sake of the equipment, but not unbearably so.

There was almost a distinguishable point where it got better: the noise subsided into an ignorable hum that was no more intrusive than the subdued rumble of engines that surrounded you on a plane. Rodney sighed in relief. "Much, much nicer."

"We're far enough out that you're back to normal?"

"Close enough," Rodney said. "I can't get anything specific unless I pay attention, and even the sense that there's something there is more removed." He pushed out with his hands, defining a personal bubble around him. "It's not up close anymore."

They kept walking for a little bit longer, Rodney yawning and nearly stumbling into Sheppard as he rubbed his eyes. Sleep, glorious sleep, suddenly within reach. "This look all right to you?" Sheppard asked as they peered into the doorway of one suite. Bed, couch, built-in desk with chair, attached bathroom, translucent doors with view of the ocean.

"Fine, great," Rodney said, happily shrugging off his pack, dumping it on the floor, and collapsing backwards on the bed. The Ancient dust cover crackled underneath him. He watched Sheppard strip the dust covers off the other furniture and then heard water running as Sheppard tested the plumbing in the bathroom. Rodney should get up and get ready for bed so that he could go to sleep, wonderful, glorious, silent--

--he woke, groggy and sluggish, when he heard Sheppard speaking in hushed tones on the radio. Rodney propped himself up on his elbow. The lights in his corner of the room were off, but there was still a dim light shining on the desk, where Sheppard was sitting with an open laptop in front of him.

"Sorry, didn't meant to wake you up," Sheppard said when he'd clicked off the radio. He spoke quietly, as if someone was still sleeping close by.

"S'okay," Rodney said, and rubbed at his face. "What time is it?"

"Little after midnight."

"Oh," Rodney said, and flopped back on the bed.

"You'd be more comfortable if you took that dust sheet off. Not to mention your shoes."

"Yeah," Rodney mumbled, closing his eyes and stretching out comfortably. "In a minute."

When he woke up again, it was fully dark except for the starlight coming in from the windows. Something was beeping. He blinked a few times and raised his head to watch Sheppard, who was stretched out on the couch in t-shirt and boxer shorts, fumble at his wrist to turn off the alarm on his watch. Then there was the crackle of radio, Sheppard informing the security team on duty that they were fine and asking if there were any problems.

Rodney hauled himself up into a sitting position, kicking off his shoes and letting them thud to the floor. He got up and pushed the dust cover down off the foot of the bed, and then shucked off his pants and tossed them over near his pack.

"You snore, you know," Sheppard informed him, as Rodney reached near his pack for the pillow he'd brought with him.

"Sometimes, I know, sorry," Rodney said, plumping up the pillow. "If I'm on my back. Shove me over on my side if it starts to bug you."

"Yeah."

Rodney lay back down on his side, listening to his own breathing, and the occasional rustling sound from Sheppard shifting position, and the muted sound of the ocean. "This was a better idea than the mainland," he admitted after a while.

"Mmm hmm," Sheppard mumbled sleepily.

"I probably should have done this right away so that people wouldn't have had to leave the city."

"Well, the Athosians have those portable air conditioning thingies now," Sheppard said. "So it's not like they're suffering. Nice little vacation." He yawned. "'Sides, when things break down around here, you're the one who fixes them. We'd have called you back into the city when the MALP died anyway, and for checkups with Carson." His voice was blurry with tiredness.

"Mmm," Rodney agreed. True, they couldn't have guaranteed that he would have stayed out of the inhabited parts of the city; people were probably more comfortable with the Athosians. Teyla had gone with them, too, to act as a liaison, and she had appreciated the idea of time off with her people. "Hey," Rodney said after a few moments of silence, "did you admit I was indispensable to the running of this city?"

Sheppard didn't answer, and when Rodney lifted his head to look at him, Sheppard's breathing was even and steady, his limbs loose and relaxed.

"I strongly suspect you're feigning sleep to avoid answering the question," Rodney said, but quietly, in case Sheppard was in fact sleeping.

More silence, and then Rodney whispered, "Good night," and laid his head back down.

End part 1 of 2. Go to Part 2.