"Colonel." Woolsey greeted as he walked into the briefing room. "I did not expect you to be here. I thought you were in the infirmary."

"Well I needed to break out, it is kind of dull in there and besides I am flanked by my two favourite doctors so I am probably better off here. Also having just made it up the steps to here, I think I will have a good long sit down before I leave." Sheppard replied.

"You know Dr Keller, if you followed medical advice more, the difficult patients like Ronon and the Colonel might follow suit." Woolsey commented as he took his seat.

"That I doubt." Carson said before Jennifer could reply.

"Ah Colonel Ellis come in." Woolsey said as Ellis arrived at the entranceway of the briefing room. "Is Dyson secure?"

"Yes. As soon as we have the final medical clearance we will head back to Earth with our eccentric guest where I will have to sit for days in front of an IOA committee who will demand answers for how Dyson lost it." Ellis replied, clearly in a bad mood.

"It could be worse Sir, the IOA could be coming here." Sheppard said.

"Thank you Sheppard, but believe me it is worse."

"How so?" Woolsey asked feeling his temples begin to pound.

"I was meant to go cottaging when I got back to Earth and m-" Ellis started only to be interrupted by Carson and Young snickering. Trying to ignore them he continued. "My wife is not a forgiving woman." By now Carson and Young had caught each other's eyes and were laughing even harder. Carson had tears rolling down his face.

"Is something funny Lieutenant?" Ellis asked.

"No Sir." Young said, trying to not laugh. "Sorry Sir." He added as Carson bit down on his hand loosing the battle against hysterics. Once again setting Young off. Everyone else in the room looked at the pair completely confused.

"Have you two lost your minds?" Woolsey asked.

"Oh god. What if they caught parasites off Dyson? We could all be infected." McKay began to panic.

"It's ok Rodney. We are fine. It is just that-" Carson started before catching Young's eye again and loosing control once more.

"Perhaps you two would like some air?" Woolsey suggested.

"Thank you Sir." Young said standing, deliberately avoiding Carson's gaze. "I'm sorry Sir." He tried apologising again. "It is just that means something very different back home." He managed to explain as he and his tear stained face left the briefing room.

As the door shut the rest of the briefing room heard Young and Carson descend into fits of hysterics again. The occupants of the room looked at each other still baffled. Ronon and Teyla weren't sure if they preferred not being the only ones not understanding something.

"It is ok Rodney. Everyone else came back clean. There are no more parasites." Jennifer tried to soothe.

"But they are acting crazy. What if they faked the results?"

"I checked them personally." Jennifer assured him.

"What if you…" He started before seeing Ronon's glare and reconsidered his options. "How else would you explain their behaviour?"

"They're British." Lorne shrugged.

"Thank you GI Joe for that in depth scientific analysis." McKay shot back before an irate Colonel Ellis said.

"Gentleman. If there is nothing else I would like to be on my way."

"Of course Colonel." Woolsey replied. "Assuming you have no objections Dr Keller."

"Nope you all have a clean bill of health." She smiled at Ellis.

"Thank you." Ellis said as he turned.

"Oh Colonel. Just one more thing." Woolsey called. Ellis turned and waited patiently. "We have enough to contend with here without insanely violent IOA representatives. So perhaps on your next trip here you could avoid bringing any. I would consider it a personal favour."

Ellis bit back a retort and left the briefing room.

"So Dr Keller is there any way to prevent a future occurrence of this type of event?" Woolsey asked.

"If the IOA representatives followed the medical protocols that we keep trying to initiate we would prevent similar occurrences." Jennifer replied as Woolsey rubbed his temple.

"Or we could never let the IOA come here again?" Sheppard suggested.

"Thank you Colonel, I will allow you to put that suggestion into writing." Woolsey answered. "In the mean time any future visitors will undergo a quarantine and a set of scans for any anomalies." He said rubbing his temple once more. "Is there anything else anyone would like to raise?"

"Yeah." Sheppard said causing Woolsey to feel his migraine grow. With a certain amount of trepidation Woolsey nodded for Sheppard to proceed. "See for reasons of security, I am curious as to where McKay hid out."

"I don't see how that is relevant." McKay said.

"Clearly there is a flaw in our surveillance systems." Sheppard replied.

"Well I can fix it." McKay said avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room.

"I am sure you can, but for the completeness of the report I think you should tell us." Sheppard said. "You see I have heard some interesting stories."

"Stories?" McKay asked nervously.

"Yep." Shepard smiled. "Involving waste pipes."

"You hid in the sewer system?" Woolsey asked surprised.

"No, well not exactly, kind of. Can we never talk of this again?" McKay said glaring at the amused faces in the room.

Woolsey regained control of his facial features and turned to Jennifer. "Now Dr Keller, is the Colonel allowed to return to any form of duty, or will he be going straight back to the infirmary?" He asked.

"Inf-" Jennifer began as Sheppard cut her off.

"I will just rest quietly out of the infirmary. I will do nothing strenuous." He insisted.

"Perhaps you could do some paperwork." Teyla suggested.

"I could." Sheppard agreed uncertainly.

"There is nothing strenuous about paperwork after all." Teyla added.

"Indeed." Woolsey added. "Unless you have any objections?" He asked Jennifer.

"As long as it was just paperwork and he maintains regular visits to the infirmary, no." Jennifer said.

"Excellent. Well we will leave you to it Colonel. I look forward to reading your reports when I return to duty." Woolsey said standing leaving Sheppard feeling confident he had been hoodwinked. He was quickly followed from the room by Lorne and Jennifer. Ronon stood to follow but Sheppard said.

"Can't you persuade the doc to sign me off paperwork?"

"Nope."

"But you got her to leave the infirmary. If you can do that you can get her to do anything." Sheppard pleaded.

"That was different." Ronon replied. "I had something she wanted, you don't."

"Like what?" Sheppard asked before quickly adding. "Actually don't answer that."

Ronon shrugged and left the room. "Where is your loyalty to your team mates?" Sheppard asked feigning hurt. Noticing Teyla and McKay were also leaving he asked.

"Aren't you going to help?" Causing a chorus of no's to sound. "Well have fun then. I will just sit here writing reports."

"Ok." McKay said leaving.

Teyla smiled and said. "Perhaps next time you will follow Jennifer and Carson's advice and stay in the infirmary."

As she left Sheppard slowly rose and made is way out onto a balcony, where he watched the storm swept city they had come too close to loosing.

The end

A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing. Sorry the plot had more holes than Emmental.

Thanks to Shadows-of-Realm for giving me some direction half way through.