Things were all wrong. Not that things were ever all right for him. Never a nice day curled up on the couch with his cat and his laptop working on some technical problem in-between trips to the refrigerator and the bathroom ... not in this galaxy. Of course, he didn't mind that all that much, considering all the amazing scientific opportunities. He was the first in thousands of years to see some of this technology, the first to make it work. That was how it was supposed to be.

Dr. Rodney McKay frowned. But he wasn't supposed to lose people he cared about. In fact, he wasn't supposed to care about people at all. He was Rodney McKay ... he was supposed to be the prickly but overwhelmingly brilliant scientist. He was the guy that looked at all the facts and told the man ... or woman, in charge what's what. He didn't look at human costs. He didn't care. Atoms didn't care. Planets and atmospheres and pieces of technology didn't have feelings. These were his companions. And he was comfortable with them. They followed a predictable set of rules. Well, most of the time they did. And when they didn't there were rules to their non-rule-following.

People, on the other hand, did stupid unpredictable things like not telling you they spoke Chinese when you were going crazy all day trying to communicate a few simple phrases to some idiot help (with PhDs, not like they showed it) who showed him the true meaning of 'if you want something done right, do it yourself.' Or like taking you the infirmary and joking with you about your girlishness, even after they showed the utmost tenderness in carrying you the entire way. Or the most unpredictable one ever, getting some sort of extra brain pattern and collapsing on mission.

Rodney bit his nails. But he soon got bored of that and checked his pockets for powerbars, finding none ... again. So he sighed. And he fiddled with his watch. And he counted the number of times Elizabeth glared at him and ranked their intensity. But then she left to debrief the fully conscious members of the expedition, leaving him behind. He scratched his shoulder and massaged it. Damn Beckett. These painkillers were wearing off. He checked his watch - thirty minutes before he could take another one. Thirty minutes wasn't that long ... he gulped. At least they'd disabled the damn security protocol ... just too late for his own good.

He tapped his fingers and calculated the approximate amount of energy remaining in their naquahda reactors a few times, using different models and then averaged them, giving his own extra weight because Carter was, in general, too optimistic and he didn't trust hers all that much. Though she was hot. He wished he could've seen her legs. He moved a stylus from his right pocket to his left. Then he did the calculations again accounting for the absolute worst-case scenario. He frowned, wiggled his toes to see if these damn military issue boots were broken in enough to not give him blisters without three pairs of socks, and decided they weren't. His arm hurt. What was thirty minutes? Medicine wasn't a precise science anyhow ... unless you counted all that surgery business. He took another something-something-otrine. He felt better already. Well ... not totally better, just not-personally-in-pain better. Sheppard was in pain. He tried not to think about that. Dwelling wouldn't help anyone. He thought a little about zero point energy and where it came from. He thought about God and a theory he'd heard long ago and dismissed it, because in the end, who knew? There was no way anyone could prove it one way or another, so why waste his incredibly valuable time? He did the calculations again, just to be sure.

And then he thought about Sheppard's problem. But he couldn't think - not after seeing Sheppard lying on the gurney like that, writhing and in so much pain. Damn him! Why did he have to make Rodney keep feeling for him? All this compassion was messing with his concentration.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He walked up to the infirmary doors, squaring his shoulders and preparing to look intimidating. Rodney could be intimidating. He knew he could. It wasn't the kind of intimidating you used when someone was pointing a gun at your head and you wanted to talk them out of it, or the kind you used when you were lying through your teeth and you wanted everyone to fall in line. No, it was the kind of intimidating you found in academic circles, in clumps of people with a disproportionate amount of I.Q. and pocket-protectors to the rest of the population. You used it when you just knew you were right ... or when you were 89 percent certain you were right and needed to convince yourself that the extra 11 percent was just due to nerves and lack of social skills because of a huge lacking in a comparable peer-group.

The main infirmary was a circus. But that was to be expected considering the state of things coming back through the Gate. Simpson and Bulter were tucked off to the side immobile and unconscious in their own gurneys. Simpson had a few bandages from the burns, but she looked okay, severe even in sleep. Ford and Parker were sitting on a bed not far from them, watching the bustle of medical personnel and talking quietly. Parker had one ankle in an ice pack sitting on Ford's lap, while the Lieutenant had both his hands and half his face wrapped in bandages. Markham and Stackhouse seemed to have escaped unharmed and were standing pressed flat against a wall trying to stay out of the way, but not wanting to leave either.

The right side of the room was generally encompassed in a flurry of activity - at least four nurses scurrying around a bed, completely obscured by different types of machinery. Rodney assumed that's where they were keeping Sheppard. He hesitated for a moment, not seeing Carson. The nurses were kind of mean and he didn't want to incur their wrath. Instead of trying to sneak a look at Sheppard, he strode over to Ford and Parker, who stopped talking, looking guiltily down at their hands. They were probably talking about him. He harrumphed and was about to ask what was going on when he noticed ... "Where's the little Asian guy, hm?"

"You mean, Lin?" Ford said critically. Mr. Know-it-all. Like Rodney had the time to get to know anthropologists of all people.

"Yeah, Leung."

Ford shrugged. "He trotted off to his lab ... thought he spotted something, dragged Teyla with him." As long as they didn't have weapons, a bunch of green orangutans could ballroom dance right in front of the kid and he wouldn't flinch.

"Did he, by any chance, say what?" He didn't fight to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"Sorry, Doc."

"And Elizabeth?"

Ford nodded over toward the bustle around Sheppard's bed. Rodney couldn't tell the red of her shirt from the red scrubs all the nursing staff wore. He saw someone pull a tube of blood and looked away. Blood made him nauseous.

"How's ... "

"We don't know any more than you do, Dr. McKay," Parker sighed. She looked sullen and defeated, disheveled like he'd never seen her before. Not that she wasn't still attractive, even with soot smeared across her face and bags under her eyes ... God, he had a real weakness for blondes, military ones to boot.

So Rodney proceeded to do what he always did when he was attracted to someone he knew he couldn't have. "Well, thanks for the heads up, Lieutenant, but I wanted to know if you actually accomplished anything other than getting yourselves in so much trouble that the major had to put his health at risk to bail your asses out."

"Hey, McKay, it's not her fault, all right?" Ford looked offended. Rodney sure had a talent at that.

Parker looked like she was going to cry. A part of him took sick satisfaction in that. He was pissed - pissed at Parker for being attractive and ignoring him, pissed at Ford for defending her instead of his teammate, pissed at himself for not going out there and maybe keeping all this shit from happening and pissed at Sheppard for getting himself into trouble, again, and for making him feel bad about it.

"Fine, Ford, defend your ..." He was going to say girlfriend, just to be petty and juvenile about it. He wasn't in the mood for mature - he was under too much stress.

"Gentleman, Lady, Rodney." Rodney nearly jumped out of his skin with the rough hand landing on his shoulder, whirling to find Carson's tired but still startlingly blue eyes. The man's stubble even looked tired.

"Jesus, Carson, you should know better than to sneak up on someone like that ... you could have given me a heart attack."

"Good practice for field work," he retorted half-heartedly. Rodney instantly resented the defeat in his tone and he hated the sigh that followed even more. "Well, the good news is that Dr. Kavanagh will be just fine. Dr. Biro's finishing up on him now."

"Dr. Biro, the ..." He couldn't help it ... wasn't she the autopsy doc?

"Oh, forensic pathology's just her hobby. She's on staff as a surgeon. Oh, and she says, excellent marksmanship to you, lass." Beckett nodded warmly to Parker. He wants in her pants, Rodney thought, resentfully.

"Excellent markswomanship, Doctor," she corrected. But her heart wasn't even in the feminist protest. Rodney tried not to sigh disgustedly, but he really didn't have the energy.

"Yeah, right." Beckett blushed. "Okay, the um ... the bad news is that I've still not got a bloody clue what's going on with the major. If any of you has any sort of insight into his condition at all, I'd appreciate it now before I discharge you both to your quarters."

"But Doc ..." Ford actually whined.

"No 'buts,' sonny. The both of you need at least a good night's rest. I'd keep you both here, if I thought you could get some sleep. But ..." He looked back to the corner where the nurses were still running about. "That doesn't appear likely."

Rodney didn't want to consider that. He didn't want to think about what they'd be doing to Sheppard. He just wanted ... he wanted everything to go back to them bitching this morning about Chinese and boxes with funny teal jewels and puddlejumpers that didn't quite work right. He wanted to go back to when his arm wasn't sore and Sheppard wasn't seizing in a bed with weird brain patterns and Calvin Kavanagh wasn't anywhere close to getting any sort of sympathy from him, and ... "Who does forensic pathology as a hobby?"

"Shut up, Rodney." Carson looked pointedly at the lieutenants. "And, you two, off to bed." Then he turned and beckoned Markham and Stackhouse over. "If you gentlemen would be so kind ..." He looked to Ford and Parker and then the door.

"Yes, sir," Markham said loudly, helping Parker up. She shot Beckett a glare as she and Ford were herded out. Rodney smiled smugly. Served her right.

When they had gone, Carson turned back to him. "I can show you the scans again, but I don't know what to do about them. Honestly, I don't know how much we can do about them."

Rodney felt a hand on his arm, guiding him toward the crowded corner where he didn't really want to go. He stiffened. "What do you expect me to do about it?" He snapped. This was hopeless ... he wasn't a doctor. If Beckett couldn't figure it out ... he gulped.

"It's like ... well, neurobiology is still a very complex field. And ... well, you know how they say things about us only using about ten percent of our brains? Well that's not like a computer memory or a diskette or something."

Rodney stopped walking. "Don't use hardware metaphors around me."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Look ... the brain is mostly a mystery. It's not a computer, that's the whole bloody point. It's not as though any of it isn't being used. It's just that it's not all active at any given time. The neurons are there and they're configured somehow, like a ..."

"Yes, yes, I know, like a hard-drive."

"But they're not actually doing anything. We don't really understand a lot of this, I admit. But what we do know is that neurons reconfigure themselves in response to frequency of use ... establish stronger connections. People fall into patterns." Karmic repetitions, he supposed. "And the more used, the stronger the urge to fall into the pattern. It's not that the major has suddenly picked up a new neural map, but that his neurons are suddenly using the old configuration in totally different ways. And the more this happens the more he'll develop a pattern."

"So you're saying that he's no longer going to be him ... he's going to be ... whoever this new brainwave is?"

"No, I'm saying that he's no longer who he was but he'll never be entirely them either, because he started out who he is now. I mean, none of us really stays the same from moment to moment as our brains physically change, but I'm saying that something is happening to him that I cannot hope to reverse." Carson's near-whisper was harsh and there was a sadness to him that Rodney wasn't used to. He didn't lose people. His parents had died, sure, but he hadn't even bothered to attend their respective funerals, let alone shed a tear. But Carson lost people all the time - it was part of his job. Rodney didn't see how he could stand it. Even the few members of the expedition that hadn't made it so far were weighing him down. "It's not a virus or a symbiote or an energy field or any force I can identify. I can't think of any way you could get rid of it other than to find out exactly where it is it came from to begin with."

Carson pulled Rodney the rest of the way to Sheppard's bedside, the nurses dispersing, off to run more tests.

"In other words, unless I pull a rabbit out of my ass ... he's dying." Rodney didn't want to believe it, but he couldn't deny it either. Elizabeth, the only woman in red left, quietly standing vigil, looked up sharply at the question. Rodney could see by the desolation in her eyes, in her hunched up posture, that she didn't want to know the answer.

"No. His body's drained, but I honestly don't know what the full the extent of the physical effects will be. Right now we need to focus on finding the source of this mess."

Rodney sighed and faced the sight he'd been avoiding since he barged in here. Sheppard looked pale. He looked pale and sweaty and his skin shone like a wax dummy, bound ridiculously in restraints and all sorts of monitors and tubing. This was not acceptable. Sheppard wasn't allowed to look like that. He wasn't allowed to look like he might check-out any moment, because Sheppard was the team leader, and if Rodney dared admit it, he was a friend. And friends weren't supposed to do unfriendly things like die just when you were getting used to them being around.

"He ... " He watched Sheppard squirm a little, face contorting into a grimace. "He looks ..."

"He's in pain." Elizabeth finished for him.

"Aye. To tell you the truth, Doctor, I'm almost scared to give him anything. I mean, he's a fighter, I don't doubt, but with the lingering effects of that Wraith bug's poison and his already fragile neurological condition ..."

Rodney balked. "What?" John Sheppard had a fragile condition when he was a weightlifter from Venice Beach. Not that he wasn't bulking up some ...

Beckett looked nervously at Dr. Weir.

"He needs to know. We both need to know." She didn't look happy about it. And he didn't blame her. Elizabeth believed in things like rights and justice and medical confidentiality, but, in the end, what use were they? What good were they when Sheppard was lying here, probably dying, and his secrets would be what entombed him. Ethics were for people like Beckett and Weir, the relentless do-gooders. Ethics always stopped people from doing the right thing.

Carson sighed. "All right, lass. But you answer to him when he wakes up. Major Sheppard had shingles when he was 16."

"Shingles?" Elizabeth seemed confused. He could understand why - it wasn't as though it was a grave disorder ... painful, yes, but ultimately just a bastardized reawakening of the chicken pox.

"I thought I had that once, but it turned out to be just a rash," he ruminated. And then, in response to the two patronizing stares he received: "What? I have a lot of allergies."

"Now, Shingles isn't a hugely serious disease. It's a reactivation of the chicken pox virus in the nerves fibers of the skin. You break out into a rash that looks like the shingles on a house on about half your body. As far as anyone can tell, it's induced by stress. We don't quite know the exact kind of stress or whether or not it will occur in any given individual."

"Figures," Rodney huffed. Voodoo science, indeed.

"But, it is rare among children, and can sometimes result in permanent neurological damage. The major had it when he was 16, so that's borderline for those risks, but he had a fairly severe case, which he neglected to have treated properly. Honestly, I don't understand the university health services in your country ... he shouldn't have ever gone to this point."

"What point, Doctor?" Elizabeth enquired studiously.

"Well, first off, he had the thing far longer than he should, because they didn't restrict his activity, and secondly, they never did a follow-up. He obviously doesn't have it now, and we tested him before the mission, but the Air Force didn't even know about this until the SGC ordered a background check, otherwise they might have grounded him. With the duration of his illness and the lack of proper treatment, he should by all means be suffering from postherpetic neuralgia. But he's either incredibly good at hiding the pain, which I doubt -despite the fact that we are talking about Major Sheppard- or he received some other form of treatment of which I'm unaware."

Elizabeth sighed. "When he was sixteen, he dropped out ... disappeared completely for about a year before he came back and joined the Air Force. If this was immediately following the disease ..."

"Aye."

"Wait. Does the Air Force Academy even take drop-outs?" Rodney was incredulous. Besides, why the hell were they talking about this? Maybe because we feel the need to talk about something.

"He was a student at CalTech at the time."

"Sheppard? CalTech at sixteen? You've got to be ..."

Elizabeth shook her head.

He sighed, resignedly. "Well, that explains the stress." He couldn't believe it. He refused to believe it. Happy-go-lucky, Mr. Shut-up-McKay-what's-the-meaning-of-strange? John Sheppard, one of those geniuses they recruit into college early? Rodney was one of those. It was a tough life. Though he preferred it to his home - to his parents screaming at each other until he could do nothing but drag his duvet into the hall closet and hide. But Sheppard ... actually, he didn't know anything about Sheppard - not even after all the constant chatter, the teasing, the friendly hostility that he supposed people lucky enough to have brothers must feel towards them. Sheppard was an only child - that much he knew. But beyond that? He didn't know about any of this and that was just disgusting. What kind of friend was he? Or had Sheppard been showing him all along - the random mathematical calculations, the mysterious knowledge of foreign languages, the intellectual banter, the Star Trek references, the ability to come up with non-military solutions to things? Maybe Rodney screwed up big time, ignoring all the signs just because they came in a military uniform. And now Sheppard was going to die, or lose his personality or whatever, before Rodney even had a chance to apologize. He could only feel ashamed and guilty - emotions he had become very adept at hiding; he'd felt them enough.

"Excuse me, but how is this relevant?" He lashed out. He didn't want to hear all the things Sheppard didn't trust or like him enough to tell him ... not like this.

"I don't know." At least Carson was honest.

"Is there anything we can do?" Elizabeth asked. "Maybe something with the ruins ..."

"No, no, he experienced symptoms before he even went to the planet," Rodney said dismissively. "We've got to look to the most logical solution. It's something on Atlantis ... something he did ... we just have to find it. I already checked the computer logs ... nothing unusual. We don't know when he got whatever-this-is, but he hasn't been doing much but tinker with one of the jumpers the past few days."

"What about the stuff happening to the city? Could that be a cause?"

"I thought about that, but it's highly unlikely that it's at all connected. Why would the Ancients create a defense that weakens their own people? And why are the rest of the gene carriers unaffected?"

"Maybe it's something he's always had. Maybe that's why he doesn't want to remember. Maybe the shingles is a part of it," Elizabeth postulated. Diplomats. Scientific method dictated the simplest solution supported by trial, not grand sweeping views of history. If it were up to social scientists, nobody would make a move without discussing five bazillion theories about the history of the world.

"No, that doesn't account for the change in his scans," Carson replied, pointing to some readouts on a monitor they had no hope of understanding. "He was perfectly normal up to his last testing about a week ago."

"So, what happened in that week?" Elizabeth asked. Nobody answered.

Then the doors to the surgical bay opened and Dr. Biro and a few nurses wheeled a gurney out. Rodney took one look at Calvin's pale face, almost peaceful without his perpetual sneer and turned away.

Rodney had sure picked the right mission not to go on. He did feel bad about that ... though not as much as he supposed he should. His arm hurt, that was enough in the whole karmic scale of things. Not that there was such a thing as karma. Stupid Buddhists. And Oma Desala. Who the hell did she think she was? Messing with Sheppard like that? The poor guy had enough trouble as it was ... a childhood genius, an only child, a guy so stressed out he had to run away for a year just to kick a nerve-disease. And then he got dropped in this galaxy on some sort of cosmic whim, just because he sat in a stupid chair. Because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Rodney still didn't know what John did to get himself stuck in Antarctica to begin with. And to be the one flying the flight, when he'd been down there for nearly a year and Rodney hadn't seen him come in on any of the supply runs. What were the odds of that? What kind of forces ... not that there were forces, because that would imply a deity and they all knew that was a load of bull ... unless ... unless these things weren't disconnected at all ... because there was a least one pseudo-deity that he knew in all this. Statistics said that anything was possible in an infinite universe, but people . . . personalities ... configurations of neurons or energy patterns or whatnot, were what gave impossible and improbable and destiny meaning.

His own configuration of neurons sang, snapped into place, remembering suddenly what was right as this odd calm washed over him - the brilliance of Archimedes in the bathtub, Newton under the apple tree, himself the moment he knew how to protect the city in that storm. All the pieces came together and it was inspiration distilled.

"They're anomalous power readings, Major. Do I need to use smaller words?"

Sheppard gritted his teeth, but Rodney continued.

"Power equals good. I don't think there's a ZPM there in those ruins but ..."

"Then why the hell are we wasting our time? Elizabeth, we need to focus on power sources that we can harness and use when the Wraith come, because they are coming. And don't give me anymore of this 'pure science' stuff, McKay. There's no such thing."

"Look, all I'm saying is that we don't know whether or not this is useful, it could be a weapons depot for all we know. I just need more time."

Elizabeth finally butted in. She always seemed content to watch them argue until she had all the pieces laid out. "I see your point, Rodney, but Major Sheppard is right. We don't know how long an investigation could take and what we need right now is to focus on finding something we know will be effective."

He glared at Sheppard. And that's when he noticed the change. The major, normally quietly alert beneath a veneer of boredom, was staring off into space when he should have been gloating. There was something in his eyes ... an odd confidence somehow. "I agree with Rodney."

"But, Major," Elizabeth protested, "You just gave me a very valid reason not to."

"Send a second team. Zelenka ... Lin ... Parker ... Stackhouse."

"I need Dr. Zelenka here, if you'll be taking Rodney."

"Of course I'll be taking Rodney."

"And there are those Gate diagnostics he said we need to run."

Rodney bristled. They didn't need to do an entire operations shut-down of secondary systems. Zelenka was just being an overly-cautious ass, going behind his back. "We don't need diagnostics - we need a goddamn energy source!"

"I know, Rodney, but we also need to protect our ..."

"Send someone, Elizabeth. I don't care who." Sheppard's voice was so final, it sent chills up Rodney's spine even now. It wasn't the sneering crescendoing yell he was used to. It was quiet, almost serene, but as definite as the last nail hammering into a coffin. Inspiration.

"Excuse me ..." Rodney was halfway down the hall before he had to go back and ask where the hell Dr. Leung kept his lab.

"It's Lin."

"Yeah. Where is it? And give me that." He snatched the laptop Elizabeth was cradling under one arm.

"Hey!" Elizabeth began to protest.

He ignored her, already lost in a world of his own. "I need this. Need to see Sheppard's personal file."

"Rodney, you know I can't authorize ..."

"Life or death." He tapped the cover and walked off. He heard Elizabeth sigh, but she didn't move to stop him.