Chapter 12

ooOOooOOoo

Elizabeth looked at the object that SGA-3 had just wheeled, not too gently now that she thought about it, into her city. It didn't look dangerous at all; in fact it resembled nothing more than a large, plump, metallic vase with a cone shaped hat sitting gently on top. In other terms it looked like an innocuous retro-lamp from the seventies. She looked back at Rodney who was staring at the object as though he was already dissecting it in his mind, and trying to figure out how to disarm it quickly. Then, with a rather violent start, he was rushing towards the object and Dr. Greenwall with a look that boldly screamed 'if you get in my way you should stop contemplating your existence because you'll be nothing but an inconsequential smear of the past by the time I'm through with you.' It was that look that had two startled soldiers hastily step aside so he could storm by unhindered. When Greenwall finally noticed Rodney's approach the sinister and ugly look that briefly flashed across his face took her by surprise.

"Don't touch that!" Rodney barked as he roughly pushed his way between the object on the trolley and Greenwall, forcing the larger, strongly built man back a step. To say Greenwall was not amused by the treatment was an understatement.

"McKay, I don't remember giving you permission to be in the gateroom," his tone was clipped but he was the poster boy of forced politeness.

"As if I need your permission," Rodney spat, even as he was already turning his back on his adversary and examining the top of the object. His frown deepened, Greenwall's face turned red, and Elizabeth decided that it was probably a good time for her to step up and take charge of this situation.

"Dr. Greenwall, please do as Dr. McKay asks."

"You have got to be kidding me!" He blurted out, looking at her with contempt and not a hint of his usual kindness. "You have no idea what kind of damage he could cause here!" he declared, waving a hand at Rodney's crouching form.

"No more than you at this moment," she said forcefully, because let's face it; he had brought an active bomb to Atlantis and didn't even seem to realize it yet. The thought of questioning Rodney's assessment of the situation never even crossed her mind, and she saw that Rodney was beyond paying attention to them at this point. He dropped to his knees, the impact loud in the room, and was trying to look up underneath the objects 'hat.' It obscenely reminded her of little boys trying to look up girls skirts. The soldiers of SGA-3 were standing close by and watching the entire exchange alertly, the others were still poised around the room with their weapons raised as they hadn't been told to lower them yet. They were the epitome of professionalism, if one chose to ignore their flickering glances as they searched for further instructions. Elizabeth was too busy trying to figure out what was going on herself to respond as she watched her two top scientists scuttle around on the floor. John didn't even pretend to acknowledge his soldiers.

Radek was on the other side of the weapon and muttering hurriedly to himself as Rodney liberated some kind of scanner from his back pocket, running it over the metal casing in quick, broad strokes. He passed it around to show Radek, making sure not to touch the bomb, and they shared a grunt that apparently passed as effective communication.

"This could be one of the biggest mistakes you'll ever make, Elizabeth," the contempt was gone from Greenwall's voice as he switched tactics and turned pleading eyes to her. She hated the way he said her name, his voice laced with the sincerity he had shown since arriving here. "McKay isn't fit to be in charge. He is unstable, his past clearly shows that, and he is a threat to everyone on this base."

"Oh please," the said scientist muttered from his crouched position on the floor. "You want to start with the 'you're so stupid' jokes at a time like this? I do not need to deal with your manipulative, half-brained arguments right now," he snapped a little louder. The irritation in his voice actually seemed to calm the anxious soldiers around them, who had been watching him with growing trepidation as he examined the ancient artifact with a look of doom on his face. At the moment the terror seemed to have passed and Rodney's expressive features were dark with impatience and anger. It was amazing how his snark, which had once annoyed her so much, actually made her feel better now.

"You watch your tongue, McKay. You're out of line and I'm ordering you to leave the gateroom at once." A strained hush fell across the room at Greenwall's words, but Rodney didn't even look up to acknowledge the order or the man who was currently his boss.

"Or what, you'll demote me again? Please," he huffed in disdain, otherwise ignoring Greenwall. She recognized that Rodney was paying next to no attention to the conversation, he was merely spouting off words between his hasty examination of the weapon that sat before them. In other words he was acting as he would be in any other life or death situation. There was sweat beading at his hairline and his hands were as steady as a rock.

"Okay, that's enough," Elizabeth snapped sharply, glaring between them a moment. She was about to demand an update on the situation when Greenwall suddenly snarled, startling her from her thoughts.

"It sure is!" He took a threatening step towards Rodney with obvious intent to do harm. The soldiers were too far away to react with anything but deadly force and she heard John move to rush forward at the same time that Greenwall advanced. But none of them needed to worry as Rodney chose that moment to quickly stand up, and with a graceful, sharp twist he was swinging his elbow up and around until his appendage connected solidly with Greenwall's jaw, an audible snap echoing throughout the room. As the large, stunned man started to topple forward Rodney placed both hands on his chest and shoved him back. Hard. Greenwall fell over like a sack of potatoes, crashing to the ground where he remained, eyes roaming about dazedly. There was a moment of stunned surprise that enveloped the room as Rodney then squatted back down and asked Radek something about crystalline trip wires and whether they should be a white-translucent or a pearl-translucent. Radek answered shortly without giving the slightest hint that he had any discernment of what had just taken place. He probably hadn't.

The momentum John had propelled himself into as Greenwall had begun his advance had slowed and now he stood beside him, hand on his sidearm, looking down with a satisfied smirk.

"Rodney, you just knocked him out with your elbow," he stated the obvious, pride in his voice. He glanced at SGA-3 and then nodded down at the stunned man, bragging about McKay's victory with his eyebrows which seemed to say: Let's see your scientist do that!

"I need my hands, Colonel. Now can you please get that piece of recycled waste out of here so I can concentrate? He breathes like an ox."

"Sure thing. Archibald Greencall..."

"It's GreenWall," Rodney corrected and Sheppard rolled his eyes. It was plain to see that he couldn't care less about the name of the man at his feet, but he corrected himself for Rodney.

"Archibald Greenwall, you are being placed under detainment for threatening the commanding science officer with the lives of the members of this expedition, and attempted murder. You will remain there without trial until the Daedalus is able to escort you back to earth. Rafat, Gillcrest!" He barked and the two soldiers smartly stepped forward. "Take him to the holding cell."

"Yes, sir." They snapped out and John looked at Elizabeth. She nodded her approval at his handling of the situation. Apparently John knew a lot more than she did about Greenwall at the moment, and it was frustrating to not have a solid grasp of the situation despite the fact that she had a general idea. She knew that John would have brought her up to speed at the earliest opportunity, and apparently this was it.

"Holding cell B," she spoke up suddenly, staring hard as Greenwall began to try and sit up on his own. The soldiers nodded stoically.

From the centre of the room something loudly clicked on the object and Rodney, who had been careful to not touch it through his entire examination, suddenly pulled out his specially rigged pocket knife and practically dove on the device, beginning to pry something near its top off. "Okay," he called out demandingly, "everyone needs to leave this room immediately. As in right now, people! Aurevoir, vamoose, sayônara, adios, hasta luego, as in goodbye and stop being a distraction!" He barked out, his pupils zeroing to little pinpricks as he hastily slid to the side and began to gently repeat his prying actions. Zelenka sat back and watched, pushing his glasses up his nose repeatedly.

"You heard him!" She barked out, and the room erupted in activity. She calmly watched as all the personnel quickly evacuated and then she stepped up to join John as he stood over the two crouched scientists and their apparently impending death.

"That means you too, people! The last thing I need here are distractions!" Rodney slid over a bit more and hurriedly continued prying. She looked at Radek and he gazed up at her, frowning. She asked with her eyes if it would make a difference if they left, and he somehow understood and shook his head negatively. It was very apparent that John wasn't about to budge, and Radek was firmly planted on his knees beside Rodney, waiting to help. She sure as hell wasn't going anywhere, despite the chill of fear that had crept down her spine and made her chest tight. Rodney didn't say anything else though, because he really did need to concentrate.

A few tense moments passed and then he was carefully lifting the hat off the object and tossing it aside like a broken frisbee. He was close to panicking, she could see it, but like all the other do-or-die situations they had been thrust into he refused to go over the edge. The fact that he wasn't vocalizing his panic told her that they didn't have much time. He would work on this to the end.

She looked at the revealed innards of the explosive and almost went cross-eyed: there were at least forty crystals set in a spiral pattern connected through a multitude of wires and set in pockets of what looked like wet, bluish glue. The last spiral sat on the edge of the devices rim, and there were...she quickly counted...eight crystals not yet lit. The eight then became seven and Rodney looked over it with eyes shifting so fast he might have been in a speed-reading contest.

"Okay, blue...conductors...tripwires there...that one's burnt out...changes the whole goddamn sequence...there's the sequencers...blocks...those could be blocks..."

"The pale orange must be the energy input." Radek gazed at the device alongside Rodney, his frown deeply in place.

"Yes, but they're not in the same place as the diagram that we found in the database," Rodney grunted. At least she knew that they had seen this weapon before, even if it was only on a computer screen. The moments ticked by and another crystal flared to life leaving five left and she was beginning to feel slightly detached from the entire situation: she couldn't help, standing uselessly by while the two smartest scientists on this expedition tried to once again save the day. Another crystal, a pale pink one, began to glow. Four left.

"It's all very simple, very structured; the colour sequence and the way that they're all connected through the crystal based wire and the blue liquid must be the direct energy conduit that's powering them. If we remove the energy source from the liquid it would cut off the power and deactivate it."

"You cannot guarantee that the liquid..."another crystal clicked on "is all connected between the crystals. Each one is separated," Radek argued, staring as intently as Rodney.

"It's separated on the top so that the crystals," which were the approximate size of a pen cap, "have a stable support system that keeps them erect and not falling into each other. I'm going to pull out the energy source."

"You shouldn't just pull without knowing what will happen," Radek argued softly.

"Yes, I should." Rodney looked like he was bracing himself for the mother of all hail-mary's. There was one glowing crystal left.

"Rodney," Sheppard warned smoothly, and that was all the encouragement he needed as the scientist reached into the very center of the crystal spiral. His hand wasn't shaking at all, and Elizabeth was clenching hers tightly behind her back as she could do nothing but watch. Then he was smoothly pulling out the yellow crystal that sat at the heart of the spiral, and almost immediately the crystals began to lose their energy until the only glow coming from them was caused by the overhead lights shining upon it. Rodney tossed the crystal casually to Radek, stood up, and clapped his hands together sharply.

"This is a terra bomb," he explained loudly, his voice echoing off the almost empty gateroom's walls. "The ancients deposited them on planets that had been destroyed, for one reason or another, to a point that it couldn't recuperate by itself. This device was designed to wipe out all life and matter left so that the planet's crust, atmosphere and stratosphere could be terraformed from scratch into a new living and breathing planet. It was their version of a last ditch attempt at reviving what they lost. The Ancients wanted this particular bomb to be disarmed easily, obviously because it isn't an actual weapon."

By now all four of them were standing around and looking down at the object that had been brought back from what was apparently a terraformed planet. In hindsight that would explain why the planets landscape had been almost barren, the pictures they had gathered through the MALP had shown her lots of rock, scraggly grass, and what looked like trees struggling to exist. She sighed to herself as Rodney continued his explanation.

"Obviously it's a bit broken, or else it wouldn't have activated simply upon its arrival in the city. We won't know how much destruction it could have caused just now until we investigate the power source." He shrugged, lacking his usual enthusiasm about the potential for more power and she noticed that his hands were twisting around each other until he seemed to realize the action and dropped them to his side.

The sound of a door sliding open behind them drew Elizabeth's attention and she watched as Chuck poked his head inside. He looked around nervously, then his eyes fell on their little group standing, apparently casually, around the would-be threat. He blinked at them, looked at her, and then pulled his head back out. A moment later people began filtering back into the gate room, heading back to their stations.

"Don't you people ever listen to orders?" Rodney demanded, his voice angry to cover his nerves. "Evacuate means actually leaving further than the nearest corridor!" A few individuals had the decency to look abashed, but for the most part her people seemed to think that everything had been under control the entire time. "God, I miss my cat," Rodney groaned and rubbed at his eyes a moment. "At least he displayed intelligence once in a while." He glared around again for good measure and then turned to look at Elizabeth. She managed to speak before he could address her.

"Welcome back, Rodney." Her lips cracked into a slight smile.

"I take that to mean that my rightful place as the chief of science has been reinstated?"

"Of course, and I want to be the first to assure you that, as far as I'm concerned, something like this will never happen again." Her voice was a little steelier than she had intended, but the slightly satisfied look on Rodney's face made the slip in control acceptable, and then he sighed in what was over-exaggerated relief and turned to Radek.

"Finally," he stated. "I'm going to bed."

"What?" The Czech raised his eyebrows indignantly. "You leave me to clean up after this mess?"

"No, give the terra bomb to Gretchen...or Griselda...or whoever that German woman is that has legs up to here," he waved his hand around chest height. "It's her area of specialty, just don't give her that crystal, or the power source inside it."

"Genovefa." Radek helpfully supplied her name.

"Yes, her. Do you have any idea how hard it is to run a city when you're not in charge? I've barely gotten more than two hours a night this last week alone. That and power naps do not make me pleasant, and I want to be as pleasant as possible for the staff meeting we'll be having tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yes, tonight. It's already after dinner and I want at least three hours of solid rest before I fix things around here. I need to get everybody back on the projects they're supposed to be on before anything else goes wrong. Announce the meeting for ten, and make sure they know it's mandatory." With a decisive nod Rodney turned and left, quickly. Elizabeth didn't miss that his hands had begun to shake as he'd finished giving instructions to Radek. This threat with the terra bomb had been close, perhaps closer then she could fully appreciate at the moment. Radek excused himself and rushed off to get things ready for McKay's return and Sheppard, despite the concern crinkling around his eyes, turned and grinned the largest grin she'd seen from him in months.

"He's back."

"He is." Elizabeth agreed.

"Any chance we can get the Daedalus to come back sooner than scheduled? I want to get rid of Greenstall ASAP."

"I'll see what I can do. For now, how about we step into my office; apparently there are some things I need to be briefed on." She couldn't remember the last time John had been that enthusiastic for a meeting to start.

ooOOooOOoo

Sheppard couldn't even begin to describe how satisfied he'd felt as he'd watched Greenwall disappear from the gateroom and into the Daedalus' brig in a wonderful flash of light. Judging by the dark look the man had given him just before he departed, Sheppard could only assume his face was giving his glee away. But damn it had felt good to get rid of the man with McKay standing by his side, both of them grinning like the proverbial cat that ate the canary.

Sixteen days of waiting for the Daedalus to arrive equaled sixteen days of waiting for the men who had caused so many problems on Atlantis to be taken back to Earth. It had been sixteen days too long as far as he was concerned. Now John leaned outside Weir's office, casually waiting to give his final report on the prisoner transport and next month's crew rotations. Elizabeth had joined them in the gate room earlier to see Greenwall and Sandburg off. Though she was too much of a diplomat for the smile to reach her face, John had sensed her pleasure when they were teleported away.

Peeking into her office now he could see Sergeant Rafat still standing at parade rest, her back to the doors as she discussed something which had apparently been more important than his scheduled meeting with Weir. Not that he minded really, because watching Rafat from behind was anything but unpleasant. He looked away quickly, realizing that, as the military commander of Atlantis he really shouldn't exercise such thoughts about his subordinates. Still, he was only human. He grinned a little to himself and then heard the unmistakable sound of boots heading towards the door. He stood up straight as Elizabeth's voice carried to his ears.

"Before you leave Sergeant, I wanted to know if the SGC was able to accommodate your request?"

"Yes ma'am, nothing that O'Neill couldn't handle."

"That's good to hear. Do you expect any problems?"

"No Ma'am. Dr. Beckett already has the package and is giving it a last once over." Sheppard quirked his eyebrows, perplexed. What were they talking about? It sounded like Rafat had provided something to Beckett, but there hadn't been anything in Sheppard's manifest about it. He leaned a little closer to the door.

"And Dr. Zelenka?" Elizabeth asked.

"Dr. Zelenka has agreed to deliver the package, but I didn't ask about his method."

"I'm sure it'll be memorable."

"Yes, Ma'am." John thought he could hear a smile in Rafat's voice.

When the two women suddenly appeared by the door John jerked to attention, and then tried to appear as though he hadn't just been listening in on them. They both looked at him, but neither seemed upset by his presence. In fact, Elizabeth looked rather pleased as she turned back to Rafat.

"Well Sergeant, I appreciate your initiative in this matter. Please let me know how it turns out."

"Thank you Dr. Weir. Sir," she sharply saluted them both and he nodded at her before turning to Elizabeth.

"Anything I need to know?"

"No. It's just a personal project that a few of our people decided to implement and wanted to confirm with me. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Okay then," he smiled and waved his hand, inviting her back into her office. She took the hint and led the way. They had work to do.

ooOOooOOoo

Rodney sat in his lab, his rather empty lab at the moment as it was three in the morning, going over the section head reports and updating himself on the progress of the staff that he didn't have much opportunity to work with. As much as he claimed to be bored to death by the softer sciences (which he was), he wanted to see how they were progressing, see if there were any new finds that actually interested him, and see how the individuals were doing. He'd been at this since about one, after he'd woken up and been unable to fall back asleep again. Same old, same old.

Somehow being in the lab alone and doing work was better than being in his quarters alone doing nothing but staring at the ceiling. Besides, at this time there was hardly anyone up to demand his attention and his teammates weren't dropping by at random moments in an apparent group effort to drive him insane.

Sheppard was the worst, demanding that he come to 'team nights' and workout sessions. As if Rodney wanted to workout around a whole bunch of people who could run laps around him on their hands. No, thank you. However, he hadn't been able to say no to Sheppard insisting on weapons practice and exclusive hand to hand combat training. Rodney had quickly learned that turning Ronon away when he wanted company for a jog was an effort of futility and just stupid. Also, any day now he was going to run out of excuses to avoid a beating from Teyla and her sticks, and trying to get a decent meal while reading up on a report was nearly impossible as Radek and Carson seemed to be obsessed with his eating habits. He was certain that they had roped his staff into forcing him out to eat with them at least once a day, not to mention the meals he spent with his team and, occasionally, Dr. Weir.

Rodney wasn't used to all the attention, even though it wasn't really any more than he had been involved in before Doranda. It was just that in the past he had instigated the meetings almost as often as everyone else had. Now he didn't go out of his way to meet up with anyone, but they still managed to find him no matter where he was. It was nice, flattering even, that they were putting so much effort into including him again despite his overall grouchiness.

Getting back into his lead role had been easy, seeing as he never really left it in the first place, and he took the opportunity to remind people of that fact as often as possible. He couldn't begin to describe the relief of being back in charge, not that he ever let the power go to his head...well, maybe he did sometimes, but he deserved it!

When the Daedalus had finally arrived Rodney had stood on the balcony overlooking the gate room as the men had been beamed onto the Daedalus in restraints. Sandburg, who had looked absolutely livid at the entire situation (most likely because Greenwall didn't want to take the fall for an attempted murder that he had only choreographed, and had given Sandburg up as his accomplice), had been glaring daggers at Greenwall the entire time. Rodney heard from Elizabeth that the engineer was willing to confess to Greenwall's hand in blackmailing the President to gain his position in Atlantis. Rodney hoped they both enjoyed a very long time in whatever secluded detainment center they were sent to.

Rodney had also experienced great satisfaction as he threw away the official letter of apology he received. He had never, ever, tried to give the impression that he was a reasonable and forgiving man and he had no time to deal with morons.

His staff was still a little cautious around him, worrying that they might say the wrong thing and set him off on an explosive tirade. He found it highly amusing to mess with their heads, but Radek had ordered him to stop making them feel guilty before they all had nervous breakdowns. Of course it was all in their heads because Rodney didn't treat them any differently than he had before...well, maybe he was a bit more distant, a bit more like he had been back in Antarctica , but he doubted they'd noticed that aspect of his personality.

Sheppard, however, had noticed, and he'd called him on it a few times. The first had been in the middle of a firefight on P3X 1R1, which thankfully hadn't distracted Rodney from the business of saving his own ass as well as protecting his teammates, but the man had a seriously deranged sense of appropriate timing for their 'meaningful' conversations. It was probably one of the reasons that Rodney couldn't help but like him.

Sometimes Teyla came and sat with him at breakfast and told him about the happenings on the mainland. Apparently people were asking about his well being, though he wasn't sure why they cared. Her knee had healed well.

In the silence of his lab Rodney sighed, and then startled as his computer suddenly blipped at him. He closed the file on the ecologists and their fascinating study of the plankton by the coast and frowned at it. The transporter by the mess hall was acting up again.

"I told them to fix that," he grumbled even as he grabbed a few small tools, stuffing them into his pocket, and headed out the door to the nearest transporter. He reemerged from the handy closet at a location close to the mess hall and quickly walked the few minutes it took to get there. The city was well lit, even at night, and he was glad for it considering how often he was dragged out of bed or the lab at any god given hour (like right now, for example) to fix something.

"If people just did their jobs right the first time..." he muttered before being startled to a halt as Sheppard quickly rounded the corner and barely avoided crashing headlong into Rodney. An image of the roadrunner cartoon with Sheppard's head on its body popped into Rodney's mind at the abrupt stop. He was tempted to look for a trail of dust and skid marks behind the man.

"I need to attach a bell to you so I know when you're about to come flying around a corner," he grouched, and looked at Sheppard's sweat covered shirt and flattened hair with distaste.

"But then my element of surprise," John swallowed around a lungful of air "would be wasted. Besides, it's fun to startle people, it keeps them alert, on their toes." Rodney didn't make any comment about Sheppard needing to be in bed and resting instead of running himself to death at all hours of the morning, because then he would be the pot calling the kettle black, only without the exercise routine.

"Or they could shoot you after they mistake you for a psychotic intruder, and they wouldn't be wrong about the psychotic part." He stepped past the panting man, careful not to brush against his sweaty body (because that's just bad hygiene), and continued toward the transporter he was going to fix. Sheppard stepped up beside him.

"Whatcha doing?" he asked and leaned in to bump his shoulder against Rodney's. Rodney batted him away.

"Fixing things, like always."

"At three thirty in the morning?" he asked and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Atlantis doesn't work on our timeframe."

"She misses you when you're not around," Sheppard confided, as though this was some kind of revelation.

"Yes she does, but she doesn't show it very well by continuously breaking on me."

"She's just trying to get your attention," he teased and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"She's not the only one is she," he stated and looked pointedly at his sweaty companion.

"Apparently not," John replied, but he wasn't looking at Rodney as he spoke. Instead his gaze was directed at the transporter Rodney had been heading to fix. It was hard not to notice the cardboard box that sat in the middle of the open door.

Rodney gazed at it suspiciously and looked at Sheppard, who stared at it curiously.

"Did you have anything to do with this?" Rodney demanded grumpily.

"No. I usually wrap my gifts a bit nicer than that, generally with the funny pages from the newspaper."

"This had better not be some practical joke, because if I walked all the way over here for nothing..." Rodney stepped forward and bent down, pulling the white lid off and peered inside cautiously. Two sets of startled brown-green eyes stared back at him, their slit pupils adjusting to the new light and focusing on his face. He stared dumbly and they stared right back.

Then one jumped up and tried to claw its way out of the too large box and Rodney couldn't resist answering the request for release. He reached in and gently scooped the leopard tabby kitten into his hand, and then he picked up the other one for good measure and cradled them gently against his chest. They looked around curiously and while one seemed content to just sit and cuddle, the other one was trying to walk all over him.

They were absolutely perfect.

"Now that wasn't what I was expecting," Sheppard exclaimed as he reached out to pet one of the kittens. "A stash of gourmet coffee, unlimited boxes of smarties, some kinky sex toys, those I was expecting. Not this," he paused and poked at the one who was moving about, who swiped at his finger with slow, concentrated coordination. Rodney couldn't stop staring at them.

"Somebody actually listened to me complain," he was absolutely floored and looked back at the box for a note of explanation. There was just a letter-sized piece of paper that had bold letters stating: We thought two were better than one.

"We always listen to you complain, Rodney. You have a loud voice, it's hard not too."

"If they think they can buy their way back into my good graces then they've got another think coming," but his grousing was ruined as the quiet kitten yawned and then became interested in the tail of his/her companion and he grinned stupidly at them.

"Oh, you are such a push over," John said and they stepped into the transporter, which was obviously working, and Rodney sent them to the one closest to his quarters. He held onto them possessively as they walked down the hall and he let John go into his room first before following. His friend didn't have anything to do with this, he couldn't lie that well, but it was obvious that he rather liked Rodney's new family. So when he put the box down Rodney gave in and handed him the playful one to hold. If Sheppard's face lit up like a little kid at Christmas Rodney wasn't going to make fun of him; he was pretty sure the mushy look on his own face was much more embarrassing. He just had a soft spot for cats, he always had.

"What are you going to name them?" John asked, grinning as his kitten bit his thumb.

"Please, I haven't even gotten to know them yet. I can't just name them until I've figured out what would suit them."

"You should name them Jekyll and Hyde."

"No."

"Bonnie and Clyde?"

"Absolutely not."

"Sonny and Cher?"

"I don't think so."

"Pinky and the Brain?" Rodney paused a moment to think that one over...it could have merit.

"You are not naming my cats, John, so forget it."

"Fine," he tried to sound put out, but he was grinning as he sat on the couch for a moment, and then he jumped right back up. "You're going to need kitty litter and food." Then he saw the boxes stacked along the wall by the door that were crudely labeled in black marker: food. "Well, my safety crew has gravel small enough for them stocked up somewhere, and I'm sure we can scrounge up an appropriate box."

"That would be fine."

"You do realize that I am their official god father, right? If anything happens to you they come to me." Rodney supposed it was a given, seeing as John was his closest friend and all, but he wasn't about to concede to anything too quickly.

"Oh please, as if anything is going to happen to me." They put the cats down and companionably watched them play until five o'clock rolled around and they had to prepare for the day ahead.

Things weren't completely better yet, for a lot of reasons, but it was starting to come together. Rodney was fairly certain he'd always have trust issues with people in general, there was just too much personal history to overcome. Most of the people of Atlantis he could say he was bound to out of loyalty. He was willing to lay down his life for them regardless of whether they'd do the same in return. He sometimes found himself hoping they wouldn't because he already had enough dead friends and allies doing the conga line in his dreams. Keeping his distance was what he preferred, but he wasn't going to completely isolate himself from them, because he deserved more than that, and so did they. Kittens aside.

He trusted John and his teammates with his life, but still found himself questioning their friendly motives from time to time. He wanted to fully trust them, so badly that at times it was a bitter salve on his tongue, but it was new territory for him; territory that he was willing to explore but was planning on taking the long way around. He supposed the thing that made him the most content about this was that his friends seemed to understand and they never, not once, complained about how he kept trying to pull away, how he continued to test them. John and Radek especially, and if Rodney found himself opening up emotionally bit by bit, well, he supposed it was all a step forward. And sometimes, forward momentum could be a very good thing.

Finished.

Well I hope this fic was enjoyable! Especially to those who may have read it a second time now ;)

When I first posted this I promised that Laryn and I would be following it with another story, and I do not lie. It is mostly complete and Laryn is making sure it's in tip top order before we post. It is called "Conspiracies, Investigations, and Exploration, Oh My." Yes yes, I'm absolutely terrible at naming things and I am well aware that that, as well as grammer, are personal weaknesses ;)

All of your comments were wonderfully inspiring and the kitten names were great! I hope you enjoy the next story as well…just set a little time aside for it, because while it's not the longest fic on the Net (by far!) it is our biggest work yet.

Take care.