There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs. And when the lambs whisper among themselves, "These birds of prey are evil, and does not this give us a right to say that whatever is the opposite of a bird of prey must be good?" there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an argument -- though the birds of prey will look somewhat quizzically and say, "We have nothing against these good lambs; in fact, we love them; nothing tastes better than a tender lamb." -- to expect that strength will not manifest itself as strength, as the desire to overcome, to appropriate, to have enemies, obstacles, and triumphs, is every bit as absurd as to expect that weakness will manifest itself as strength.

-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals

“Colonel.”

“Kavanagh.”

“I have to admit that I’m surprised to see you. Shouldn’t you be off with Dr. McKay blowing up solar systems, deflowering alien bimbos, or I don’t know, torturing people?”

John opened his mouth to respond, hating Kavanagh just as much as he had when he’d convinced himself he needed to do this. And yet, he still needed to do it. “Okay, I guess that was a little bit deserved.”

“So to what do I owe the privilege? Last goodbyes before I go back to Earth and report exactly what kind of operation the so-called ‘compassionate civilians’ run here?”

John coughed, awkwardly, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of there. But, as unpleasant as it was, it was the right thing to do. “Can I . . . um . . . come in?”

Kavanagh tilted his head to the side in puzzlement, then smirked, like he suddenly understood. “Oh, I see, Weir sent you over here to threaten me. Well, it’s not going to work, Colonel. I’m not falling for it.”

John laughed hollowly, gritting his teeth against the anger, as much against himself as against Kavanagh. Was he a bad enough person that Kavanagh would expect a beating from him? Well, from the scientist’s point of view, he probably was. He had ordered the man tortured, after all. He tried to focus on that as he drew in a calming breath.

“Actually, I came to apologize.”

Kavanagh drew back, surprised. “You what?”

“Well, maybe I’m not as much of a cold-hearted monster as you think.”

“Is this another one of Dr. Weir’s koshey, feel-good attempts to spout platitudes and hope I don’t blab?” Kavanagh sneered.

“No, this is me telling you that I’m sorry I almost had Ronon . . . well, do whatever it is that Ronan does . . . to you.”

“Was it really your order, or are you just covering for Weir, like a good little boy?”

John narrowed his eyes. It’d been a while since anyone tried to call him a little boy. Not even his enemies did that. But then again, as repugnant as it might be, he did owe this man the truth. “Weir was the one that told us that you had the codes, yes.”

Kavanagh snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. “I knew it. I knew it. That crazy dyke has it in for me, and she does a piss-poor job of hiding it.”

John took a slightly threatening step forward. Whether or not Elizabeth treated Kavanagh poorly, she didn’t deserve that. “Well, if you refer to her like that, I can kinda see why.” There was an icy edge to his voice, but Kavanagh didn’t flinch like he’d expected him to. “And besides, even if she was the one that said it, we were all thinking it.”

“So you’re here apologizing.” Kavanagh was calmly accepting, not at all like he’d expected him to be. John would’ve thought that he’d give a simpering rant about all the things John did to make himself feel better at night, because he didn’t even need to dig deep to know that this was one of them.

“I’m here apologizing,” he acknowledged.

This was where Kavanagh was supposed to tell him off. This was where he was supposed to make fun of John and tell him to go trotting obediently back to Weir or something, but now that he thought about it, despite all the times Kavanagh threw stupid little fits or wanted to do things that put John’s life at risk but saved his own hide, or was just a cowering asshole in general, he’d never actively done or said anything nasty to John himself. In fact, he’d left John pretty well alone, despite the number of times he’d given both Rodney and Elizabeth shit.

That just made the guilt worse. Not only was he completely innocent, but he hadn’t actually done anything that should make John let that seed of dislike Rodney and Elizabeth and pretty much all of the geeks had sown grow into persecution. He should’ve asked Elizabeth how she knew . . . he should’ve questioned. He could condemn a man to torture if he knew he had the information – that was a darkness that was in him, a darkness he’d come to accept. But he didn’t know that Kavanagh was guilty, and he’d allowed it anyway.

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Kavanagh looked too shocked for words, but he managed them – smooth and with the same righteous sense of entitlement as always. “As a matter of fact there is.”

“What?” John had a feeling he was going to regret this.

“One mission.”

“One mission what?”

“One mission. With you. On your team.” Oh, man, Rodney was not going to be happy with this. Hell, John wasn’t happy with this. But, Kavanagh was sort of right about Elizabeth not allowing him on off-world missions, ever. It made sense that he’d feel a little left out.

Something easy. A cakewalk mission, preferably something he wouldn’t have to make Ronon and Teyla suffer through too . . . but nothing diplomatic . . . nothing where Kavanagh could actually talk to another living creature. He could do that. There had to be a padded-walls planet out there where Kavanagh could absolutely not get them into any sort of trouble. “Okay,” he said.

“M27-003,” Kavanagh responded, actually sounding excited now. It was kind of frightening.

John could’ve insisted that he pick the planet. Hell, he still could. But Kavanagh wouldn’t pick something too dangerous for himself. And he definitely wouldn’t be the type to want to talk up the natives. It couldn’t hurt to hear him out. “What’s on M27-003?”

“Trinium.”

That sounded familiar. “The stuff the jumpers are made out of, right?”

Kavanagh looked surprised that he knew that. John smirked to himself. So he wasn’t as dumb as he looked. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Weir gave the project to Zelenka, of course. He’s supposed to go with Major Lorne’s team in a week.”

Trinium . . . that didn’t sound too dangerous.

“Any natives on that planet?”

“No.”

“Dangerous atmospheric disturbances?”

“No.”

“Bears?”

“Nothing Sheppard and his merry men couldn’t protect me from.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about, Kavanagh.” Though from the sounds of it, it seemed pretty tame. “But, it sounds fine to me. Meet me tomorrow at 0800 for weapons training.”

“The planet’s uninhabited, Colonel.”

John gave Kavanagh a quick pat on the arm, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Can never be too careful.”

He turned and walked off, ignoring Kavanagh’s continued protests. It wasn’t like John was going to enjoy it any better than he would.

When he arrived at their makeshift firing range at 0811 (detained by Rodney, then Elizabeth, then Rodney again), Kavanagh was already there. His hair was tied back in a ponytail and he was wearing protective goggles over his glass ones, making him look like . . . well, no animal that John could think of at the moment, but an ugly one.

He frowned at John, crossing his hands over his chest. “You’re late. And your friendly little G.I. Joes wouldn’t let me take out a weapon and start without you.”

John shrugged, walking over to the weapon’s locker and smiling at Waterman, who handed him a 9mm with a smirk. “That’s what we give them our hard-earned tax dollars for.”

Kavanagh rolled his eyes, following so close behind John that he thought the guy was going to step on his heels. “What kept you?”

“You know, Kavanagh, teaching you to not get yourself killed isn’t my only job in this city. I do have other, more pressing, duties.”

Kavanagh rolled his eyes. “Of course, Weir detained you, didn’t she? Like she has to remind you of every little thing in your life – to not step out of line.” Strangely, John had just been thinking that about five minutes ago – did he really need to know about the change of the crop rotation on the mainland?

“So what if she did?” John found his own safety glasses and put them on. He smiled. He liked the nice yellow tinge these gave to everything.

“So, I’m just saying that the woman is a menace. You don’t have to follow her around like a puppy dog the entire time.”

Why Kavanagh had such a thing against Elizabeth, John didn’t know. By the way he talked about her, you’d think she’d ripped out his testicles and eaten them for Sunday Brunch or something. “I can handle Elizabeth, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it. We’re here so that I don’t have to worry about you accidentally shooting me. Now, this is what we call the safety. We put it on so . . .”

Kavanagh snatched the weapon from him, loaded it, and fired the whole clip directly into the center of the target.

John looked from the target to Kavanagh and back again. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I was captain of the riflery team in college,” Kavanagh replied smugly, reloading. “Not all of us scientists are helpless screaming little girls who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if their hand was duct-taped in position - like McKay.” That wasn’t exactly fair. Rodney had gone up against that SuperWraith and had hit it a number of times – something for which John was all too grateful.

“So McKay’s not the greatest shot. Sometimes that’s not what matters.”

Kavanagh turned. “Then what does matter? Following orders?”

John hated being mocked. “Courage,” he grumbled. It was the one thing that Kavanagh didn’t have.

It was a nice day out. The sun was shining, the long stalks of grass that covered the hillside were waving gently in the breeze, and for once, they didn’t have to hear about how they were all going to die of radiation poisoning because they refused to try the latest in homemade sunblock, or how this amount of outdoors would cause all kinds of alien hayfever.

“It’s a nice day,” Kavanagh said. “I’m glad Dr. Weir let me off my little leash to come out and enjoy it.”

John actually stopped in his tracks and turned around to stare at him. He’d never, ever heard Rodney say that it was a nice day, and even Teyla had stopped trying, due to the rant such a statement was likely to provoke.

John breathed in the fresh cool air and grinned. “Yes, it is. Though I’m surprised to hear you say that.”

“What, so I’m a joyless geek who’d rather be holed up in his lab like a vampire than out enjoying the sun?”

And just when John was starting to think Kavanagh wasn’t that annoying. “No one’s accusing you of anything, Calvin. Lighten up.”

“What I think Colonel Sheppard means,” Teyla said diplomatically, “is that we are all used to having Dr. McKay around.”

Kavanagh laughed. “Yes, Mr. Doom and Gloom. I mean, I’m as big a fan of safety procedures as the next man.” If not more. “But I certainly don’t get off on crises. McKay just likes to make it seem like the world’s going to end so he can ride in on his shining white horse and save the day.”

Teyla looked like she was about to object in Rodney’s defense, but then seemed to think the better of it. She scowled at Kavanagh anyway.

“At least McKay does save the day,” Ronon said from the back of the line. He had a good point.

“Only because he’ll never let anyone else have enough control over anything to know how to!” Kavanagh exclaimed, though he seemed to collapse in on himself after realizing who exactly he was arguing with.

Ronon just shrugged. He wasn’t that big a Rodney fan either.

“He says you’re not smart enough,” John said, realizing too late that he was only stoking the fire.

“Of course he does! Nothing could get in the way of the ego that ate Manhattan. He treats us all with kid gloves and then expects us to . . .” Kavanagh looked down at his scanner and then stopped dead in his tracks. John walked into him.

“What?”

“Well, we’ve found the trinium deposit.” Kavanagh pointed to what appeared to be a lump on the ground at the base of the next crest in the hillside.

“All right. Let’s check it out,” John said. The sooner they got this done, the sooner he could be Kavanagh-free. Though the man wasn’t entirely as annoying as John had expected him to be, he was still pretty annoying. And he missed Rodney.

John approached the lump in the ground, Kavanagh following close behind. He remembered Rodney gasping and spluttering when he announced who he was taking on their next mission. Rodney had immediately begun whining about how he’d assigned Zelenka to the job and how John had no authority over scientific aspects of the mission and how Kavanagh was such an asshole and why did John even give a damn because there were tons of people in the city who’d love a chance to torture him and how John was such a jerk that they deserved each other. The jealousy had made John’s heart flutter.

“What are you smiling about?” Kavanagh asked, disdainfully.

John could’ve said something sarcastic like, ‘after this mission, I’ll be free from you’ but instead he had this strange compulsion to tell the truth. “I was thinking about how pissed Rodney was when I told him I was bringing you.”

“You should have videotaped it.”

John actually laughed at that, bending down to examine what appeared to be a metallic protrusion from the ground. That was when he felt it shake.

Then he was falling.

Blackness.

The next thing he felt was pain . . . not a stabbing pain, or a dull pain, but a bruising pain. It seemed to jump from place to place and was accompanied by a sound . . . a smacking sound. Ow.

John forced his eyes open, only to find things to be mostly dark. He could see his chest and the thick grey dust that had settled on him, but not much else. It was dark beyond.

Smack! It wasn’t that the pain was moving; it was that someone was . . . throwing pebbles at him? John raised his head, only to have another pebble hit him smack in the middle of it. Where was he and why was someone throwing shit at him? “What the fuck?!”

“Oh, thank god, Colonel, you’re awake.”

Kavanagh? What the hell was Kavanagh doing here with him in this very dark . . . oh, shit . . . they’d been on a mission. They’d been examining for trinium deposits and . . . they must’ve fallen down a hole!

John shifted a little, trying to see where Kavanagh was throwing the pebbles from. Bad idea. The second he moved, his body exploded with pain, sharp and stabbing and definitely located in his left leg. He couldn’t suppress the rough cry that escaped him.

“What is it, Colonel?” Kavanagh again.

“I think . . . I think my leg’s broken. Wanna do me a favor and stop throwing shit at me and get the hell over here?”

“I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?” Kavanagh didn’t sound hurt . . . he wasn’t crying like a little girl, so he was obviously fine.

“Because this whole new rock structure created by the cave-in is very unstable and . . .” Kavanagh was using a talk-down-to-the-idiots voice which John really wasn’t appreciating right now, with the whole excruciating pain and ceiling about to collapse thing.

“Then shut the fuck up and help me so we can get out of here!” John forced himself to sit up, looking for Kavanagh, but only seeing the blinding white of his flashlight.

“I already told you that I can’t. There’s a rockfall here, with a crevice in it small enough for me to pull you through, but if I tried to squeeze through it myself, the whole thing could come tumbling down and we’d both be crushed.”

John had no idea how he was going to get over there. His body was blocking the light, but he could definitely feel the slow trickle of blood down his pant leg . . . the bone must’ve broken the skin. This was bad . . . very bad.

“Colonel? The longer we wait, the greater the chance that this opening won’t be here and you won’t be alive.”

“I hear you, Kavanagh,” John said, deciding to just fucking drag himself. He got the leg up and over his right and started the slow process of inching backwards. It hurt like hell, and he had only moved a few feet before he was panting, eyes tearing up from the pain.

He looked over his shoulder, into the light. He couldn’t see anything.

“How far away are you?”

“Five and a half more feet,” Kavanagh said. John had forgotten he was talking with an engineer.

John wiggled his way slowly and painfully over, surprised at Kavanagh’s little encouragements of ‘good, you’re almost there,’ ‘that’s right, keep going,’ ‘I’m right over here.’

And then, right when he was feeling dizzy and ready to pass out from exhaustion, Kavanagh said, “Stop! Okay, I’m really sorry, but you’re going to have to stand up. Don’t lean on the wall or anything. I’m going to shine the light down so you can see where the hole is.”

John gasped and nodded. He could do this . . . he had to do this. Kavanagh was right – the towering pile of rocks that separated them was huge and leaning towards where he’d been laying. If he did anything to destabilize it, it’d come crashing down right on top of him.

The hole was big enough for a person, but it was about waist height and slanted downwards. He could probably tumble through in a pair of seconds, especially if Kavanagh pulled him, but for someone to climb out to get him, it would take a lot of dangerous wiggling.

Okay. He could do this. It was just standing. He stood every day. It wasn’t like it was that hard. He lifted his broken leg off his good one, trying not to look at how bad it was, which was actually pretty easy with pain graying out his vision. Then he bent his good leg and levered himself up. The whimper came. He didn’t try to prevent it. Lucky for him, Kavanagh chose not to say anything.

He didn’t know how, but somehow, he was standing, squinting at Kavanagh’s face in a small hole about chest level.

“So, I’m standing,” John panted, trying very hard not to fall over that very instant.

Rodney might’ve babbled uselessly, or made some sarcastic comment. Kavanagh just nodded, speaking slowly. John might’ve found it patronizing, if it wasn’t so hard to think right now. “Take off your vest and your holster and toss them through.”

That took a lot of movement, but John managed it.

“Good,” Kavanagh said, appraisingly. “Okay, now, just bend down. I’m going to stick my hands through. I want you to grab them and when I say go, you’re going to jump and I’m going to pull.”

It sounded like a plan. It was going to hurt like fuck, but then again, both he and Kavanagh already knew that. John nodded.

The light went wobbly for a second, and then almost completely out as Kavanagh obviously put it down to position himself. In the faint glow he could just see Kavanagh’s hands steadily reaching out of the hole. He grabbed for them, feeling skin dust-covered and clammy.

Kavanagh squeezed tight and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’m going to be,” John said through gritted teeth.

“On three. One . . . two . . .”

Three.

The world exploded in pain and screaming, and the thick scratch of rock scraping against him, and then he was lying on something warm in the darkness and it hurt so fucking much that John didn’t even notice the rumbling roll, like thunder thrilling through him as he lost consciousness and the world fell down around him.

When John woke up, things were different. Kavanagh was crouched at his side, the entire contents of their combined medical kits laid out next to him and some bandages spread beneath his bad leg. The air was thick with dust and John coughed.

Kavanagh helped him sit up a little and he noticed that not only had the rocks fallen into the crevasse that previously held him, but that they had somehow moved about twenty-five feet away from the whole thing. Kavanagh gave him some water and, after he’d taken a few sips, several small white pills.

“The ceiling above us is more structurally stable,” Kavanagh explained, quite deliberately not looking at John’s leg. It figured the man would be squeamish. “We’ll be safe for now, but honestly, we should start looking for a way out of here before the whole thing comes crashing down.”

“And you think we’ll find that?”

“These tunnels are clearly mining shafts. We didn’t fall in the entrance, and a mining operation like this would require multiple entrances just to move the ore.”

“But how are we going to do that?”

Kavanagh sighed. “First I’m going to try to set your leg.” He still wasn’t looking at it. John looked down and saw just the white tip of one of the bones in his lower leg peaking out of the flesh just above the ankle. There was blood, but not enough of it to have cut an artery. “Then we’re going to walk until we find something.”

Why was Kavanagh doing this? Why wasn’t he running off to save his own hide and maybe remembering to tell everyone where he’d left John’s body? But then again, John wasn’t exactly ready to sit here alone and in pain in some dark tunnel, waiting for Kavanagh to save the day, so he wasn’t going to put any ideas in the guy’s head.

Kavanagh shifted forward slightly, finally looking at John’s wound and wincing. He didn’t look like he was going to faint, but he certainly looked shaken.

“Why’d you want come on this mission, Kavanagh?” John asked, trying to give himself something to distract from the pain as much as he was trying to steer Kavanagh away from whatever difficulty he had with open wounds.

“Trinium,” Kavanagh said, pushing at the bone, though clearly not hard enough.

John was proud that he grunted instead of whimpered. “Yes, that’s why you chose this particular mission. But of all the favors you could’ve asked for – Zelenka’s job, a ticket home, stylish flatware, you chose one off-world mission with me. Why would you do that?”

“Despite what you might think, Colonel, I didn’t come to another galaxy to sit around in a lab twiddling my thumbs. I don’t want to be on the front lines, first course at the Wraith Buffet, because, frankly, I’m too valuable for that. But I’m not a man without wonder in his life, like McKay, or Zelenka, who wets his pants every time someone tells him he has to go through the Gate. We all signed up for this expedition to explore a new galaxy, and I intend to do that.”

John found himself kind of impressed, despite himself. In all his endless rants, John’d never heard Rodney express any sort of gratitude to be out there with him. He knew Rodney felt it by the way his eyes lit up every time he made some new discovery, but it was nice to hear it, even if it came from Kavanagh.

He’d almost forgotten how they got here – not one of them knowing what they would find on the other side of that wormhole. Regardless of how many times Kavanagh had wanted to turn tail and run from what he now knew faced them, he did take that plunge into the unknown with the rest of them, and that, at least, took some courage. Hell, Kavanagh probably hadn’t even had to flip a coin about it.

Kavanagh shifted the bone again. John clamped down on his teeth. “And I thought it was just the magnetic pull of my charisma.”

Then Kavanagh pushed really hard and John’s vision went gray for a second. He took a few ragged breaths, only to hear Kavanagh say, “I think I got it.”

John let his head fall back against the hard stone floor. “Good.”

“I’m going to do the splint now. Would you like more Tylenol?”

John wanted to smack him. Yes, he was trying to be helpful. But . . . Tylenol? His fucking . . . leg bone, had just been sticking out like no good leg bones had any business doing and Kavanagh wanted to know if he could use any more Tylenol!

John groaned and covered his eyes. “Just do it so we can get the hell out of here.”

“Okay. What do you think I should use for a splint?”

“I don’t know. But maybe you should bandage the wound first,” John said through gritted teeth. He could’ve taken Rodney’s bumbling incompetence or Ronan’s calm quick-and-dirty-then-move-right-on toughness, but Kavanagh was neither properly concerned with the direness of the situation nor anywhere near competent.

“That’s right, bandage the wound. I must be a complete idiot.” Strangely, he sounded exactly the same criticizing himself as he did everyone else.

Though he passed out at one point, John was actually rather impressed at the neat, perfectly-balanced bandage and splint job Kavanagh ended up doing. Now, all they had to do was get out of this – preferably alive.

“Where’d you learn to do a splint like that?” Sure they’d all had medical training, but John knew how those kinds of things were, especially for civilians. John himself really hadn’t known this stuff until he’d flown MedEvac, and only because in that situation any hand was a helpful hand.

“I was a Boy Scout.”

“Really?” For some reason that surprised him. Weren’t geeky scientists like Kavanagh supposed to stay indoors?

Kavanagh scowled at him, something to which John was becoming very accustomed. “Not all scientists spend the day crammed indoors watching clocks tick and liquids mix.”

“I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

“Sure.”

“Fine. I guess . . . I don’t know. I guess I’m just not a good judge of character.”

“You? Mr. Popular?”

John shrugged. “Being a good judge of people is different than getting along with them.”

“And a fellow Eagle Scout can’t recognize his counterpart.”

In no way shape or form was he Kavanagh’s counterpart. “I wasn’t a Boy Scout.”

“You weren’t?”

“I wanted to be. But we moved so much . . . it would’ve been too hard.” It felt strange, talking about his childhood with Kavanagh. He barely discussed these things with anyone . . . not even with Rodney.

“When I was a child, I used to wish we’d move. I went to the same school with the same rich brats since kindergarten. I was smarter than them and they resented it. Sometimes I wish I could just start again. Move on to somewhere where intelligence was appreciated.”

“Somewhere like Atlantis?”

Kavanagh snorted. “On Atlantis, intelligence is taken for granted, not appreciated.”

John shook his head. “Never going to be happy unless you’re king of the geeks, are you?”

“I just don’t want to have to play the game to be appreciated.”

“Play the game?”

“Dr. Weir is a politician. She’s not a scientist. You’ve probably got a higher IQ than she does.” Actually, he did, but what did that matter?

“Was that an insult?”

“No. I was just saying that someone who’s in charge of a scientific expedition should know how to think like a scientist . . . allocate resources like a scientist. Diplomats are useful for trade agreements, but not for leading . . . not for assigning projects they couldn’t possibly hope to understand.”

Kavanagh actually did have a point there. “Isn’t that McKay’s job?”

“It should be. But McKay’s biased by the fact that he wants resources for his own lab. And he’s out on missions more than any of the other scientists. If anything, the man in charge of the labs should spend time in them.”

“What about Zelenka?”

“Zelenka? Zelenka wouldn’t be able to lead a pack of seeing-eye-dogs. He’s a good scientist. But he’s completely oblivious.”

“And you’d be better?”

“I’d be better than Weir. I’d respect me.”

“Why don’t people respect you?”

“Because I don’t play the game. I don’t try to be nice to people and say the right thing so that they’ll let me do my job.”

“Then why should they be nice to you?”

“They don’t have to be.”

“Then why did you want to leave?” Kavanaugh left because he had no friends. John had seen the security tapes – watched them over and over, trying to find what made Elizabeth so sure that Kavanagh was guilty.

“I wanted to move on,” Kavanagh said. John hadn’t figured him for the optimistic dreamer type. But then again, Kavanagh had surprised him a lot of times today.

John sighed . . . not wanting to bring it up, yet unable to put a cork in his curiosity. “What was in those messages?”

“What?”

“The encrypted messages we never did get decoded in time?”

“You should know, Colonel. I sent one of them to you.”

John blinked. “You sent me an e-mail about how you disapproved of Colonel Caldwell’s decision to push the engines on the Daedalus and Elizabeth’s request that he return to Atlantis to assist in the investigation.”

“It was encrypted, but decrypted using a decryption matrix I’d already e-mailed you to be automatically installed on your computer.”

“On my computer? Why?” John was still too shocked to be mad, though he probably should’ve been.

“Because, even though you’re military, and a bit of a lapdog sometimes . . .”

“Hey!”

“Well, you are. But you do stand up to Weir and stand up to your military superiors when you think they’re really wrong. There’re some things that I know you’d shoot me down on, but I don’t think that you agree with a lot of the decisions Dr. Weir has made on this expedition, the decision to order the Daedalus back being one of them.”

John thought about this for a moment. Kavanagh was right about him not agreeing with Elizabeth one-hundred percent of the time. Pretty much everyone knew that. And he was glad that they had ordered the Daedalus back when they did. Otherwise they never would’ve gotten Caldwell, but was that really the right choice? Didn’t it make more sense to trust Caldwell with the investigation instead of a jurisdictional pissing contest? John didn’t always believe in following the orders of higher-ups when they were just plain wrong, but, in the end, the chain of command was about trusting people to do their jobs. John wasn’t one who trusted easily, but he sure as hell knew he could’ve trusted Caldwell to know his own men, know them better than Elizabeth did. Elizabeth could understand managing a group of people, but could she ever truly understand what it was to command?

John shrugged. “Maybe.”

“So, did you tell them about it?”

“They get my mission reports.”

“But you didn’t lodge a complaint?”

“There’s something called loyalty, Kavanagh. It’s when you trust people to do their jobs and support them through it.”

“But do you really trust Weir?”

John shrugged. “I trust her more than I’d probably trust whoever the Pentagon’d send as a replacement if something I said got her kicked out.”

Kavanagh seemed to consider that for a moment. Then he said, “Do you think you’re ready to move out?”

John winced. His whole body felt bruised and his leg was throbbing. The last thing he wanted to do was move, but he knew they had to. He nodded, letting Kavanagh help him up.

The going was slow. Every step jarred his leg in a way that sent a spike of pain through his whole body. It didn’t matter that Kavanagh was supporting most of his weight or that the splint was actually quite competent - it all hurt like hell.

John forced himself to push on, push through it. Kavanagh was right about these caves. Even if they were structurally stable at the moment, that didn’t mean anything about the future. He needed to . . . he had too . . . John took in a deep gasping breath.

“Do you need to stop?” Kavanagh asked, actually managing to sound sincere.

“I think . . . yeah, a little rest might be good.” John was exhausted, too exhausted to hide it.

He let Kavanagh lower him carefully to the floor. But no matter how cautious they were, every movement still hurt. John wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep doing this.

“Maybe you should leave me and go for help,” John gasped, being realistic. Kavanagh could move faster, get himself to safety, and John wouldn’t have to move any more.

“No,” Kavanagh said, determinedly. “That makes absolutely no sense, Colonel.”

“Actually, it makes a lot of sense. You get yourself out of Dodge. You increase our search capability and our chances of finding an exit, and you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Our radios don’t work, due to the trinium. You’re not in a stable condition and you wouldn’t be able to call me if something went wrong. I wouldn’t be able to call you. There’s a chance I’d get lost and be unable to find you. And who knows what kind of dangers are in this cave? There’s too much unmined mineral here for them to have just abandoned it for no reason.”

“Our radios can’t reach Teyla and Ronon, but that doesn’t mean they won’t work in the cave network itself. You can leave a trail, mark walls or something, and the obvious reason to abandon this mine is the Wraith.”

“We’re not splitting up.”

That was odd. After all the times he’d wanted to sacrifice others to save his own hide, suddenly Kavanagh wanted to do the selfless thing and take John on as a burden? Maybe the blood loss was finally getting to him. “Why not?”

“Because heroes that think they can get ahead by taking chances end up dead.” Kavanagh said it with his usual self-satisfied righteous air, but he sounded shaken by his certainty, like it was something he didn’t want to be certain of.

“You know this, how?”

Kavanagh gave a put-upon sigh, but there was something lacking from his voice. “We’re not splitting up.”

John shifted to the side a little, so he could lean more comfortably against the wall. “What, you afraid of the dark?”

“Puh-lease, I practically grew up in a cave.” He sounded strangely like Rodney.

“Well, that explains some things.”

Kavanagh glared. “I grew up outside of Pittsburgh. My father and my uncles were all miners.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t really a life John could imagine. He’d spent his life all over the States: California, Texas, Washington, and even some time abroad: Guam, Okinawa. But he’d never been to those places where the earth was still the source of life. Maybe that was why he was still so off-balance on most of the worlds they visited.

“I went off to school because I didn’t want to die in some dank dark cavern suffocating alone like an animal. If there is a God, he’s got to be an ironic buffoon, if he’s going to make me die here, like this.”

“We’re not going to die, Kavanagh,” John said, well practiced at the ‘we’re going to make it’ speech from all the times Rodney got a splinter and convinced himself the sky was falling.

“Oh, well, you saying that makes everything better, Colonel. Because you can change the structural integrity of a 10,000 year old mine shaft with the power of your battlefield optimism alone. We might die, but we’re not going to do it alone.”

John nodded, recognizing desperation in Kavanagh’s words even as he recognized the hope.

It wasn’t until they reached a fork in the road that John realized the full force of futility behind their plan. How many of these tunnels were there? How did they even know that they led to the outside? How did Kavanagh expect to cover them all, dragging John along with him?

But then again, the darkness was consuming, the occasional tremble of the walls terrifying. He could understand being afraid to be alone in this. And maybe that was all there was to understand in Kavanagh. He was arrogant, sure – so was Rodney. But the real difference was fear. Rodney spouted off his fear of everything from bee-stings to death by explosive decompression. Kavanagh covered his fears with the paper-thin guise of rationality. But when it came down to it, Rodney would face his fears. Kavanagh wouldn’t. But, then again, Rodney had never really had his fears confirmed.

John leaned hard against the wall as Kavanagh looked up at the ceiling, trying to determine the most structurally sound way, mumbling things about blasting and mineral deposits and water flow under his breath.

John gritted his teeth. He was fading, he knew. He wasn’t sure how much blood he’d lost, but he was beginning to feel truly dizzy, the darkness swirling menacingly around him, as Kavanagh’s flashlight wobbled.

“I’m sorry, Kavanagh, but you have to go. I don’t know if I can make it to the end of one of these tunnels, let alone several if we can’t find the right one.”

“No.”

John forced a shaky breath. “I don’t suppose I could order you.”

Kavanagh snorted. “It wouldn’t be the first time some mindless military grunt tried to tell me what to do. Only you’re in no shape to threaten physical violence right now.”

John nodded. “There has to be some other way, so you wouldn’t get lost. You could do that Greek maze thing . . . you know, walk with your hand up against the wall until you found the entrance.”

“Yeah, and if the floor drops out from beneath me? Or I hit a rockfall? I don’t . . . wait . . . Colonel, that’s it! The walls are all lined with trinium. It prevents communication outside of it, so the Jumper systems actually use the whole outer hull as a giant antenna . . . which is why the lifesigns detectors can sense so much further on Atlantis, because they use the walls like giant antennae throughout the city . . . if we can duplicate that effect, then we can essentially get a map of the cave network . . . maybe even boost our radio signal to your team!”

John smiled. “Sounds like a plan. Good job, Kavanagh.” He couldn’t believe he was actually saying that. Usually, Kavanagh’s good works were only enough to make up for the ass he was the rest of the time, not to warrant praise on their own.

“It was your idea, Colonel.” That was odd. John was used to Rodney just ignoring any contribution he might’ve had.

“Not going to stop you from taking credit for it, is it?”

Kavanagh shrugged. “What are you going to do with increased intellectual respect? Throw it at the Marines?”

“Good point.” John had always hidden how smart he was. He didn’t like sticking out on Atlantis anymore than he did anywhere else, though here, he’d let more people see who he really was. He was slowly getting more and more comfortable with what Rodney always called his closet-geekyness.

“This might take a while. You should get more comfortable.”

Amen to that.

Kavanagh helped John sit down, handing him a couple more Tylenol. John lay back against the cold stone of the cavern, closing his eyes and letting the cold numb him. Then he felt warm fingers on his cheek, preventing him from falling into a light doze.

“I’m really sorry, Colonel, but you have to stay up. I’m going to need you to help with the LSD.”

John squinted. Kavanagh’s flashlight was bright. “Acid?”

“No, the Life Signs Detector,” Kavanagh said exasperatedly. Then, “Are you okay? Do you think you might have a concussion?” Kavanagh sounded worried.

“What would it matter if I did?” John asked. “You’re keeping me awake anyhow.”

Kavanagh shrugged. “Take off your headset. I’m going to be trying different frequencies on my radio . . . you don’t want to be hearing some of them.”

John nodded and complied, watching Kavanagh cannibalize one of the flashlights, one of geology’s miniature sonogram machines and his own radio. His hands worked fast, his fingers long and slender, performing a mesmerizing sort of dance. Back and forth, type on the computer, twist, untwist, wires, motion.

John started to doze off again.

“Hey, hey, none of that. Stay awake. I’m going to need you soon, seeing as how Beckett wouldn’t even try his ridiculous gene-therapy on me. He said that he didn’t want to give it to all the members of any given group, in case there were unanticipated side-effects. He wouldn’t even do it after it failed on Zelenka. I bet you Weir had something to with that . . . choosing me as the control rat.” Rat . . . oddly appropriate phrasing, for Kavanagh.

“Or maybe your intellect is just so invaluable she doesn’t want to risk damaging it.”

“Yeah, right. If she thought it would damage it, she’d make me be the guinea pig. Too bad McKay bullied himself into that role.”

“Would you have done it first, if McKay hadn’t?”

“No, I’m not crazy. That kind of mad-scientist research work is banned on Earth for a reason. In fact, it’s craziness on both McKay and Weir’s parts to do experimental treatment on the head of the science division, or anyone valuable to the expedition. It should have been rats first, then Marines. But if it had to be a member of the department, it would have been nice to have been asked.”

“Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?”

Kavanagh looked at John and blinked slowly, as if asking how much he had to slow down to get down to John’s level of stupidity. “How is anyone supposed to make progress if they accept things the way they are? You see, Colonel, there are weak people, people who take in reality but never do anything to change it. And there are those that shape the world. People like me, people like McKay, people who are willing to get out there and innovate. We spend most of our lives trying to climb over idiotic bureaucratic lambs like Weir and Zelenka and Hammond and Caldwell and all those idiots back at the Pentagon, who think that they can change the world by following rules and protocols and ethics. Those people think that Atlantis is some hippie commune colony, full of love and togetherness. They’re people who will praise and accept mediocrity and obedience instead of greatness.”

“How very ubermensch of you. There’s only one flaw in your plan – if everyone thinks they’re a bird of prey, how do you know you know you’re not just a lamb with delusions of grandeur? How do you know you have the courage to change the world, if you’ve never changed it?”

Under Kavanagh’s interpretation, Rodney was the only true ‘Superman’ he knew. He was the only one with the courage to step out of the bureaucracy and just do, hatred of religion and politics included. Rodney had succeeded; Kavanagh had not.

“I just know . . . I’ve already abandoned the weakness that holds me back. It’s only a matter of time.”

John shrugged. “Whatever you say.” Then, curiously . . . “Which one am I?”

“You’re a bird of prey,” Kavanagh said, as though it were obvious. John himself had never been so sure. “Now, turn this on and tell me when you can see a map large enough to see the exit.”

John nodded, feeling the familiar hum of power at the back of his mind, the Ancient technology announcing its familiar presence. He remembered the Chair – undiluted power of action, power to just be, without worrying about politics and pleasantries and society. Perhaps that was his natural state, after all.

“Okay. Turn that off for a minute. I have to make a few adjustments and then we’ll try again.”

John nodded. God, he was so tired. The pain was an absent throb now, his whole leg numb from sitting in the same position too long. He should probably move it to increase the blood flow or something, but he was just so tired . . .

“Don’t fall asleep on me, Colonel. I need your gene.”

“The damned gene . . .” John grumbled, not opening his eyes. If not for that gene he’d be back in Antarctica ferrying people to a top-secret research facility in blissful ignorance. He supposed it was worth it, vampire-aliens included.

“Hey, stay awake . . . tell me . . . tell me more about yourself.”

“Born 1969 at the base hospital in Guam. Father was a Colonel in the army and an all-around asshole. Mother was a secretary before she became a career army wife. I went to the Air Force because I wanted to fly. Stationed in Texas, DC, Panama, South Korea, Afghanistan, Antarctica. I like Ferris Wheels, College Football, and anything that goes faster than 200 mph.”

Kavanagh snorted, throwing John’s previous words back at him. “How very military of you. Tell me something else . . . something I would actually care about.”

John thought for a second. Rodney said he was saving the MENSA thing for when Kavanagh was being a real asshole. Well, too bad for him. “I have an IQ of 145.”

Kavanagh’s jaw dropped. “No, you don’t. That’s only ten points below me.”

“Is that so hard to believe?” John asked, annoyed. He knew he worked hard to keep up the image of the dumb grunt, but it still sort of stung anyhow. He never acted stupid.

“Well . . . yeah. Why would you join the military with intelligence like that? You’re smart and handsome and reasonably well-spoken. You could have done anything.”

John shrugged. “I wanted to fly. Besides, the military’s not so bad. You get lots of big guns, travel to other galaxies, small stuff like that . . . and the strategy part’s just like a big game of chess.”

“You play chess?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” That had been John’s family’s one tradition. Well, he and his father, at least. They always had a game going, even when his father was on a more extended mission and the pieces stood motionless for weeks on end. “It was what I did as a kid. I haven’t played in years.”

“You’ll never go broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public. I didn’t even know what chess was until High School. Well, I can’t imagine there are many stimulating opponents around the barracks. There’s an ongoing tournament on Atlantis. You should join.”

John shook his head. “Naw. Don’t really have the time.” In truth, he wasn’t quite ready to submit himself to all the surprise from the scientists or the alienation from his own men.

“Sure,” Kavanagh said, seeing right through him. “Maybe we could play sometime.”

John thought about that. Kavanagh was . . . well, he was Kavanagh. But, John had missed the game. And Kavanagh wouldn’t blab about it . . . not if it meant mentioning that the grunt in charge was only ten IQ points below him. John would’ve liked to play with Rodney, if he thought there’d even be a contest . . . or if they had the time. He smiled. “I’d like that.”

Kavanagh gave him a small, satisfied grin, then connected a couple more wires. “Alright, let’s try this again.”

John gripped the LSD, as Kavanagh called it. It flickered on, expanding to form a map. “I think we’ve got it.”

Kavanagh hurried over, looking over John’s shoulder, breath tickling warm against John’s neck. “That would make the entrance . . .” Kavanagh stopped his pointing, noticing the softly glowing dot down the corridor, making its way towards them quickly, a speed John had seen once before . . . from a Wraith.

“Hand me the P-90,” John commanded.

“It could be your team,” Kavanagh said, grabbing the weapon anyway, while checking his own sidearm.

“The area its coming from isn’t anywhere near an exit. If it is, I’ll get one of them to follow you. If it’s not . . . you have to go for help, now!”

Kavanagh shook his head. “No, Colonel. I’m not . . . what if there’re more of them?”

“Your aim’s almost as good as mine.” He tossed Kavanagh the LSD.

Kavanagh tossed it back. “I already have the exit route memorized. And I’m not going out there . . .” there was something broken in his voice. “I’m not a hero. I’m not a hero. I’m not . . .” He repeated it like a mantra, body shaking. If they’d had time, John would ask Kavanagh why he was so afraid to be the hero . . . why he was so adamant that risk would always lead to failure. But they didn’t have that kind of time.

John watched the white dot getting closer. Kavanagh needed to move now. If it was a Wraith, John might not be able to hold it off for long in the state he was in now. “Don’t be a fucking lamb, Kavanagh! Go!”

Kavanagh froze, looking shocked for a brief second before nodding. He didn’t take anything with him, he just ran, a light disappearing into the darkness.

John held the LSD close to him, watching the dot approach. The flashlight on his P90 was stronger and more directed than Kavanagh’s, but it only showed where it was pointed, not reaching the ceiling or the floor, leaving him feeling like he was floating through space . . . nothing but a small lonely light in the void.

He tucked the LSD into his pants pocket and levered himself up, gasping. He was in a bad way, in no condition to face a Wraith. And even healthy, a dark cavern like this one would be far from ideal conditions.

He took one more look at the LSD. One turn around the bend and it would be here. He switched his flashlight off – no use giving it an easy target until it was close enough to shoot.

The darkness was consuming, terrifying. He could hear nothing but the beating of his heart, his soft ragged breaths sounding like a roaring wind in the silence. John closed his eyes, stuffing the LSD back into his breast pocket. He’d never told Rodney, but he didn’t need to look at it to see what it read. Not if he was concentrating.

The Wraith . . . or whatever it was, slowed, creeping around the corner. The dot that was Kavanagh continued running full tilt towards the exit. The man was actually quite fast for a geek. But then again, Rodney could also be rather quick when he was running for his life.

John held his breath. It was a Wraith. He could feel it. The scar on his arm itched, like some part of him could still connect with that awful being. The scar . . . the scar . . . memories faded back like a dream, calling to him. Crawling, stalking, taking pleasure in violence.

He flipped the light on, pointing his weapon above him at the ceiling and shooting.

The bullets left fireworks in the darkness, light too bright across his vision. The black clad figure dropped from the ceiling, ducking itself behind a large boulder. John couldn’t tell if he’d wounded it, or if it was just biding its time.

His first instinct would be to advance on it, scope it out behind that boulder while it was still down, but he couldn’t move. Even trying to put weight on his injured leg drew out a choked scream. Where the hell was it?

Was it dead? John tried to call up the mental image on the LSD in his head, but his thoughts were too clouded, his heart hammering too hard. He was dizzy . . . the adrenaline was too much for his already overloaded system.

There was motion in the darkness, but he couldn’t see, couldn’t feel. He swung his weapon briefly around. Where was it? Was it still behind the rock? If he moved the light too far, he’d give it a chance to escape. But if it already had . . .

“You stink of blood and weakness, human,” the familiar taunting voice rang out from the darkness, echoing off every surface until it seemed to come from a chorus, all around.

“Well, you stink of . . . Wraithness . . .” he challenged, weakly.

The Wraith laughed. “You think you can mine this pit like your Ancestors? Build more ships? Try to overwhelm us? Even more ships cannot save you. But I will take joy in killing you for trying, all the same.”

“This evil-villain routine is getting really old. So how about you show yourself and let me finish you?” He sounded far more desperate that he would’ve liked, Kavanagh’s words echoing in his mind like the sinister voice around this darkened chamber. ‘Die alone in some dank dark cavern, suffocating alone like an animal.’

The Wraith laughed. “What a very entertaining meal.”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?”

“We do not have mothers. We do not breed like livestock.”

John kept the flashlight steady, trying to think . . . trying to concentrate. Where was the Wraith? Where was Kavanagh? Then the image flashed through his mind. The Wraith was in front of him . . . behind the rock. Kavanagh . . . three dots were running back in his direction. The cavalry . . . now all he had to do was hold out until they got here.

“Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing. I’d take livestock over abstinence any day . . .” that didn’t come out how he’d meant it . . . “Or . . . er . . . well, sex is good. No wonder you’re all joyless megalomaniacal Dracula wannabes . . . you just need to get laid.”

The dots were getting closer. Running fast. One was now outstripping the others . . . Ronon, and that lovely ray-gun of his.

“I’m sure feeding off of you will prove just as enjoyable,” the Wraith said. John could practically hear him salivating.

“I dunno . . . there were these twins once, in Vegas . . . gymnasts, you know?”

All he had to do was stall. All he had to do was . . .

“Your friends will not save you. I can feel your desperation . . . your hope.” The Wraith could sense his thoughts?

But before he could consider the implications of that thought, there was motion. A figure sprang up from behind the boulder. John didn’t know where his team was, but he opened fire. The bullets rang out, ricocheting off the walls with sparks. The black-coated figure danced in front of them, the impact of bullets like Mick Jagger throwing himself around the stage. As the Wraith advanced, John wondered what the impact of the bullets was doing to Kavanagh’s oh-so-important structural integrity.

John kept firing, but it wasn’t enough. John could feel the Wraith’s blood against his chest as it lifted him up, hand tight around his neck. His leg screamed as it was dragged up the wall behind him, the Wraith pinning him there.

The Wraith reached out a hand to tear John’s shirt open and then . . . a rumbling sound.

It turned around, long white hair flying into John’s face like spiderwebs.

Something rumbled again. And then the ceiling came down.

John opened his eyes to shadows dancing. They flickered across his vision. And somewhere there was sound, washing in and out like the sea. He blinked, trying to make the shadows stay, but no matter what he did, they kept in motion.

His leg throbbed and his chest felt tight, a steady pressure and a tinge of pain . . . he groaned.

The sounds in the distance stopped.

Someone said. “Shh! I hear something.” The voice was deep and gruff.

“It could be the Wraith.” High and airy, tense. “Where is Colonel Sheppard?”

“I don’t know! He has the Life Signs Detector and none of us has the gene, anyhow!” This last voice was whiny and exasperated.

“You’re sure he was here, before this rockfall?” the deep voice again. It was familiar.

His chest hurt. He looked down . . . catching something in the shadows . . . white . . . long strands of white. They ticked against his bare chest when he breathed. A face . . . blue in the darkness . . . eyes closed . . . A Wraith!

He tried to yell, tried to call to the voices to help, but he couldn’t manage more that a hoarse almost-cough. His throat was bruised. Something . . . a hand still clasped it, though the fingers had gone lax.

The voices heard him that time. “Over here,” Ronon said.

“Colonel Sheppard?” Teyla called, sounding both relieved and worried.

He made another attempt to speak. “. . . ‘aith” he grunted. It wasn’t loud, but Ronon had good hearing.

“You can’t just shoot your way through . . . this structure is unstable enough as it is! You could crush him!” Oh God, Kavanagh. There was a fucking Wraith lying unconscious on his chest and Kavanagh wanted to discuss structural integrity? “There’s another way . . . you just have to help me lift . . .”

“He said ‘Wraith.’” Ronon said and there was a blast and a rumble.

Two yellow orbs flashed open and the pressure on his chest shifted, causing him to grunt in pain.

He got in half of a scream before the grip on his neck tightened.

The Wraith smiled down on him, raising his hand before . . . a flash of red. The grip released as the Wraith rolled off him, taking his P90 with it.

It fired in Ronon’s direction, as he dove behind a boulder.

There was more clattering of weapons fire as Teyla leapt out of the entrance Ronon had cleared, making for a nearby boulder. The Wraith ducked another shot from Ronon, dropping the P90 and grabbing for John.

John tried to pull himself back, but the Wraith yanked him by his injured leg, earning a yelp of pain as he put him between himself and Ronon and Teyla’s shots. He stepped forwards. Hand hovering over John’s chest. “Move and I will kill him.”

This was a stalemate. Ronon knew it, Teyla knew it, and most of all, John knew it. He tried to curl in on himself, praying that one of them would take a shot. Ronon emerged from behind his boulder, weapon steady. He flipped the switch to the ‘stun’ setting. If the Wraith didn’t go down with the shot – John was a dead man. But if he did . . .
In the faint light from Teyla’s P-90, John could see the question in Ronon’s eyes. Could he fire?

John was about to nod his head yes when he felt a tickle at the back of his mind . . . the LSD . . . a lone figure creeping along the wall – Kavanagh must have found the other way to him. If John closed his eyes, he could hear the shuffling. The Wraith, however, was too focused on Ronon and Teyla to catch anything.

John shook his head, ‘no.’

Ronon paused, looked around, but none of them could see anything outside the light of Teyla’s flashlight beam.

The dot paused.

John held himself rigidly still.

A shot rang out, and the grip on his shoulder released. He landed hard on his injured leg, the pain exploding with the red light and the sound of a machine-gun firing. He wanted nothing more than to pass out, but he forced himself to roll over, look up at Ronon standing above the prone form of the Wraith, firing one last shot directly at its head.

‘Yuck, Wraith guts,’ was the last thing John thought before he lost consciousness.

John woke up flying. Well . . . it wasn’t exactly flying, because when John flew there were dips and turns and often people shooting at him. This was more a pleasant floating, drifting in and out of various patterns of lights, noises. It was peaceful.

Then some of the floating lights resolved themselves . . . two giant blue blobs . . . no, not blobs . . . eyes. He smiled. Those eyes were familiar. They blinked down at him. John really liked blue. Blue was beautiful.

“Hey, Rodney.”

“Hey, Colonel. You just hang on for a second . . . I’m going to get Carson.”

John nodded. The blue orbs left and a blue blob shuffled out, yelling rather loudly. John frowned.

There was something throbbing somewhere. It sounded like a trombone. Only it wasn’t really a trombone . . . it was more like . . . it was his leg.

He looked down in surprise, finding his leg sticking out of the blankets, covered in a fresh white cast and . . . flying? No, floating. It was floating and he was pretty sure it was holding itself up.

The Rodney-blob returned, another white blob following him. “Hi, Carson.”

“Hello, Colonel. How are we feeling today?”

“Floaty.”

“Okay, so we’ll be lowering your dose of the painkillers then . . .”

“Look . . . my leg . . .” he pointed, feeling something pull . . . “Ow . . .”

“Easy, lad, you’ve bruised a few ribs there.”

John rubbed his side, absently. He was having trouble feeling his fingers. And he was tired. “Wraith . . . fell on me. He was heavy.”

“We heard,” Carson-blob said.

John rubbed at his neck. His voice felt strange. It sounded nice though. Nice and floaty. “Thirsty.”

He closed his eyes and when he opened them, there was a straw poised at his mouth. ‘How’d that get there?’ he wondered as he drank.

He couldn’t taste the water, but he assumed it tasted purple. He was feeling sort of purple. “Purple.”

“Hm . . .” Carson said.

“What the hell are you giving him?”

“LSD!” John answered, feeling around for his pockets. Where had it gone to? He had to find the Kavanagh-dot . . . where had it gone? It could be alone in the dark.

“Carson!”

“Rodney, you know I wouldn’t prescribe a dangerous hallucinogen as a painkiller . . . it doesn’t even . . .”

“Where’s the dot?” John asked.

“What dot?” Rodney sounded annoyed but resigned - yellow.

John pouted. It wasn’t a stupid question. “The Kavanagh dot?” He couldn’t let Kavanagh die in a cavern alone in the dark . . . he had to . . .

Carson sighed. “He’s fine - nothing more than an interesting collection of bruises.”

“Though I don’t see why you care,” Rodney huffed.

“Saved my life . . . tired . . .” John yawned. He was floating on a nice waving purple sea.

“Aye, lad. You go ahead and sleep. We’ll see you in the morning.”

John fell asleep mid nod.

The next time he woke, his head was clearer, and so was his body. What had been a gentle trombone sound was now a distant, but still painful throb. He could feel the bruising around his throat like a bad case of laryngitis, and his chest was tight, if not particularly painful.

Rodney had gone and it was now . . . Kavanagh? Sitting at his side.

“Colonel Sheppard,” Kavanagh stood, almost guiltily. “Good to see you awake.”

“Thanks.” John played with the edge of his blanket a little.

“I should get Beckett . . .” Kavanagh said.

“No . . .” John reached out a hand.

His voice was scratchy. He nodded toward the tray he knew contained a cup of water. Kavanagh obliged him, smile so small and tight that John wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t imagining it.

When he’d drunk his fill he cleared his throat and said. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For saving my life. You did good.”

Kavanagh did actually smile this time. “Thank you.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Kavanagh had an interesting bruise running down the side of his face, and one near his neck, contrasting strangely with the blue of his uniform shirt. He moved stiffly, shifting his weight back and forth nervously. There was something off about him . . . off . . . “What happened to your glasses?”

“They cracked in the rockfall. Don’t you remember? I had them off the entire time.”

John frowned, thinking back. Now that Kavanagh mentioned it . . . “Wait . . . you took that shot without your glasses?”

Kavanagh looked a little cowed, but he stood his ground. “Birds of prey don’t let little things like nearsightedness get in the way of their greatness.”

John chuckled, still tensed. That was one hell of a risk for Kavanagh to have taken . . . but it had worked out in the end. “Well, I can’t complain.”

Kavanagh nodded. And then they stared at each other until Kavanagh said. “I really should get Beckett.”

John nodded as he disappeared.

Unlike Rodney, he didn’t come back when Beckett did.

As it turned out . . . all of the crawling and falling John had done on his broken leg hadn’t been that good for it . . . duh. And he had to keep the damn thing in traction for about a week before he could even get to the always-fun crutches stage. This royally sucked.

He’d convinced Dr. Beckett to move him to his quarters with about four rounds of ‘99 bottles of beer on the wall.’ The last one he’d started with one and gone up by prime numbers only. He hadn’t even gotten to 281 before Beckett had promised to move him.

His quarters were darker and quiet. But Rodney had dropped off a bunch of DVDs and set up his laptop for him. And there was the ever-present threat of paperwork, which Elizabeth determined he was well enough for – all five of his typing fingers were A-okay.

Ronon and Teyla had gone off-world with Lorne’s team, so John was a little starved for company, but Rodney always stopped by towards the end of the day. He’d rant about his idiotic staff and whatever dumb sci-fi or action movies John told him he’d just watched or how John was stupid enough to think he could survive a mission with Kavanagh unpunished – for him, a topic which John feared would never grow old.

He was emailing Rodney digital pictures he’d taken of his ceiling when there was a chime on the door. He looked down at his watch - he wasn’t expecting anyone until the nurse brought in his lunch.

“Come in,” John said, mentally opening the door.

Strangely, it was Kavanagh.

John pushed the hospital bed further up. “Hey, Calvin! I wasn’t expecting you.”

Normally, John wouldn’t have been so excited, but he was going stir crazy and was starved for company.

Kavanagh stepped in, his expression somewhere between a smile and a smirk. “Hello, John.” He said it like it was supposed to be an insult.

John mock-frowned. “What? I can’t call you Calvin?”

“Only if you want me to call you John.”

John shrugged. Why not? Kavanagh wasn’t under his command. He didn’t need soldierly formality like Ronon, or to say things in the longest way possible, like Teyla. And well, he’d love it if Rodney called him by his first name . . . he just never did.

Kavanagh smiled slightly, lifting something from behind his back. “So, John, you have time for a game of chess?”

John glared. “Of course I ‘have time.’” He had nothing but time. Goddamned Beckett . . .

Kavanagh moved one of the tables closer, setting the pieces up easily, not even looking at them.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the company -because, trust me . . . I really appreciate it- but don’t you have, like . . . work or something?”

Kavanagh shrugged. “ McKay’s still throwing a pissy fit about me getting to fall into a cavern and get chased around by a Wraith instead of him. He’s got me on sewage-treatment duty again.”

John raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know geeks had KP.”

“Well, this is a city. And I am an engineer, so . . . it’s not without some precedence, but the degree to which McKay lets his personal feelings influence his working life are astounding . . . I mean, the man is even more of an emotional wreck than Weir. I swear, the man has PMS.”

John laughed at that, turning the board so he got white. He was always white. “Well, Rodney’s emotion is what makes him great in the field. Panic and loyalty never fail to make him get the job done.”

Kavanagh nodded. “Which is why he’s fine in the field.”

John shrugged. “Hey, you’re not going to convince me I should try to push Rodney out of his job. So far, everything seems to be working out just fine, however he does it.”

“He doesn’t respect me, or my work. And he encourages pettiness and favoritism among his subordinates.”

John waved that aside waiting for Kavanagh to make his move. “Rodney doesn’t respect most anybody. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“He specifically targets me.”

“Even when you haven’t recently done something to tick him off?”

Kavanagh paused to think about it. “I guess not, but . . .”

“Then just try not to tick him off.”

“That’s hardly fair, Colo . . . John.”

John shrugged. “Life’s not fair. If it was, we’d be overrun by idiots . . . or at least we would, according to Darwin or something.”

Kavanagh didn’t say anything. He moved his pawn and they settled into an intense silence.

Kavanagh must’ve really hated that sewage-treatment duty, because he stayed for two games and counting. He was now studying the board, clasping and unclasping his hands over one of John’s rooks. It was oddly hypnotizing.

“Calvin, would you please stop fondling the damned piece?”

Kavanagh started, looking down at his hand and letting go of the captured rook. “Sorry.”

John shrugged. “It’s okay. You’ve got to fondle something, right?”

Kavanagh glared. “Great, so now I’m just a geek who couldn’t possibly get laid?”

John held his hands up placatingly. “No! I didn’t say that . . . I mean . . . I’m not exactly rolling in pussy or anything.” That sounded pretty straight, right? John could never tell if he was over-playing it.

“The way McKay tells it, you’ve got yourself an alien princess every week.”

John laughed. “In Rodney’s world, the fact that I can talk to a woman without going red in the face and babbling meaninglessly makes me Don Juan.”

“He’s really that bad?”

“Undoubtedly,” John said sadly. If only Rodney would open his eyes and see that he and the entire female sex was just a lost cause . . . if he would just give up and look a little closer to home . . . .

Kavanagh snorted. “I knew he was lying. The man couldn’t romance a block of cheese.”

Even though John agreed, he felt as though Kavanagh hadn’t exactly earned the right to insult Rodney like that. “And you’re doing that much better?”

“Not here. Like I told you, nobody respects my work, and sewage treatment isn’t exactly going to win you any dates, especially not with the military presence here and everything.” What did the military have to do with it? “And one-night stands are just stupid in this fishbowl, especially with the way McKay plays favorites. If he ever thought I was seeing more action than him . . .”

John chuckled. “Or maybe it’s just the ponytail.”

Kavanagh felt back at his ponytail. “What’s wrong with it?”

The hair itself actually looked thick and soft, but the overall effect . . . yuck. “It doesn’t suit you.” Without it, Kavanagh might actually be a reasonably attractive guy. His face was kind of pinched and the glasses didn’t help things, but he had well-defined features, high cheekbones, serious but penetrating eyes. And he was in shape, tall, but broad shouldered. If he were just a little nicer and sans-ponytail, he wouldn’t have a problem.

Kavanagh rolled his eyes. “Thanks for your advice. But, it’s not like I don’t know how to get a date, under the right living conditions. Contrary to popular belief, I saw a lot of action in college.”

John found that hard to believe. “Where’d you go?”

“CalTech. 75% horny male geeks just begging to get laid, those are my kind of odds.”

Was Kavanagh actually . . . “Are you coming out to me?” Not that he didn’t already sort of know . . . though Kavanagh might actually be the kind to put ‘decline to state’ just to spite people.

“So what if I am?” Kavanagh said defiantly, as though he was just baiting John the entire time. “Going to beat me to a pulp now, Colonel?”

“No, Calvin, I’m not. What kind of monster do you think I am? It’s ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ not ‘Don’t ask, shoot on the spot.’”

“But you don’t want to hear about Calvin’s little gay problem. It disgusts you, just like all your other little military commandos with their hateful stares and their thankful sighs every time Dr. Weir decides not to let me on an off-world mission.”

“They’re happy not to be stuck with you because you’re annoying and you’re a coward, not because you’re gay. They don’t know and if they did, I’m sure they wouldn’t care.”

“But you do know, and you’re disgusted.” And John could almost hear it, the hurt little boy beneath all the paranoia and baseless accusations.

“No. No, I’m not disgusted. How could I possibly be disgusted?” John was going for sympathetic, not closeted homosexual, but . . . these things always seemed to happen to him.

Kavanagh was in the middle of getting geared up for a rant when his eyes went wide and his mouth hung open and he sat there like a giant bullfrog with a ponytail for half a minute. John was tempted to poke him to see if he’d scare.

“You’re . . . you’re not . . . you?”

John shrugged. “They say it’s genetic – not much a guy can do about it.”

“But they say you’ve slept with half the base . . . all these alien priestesses and . . .”

“You let one woman read your mind and suddenly you’re Captain Kirk. Guess you’re not the only one who’s tragically misunderstood.” John smirked.

“So you haven’t . . .”

John shook his head. “No one but me and my trusty right hand since we left Earth.”

Kavanagh seemed to think about that one for a bit. Was it really that hard to believe? That he could show some self-restraint? He was the military commander of the whole damned operation. He couldn’t risk everything over a couple of minutes of frantic release.

Kavanagh gulped again, trying to form words that came out squeaky and disbelieving. “Not even McKay?”

John shook his head. He wished. Despite all his bitching and moaning and temper tantrums, Rodney was amazing. He was a good man – smart and funny and though a little on the pudgy side, the guy had an amazing ass. He was brave too, braver than anyone John had ever met, and unfortunately straight as an arrow. “He’s on my team.” A sorry excuse – one that even Kavanagh could see straight through.

“Would that really stop you if you thought you had a chance?”

“There’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

“As though you really care about the regulations, John. I know you’ve broken the rules before. Why else would someone like you be doing playing glorified chauffer down in Antarctica?”

“I broke them to save lives, not because I wanted to get off!”

Kavanagh squinted a little, looking ridiculously like a giant weasel doing so. “He’s straight, isn’t he?”

John looked away. “Gonna put this on your next complaint report back to the Pentagon?”

“Well, you’re clearly not going to talk about it, so how could I?”

“Your move,” John said resentfully.

It was on his last day trapped in bed that Rodney came to see him early. John had been playing chess with Calvin every afternoon, and found that he was actually enjoying it. They didn’t talk all that much, as Calvin mostly just wanted an excuse to complain, but they were pretty evenly matched as far as the game went, and it was a great distraction. Calvin’d even started to loosen up, talking about things outside Atlantis with an almost carefree air about him.

John had been waiting for him to come, as he’d been bored all morning, even playing Doom on his computer. He’d already beat the damn game once yesterday. He’d been shocked to find Rodney at the door, holding some strange little device, saying that he thought John’d enjoy it, and that he had a lot of work, but they ended up talking, as usual.

But, as the minutes passed, John began to worry. What if Rodney saw Calvin coming here? He’d be annoyed and keep up with the jealous sewage-treatment punishment. John liked the idea of Rodney being jealous, but Calvin really didn’t deserve to be punished for keeping John company.

“And then Ronon just shot the guy . . . I swear, Gables must’ve had a heart-attack. Love the squishy scientists . . . no backbone.”

“You’re one to talk, Rodney. What was it you did the first time you saw Ronon?”

“I calmly asked him to let me down from a tree.”

“Calmly . . . sure.” John had missed their easy banter. Rodney’d been slightly absent recently, even though he stopped by briefly every day. Maybe he was punishing John too. Or maybe he really was busy.

Before Rodney could respond, the door chimed.

John thought it open, resigned.

“Kavanagh? What are you doing here!” Rodney squawked, standing from John’s bedside and knocking his chair over.

“Just came to play a little game of chess with the colonel. If that’s okay with his majesty, of course,” Calvin bowed sarcastically. John barely suppressed a snicker.

“What? You . . . but . . . you . . . but . . . “ Rodney rounded on John.” You never told me you played chess?!”

“He probably did. You were too busy marveling at the sound of your own voice to listen.”

“You’re one to talk, Kavanagh . . . You should hear him at the weekly staff meetings, Colonel . . . actually, you shouldn’t, because no human being with functioning eardrums should ever have to be submitted to that kind of punishment. We should consider using the sound of Kavanagh’s voice to torture prisoners . . .”

John blanched. He knew that Rodney was just kidding, but the wounds were still tender, for all of them. Then again, Rodney had been the least involved, silently complicit the way scientists so often had the privilege to be. “Weren’t you just telling me how you had five-thousand important things to do?”

Rodney started to object, then quickly realized his mistake. He didn’t apologize, of course. Why would he? He hadn’t blown up any planets this week. “Oh, right . . . Zelenka wanted to go over some of the Puddle Jumper schematics with me . . . “ he said pointedly, already storming out the door. “Too important for words. See you later Colonel . . . Kavanagh.”

Calvin bent down to pick up the chair Rodney’d upended. “He’s just saying that to spite me. He gave Zelenka the Jumper reengineering project over me despite the fact that I wrote my thesis on the physics of their exact kind of propulsion and don’t have Dr. Weir coming to me with every single city maintenance problem on top of that.” He pulled out the chessboard. “Do you think there’s something going on between them?”

“If I do, are you going to report that back to the powers that be?”

“Yes, I would. It’s inappropriate for the head of operations of this base to allow her decisions about scientific resource allocation and duties to be biased by her sex life.”

John could kind of see his point, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit betrayed. They were a family. They protected each other. They had to trust each other. He’d disagreed with some of Weir’s decisions before, but he wouldn’t turn her in to the higher-ups. You didn’t just do that.

“Are you going to turn me in too?”

Calvin scoffed. “Turn you in for what?”

“For . . . you know.”

“Oh come on. That’s a ridiculous policy and you’re not even doing anything about it anyway.” Calvin sounded frustrated about that. John wondered why he was so offended by the concept of a ‘non-practicing’ homosexual.

“Actually, I meant about ordering you to be tortured for information.”

Calvin actually had the nerve to laugh. “You’re military. I’d fully expect it of you. It’s the kind of thing Dr. Weir wouldn’t have the balls to do on her own, just like every other stupid decision she’s made – she doesn’t have to courage to accept her losses and just do what needs to be done. If you were in charge, we wouldn’t have those kinds of problems,” he finished, almost shyly.

“You want me to be in charge?” John was kind of flattered, in a weird sort of way.

“God, no. The SGC’s perfect proof that the military doesn’t know their dicks from their good china when it comes to the running of scientific operations. But you’d be better than Weir.”

“Thanks . . . I think.”

“You’re welcome. So, do you want to play or not?”

John smiled, motioning to Calvin to set the board up on the side-tray pushed to one side of his bed and raising it. “Are you ready to have your ass handed to you by a crippled military grunt?”

“You wish, John,” Calvin said with a smirk, pushing his glasses up his nose and cracking his fingers before even touching the pieces. “You wish.”

John got his crutches the next day, though he found that week in bed, on top of all the bruising, left him weak and sore after a day strolling around the city with them.

He’d watched Ronon play with the Marines in the gym for a little while, which was always amusing. And he talked some with Elizabeth about general city maintenance and functioning. It wasn’t something he needed to be kept abreast of. It seemed as though she just wanted him to agree so she wouldn’t feel bad if something went wrong with it . . . or maybe that was just all of Calvin’s paranoid ramblings talking.

Teyla was spending the day with one of the anthropologists talking about different cultures and their reactions to the Wraith, but she promised she’d let him fly her out to the mainland tomorrow so they could both visit Halling and Jinto.

Unfortunately, everyone was busy and John was mostly bored. And Rodney was snubbing him . . . claiming to simply be too busy to indulge him, but that he would call if he needed something turned on.

John ended up down at the sewage treatment center, looking for Calvin to make sure Rodney wasn’t being too harsh on him. It was a long way from a transport station, so he was tired when he got there, but it was better than going back to the room he’d been imprisoned in the past week.

“Hey, Cal, what’s up?”

Calvin looked up from the panel he was studying and glared. “You can call me Calvin or Kavanagh . . . but Cal is just not funny.” Oh yeah . . . Calvin . . . Cal . . . CalTech . . . must’ve been a sucky nickname.

“’Kay. So, Calvin, what’s up?”

“McKay being an asshole and sewage treatment.”

“So, nothing new, then?”

“Nothing new.”

“So, I was thinking . . . about what you said, back in mines . . . about not wanting to be a hero . . . and I was just wondering, with all the ‘do-er, Bird of Prey, changing the world’ stuff, why that would exclude being a hero?”

John pushed himself up onto a lab bench, swinging his castless foot lazily.

Calvin stopped whatever he was doing with the panel in front of him to look John in the eye. “Being a do-er means rising above the herd instinct, society and morality, and the honoring of the meek. But a hero is someone with the potential to change the world who kids themselves into believing that saving the lambs is more important. In other words . . . a Sheppard.”

John laughed at that. “And that’s a bad thing because?”

“Because it’s a great way for good people to die! And for what? For the chance to save people who don’t deserve saving!” Calvin practically shouted it.

So . . . who had Calvin lost to heroism? Who made him so convinced that heroes could never win? “Who?”

Calvin looked down at his hands. “My father. Mining accident . . . he went to look for help. The others got rescued. He didn’t.”

John didn’t want to say ‘I’m sorry.’ But there wasn’t really anything else to say. “I can see why you didn’t want to leave, then.”

Calvin looked back up, dark eyes meeting his, piercing. “I didn’t want to leave you.”

“Oh . . .” John said. Well, that was unexpected. How did he always manage to get himself into these things? “Um . . . well, I’d better go.”

It wasn’t that Calvin having a crush on him was that disgusting of an idea. It was more that . . . what would Rodney think about that?

With Rodney continuing to snub him, John ended up spending most of his time either working out what muscles he could with Teyla, talking shop with Elizabeth and Lorne and hanging out down in sewage-treatment with Calvin.

After a week of seeing what it was Rodney was actually making Calvin do, John got fed up with it.

He stomped into the lab as best he could on crutches, watching Rodney’s underlings scatter. He was sure they were probably listening outside the door, but he really didn’t care.

“Rodney, I know for some ridiculous reason, you’re mad at me. But would you not take it out on Calvin? It’s not very professional.”

“Calvin? So now you’re on a first name basis?”

“Look, with you throwing a pissy little tantrum, it’s not like I have anything better to do than to hang out with him. Everyone else seems to have actual work to do, not this bullshit you give him.”

“I’m not . . . I just . . . look, I just don’t get why you’re so determined to be buddy- buddy with Kavanagh. He’s an asshole and a coward and he nearly got you killed!”

“That wasn’t his fault. And besides, he saved my life.”

“Oh . . . I see. Well, I’m sorry.” John wanted to point out it wasn’t just gratitude that made him want to spend time with Calvin, but that would just open the floodgates of another rant with Rodney. And besides, he didn’t have to explain himself. He could hang out with whomever he wanted. It wasn’t like he and Rodney were in a relationship or anything.

“So you’ll take him off sewage treatment duty?”

“How do you know that’s not the work he’s best suited for, hm? Are you a scientist? Do you even have clue what projects are being run out of the labs?”

John gave him the list Elizabeth had run by him yesterday.

Rodney’s jaw dropped . . . “Well, fine . . . where would you assign him?”

John shrugged. “Not sewage treatment. It’s just pressing buttons. He’s already written a program to do most of the job.”

“Fine,” Rodney said, hands crossed over his chest defensively. “Anything else?”

“If you’re free tonight, wanna play chess?”

Rodney smiled, trying to casually hide his excitement. “Sure. But I’m not going easy on you . . .”

“Don’t have to.”

Rodney looked so young when he was happy . . . so beautiful. It was a shame that nothing would ever come of it. John knew that nothing would ever come of it . . . but he kept hoping.

John had been on crutches for three weeks, and they weren’t sucking any less than before. The good thing was now that Rodney had assigned Calvin to the jumper systems fulltime, John got to fly test runs with them for most of the day without feeling as though he was being useless.

Still, he couldn’t wait for Beckett to give the word and cut the damned cast off. The thing itched. He was busy scratching at it with one of the pens he’d stolen from Rodney’s lab when the door chimed.

He’d barely though it open when Calvin stormed in, looking flushed and harried. It wasn’t all that bad a look for him. “Look. I’m not getting laid and you’re not getting laid. And I don’t know about you, but it is beginning to affect my ability to stand these idiots day in and day out, so what do you say you forget your ridiculous crush on McKay and sleep with me instead?”

Strangely, Calvin hitting on him sounded a lot like Calvin ranting about how much he hated everyone. But then again, John wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Okay,” he shrugged.

“If you don’t like what I’m doing, say ‘safeword,’” Calvin said, and John thought he might be in a little over his head.

Then Calvin was on him, pushing him back up against the wall. He was tall and lanky and far more muscular than he looked. In fact, he was big enough to cover John completely with his body, press every inch flat against the wall as they kissed.

Calvin was a demanding kisser, a lot like he imagined Rodney would be. He stuck his tongue right down John’s throat and took charge. But after the initial surprise of actually kissing Kavanagh wore off, John decided that he wasn’t going to stand for that and shoved back. Calvin might be bigger than he was, but John was trained.

John pushed Calvin off until he stumbled and fell down onto the floor. But this time, he didn’t complain, which was fine by John, because there were plenty of better things he could be doing with his mouth. He pounced, not afraid to knock the wind out of his partner as he might be with Rodney or someone else he cared a lot about.

Calvin had asked for this, and he was going to get it..

Then there were fiery kisses down his neck, kisses that stung like thorns as Calvin made his way to the edge of John’s shirt, pausing only to pull it off. John hitched himself up higher so that Calvin was pretty much looking at his crotch.

Calvin mouthed him through his pants, making John pant and writhe even though he was supposed to be the one in control here. Little bites on the inside of his thigh, teasing back and forth but never staying with the burning heat, only increasing it.

“Jesus, Calvin, suck me already,” John whimpered.

“Kind of hard when you’re sitting on my hands,” Calvin said with a strong bite to John’s inner thigh.

“Oh, sorry about that. John unzipped his fly and pulled his pants down. “Now, suck me.” He had absolutely no compulsions about ordering Calvin around.

Calvin smirked. “I don’t think so, John. I think you’re going to suck me.” He sounded like a fucking evil genius mastermind when he said that. Now all he needed was a white pussy cat. Surprisingly, that wasn’t as much of a turn-off as John would’ve thought.

“And what makes you think I’m going to do that?”

Calvin just winked at him, nipping his way up John’s thigh until he found his entrance. And then there was something slick and warm and decadent and . . . god, long, probing, teasing, forcing itself inside in unpredictable, arrhythmic strokes. John was so hard he was going to fucking cry.

And no one had ever done this for him – ever. In high school it was awkward handjobs and dry humping with some of the supposedly straight guys on the football team. Then he’d allowed himself one summer of wildness where he let old men take him home from nameless bars and fuck him quick and dirty and call him a slut. After that, he was career military and he took what he could find, which was always hasty and dangerous and without even the casual intimacy that it took to do something like this, to let someone do this without knowing that they were just doing it so you’d have to return the favor.

John gasped at the strangeness of it, clasping his fingers in Calvin’s hair. His dick was leaking precum. He couldn’t . . . he, oh god . . . he needed more. He needed to fucking come, right here, right now and . . . shit, it wasn’t enough. It was amazing and intimate and sick all at once, but it wasn’t enough. His right hand left Calvin’s hair to reach down, to relieve himself just a little, but then . . . a pain – tight and quick and he couldn’t even feel from where.

“Naughty, naughty,” Calvin said, and did that painful thing again . . . though it was almost pleasurable as well. Which made John realize that Calvin had just bit him on the . . . well, on a very private place.

“Oh, god, then fuck me already,” John said, collapsing forward and moving off him, letting his ass hang high in the air. There’s no way that Calvin could resist that. John pushed his forehead into the floor, trying to hold on for just long enough for Calvin to get out of his pants . . . but instead of the fingers he was expecting to feel probing him, he felt a harsh slap. He moaned in pleasure.

“I said, you’re going to suck me, John.” The way he said John’s name made it sound both as intimate as that tongue-fucking he’d given John earlier and as harsh as his worst drill sergeant.

There was no way Calvin was in charge here. John flipped over, only to find himself pinned, in the exact position that John had put Calvin in earlier. A long thick dick was hanging there, right in front of his face, smelling musky and wonderful, and he really did want to take it in his throat, taste it, suck it. He licked his lips.

“I know you couldn’t resist a nice juicy cock, could you, John?” Calvin said in that Bond-villain voice.

But John wasn’t going to stand for that. He followed Calvin’s strategy, taking harsh nips up a slender thigh, biting until he left little red welts peppered up and down and around, all the while refusing to acknowledge Calvin’s cock, even as his own was straining, ready to burst as he thrust helplessly up into the air.

“I’m not going to let you come until you do it, John,” Calvin taunted.

John bit down hard, a bit harder than he’d intended, until he felt the cool metallic taste of blood on his tongue.

“You think I went through life with a name like Calvin Kavanagh without getting used to pain?” Calvin taunted.

Though John couldn’t keep the panting out of his voice, he responded, “You fainted . . .”

“A very effective strategy when a seven foot barbarian is about to beat the shit out of you until you give him information you don’t have.”

There was something in his voice that made John do it, the small hurt boy surfacing once again. Maybe Calvin was manipulating him, using his guilt like he did to get on that off-world mission and to get John to keep seeing him afterwards. But all he ever seemed to want was John . . . to get closer to John, and that felt better than all those alien princesses ever could, because there was subtlety and planning to it. Someone cared enough about him to actually seduce him, instead of offering themselves to him in some dark alleyway somewhere.

He swallowed right to the base.

Calvin let out a choked moan and came right down John’s throat. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he gasped afterwards, rolling off of John. “I wanted to fuck you.”

“Maybe later,” John said.

Calvin nodded, flipping himself over. “You got lube?”

And this was another thing that nobody had ever bothered to do for John. They all took one look at him and assumed he was a bottom.

“If you’re going to do this, do it,” Calvin snapped impatiently. “As flattering as it is to have the man in charge staring at my ass all day, there’s a thousand more efficient ways you could be spending this time.”

“Yes. There are,” John grinned, sticking two cold fingers in all at once.

John smiled. He was finally seated at the conference room table talking about missions he could actually go on. Downtime and regular sex were nice and all, but he hated seeing Teyla and Ronon and occasionally Rodney going off-world without him. He’d be glad to have the team back together on missions. All he had to do was make it through this one briefing and then to tomorrow, when beautiful P7V-147 would be waiting for him.

John tried to actually listen to what Elizabeth was saying.

“P2X-505. Lieutenant Parker’s team was there last market day and found quite a variety of Ancient technology being sold as household ornaments. And since we’ve been having some trouble with spare parts - especially for damaged Jumpers . . .” Elizabeth looked pointedly at John, who gave her his best ‘who me?’ expression. “ . . . I think we should send her team back with an expert and a shopping list.”

Parker, across the table, nodded.

“That’s easy,” Rodney said, clapping his hands together. “Parker’s team, including the anthropologist, Zelenka and a marine or two.”

“That’s going to be a little difficult, Rodney, considering you already volunteered Zelenka to go back to M7G-677.”

“The planet with all the kids?” John asked. “He’s not going to be happy about that.”

“Yes, but considering the comedic value of it . . . it may be worth the weeks of angry stares and having to train some of the other scientists to read my handwriting,” Rodney put in smugly.

“But is that comedic value worth more than Zelenka’s knowledge of the Jumper’s systems?”

“Actually, Elizabeth, Kavanagh knows the Jumper systems just as well as Zelenka does.” He tried to make it casual. “Maybe we can send him?”

Elizabeth narrowed her gaze. “I know you feel grateful to him for saving your life, John, but I don’t think he’s entirely ready for field operations of this particular kind.”

“You mean ones where he has to interact with people?” Parker murmured under her breath.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant?”

“Nothing, Sir.”

John bit back the urge to yell at her. Maybe she was next on planet-of-the-flies duty.

“Why don’t we send Kavanagh to visit with the kiddies, huh?” Rodney interjected like it was a brilliant idea. “Imagine what they could do to his hair.”

“Well, that would also require personal interaction,” John said, glaring at Parker, who actually had the nerve to try to look contrite. “Plus, Zelenka’s a familiar face there. I don’t want to stick them with too much turnaround. We don’t want them growing up in an unstable household. And the only other scientist they’ve seen before is you, Rodney.”

Rodney gaped.

“John does have a point, Rodney.”

“What? Do you have a degree in Child Psychology now? I’m not going back there.”

John smiled, glossing over things and hoping Elizabeth wouldn’t notice. “Good, then it’s settled. Zelenka to the daycare center, Kavanagh to the market, and you and I . . .”

“I’m not exactly comfortable sending Kavanagh into that kind of situation, John. There’s going to be a lot of people, a lot of different cultures, and many of them dangerous, and he’s only had one off-world mission.”

“On an uninhabited planet,” Rodney chimed in.

John shot him a glare. “Well how’s he supposed to get any off-world experience if you never let him off-world?”

“Why do you like the guy so much, anyway, Colonel?” Rodney asked, only moderately spiteful.

John shrugged. It’s not like Calvin wasn’t an asshole to everyone except for John. It was just hard to remember that sometimes. “He’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

“I’m sorry, I was just so distracted by the way he keeps chickening out and almost getting me killed that I didn’t notice,” Rodney sniped.

“He locked himself in his lab and refused to come out during the siege, Sir,” Parker volunteered. “He’s not a fighter.”

“And he doesn’t have to be,” John said. “But he’s the best man for the job. So if you’re not comfortable taking him, Lieutenant, then I will.”

Rodney cleared his throat. “Ahem, I believe we’re scheduled to visit P7V-147 that day. In fact, it’s next on our briefing schedule.”

John looked to Elizabeth. “That’s a simple grocery run, right? Trade deal already in place?”

She nodded.

“Fine, then McKay, you and Ronon and Teyla can handle it without me. You can even take Parker along if you’re feeling shy. Now, I’ll take Kavanagh, Bulter, Waterman, and Lin to find us some Jumper parts.

Rodney glared at him throughout the rest of the briefing and refused to talk to him during dinner, which left him and Teyla carrying the conversation while Rodney stabbed angrily at his not-chicken and Ronan shoveled half his body weight in mashed potatoes down his throat.

John was just about to lay down for a good night’s pre-mission sleep when he heard the door chime. He’d already told Calvin that he wanted to be rested for tomorrow’s mission and it was pretty late, so there was really only one person it could be.

He though the door open and sure enough, Rodney was standing there, nervously playing with his hands.

“Hey, Rodney. What’s up?”

“Nothing . . .”

John looked pointedly at the nervous hands and the worried frown and said, “If it were really nothing, you wouldn’t look like you were about to tell me my dog died.”

Rodney gulped. “Did I . . . did I do something . . . say something to offend you? Because well, you know how I am and I doubt that whatever it was I really meant it all that much and I’d really like the opportunity to . . .”

John squinted at him in confusion. “Rodney, I’m not mad at you.”

“. . . it’s just that I’ve been under a lot of stress recently, with the Wraith, and the new personnel from the last Daedalus run . . . I mean, if Kazinsky wasn’t the daughter of some very important royal person from some little country I don’t give a shit about, I swear, I’d . . .”

John waited for it, waited for Rodney’s nervous babble to stop and his mouth to catch up with the rest of his senses.

“Wait . . . did you just say that you’re not mad at me?”

“If I were mad at you, you’d know it.”

“Right . . . right. Okay, um . . . so what’s wrong with you lately?”

John straightened. “Oh, that’s a good way to ingratiate yourself with someone.”

“You already said you weren’t mad. Seriously, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong? Nothing’s wrong, he says? You’ve been skipping meals, practically avoiding the lab. And you always say you’re out running, but Ronon hasn’t been going with you. And you ask Kavanagh to go on missions with you? How am I not supposed to notice that something’s been going on with you? I mean, I know I’m pretty oblivious, but I’m not that oblivious.”

“It’s nothing.” John tried to go for casual, but he already knew that any sort of subtlety would be lost on Rodney, especially when he got something fixed in his head.

“It’s not nothing.”

“It’s not anything that you need to concern yourself with.” John pulled away, refusing to meet Rodney’s eyes and the hurt look he would find there.

But that didn’t stop him from hearing it in Rodney’s voice – that soft cracking whimper, covered in the thinnest shell of brave acceptance. “I’d like to think . . . I don’t know, that we’re friends.”

Rodney wouldn’t accept him. Rodney couldn’t know. He hated Calvin. He was straight. There was no way he could understand. But there was something in his voice, a vulnerability that said that this was it. For whatever ridiculous reason, Rodney was going to decide their friendship here and now.

“Whatever it is . . . I can be supportive . . . John . . . you can trust me with this.”

So that was it. Rodney was asking, for the thousandth time since Project Arcturus, if John had forgiven him, if John could trust him again. And in truth, he could. He’d finally been able to distance himself from it and realize that he wasn’t being objective, that his personal desire to see Rodney happy had gotten the better of his objectivity and that he’d decided to punish Rodney for that. Maybe it would just be easier if Rodney knew, if he knew the whole damned thing.

And wasn’t the superman supposed to be strong? Wasn’t he supposed to be unashamed of who he was? Wasn’t he supposed to stand tall, even if society shunned him? Calvin believed John could do it, even if sometimes he was only the shepherd. And, even if a lot of the time he disagreed with Calvin’s strange Nietzschian view of the world, this time, he wanted to be that strong.

“The truth?” he asked.

“No, your three-legged bunny. Yes, the truth.”

“The truth is . . .” he took in a deep breath. “The truth is that I’m sleeping with Kavanagh.”

Rodney’s mouth opened. Then it closed. Then it opened again. He gaped. He stared. He started about a million different sentences in his brain but seemed to short-circuit himself before John’s eyes. About thirty seconds later, he decided to go with, “You’re what?!”

“I’m sleeping with Kavanagh.”

“’Sleeping with’ as in . . .” he gulped. “. . . as in . . . as in the thing that makes babies?”

“Well, the whole making babies thing is a little biologically impossible for two men. But ‘sleeping with’ as in blowjobs and anal penetration and all around hot amazing sex . . . yeah, pretty much.”

It was worth it for the about-to-pass-out look on Rodney’s face alone. He closed his eyes and waved his hands vaguely at the air as though to exorcise ghosts. “Okay, okay, I get it. Too much information. Way too much information.” John let him do that for a little bit, until he peaked his eyes open and lowered his hands and stared.

“Yes?”

“Why?”

John shrugged. He wasn’t about to say, ‘because you’re not available.’ “Because I like him.”

“Again . . . why?” Rodney sounded like someone had just undone all the laws of the universe.

“Because he’s smart. I like smart guys. He’s funny, in his own sort of way. Not unattractive – without the ponytail.” Calvin had just cut it off, though he tried to claim it was because he kept getting it caught in things, not because John preferred it that way. “He’s arrogant and whiny and he’s certainly not all that nice to other people, without even this irrational hatred he’s got for Elizabeth. But even if his first instinct is to run and hide, he saved my life. Oh, and he’s dynamite in bed.”

“Okay, again with the sexcapades of Captain John T. Sheppard and the ball-less man . . . information I so do not need to know. In fact, I don’t need to know it even more than I don’t need to know how Britney Spears is dealing with her post-partum depression.” How’d Rodney even hear about that from Atlantis, anyway?

“Okay, fine, fine. If you don’t want to hear about it, then stop asking.”

It hurt. Even though objectively he knew that Rodney just hated Calvin and not the whole gay thing, it still hurt. He’d been judged enough in his life, by his father, by his asshole superiors, by that stupid fucking priest who thought he could convince John that everything you did in a Church on your knees was a kind of prayer. He sure as hell didn’t need to be judged by the man he thought was his best friend.

He stood to go, when Rodney’s voice called from behind him, quiet and unsure. “John?”

“Yeah?”

“Why not me?”

John was too emotionally shaken to really get that. “What?”

“I’m all those things you said -except I do really like Elizabeth- so why him and not me?”

John heaved a tired sigh. “Are you gay, Rodney?”

“No.”

“Are you planning on turning gay anytime in the near future?”

“No.”

John threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. There it was.

Of course, there was no way Rodney could leave it there, leaving John at least a shred of his dignity. “But if I were?”

John walked back over to him, resigned. “If you were, I’d be with you.”

“Oh,” Rodney said, eyes distant, seeming to deflate. “And you’d want to be with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Someone who looks like you . . .”

“Yeah.” John sighed. There wasn’t anything to do about it, no matter how good looking or flattering he was.

“You really are gay?” Rodney asked. Was it that hard to believe? For all the times he’d been called a faggot, half the 32nd Airborne Division must’ve known.

“Last time I checked. Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Not that he thought Rodney would.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“I was wrong.”

John couldn’t help but smile that of all the revelations of tonight, Rodney decided to focus on his own perfectionism. He reached down to squeeze Rodney’s shoulder, whispering, “Don’t let that get you too down. I need you to stay on your toes on our mission tomorrow.” John crossed his fingers and hoped that Rodney’d get the hint – that they couldn’t let this change how well they worked together.

“You’re not taking Kavanagh?” Rodney sounded wounded and slightly resentful, the way he did when he was trying to pretend like he really didn’t care about something.

John laughed. “Nah. Elizabeth wants him to stay in the lab until you tell her otherwise. You’re still my number-one geek in the field, even if Calvin’s a way better shot than you.”

“Thanks,” Rodney smiled that wide smile that had been the real thing that had attracted John to him in the first place. Then his mind seemed to finally get past the whole celebratory wank-fest of hearing a compliment and find the rest of the sentence. “He is not! I’ve been getting a lot better recently.” He pouted.

“Sure you have,” John smirked.

Calvin stormed into John’s room, already stripping his shirt off. “A strange thing happened today.”

“Really. What? Zelenka cut his hair too?” John stood from where he was lounging casually on his bead, reading ‘War and Peace.’

Calvin shook his head. “McKay vetoed Weir when she said I couldn’t go to P2X-505 with Lieutenant Parker to look for used Ancient technology at the marketplace.”

“He did, did he? I told you he wasn’t a bad guy.”

Calvin sighed, unbuckling his belt. “Maybe I should listen to you more often.”

John reached over for a quick kiss, tangling his fingers briefly in Calvin’s now-short hair. “Elizabeth’s not a PMSing dyke on a castration rampage.”

Calvin snorted. “Keep trying.”