"You're Spock."

McKay nearly jumped out of his seat. He'd been flying for the past 8 hours and Sheppard had been completely silent, a miracle, as far as he was concerned. Why speak up now? "Excuse me?"

"You, Rodney McKay, are Spock."

McKay hazarded a glace to his side. Sheppard's eyes were closed, scrunched tight in the half-wince the man'd been wearing since the Wraith basically kicked the shit out of him. Now it was made worse by the bruise forming down the entire length of that pretty face. "And how, may I ask, did you arrive at that brilliant conclusion, Major?"

"If I'm Kirk, and Beckett's McCoy, then you've got to be Spock."

"Says who, the intergalactic council of science fiction character recycling?"

"No, actually, says I."

"Ah, so now you're the grand arbiter of anything and everything."

"Yup."

"We're doomed. Besides, I really don't see the logic to that, I mean last time I checked I didn't have pointy ears, and I'm nothing..."

Sheppard giggled, then clutched his chest with a gasp. McKay fought the urge to leap out of his seat to the major's side, he'd only get yelled at for his efforts. "You said Logic," Sheppard guffawed. It reminded McKay of his stupid little nephew when asked about the planets. You said Your-anus.

"And that means what, exactly? I'm a scientist. Unlike some people, we are occasionally required to use reason instead of pure testosterone and bravado to make our way through life."

Sheppard frowned, but kept his eyes closed. McKay could tell that he had a headache, from the bloodloss or lack of sleep or getting wacked with the force of a sledgehammer in the side of the face. But the major'd already maxed out on the safe dosage of Tylenol and he was refusing their newly stocked supply of morphine. "I use other stuff too. Like strategy. And guns."

"Oh, well, that makes it all better then. Let's all celebrate Sheppard and his guns a'blazing glory. Especially seeing as how it nearly got him killed today." The last part came out weak and McKay felt ashamed, especially when Sheppard's eyes flew open and he turned to face him, showing the full extent of the deepening purple bruising. He'd been lucky the Wraith didn't crack his jaw or shatter his cheekbone. It would be a shame to mar a face like that, McKay thought. Though the face wasn't at all necessary for what they did to each other.

"I did what I had to do, Rodney." When had this situation suddenly turned serious? Then again, the reason McKay had insisted they fly back alone, right away, hadn't just been concern for the major's health. He knew they needed to talk. And they needed to know what they were going to say. They had just fucked up big-time and there was no way they were going to escape this without more than casual scrutiny. They couldn't afford to have anyone dig too deep.

"No, John, you didn't."

"What was I supposed to do?! Let him contact his buddies? Wait until nightfall where he could force us out into the cold? Let him roam around unchecked? Not everything can be solved sitting on your pampered ass cowering and waiting for some to step in and save you!" Sheppard was panting now, the swelling must have hampered his breathing. Not that it would stop him when he was mad. McKay remembered Sheppard yelling at him even when he was half-choked by that stupid Wraith bug.

"I don't know, maybe you could have relied on someone else for once. I know you like to be your own one-man commando force. Sheppard the fucking terminator. You like to arrange your little contingency plans with Bates and Stackhouse and leave the rest of your own team out of it, in case we blab. Yeah, like when you went off on your own trying to rescue Sumner when you're the only one who can fly the stupid ship!"

"Hey, I saved our asses. And you," Sheppard pointed a finger halfheartedly, "you have the worse poker face I've ever seen." That was how Sheppard first got him naked. Strip poker, where Sheppard had only lost his watch and his left boot. "You would've let the Genii in on our plan within five minutes if I'd told you. Just like..." Sheppard stopped, looking down in shame. Neither of them talked about what Kolya'd done to McKay. Even when he woke up sweating and crying and disturbed Sheppard's sleep, neither of them would acknowledge it. Hugs and comfort were for fairies. Men just rolled over and went back to sleep. Though he could see his nostrils flaring, McKay saw the familiar veil of control drop over Sheppard's features. They both knew that bringing it up now would just be plain old petty.

McKay looked down at his hands, knowing they were shaking and that he was not flying in a straight line. "But you still could have trusted Elizabeth. Trusted me."

Sheppard sighed, as though the entire conversation was just a plain old annoyance to him, nothing more. "I do."

"No you don't."

"I trust you enough to let you fuck me." The hatred was clear in Sheppard's voice. McKay was momentarily taken aback. Was Sheppard ashamed? There was nothing wrong with the act in and of itself. It was just sex. There was no scientific reason it needed to develop into attachment.

"And a whole lot of good that's done." Back in the ship, they'd left Abrams and Gaul. They'd been too fucking horny after that 15-hour trip, flirting and teasing each other with a pinch of a thigh or the swipe of a tongue, to listen to reason. They were on a downed Wraith ship. Even if they were positive there was no threat, they shouldn't have left the two newbies alone on and alien planet with those bodies.

McKay tried to push memories of that quick mutual handjob from his mind. I couldn't have taken more than a couple of minutes, but it cost so much. It was absolutely disgusting how he trotted off after Sheppard like a dog eager for a bone, how elated he felt when Sheppard ambushed him from behind, those skilled hands on his cock. But no matter how good it felt, it wasn't worth it.

And they didn't even think there could have been any survivors until afterwards. What if Sheppard had asked him the second they were out of earshot? What if they had thought of it when they were all four together, instead of focusing on their out-of-control hormones? And now Brendan and Scott were dead… dead because they couldn't keep it in their pants for and entire day.

How many other times had they put themselves at risk? The time on the Genii homeworld when McKay rushed off after Sheppard for a quickie in a field of wildflowers, to which he could have easily been allergic, before heading through to talk to Weir. The time when Rodney had been too busy getting his brains fucked out by dream-Sheppard to realize he wasn't in the proper reality. That Outer Limits Episode had to be the biggest subconscious clue ever. Other than Sheppard's dead friends, apparently. And what about the time he'd let Sheppard shot him in the leg, all because of a little crush?

Sheppard's brows furrowed. "Stop thinking so much. You're making my head hurt." McKay highly doubted he was the origin of what looked like a massive headache, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he was. They really shouldn't be talking about this now. But what other time did they have? Weir wasn't going to give them time shift through their sexual entanglements before she wanted to talk.

McKay snapped, "I'm always thinking."

"Well, stop. What happened happened. You can't do any good by dwelling on it. You don't know it would have turned out any differently. Hell, we could all have died. We did the right thing." It was Sheppard's warning tone. He was making a proclamation and he didn't want any resistance to it. He could be such a dictator sometimes.

"No. We didn't do the right thing. Abrams died. Brendan died." Those loses were not acceptable. Wasn't Sheppard the one who'd taught him that?

"And whose fault is that?" Sheppard snapped. McKay knew that this wasn't like he normally was. Sheppard would never blame him if it was possible to blame himself. Why give up the role of the tortured hero? But right now he hadn't had time to turn the anger inwards, the pain and the exhaustion must be wearing his patience thin.

McKay's voice didn't waver as he answered. "Mine. But, I'm going to learn from my mistakes. I never should have put that gun in his hand. I never should have let him look in that mirror and I should have hid my insecurities." Even as he felt the crushing guilt, he knew it couldn't be all his fault. It took two to tango and they were both here in this cabin, dancing around it. "But, I never should have had those insecurities. I should have been out with you to begin with. But, if things were up to you, you'd do everything yourself. Do you need that badly to be the hero, Major?" McKay was so angry. Angry at Sheppard. Angry at himself.

"I don't want to be a goddamn hero, McKay." Sheppard spat it and McKay thought he caught a glimpse of red on the major's lips.

But he rolled his eyes. He wasn't in the mood for sympathy right now. Brendan was dead and pity never did anything for anyone except create a fucking welfare state. "Please. You flew MedEvac, how can you tell me you don't like saving the day?"

"Hey, if I didn't, who would?"

Santa Claus? GI Joe? Ralph Nadar? What the hell did it matter? "Someone."

"If everyone said that, the day would never be saved. You're the attention hound, anyway," Sheppard said out of the corner of his mouth. McKay wasn't sure this argument was helping Sheppard's condition, judging but the sweat dampening his normally wild hair, and the slightly glazed look in his eyes.

"John, are you…" Fuck pity. He felt his anger wearing thin, dropping down to reveal the care and concern he tried so hard to hide. They weren't lovers. They weren't partners. They were barely even friends. They just fucked because women were too much trouble and it was too hard not to. The tension would be there whether they fucked or not, they just preferred sex to fistfights to relieve it. But they weren't allowed to care. Caring was a liability. Caring, not sex, was the reason for all those messy fraternization regs. He saw that now.

And Sheppard did too. "I'm fine. Now, fly the damn jumper, McKay."

But McKay wasn't done. "You could have trusted me, John." It wasn't supposed to hurt that Sheppard didn't trust him. Sheppard didn't trust anyone. He probably hadn't trusted anyone after the third or fourth time he'd been forced to move. Even after all they'd been through… Sheppard didn't even trust Ford, and the kid was a fucking automaton. Or an awkward puppy, trotting after its master. Sheppard saw the world as out to get him and he protected himself well, it was arrogant and ridiculously naive for McKay to assume that he would be an exception. "You could have distracted him while I took down the shield. In the very least, two verses one would have been better." Even McKay knew that. He'd been on the 'one' side of that fight enough times to know.

"And you could've gotten killed." Sheppard gritted his teeth, shifting just slightly. But McKay didn't fail to notice that the wince came before, not after the painful movement. "You're not military, McKay, as much as you might want to be."

"I don't want to be military. That's just ridiculous, Major. I was as good as dead anyway, if I'd listened to you and stayed put. If you lost and the Wraith had come for us, I stood about as much of a chance as a, I don't know, a kite in a fucking hurricane. If you truly believed our only chance was an offensive against the Wraith, then it was just plain bad strategy to leave me out of it. What did Sun Tzu say about using your resources? And, let me tell you, I am a pretty good resource." There was room for modesty here. McKay had never pretended to be anything less than arrogant, and it was one of the few things he was truly proud of: he didn't lie. Unlike Sheppard, he never played games.

"You can't even remember when to reload, don't give yourself too much credit." Sheppard seemed as though he was trying to be witty, but it came out as more resentful.

"So I might not be an action hero. I could have deactivated the shield, or distracted the Wraith, or even figured out how to use one of those grenades without almost blowing myself up." Like he said, they both made mistakes.

"Hindsight's 20/20, McKay."

"Ah… the sweet sound of a cliché played to an empty room. Actually, Major, I very clearly remember yelling, make that screaming, at you that we needed to stick together. We could have come up with some kind of plan if you hadn't been so desperate to play cowboy." Sheppard was shaking now, features suddenly pale and older than what McKay was used to. The bruise was a disgusting plum color now and his breathing was coming in small hitched breaths. McKay thought Sheppard had been asleep for the last eight hours, but now it was clear that he just had his eyes closed. He had rejected the morphine because it made him sleepy. Was the man trying to kill himself from exhaustion? "We can talk about this later. You really need to get some rest."

Sheppard hissed, but more in frustration than pain. "You don't know me at all, McKay. Don't pretend to. You want the truth? The truth is that, yes, I did overestimate my advantage, but I didn't want to put you in any danger. I don't like going out on my own when it's likely to be fatal. But I'm the most expendable. I'm not a genius. I'm just some pilot the Air Force doesn't give a shit about. I don't have a family. I'm an only child, my mom's dead, and I don't speak with my father. My best friends died in Afghanistan and I've been single since I joined up. Hell, I've been in Antarctic for the past year. You're the smartest guy on base. And Gaul… he was more important too. He was so young." Sheppard looked away, gasping for breath, and McKay could feel the full force of guilt and grief tugging at him. He saw it on Sheppard's face.

Brendan was dead. He still couldn't believe it. He'd picked the kid up straight out of one the graduate research laboratories at CalTech, mentored him in his own curmudgeonly way, dragging him along on this mission was a perfect example. He didn't think Brendan would ever surpass him in his lifetime, but he hoped that one day in that vague and displaced future when he himself was no longer capable of doing his job, that Brendan would be able to carry the torch. But what now? Brendan had killed himself so that he could go save Sheppard. He had known that Sheppard was important, and so was McKay, whether he wanted to admit it or not. If only… if Sheppard had just realized this, Brendan might not be...

"Don't you dare say you're expendable, John. Maybe in Antarctica. But not here. You're the ranking military officer on this base. You've got the strongest showing of the gene. You're out best pilot. And you have people… um, people who care a lot about you. Brendan knew this. He shot himself to save you. Don't belittle that."

McKay stole a glance at Sheppard's eyes and finally understood survivors guilt, saw his own emotions like a mirror. Brendan was young, yes. And he was brilliant. But right here, right now, in the fight against the Wraith, both Sheppard and McKay were more important. McKay knew this. Reason, logic, they both told him that it must be so. Yes, they both fucked up, but they were probably the two most important people on Atlantis. The guy with the key to the city and the man who could figure out the lock. What the hell were they even doing on the same team? Any good strategist knew not to put all of their eggs in one basket. And they knew to keep key resources away from the front lines. Was that a sham as well? Were they out here, together, day in day out, because they liked it? McKay couldn't imagine going through the gate without Sheppard. Brendan was right, he had changed. And he was beginning to doubt that it was for the better. What had Sheppard done to him?

"I didn't want to put you out there with me, Rodney, because I cared to much." So he said it. Sheppard said the thing that neither of them wanted to hear. The thing that if they just kept it on a tight enough leash, locked in a closet somewhere, they would never have to deal with it. If they could just deny it, they'd never have to change. McKay hated the admission, and he could see Sheppard shuddering, blinking back tears. They were weak. They were both too weak. Why couldn't they just stop themselves?

McKay wanted to cry. But he couldn't. Not in front of Sheppard. They got angry. They bitched and sniped. They didn't cry. Crying was just a symptom of their weakness. Faggots cried. They were just guys that fucked, and didn't care.

McKay raised his chin up high, tried to stop it from shaking. He was gripping the controls so tight now, actually steering was just an illusion. "Maybe I should change teams then." It hurt, but isn't that what heroes did? Didn't they suffer through the pain to do what needed to done instead of whimpering and blabbering like stupid little girls with their panties in a knot? He'd done that before when Koyla stabbed him in the arm, and he saw how everyone looked down at him afterwards. He wasn't doing it again.

"What would we tell Weir?" Sheppard snapped.

"The truth. There's no reason why we can't just tell Elizabeth that we've been having sex and it's beginning to interfere with out working habits. The truth..." God, the truth. It burned inside of him, desperate to break loose. They weren't doing anything wrong. They were misguided, but they were doing what they needed to do to stay sane. Elizabeth was a good woman. She would see that.

"God, Rodney, how naïve are you? It's the civilians that insisted on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, not the military."

John really didn't trust anyone. "You're not saying Elizabeth..."

"For all their flowery words, it's all empty promises. No matter how tolerant Elizabeth likes to pretend to be, this will affect how she looks at me. Society has trained her as it has trained everyone else on this base, except maybe Teyla, to think that there's weakness in it. And I think they're right. But we can't afford to let them see that." McKay could see that nothing he said would change Sheppard's mind. He was the tragic hero, he could never trust someone else to try to ease his burden.

"We're talking about Elizabeth, here, John. Not the fucking Pope, not McCarthy, but Elizabeth. And I thought I was the paranoid one."

Sheppard's voice was as hard as steel, like he was speaking though marbles or rocks. "You're not military. You don't know." Sheppard looked at McKay with the same intensity of the day they were lodged in the Stargate. He'd changed since then. Sheppard had shown him how to hide some of his panic. Sheppard knew how to hide so well… "They say Don't Tell for a damned good reason."

Reasons, reasons, there were so many reasons, and McKay didn't know which ones were right anymore. He couldn't afford to test each competing hypothesis. The guilt alone would be sure to kill him. And Sheppard, the man was even more confused than he was. He had to stop caring. They had to make this right. They had to prove everyone else out there that they were wrong. It was just sex. It didn't have to be dangerous.

"Oh god." Sheppard yelped, clasping at his gut, the motion causing more red to bloom across the sterile white bandaged Ford had wrapped about eight hours before. McKay had hoped that there was no internal damage, and Sheppard had assured him that he was fine. McKay had been stupid to believe him. He had been stupid to put their privacy above Sheppard's health and leave Ford, the best-trained medic, back on the planet.

McKay dropped the controls, there was nothing near to hit, and grabbed Sheppard, who dug his hand into the muscle of McKay's arm, anything to still the pain. McKay reached for the morphine.

"No!" Sheppard made a vain attempted to grab his arm, even as McKay plunged the shot into his supple flesh.

"You asshole!" Sheppard yelled, even as the lines of pain began to ease away. "Promise me, you won't tell."

McKay nodded as Sheppard slowly slipped from consciousness. McKay arranged him carefully on the floor, putting in a call to consult Beckett as he placed his jacket beneath Sheppard's head, stroking his silky soft hair when he whimpered. McKay worried. And he didn't watch his flying. And he snapped at both Beckett and Weir. And he couldn't stop sweating or fidgeting or thinking about that moment after the Wraith had hit the second time, when Sheppard didn't move. And he did it all because he couldn't stop caring when reason dictated that he needed to, so that they wouldn't fuck up again. And he hated himself for it.

TBC?