Notes: This is set after the House S3 finale, and after SGA's Tao of Rodney.
What The Ducklings Did On Their Summer Vacation
Two weeks after he was fired Chase had finished watching all three seasons of Grey's Anatomy and six seasons of Scrubs (well, the episodes were shorter), reorganized his entire kitchen, returned his kitchen back to the way it was, alphabetized his porn collection by cover girl last name, and invented a new drink called the Lupulupy (non alcoholic, tastes like litchi.)
He had also sent his CV to twenty hospitals in ten states, gone on three job interviews, had confidence-building sex with Cameron before each of her three interviews, and had coffee with Foreman once (they'd wanted to talk about the New York job application, and instead ended up talking about Grey's.)
At the moment, he was sitting at a corner table of a small coffee place below his apartment, discreetly staking out the building mailbox waiting for various prospects to get back to him, and bored out of his mind. The lettuce leaves in his salad bowl were starting to look interesting compared to his life.
Chase dejectedly poured some balsamic vinegar over the lettuce, the back of mind's attention on the still empty mailboxes, the rest concentrating deeply on whether one could apply tea-leaf fortune-telling to his salad ingredients. Your future is green, wrinkly, and slightly nibbled on, they seemed to say. Beware of strangers attempting to—
"…lure new participants into the project, I mean bloody hell, I've only got two days of leave, I'm jet-lagged out of me freakin' skull, and all I want to do is visit home and get a taste of Mum's haggis before I get back to Antarctica and then Colorado, not go on a quest for the holy genetic grail in bloody New Jersey."
The hissed diatribe was coming from a table behind him, and Chase struggled not to turn around and stare. Antarctica?
"I know it was the only flight getting out of the outpost," the voice continued testily. "I know, I know— Sheppard, I know this is a great American university, and it's a great opportunity to hire some extra people for my staff, but it's not exactly simple finding genetically compatible doc— oh shit, I got to go, somebody's choking."
Chase jumped at the stranger's words, looked around the room, and scrambled to the side of the old woman, three tables down, who was wheezing and flailing her arms at her hysterical son, a small pile of chicken wing bones on her plate. Chase quickly locked his arms under the woman's diaphragm to perform a Heimlich maneuver, and was on the verge of thrusting when someone collided into him from behind, causing the piece of expelled chicken to sail across the open air and land in another diner's water glass with a plop, befitting the cheap romantic comedy Chase's life had apparently turned into.
The man who had collided into Chase immediately knelt beside the old woman, who was taking in huge gasps of air. "There now," he soothed, Scottish accent rolling off his tongue. "Breathe easy, it's okay, you're okay now."
Chase took a step back and let the other man deal with the still panicking family, his eyes already wandering over to where mail truck had just parked across the street, no doubt holding in its red and white recesses the ticket to Chase's future.
And then the man was standing in front of Chase, one hand extended, tired eyes crinkling at the corners. "Dr. Carson Beckett," he introduced himself. "That was a good job, lad."
Chase clasped his hand distractedly and said, "Robert Chase, and it was really no holy mother of god what the hell is that?" as the pendant of a necklace hanging around Beckett's neck spontaneously lit up and started floating in midair.
Beckett glanced down in surprise. "Well," he said, awe reverberating in his voice, "that was much easier than I'd expected."
While Chase and Cameron joined the Atlantis expedition because they could both make things light up and sparkle and were, when it came down to it, attracted to shiny things, Foreman's thought process had been more of a more mathematical nature, reasoning that: (am unemployed) + (advanced imaging technology) + (great alien dental plan) + (House would kill for this opportunity) + ((can't get much farther from House than this)) totally taking the job.
It took them less than 48 hours to be issued security clearances, thoroughly debriefed, and prepared for their missions, which was remarkably efficient for any organization controlled by the government ("it's a bloody international project, you condescending jerks," Chase kept reminding them. He had a tiny British flag patch stitched to his jacket, which he insisted was Australian because of the few white stars scattered around it.)
They left Earth on the Daedalus, astonishingly enough by actually getting beamed up into the spaceship.
"Wow," Cameron whispered, watching clouds swirl over Earth's oceans from the ship's bridge, thousands of miles away. "It's breathtaking."
"Yes," Chase said softly. Cameron sneaked a peek at him watching the view, entranced, and then smacked him on the arm. "Ow!" he yelped. "What was that for?"
"You were supposed to be looking at me when you said that, not the view."
"Sorry," he said defensively, "I guess I'm not fluent in celestial etiquette."
"That wasn't celestial etiquette, it was just a little romance."
Foreman rubbed his temples. "If you both don't shut up I'm letting you off at the next stop."
"There, there, duckies," Dr. Beckett said with an amused smile. "Play nice. We're going to be together for a long time now."
"Don't worry," Cameron said, "we're used to each other's presence."
As it turned out, however, they hadn't been. Long night shifts of running tests and babysitting patients (and the occasional sleepover, in Chase and Cameron's case) had created only the bare minimum of familiarity between them, and over the course of the three week journey to Atlantis, the small, confining space of the Daedalus provided a far more comfortable means of getting to know one another. For the first time in almost three years of mutual acquaintance they talked honestly about home and family, about scars and pets and peculiarities, to the relaxing aroma of late night coffee and the glow of soft shimmering blue hyperspace light. It was only when Cameron was getting into the details of how Mother Nature let her know she was a woman at thirteen that Foreman finally cried, "You know I care about you but for the love of God, TMI!". Cameron was so pleased about the first half of his sentence that she let the subject drop.
In addition to Dr. Beckett, returning to Atlantis from a short leave on earth were Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, a messy-haired officer who seemed to live in a constant state of 'lazily amused', and Dr. Rodney McKay, who was— well.
"He's like Robin Williams with a giant brain on speed," Chase said, wide-eyed. They were on a tour of the warship, and McKay was standing irritably on the other side of one of the hangar bays, ranting at Sheppard.
"He's like some sort of evil Einstein," Cameron stared, "totally out of control. Soon he'll be tearing his hair out, and let's face it, it's not like there's much to begin with."
Sheppard was beginning to grin, which seemed to enrage McKay all the more, gesturing wildly as he yelled about blithering idiots and IQ of a Teletubby and stop smirking you juvenile moron.
"Look at that," Foreman said with a small sneer. "He's acting like a total jackass. It's disgusting what people can get away with, just because they've convinced the world they're irreplaceable."
"Well, I can't imagine people like him too much around here," Cameron said.
"Price of being a genius," Chase said sagely. "They're all royally fucked up."
McKay was growing more and more furious; Sheppard was obviously biting his lip to keep from laughing.
"Just look at House," Chase added.
"Guys?"
The three of them jumped at the sound of the lazy drawl addressing them.
Sheppard was looking straight at them from across the hangar bay, the corners of his lips twitching. "You know we can hear you, right?"
Foreman raised a hand to his earpiece, flicking it off. "Damn," he muttered, "I keep forgetting about those." Cameron let out a mortified squeak.
Sheppard just flashed them a thumbs-up and steered a sputtering McKay out of the room.
"Awk-ward," Chase hummed.
Shortly after their arrival at Atlantis, it became clear to everyone that Cameron would be wasted in the infirmary, seeing as every time she so much as walked by a puddlejumper it practically began to purr. "Come on," Lt. Colonel Sheppard told her, dragging her into one of the aircrafts as Chase watched with a frown, "we're going for a ride."
When they returned an hour later Sheppard's expression was an even mixture of smug and impressed, and Cameron had stars in her eyes. "I'll be taking over this one," he told Beckett, and that appeared to settle that.
"I don't know what she sees in him," Chase later told Foreman over breakfast, adding sugar to a tasteless sort of porridge.
Foreman smirked. "Him?"
"It," Chase scowled, "I said 'it'. Flying. It's not like she's saving lives or anything, she's just a… glorified taxi driver."
"And you're a glorified magic wand."
Chase looked affronted. "I am not! I did clinic duty yesterday. It's not my fault McKay needed me to explore B-3's lower levels with him later."
"And you followed him around like a good little puppy," Foreman said, shaking his head. "Nothing ever changes with you, does it?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," Chase dismissed, speaking around a mouthful of toast. "As it happens, my job here is essential—"
His words were cut short by a blaring alarm and harsh flashing lights that certainly couldn't have been signaling 'You will live a long and healthy life'.
Chase swallowed. "That can't be good."
Ten minutes later Chase was relegated to Chair duty and Foreman was fully suited, handed a gun and a medical kit, and on his way to PD8-512, which, he was assured, was inhabited by very peaceful human-like-things, except for when insulted by the accidental implication that you'd like to grill their holy goat.
It was all, Beckett promised him, par for the course.
The days passed, and slowly but surely they settled into their new life, alternating between the infirmary and labs and the sky and offworld missions.
The Stargate on PG9-004 was located on the smallest of a group of islands, surrounded by a great purple ocean, shimmering in the orange sunset. It was very picturesque, up until the moment Chase and Foreman found themselves held captive in a cell with a frustrated Ronon Dex, an aggravated Zelenka, a slowly panicking McKay, and a counter ticking down to zero.
"So, you're saying it's a nuclear bomb?" Chase asked, trying to keep the alarm from showing in his voice.
"Yes," Ronon snarled, banging a fist in the wall.
Chase exchanged a look with Foreman. Foreman shrugged, and settled himself in a comfortable position on the stone floor. "Well, nice to see you relaxing for a change," Chase said sourly.
Foreman closed his eyes, looking serene. "Do you know how to dismantle a nuclear bomb?"
"Well, no," Chase admitted, "but I like to think outside the box. Surely we can help somehow."
Ronon indicated McKay and Zelenka with a tilt of his head and raised his eyebrows, as if saying, When they get like this, it's not even worth trying.
Chase threw his hands in the air. "How did we even get in this situation? I mean, I've had people mad at me before – I worked for House, after all – but nobody's ever wanted to actually vaporize my particles. How can you just take it sitting down?"
Foreman folded his arms behind his head, looking for all the world like he was sprawled on a beach chair in the Caribbeans. "If I try to help, McKay's going to make one of his arrogant House-like cracks, and the next time he does that I'm going to snap and kill him with my bare hands. As a doctor who spent time on the streets I can actually do that, so," he finished in a perfectly calm voice, "for the sake of our survival, and my blood pressure, I think I'm gonna sit this one out."
Chase took a moment to let it sink in. "You have a point."
"Hey, peanut gallery," McKay snapped, tinkering with a panel of crystals, "can we cut the background chatter, it's like trying to work at Ladies Bingo Night here, oh and by the way I have ears, a fact you two can't seem to stop forgetting."
"Hush, Rodney," Zelenka said sternly, "you are scaring the ducks."
McKay broke away from his little nuclear toys to gape at Zelenka. "What ducks?"
"This is what Dr. Beckett calls them."
"Oh, for—" and comprehension dawned, "he's Scottish! Everyone's either a duck or a peach to him!"
"Rodney, less time on complaining, more time on taking apart bomb, hmm?"
McKay's eyes narrowed. "I don't need you of all people to tell me to concentrate on the task at hand," he muttered while returning to his work with gusto, "you think I'm not perfectly aware of the fact that the seconds of my life are ticking down along with this clock, and that the fate of everyone in this room hangs upon my intellect? You're so lucky I'm trapped in here too, by the way, otherwise I'm not sure I'd even be bothered – aha!"
There was a beep. The timer froze at 00:19:23.
McKay stepped back, surveying the visibly dying down device with a self satisfied smirk. "Once again, my superior intellect has saved the day. Why do these things always beep? For once, I wish there was something more appropriate. A hallelujah chorus singing 'Hurrah McKay!' would be nice. You know, in Russia, whenever I saved the world, which was twice, my employees baked me a cake. How come you never do that?"
"Not your employee, Rodney," Zelenka reminded, and rolled his eyes. "The ducks are right, you are just like my house: big and white and full of too much crap."
Ronon snorted, settling down next to Foreman and adopting his laid-back position.
Rodney scowled. "What do you mean, 'big'?" he muttered - and then froze, as if something in had just clicked into place. "Wait a minute." He stared at Chase and Foreman. "This house you keep talking about – you don't by any chance mean Gregory House?"
Chase looked at him in surprise. "Actually, we do."
"Oh my god," McKay groaned, "I hate that kid!"
Chase blinked at the suggestion of House having ever been anything other than a forty-year-old asshole, at the very least. "You know House?" he asked dubiously.
"Know, despise, same difference," McKay said, waving a hand. "No wonder you people are so irritating, you must have learned it from him."
Foreman was still sprawled leisurely on the ground, and though his eyes were closed, his brows lifted with amusement, as though he wasn't surprised at all at this turn of events. "And when did you two meet?"
"Gregory House," McKay huffed, "was a scrawny little kid – well, bigger than me, obviously, but I'd skipped a few grades – who cheated his way into the finals of the 30th Annual International American Spelling Bee during that single loathsome year my parents moved us to DC, and yes, there is such a thing, and no, it's not an oxymoron, oh and yes, he definitely cheated, that rat bastard, entering the contest with an unfair advantage of having lived in a gazillion different countries before the age of ten, and not disclosing the fact that he knew Arabic, which is similar enough to Turkish that he should have been disqualified from the Middle Eastern round anyway – and besides, everyone knows Çekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz can be spelled with three S's instead of four, so really, I should have won."
Foreman eyelids rose lazily. "Çekoslawhat?"
"Çekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz," McKay repeated with scorn. "It's in Turkish. It means 'Apparently you were amongst the ones that we couldn't make a Czechoslovakia citizen'."
"Hey," Zelenka said.
"Yeah," Chase added, pretty sure he should be offended, "hey."
Zelenka turned to Chase, looking as if he were seeing him for the first time. "Jsi Čech?" he asked, stunned.
"Er, ne," Chase replied, struggling to recall the language. "Můj otec. Mluvím jen trochu česky."
"No, no!" Zelenka cried, reverting back to English. "You speak very good Czech, your father would be proud!"
"I've never really, um, embraced the heritage from that side of the family," Chase said, slightly apologetic, mostly hoping to steer away from the topic of his father. "But I did follow them in the Eurovision this year," he offered.
Zelenka's eyes widened. "No! We were in Eurovision for the first time and I didn't see? How did we do? How many douze points?" he asked eagerly.
"Well, um. One."
"Ah! Not too bad, not too bad."
"No, I meant one point," Chase clarified. "From Estonia."
Zelenka's face fell. "All of Europe are anti-ex-communist pigs," he said darkly.
"Yes, yes, yes," said McKay, "everyone's conspiring against you, somehow I don't find it that surprising. If I may suggest, for the sake of my peace of mind, how about everybody just shut up until Colonel Sheppard deigns to wake up from his afternoon nap and rescues us in a ridiculously timely fashion, hmm?"
"Seconded," Ronon grunted, raising a hand.
The next two hours were spent, therefore, in relatively comfortable silence, broken only once by McKay, who pointedly looked at his watch and muttered, "it's a good thing I dismantled that bomb, otherwise we'd all be dead in right about four, three, two, now."
Finally, their radios sparked to life. "Jumper 2, this is Jumper 3, do you read?"
Chase's eyebrows spiked to his hairline. "Cameron?"
"It's good to hear your voice, doctor," Cameron's warm voice replied. "Can you give me a head count down there?"
"Jumper 3, this is McKay," Mckay snapped. "I'm here with Zelenka, Ronon, and the two mini-Becketts, it's about damn time you got here. What's your ETA?"
Another voice crackled through the radio. "Rodney?"
Mckay frowned. "Sheppard?"
"Are you guys okay?" Sheppard asked.
"Well, thanks to me we're alive," McKay replied, glaring at the ceiling as if Sheppard were somewhere beyond it. "Okay is a direct derivative of how long I have to stay on this rock, so if you will please hurry up."
"Can't, sorry," said Sheppard. "I'm with Teyla on Jumper 1, we're on our way to deal with the locals. Gonna try and get back that little puddlejumper your team managed to lose. But don't worry, you're in good hands with Shaft. Sheppard out."
"Oh, wait, it was my fault now? Sheppard—" McKay cut himself off when they heard the static; Jumper 1 was out of range. "Sometimes I really hate that guy."
Ronon got to his feet and slapped him on the back. "You hate a lot of guys, McKay. Hate me too?"
McKay got as far as "Believe me, somet—" before realizing who it was he was talking to, and how very tall he loomed. McKay gulped. "Of course I don't."
"Jumper 2," Cameron said calmly in their earpieces, "Major Lorne is hooking two bricks of C4 to the northern wall of your cell, so you may want to step back and cover your heads. Ready when you are."
Ronon herded them all to the southern side of the room, and crouched low, waiting for them to follow. "That thing gonna blow up?" He pointed at the nuke.
"Of course not," scoffed McKay, "do you actually think that's how it w—"
"Shaft, this is Jumper 2," Ronon talked over him. "We're ready."
Chase caught Foreman's eye. Shaft? Foreman mouthed at him, lifting one trademark eyebrow, just before the wall blew open.
Chase actually waited a whole fifteen minutes before bringing it up, when they were safely settled in the jumper. "So," he said, going for casual, "Shaft?"
Cameron kept her hands on the controls but turned her face to him, grinning widely. "Cameron, shaft. Camshaft." She beamed. "John suggested it."
"I bet he did," McKay muttered.
"What, you don't like it?" she asked.
Chase folded his arms. "I'm just not sure it's... you."
Ronon snickered from his seat at the back of the jumper. "He's just worried that if you're the shaft of this relationship, that makes him the vagin--"
"O-kay!" Chase said, "I think that's enough about that, then."
Foreman grinned. "I think it's cute," he stated, just to see Chase scowl.
The trouble with picking locks in Atlantis was that credit cards just didn't seem to cut it when (a) there were no actual visible locks, and (b) the door was not just genetically but apparently telepathically attuned to the room's normal resident.
"I'm… not really sure about this."
Cameron resisted the urge to sigh. Lorne was shuffling his feet, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, and looking thoroughly uncomfortable.
"I've gone over this with you," she said patiently. "You know it's for the Colonel's own good."
Lorne's expression remained skeptic. "Kinda feels like abusing my position. Not to mention disobeying direct orders."
"Even Teyla and Ronon are convinced," she pointed out. The two were standing a few feet away, Teyla with her arms crossed and Ronon looking disgruntled, but the point was that they were there. "They're going to chaperone, make sure I don't, I dunno, steal a pair of Sheppard's boxers for my stalker chest."
Lorne shuddered. "See, that's exactly the kind of imagery I'm trying to avoid. That and Colonel Sheppard's promises to gut me with a spoon if I cooperate with you. He's kind of a… private guy."
"Well, he's not going to be so much private as he will be dead," she said frankly, "unless we get to the source of his illness. Which could be lying in that room. Like I've told you before, Doctors Weir, McKay, and Zelenka have all tried to open the door themselves, but Atlantis apparently likes Sheppard too much to go against his wishes, and your emergency military override is our last hope. So, Major Lorne. Are you that scared of Sheppard's retribution, or are you going to be a man and save his life?"
Cameron posed with her hands on her hips, looked him straight in the eyes, and tried not to feel like her mother. She hoped her speech had struck inspiration, or at least some guilt, into his heart. Teyla and Ronon said nothing; she decided to interpret their silence as support.
At last, Lorne relented. "Fine," he said with resignation. "But if they find the alien whales playing with my gutted remains later, it'll be on your conscience."
Cameron beamed. "I've dealt with worse."
Lorne grumbled something under his breath, but stepped forward and started fiddling with the clear crystals attached to the panel beside John's door.
Cameron's eyes flicked to Teyla and Ronon, finding no approval there, just that same edgy silence. "Look, we really are pros at this," she said, trying to reassure the three. "Breaking and entering. It's the first rule of being a doctor."
"I thought that was 'do no harm'," Lorne said, eyes not leaving the control panel.
"It's… derivative." The door opened with a 'whoosh', and Cameron hurried inside before she would have to spend any more time discussing the morally questionable with someone who'd be bringing up the same points she herself had argued during her first week at Princeton.
John's room was nothing at all like what she'd expected.
She'd known, of course, that being stationed on Atlantis wasn't exactly a short-lived post, and that that city's inhabitants, especially the first ones, would consider their living quarters apartments, rather than hotels. She'd guessed that John's room, him being himself, wouldn't exactly be an ideal representation of United States Military barracks, ready for inspection.
But where her room still had a suitcase hidden in the corner and empty shelves save for a framed photo of her family, John's had a blazing red-and-yellow-painted surfboard leaning against the wall, a classic guitar by its side, a stack of books sitting on a low cabinet beside that. A colorful woolen blanket was tossed over the sheets, the small room was cluttered with small signs of life – and perhaps it was the soft orange lighting that draped the room from the window that made everything seem warmer than it was, but the room didn't just feel lived in. It felt like home.
Lorne cleared his throat.
"I'm working, I'm working," she said immediately, and fought the urge to snoop around for John Sheppard's secret diary, or any clue that would take her a step closer to understanding what really went on in that mysterious man's head. He only job here was to figure out what was wrong with his body.
And one had to admit, that body was worthy of getting the very best treatment possible.
But now wasn't the time for fantasies, Cameron resolved, waving the thought away as she scanned the contents of John's one desk drawer, which consisted of a single eraser, and no pencils in sight.
Okay.
She continued searching the room clockwise, top to bottom, taking samples of the pinkish dust that had settled on the outer rim of John's windowsill, a bit of rust from one of his golf clubs, the last remaining drops of liquid from the bottom of a old fashioned glass tumbler – "The scientists like to experiment with brewing," Lorne explained, looking slightly embarrassed, like he was the one who'd allowed his CO to become a guinea pig for homemade booze – and scraped dirt from the bottom of three different boots that had visited three different planets.
"So what, you think he got sick from stepping on cow shit?" Ronon asked, a hint of a challenge in his voice. Ronon and Teyla's presence had always felt reassuring when they were offworld; now, shadowing her in John's room, they radiated hostility more than anything, and it was slightly unnerving.
"I honestly have no idea why he got sick," Cameron replied calmly, rummaging through another drawer. "But so far symptoms are pointing to an environmental cause – some sort of toxin, we think, that only seems to be affecting Colonel Sheppard."
"How is that possible?" Teyla asked, frowning.
"It can be any number of things, from his unique physiology to whatever and wherever it is that's the source of his illness, which is why I'm here." Cameron stooped down to peek under the bed, found nothing there, and moved her eyes to a copy of War and Peace that was lying on the bed stand. Flipping through, she found a bookmark on page 199, and felt an entirely new appreciation for John, never having been able to get past page 23 herself. "Can any of you think of any reason the Colonel's body would react to a toxin differently from yours?"
"He's a natural ATA carrier, for one, that's the obvious," Lorne pointed out.
Teyla appeared to give it thought. "His body was once taken over by a hostile consciousness."
"He almost mutated into a giant bug," Ronon said flatly.
Cameron stood up, surprised. "Really?"
Ronon was giving her a cold look again. "You didn't know that from his medical history?"
"We divided it between us!" she said defensively. "It would have been easier if his medical file wasn't as thick as this book," she emphasized, dropping War and Peace down on the bed.
Ronon grunted, and the other two didn't look any more pleased. Cameron opened John's closet, wanting to get this thing over with as soon as possible. B&E apparently involved entirely new levels of stress when overseen by a complete entourage, all of whom were fiercely overprotective of the target.
The rack was so small there was only room for one suit to hang from it: a blue Air Force dress uniform, identical to her brother's but different in rank insignia, badges and service medals. The narrow shelves were packed with BDUs, black, blue, beige, and various camouflage patterns. Below those, some training clothes, a drawer of socks and undies she only let herself glance at, and way down on the floor, hidden underneath a sloppily folded sheet –
"Well," Cameron said, taking in the thin, long canisters on the left, and the stocky objects stacked in a pyramid on the right. "I believe my job here is done."
"I have to admit, it does make sense," Carson said, turning the yellow canister in his hand with curiosity. "Did you run all the tests?"
"The chemicals in the compound are similar, if not identical, to what you might find in certain kinds of pesticide on Earth," Foreman said, explaining for the benefit of others in the room: aside from Chase and Carson, Sheppard's entire team was crowded next to his bedside. "They're an exact match for the toxins we found in his blood."
Carson nodded. "And considering that he may still have traces of the Iratus in his genome, it explains why he was both so severely affected and more susceptible than anyone else would have been."
McKay glared at Sheppard, who was lying weakly on an infirmary bed, hooked up to two IVs, hair faring as well as usual. "What the hell," he started heatedly, "made you think it was a good idea to hoard thirty cans of Ancient bug spray at the bottom of your closet?"
Sheppard avoided his gaze.
McKay continued, his voice rising in tone. "Did you not consider the fact that something that killed bugs was maybe, oh I don't know, poisonous?? Or that let alone the apparently foreign concept of an expiration date, any of these containers might have actually developed a leak within the course of ten thousand years? Or that, oh yeah, you don't touch Ancient stuff without running it by me first? I mean, what was going through you head, John? What?"
Sheppard squirmed. "I don't like bugs?"
Ronon raised a hand to his mouth and coughed, hiding a smile. Rodney raised his hands in a frustrated huff, eloquently conveying I just don't know what I'm going to do with him.
"Colonel," said Carson, "I agree you should have acted more responsibly with the matter. However, what's done is done, and at least we've identified the toxins."
"And with this knowledge, you can heal him?" Teyla asked, looking hopeful.
Foreman sighed. "Yes. And no." The relieved expressions on Sheppard and his teammate's faces lasted only a moment. "Now that we've got the poison narrowed down to specific elements, we know what treatment to put him on. But we still don't know how exactly he's been getting contaminated all this time, and unless we know for sure, it'll probably just keep happening."
"I thought we already settled that," McKay said, ticking off his fingers, "Colonel's idiocy, bug spray in closet, poisoned clothes. Did I miss something?"
"It's not that simple," Chase explained. "The test results showed that the amount of toxins found on his clothes wouldn't be enough to cause such a severe reaction. Most of the poison wasn't absorbed through the skin, but inhaled through the lungs."
McKay crossed his arms. "Well, how do you explain that, then?"
Chase and Foreman both turned to Sheppard, who shrugged meekly. They exchanged a long look, wordlessly daring each other to say the words.
Finally, Chase sighed. "Colonel, is there anything you're not telling us?"
Teyla looked shocked. "Surely you are not suggesting that the Colonel has been lying about something?"
And for God's sake, Foreman thought, Chase did not just look up and whistle.
"We can call it omitting, of you like," Foreman said.
"Look, even Sheppard's not so dumb as to leave out details relevant to his medical treatment," McKay dismissed, then appeared to realize who he was speaking about and turned to Sheppard with horror. "Oh my God you did, didn't you?" Sheppard grimaced. "Just how broken is your brain?"
"Easy there, Rodney," Carson said, hovering protectively next to Sheppard's head. "Don't take out his hearing too. John?"
"Look, I didn't leave out anything, okay?" Sheppard protested, his voice still slightly hoarse from intubation.
Chase shook his head with disappointment. "Actually, we already have a hunch," he said. "We're just waiting for Dr. Cameron to come back with her last test results—"
"Got it!" Cameron appeared in the doorway, looking pleased. She lowered her eyes to Shappard's face affectionately. "You could have told us, John, you shouldn't feel embarrassed about it. There's nothing wrong with being sensitive."
Sheppard's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"
Cameron brandished a thick orange candle in her left hand.
"Oh." He flushed. "That."
"I found a whole bunch of them in your closet, right next to the spray containers." Cameron explained, setting the candle down on a table and peeling off her gloves. "And they're absolutely soaked with the poison – so much, actually, that you'd only have to breathe them in for a few hours to get as sick as you did. The fact that this – Ancient — brand of bug spray is odorless would make it impossible to detect at the time."
Ronon picked up the candle and studied it. McKay peered at it as well, and his eyes dawned with realization. "These are the candles you lit when I was trying to ascend, aren't they? What were you doing with them now? Cooking yourself a romantic dinner? Checking the effect of candlelight on your hair?"
"I lit them before going to sleep. I…" Sheppard closed his eyes with a pained expression. "I like their scent, okay?"
Ronon turned his face away and coughed again. Teyla's lips twitched. Carson said, "It's all right, Colonel. Anyone would need to relax a bit after spending their days with Rodney. I'm just glad you'll be fine now."
McKay scowled at him. Foreman spread his hands, allowing himself to feel the short lived satisfaction of a puzzle solved, being hit, for a moment, by how much he missed it. "QED."
"Oh please," McKay snapped, "quit pretending that medicine can use mathematical proof like it's an actual science."
Par for the course, Foreman reminded himself, clenching a fist. Fucked up genius. Saves the world every other week.
Yeah.
By the end of summer, their routine had settled into – well, nobody wanted to call it dull, because really, they were in a galaxy far far away – and none of them were arrogant enough to consider themselves overqualified to treat gunshot wounds and patch up broken bones for soldiers wounded in the line of duty –
Or, well, none of them were arrogant enough to voice those thoughts aloud.
An encounter with the Wraith left Cameron three physical years older, but Chase assured her he had a thing for older women, and anyway, now she was older than Foreman and felt entitled to boss him around (not that it actually made him listen to her, but still.)
Chase amused himself with small things; puns ("Atlantis, this is Weir"/"We're what?"; that one never grew old, even when Cameron forbade him from making jokes ever again), squelching the occasional cockroach ("I have no problem with bugs," he said smugly, and Foreman rolled his eyes), concocting his indigenous drink, the Lupulupy (which the citizens of Atlantis actually developed a genuine taste for. When Zelenka tried to make some himself, Ronon took a sip and scrunched his nose, saying, "It's not Lupulupy." Nobody else understood why the three of them cracked up.)
During a visit to the infirmary to yell at one of his scientists for self-inflected injuries, Rodney caught Foreman sneering at him from behind a patient chart. "Oh, get over yourself already," Rodney finally snapped. "Everywhere you go there's going to be someone like us. We're here, we're startlingly more intelligent than you and general assholes and something that rhymes with queer and, well, sometimes that too, get used to it. You don't like House, you don't like me, I get it. But can you at least stop being prissy about it and let me yell at my underlings in peace?" The only reason they didn't avoid each other after that was that they were both trying to out-stubborn the other. Everybody within a hundred feet of the two, though, knew to stay out of the McKay/Foreman feud.
One day in the beginning of September, on one of those days with no patients and no missions and no undone Sudokus (Sheppard had a knack for hunting them and filling them all in) and no emails to reply to (Carson was eerily prompt about that), Chase and Foreman were having lively discussion about Grey's in the mess hall.
"What is 'Grey's'?" Teyla asked curiously, reminding them that not everyone was familiar with Earth's current (or, in fact, any) pop culture references.
"It's a television show," Cameron replied, "it tells a story in episodes. It's very fascinating, if you've just been fired from your job and want to feel superior over petty interns."
"No, no, it's got brilliant romance!" Chase leant forward. "See, there's this doctor, right, Meredith, and this guy Shepherd, and everyone's basically waiting for them to get together already – although if you ask me I don't know why, because Shepherd's all messed up, you know, with his ex-wife and his weird fixation with ferris wheels—"
At which point Rodney choked two tables over, Teyla smiled widely, and half the cafeteria stared.
"Ferry boats," Foreman corrected mildly.
"Right," Chase said, distracted, "those," and proceeded to animatedly explain the rest of the plot to Teyla.
John clapped Rodney on the back until he settled down. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that one wasn't on when we left Earth in 2004."
Which went to show that life on Atlantis was immensely exciting, except for when it wasn't.
In the end, space was nice and all, but, well. McKay was still an ass, and they'd just discovered how the three positions on Carson's team had become available in the first place (disturbing information, to say the least), and there was that thing, on PCX-113 which they vowed never to speak of again, and the new Harry Potter had come out on Earth over a month ago, and Chase still had some money riding on whether Snape was evil after all.
And maybe, maybe, they kind of missed home, a little.
Their goodbyes were swift, or droll, or heartfelt. As a gesture of goodwill, Foreman left the Atlanteans with James Wilson's business card and a word of advice. "Just… try to stay away from nukes. And if you ever get back to Earth, when you get cancer, call this guy. He's the best."
Rodney frowned. "Don't you mean, when we get back to Earth, if we get cancer?"
"…No."
"Let it go, McKay," John murmured with a gently restraining hand on his arm, and smiled easily at the three doctors. "We appreciate it. Have a safe trip back."
"Cheers!" Carson waved, smiling warmly, and for the last time they took in Atlantis, this great city with its crystal towers and sparkling waters and hardworking people, which was certainly home. It just wasn't theirs.
When the Daedalus beamed them up, they were ready to return.
Epilogue
House didn't actually care what his fellows had been doing over the summer; being able to exchange New Guys' incompetence for the more familiar incompetence of his old fellows was enough for him. And even if he was mildly curious, he wasn't about to do anything ridiculous, like ask them to share.
However, a few days after they'd returned to work whatever buzz they'd been riding over the summer faded away, and suddenly the kids wouldn't meet each others' eyes, refused to talk to Wilson about it, and it was getting on his nerves. There was an uncomfortable silence in the office – not the frosty you-stole-my-article kind, but the awkward morning after kind.
And once the suspicions were raised in his head, House made a phone call to Washington.
"Jack," he said pleasantly, "is there any reason my newly rehired minions are acting like aliens made them do it?"
The silence stretched for five beats. "Sorry," O'Neill said, almost cheerfully, not asking who House was talking about. "Classified information."
"Right," House said with delight. "Kinky."
"I have... no idea what you're talking about."
"Of course. As you were."
"Doing paperwork." O'Neill paused. "Yay. Goodbye, House," he sighed.
House hung up, smirking.
fin
Last notes: the "You guys know we can hear you, right?" joke was taken from Sports Night, and I'm not sure if the idea of poisoned candles came from my mind or one of Pratchett's Discworld novels, but I suspect it was the latter. The Czech spoken here was what I could dig up from online research, and translates to "You're Czech?" "Er, no, my father. I don't speak much Czech", but feel free to correct me if you spot mistakes. For those of you wondering why John was so embarrassed at liking scented candles, the real reason is that they create ambiance whenever he's posing for Lorne, and Lorne swears he's not that good a painter, really – it's the candlelight working miracles. Thanks for reading :-)