Huge thanks go to Skiffywatcher for the beta

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis belongs to MGM, I own nothing. No money was made from writing this story

Acts of Negligence

- Chapter 1 -

They weren't dead, they weren't dead, they weren't dead.

Rodney still couldn't quite believe it. For some strange reason the major had come up with a surprisingly good idea that Rodney should have had hours ago, but at least both Radek and he had successfully executed the plan.

They weren't dead.

With his left hand running circles over his forehead he huffed what must have been the thousandth sigh of disbelieving relief.

And they had a ZPM now.

After days and days without so much as a proper power nap, almost no food and a constant fear for their lives, Rodney was so bone tired he didn't even feel tired anymore. After the Daedalus had reported that the Hive ships were leaving the system, his body's last reserves of adrenalin had once again flooded his veins and left him in a state of drugged excitement.

They weren't dead. And they had a ZPM now; a ZPM that had already started to revive the city, tower by tower, system by system. All the experiments he could conduct, the new insights he would get now that so much energy powered the city.

Rodney practically shook in anticipation. Sleep could wait now. It had to. There was too much work to be done, too many things to explore.

Turning the last corner that separated him from his lab rather abruptly, the physicist only narrowly avoided a collision with an approaching scientist; or one of Sheppard's men? He wasn't really sure and couldn't care less at this particular moment. His vision had dimmed around the edges and everything else was wavering in front of his eyes like heat haze on concrete on a hot summer's day, but he paid no attention to it and continued his half-run towards his lab.

Rewarding the startled "Sorry, Sir" with a preoccupied "mpf", Rodney tightened the grip on the stack of folders he was carrying, making sure the 9 mm was still well concealed within the pages.

He finally reached the small lab that he shared with Zelenka, the doors obediently opening up when he approached them. Even this room seemed more active now, noisier than the last time he was here; or maybe he was just imagining things.

Quickly crossing the threshold he turned around to face the door again and waited the moment it took the two wings to join back together. Content that he would be alone for a while, Rodney allowed himself to slump back to the wall for a moment, before concentrating on the various computer screens occupying the benches, which were happily displaying rows and rows of numbers and calculations.

Just in time, Radek had made the final adjustments for the shield and had powered it up, as soon as Rodney had installed the ZPM. The data had been transferred automatically onto their own hard drives in this lab.

Keeping one eye on the displays, he opened up the thickest folder he was carrying with his left hand and took out his hand gun. Rodney could feel the blood rushing into his head, undoubtedly colouring his cheeks an impressive cherry colour. Yeah, that hadn't been one of his brightest hours. Teyla hadn't said anything and Rodney was still clinging to hope that she hadn't seen his little mishap in the corridor.

On their way back to the control room, Rodney had purposefully stayed a couple of steps behind the Athosian. This way, Teyla could protect him, and, once they passed the section again, he secretly picked up the fallen gun and magazine, which was thankfully lying close-by, and shoved it back into the weapon; making sure he heard the clicking of the lock this time.

They encountered one more pair of Wraith just one level below the control room. Teyla had taken care of both of them, almost before he could fire the first shot. It was a good thing though, since the gun had jammed before a single bullet had made it clear of the barrel.

Rodney looked at the black steel in irritation. It may have been his fault that the magazine had dropped out, but he was fairly certain he couldn't have avoided it jamming. But he wasn't sure, and, before, he hadn't had a chance to find out for himself what had caused it. Now there was no way he'd bring it back to the armoury and admit what happened. A gun, as effective as it might be – when it actually worked – was a simple piece of technology; he could fix it himself. Sheppard would never let him live this down, should he ever hear about it. Rodney was sure, if Teyla had seen what happened, he'd be in for a yelling, a lecture, a yelling and a week of gun practice. In precisely that order, and all courtesy of John Sheppard.

Swallowing down the last bits of embarrassment, the physicist dropped the 9 mm onto one of the smaller cabinets next to the wall, before returning his concentration to the biggest screen.

After staring at it for a couple of minutes, the rows of numbers occupying the display suddenly blurred together into a big mass of bright neon green that hurt his eyes, and Rodney had to squeezed them together painfully to escape the sudden increase of light. To make matters worse his stomach chose this very moment to knot together and he doubled over in an attempt to ease the cramp.

Just as Rodney was reasonably sure he could straighten up again without loosing the non-existent contents of his stomach, an ear-splitting bang reverberated from somewhere nearby that almost had him fall out of his chair with shock.

Amongst other things, Radek's favourite mug, hand-made by his, obviously talent-less, 5-year-old nephew, fell victim to the resulting vibrations and landed with a crash on the floor.

What now? Abandoning the chair that had just saved him from the same fate as Radek's mug, Rodney hurriedly made his way to the door. Not finding a free spot on his desk for the folders he still carried, he deposited them on the nearest shelf and ran out of the lab to investigate.

The scientist didn't have to search for very long. The hallway just outside the lab was already filling with black smoke and bits of white fluff, steaming from the engineering lab two doors down. Several people crowded the entrance; some were coughing their lungs out, others had obviously just finished extinguishing a fire and were now trying to rid themselves from massive amounts of white foam.

Since no-one went screaming from the room and everyone seemed more or less calm, Rodney McKay swallowed his momentary concern for his people and let irritation take over.

"What the hell happened here?"

"Oh, uh, Dr McKay. We didn't know you were, uh, still awake?", Dr Thomas looked beseechingly at his friends for help. Rodney noted with some satisfaction the look of horror on the young engineer's face, when the man realised what he'd said.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll let you know the next time I'm going to bed, so you can wait with blowing up the city until AFTER I'm asleep." Rodney was livid now, and the arrival of two nurses and a scruffy looking Major Sheppard in shorts with a couple of Marines in tow only made it worse.

"It's not enough that a couple of thousand aliens tried to kill us not three hours ago, noooo, you idiots are obviously perfectly capable of finishing their work for them, aren't you? Now, tell me what THE HELL JUST HAPPENED. And no, you Dr I-bought-my-title-from-the-local-flea-market will SHUT UP. Gomez, you go."

Waving the last bits of smoke away from his face, Rodney entered the positively wrecked lab, pushing the major out of his way in the process, and moaned at the sight of two laptops with fumes billowing from their insides and a now unrecognizable piece of ancient technology that had partially melted.

"Gomez? Did you fry your brain along with that thing?"

"Uhm, no, Dr McKay. We just tried to,… now that we… I mean, we have a ZPM now and, uh, wanted to find out..."

Rodney took a closer look at the mess, easily identifying the haphazardly interconnected appliances lying around with a scowl.

"Yeah, I can see what you wanted. Wasn't such a CLEVER IDEA now, was it? And since when, if I may ask, are you conducting experiments of that magnitude without my prior approval?" McKay's voice had quietened down from his earlier yelling to a more dangerous quiet grumble. And his audience was sure his teeth hadn't stopped grinding even once during the last two sentences.

The lowering of his voice wasn't entirely due to the physicist calming down; it was more a result of an increasingly pounding head and of the somersaults his stomach was doing once more. Casting a quick look at the major, who was eying him with two raised eyebrows, Rodney assumed he was probably not looking so hot either.

He had to get out of here. The smoke wasn't thick any more, but the smell and the stale air did nothing for his queasiness. For once he wrapped his arms around his stomach instead of letting them do most of his talking. The unusual posture clearly wasn't missed by Sheppard, and Rodney shot him an angry look in hopes of stopping any comment.

"Okay, listen. VERY carefully. I'm too tired and too irritated right now to deal with you bunch of King Kong's brain-free siblings. Clean up this mess and then go to bed. All of you. The labs are off-limits for anyone until I say otherwise. I want a report about this on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. And the next one doing something as stupid will be the first one to try and swim to the Mainland with nothing but water wings. Am I making myself clear?"

Some murmurs of "Yes, Doctor", "absolutely" and "perfectly" followed him out of the room, which he quickly left behind in an attempt find the nearest bathroom.

Rodney didn't get very far when his vision and hearing suddenly zoned out completely. Losing his sense of balance, his body started to list dangerously to the left, and he would have crashed into the wall if Sheppard hadn't suddenly appeared between himself and said wall. Even though the major might have been, in McKay's opinion, more hard bone and skin than soft tissue, collapsing into, and being caught by him was still preferable to an unforgiving steel-surface on any given day.

oOo

"McKay? Rodney? Come on. Wake up!"

"Huh? What?" Oh yeah, Sheppard, the wall, the corridor, stupid people, feeling sick. He remembered now. "Stop shaking me. M'awake."

"I'm not shaking you, Rodney. You're shivering. Don't worry, they've sent for a gurney. You'll be in the infirmary in no time."

So he was still in the corridor. And he really didn't feel well. He should probably tell Sheppard that, considering he was half lying in the man's lap if the bones poking painfully into his lower back were any indication.

Rodney frantically struggled into an upright position.

"Whoa, take it easy." John tried to get him to lie back down, but the physicist resisted.

"Gonna be..." He had really tried to avoid it, but John had stopped his forward movement, and paid now dearly for trying to be helpful. "Sorry, sorry."

"That's okay."

Rodney took it as a major proof of friendship that John hardly acknowledged the mess now spread over most of his bare legs, but continued to support him through an eternity of retching and dry-heaving until finally two medics with a gurney appeared.