"You shot me!"

Rodney just stood there and gaped.

"You shot me!"

McKay tried to collect himself enough for a retort. Except even he was rather shocked at recent events and couldn't come up with something really pithy at the moment.

"I'm sorry?"

He cringed. Yeah, that wasn't going to go over well.

"Sorry? That's it? That's all you've got? Sorry?"

Sheppard grimaced in pain, sitting on a large moss covered rock, clamping his hand over the newly acquired wound in his right calf.

Rodney flailed his arms.

"It was an accident!"

Sheppard snorted and rolled his eyes, if it was at all possible to do that while glaring at the same time.

Rodney scrambled around in his spooked genius brain and thought he'd best try another tactic.

"I was protecting myself and Dr. Winchester! You're the brilliant mastermind who left me here all alone to watch over the jumper and the Doctor while you and Ronon went off romping in the underbrush."

McKay used his patented arm cross and scowl, trying to bluff his way past letting the colonel see he was almost on the brink of hyperventilating just thinking about what almost transpired.

Holy crap, he thought. He could've killed Sheppard.

The Colonel just looked at him for a few seconds with a somewhat bemused expression on his face.

"Romping through the...who talks like that? What is this, eighteenth century England?"

Oh yes, Sheppard was pissed. He could understand that. They'd been through this scenario before come to think of it, only the roles had been reversed.

"Rodney, I told you to keep an eye on things just in case, not just shoot anything that moves willy-nilly!"

The Colonel hissed slightly and gripped the pressure bandage on his lower leg a bit harder.

Now McKay threw a scant look at Sheppard's choice of phrase-ology.

"Did you just say willy-nilly? Seriously? Because you just jumped all over me for.."

"ROD-ney!"

"Ok, ok, not important right now." McKay held up his hands in a placating gesture.

He tried another approach.

"Look, you know I don't like being in a possible combat situation on my own, let alone be responsible for someone else."

Yeah, good, he thought indignantly. Turn the tables of guilt. Put the blame squarely where it belonged. Which was anywhere but him.

"Possible combat situation? McKay! We left you and Dr. Winchester here for all of ten minutes while we had a look around." He paused a moment and held up a finger on the hand currently not holding onto his lovely new leg wound.

"To make sure, I might add, that it was safe for the both of you to check out those ruins. Nowhere did I say to pull your Beretta and shoot anything that comes into the clearing! In fact, I'm pretty sure I told you to stay inside the jumper til we got back."

And Sheppard had now clearly lobbed the guilt ball back into Rodney's court.
Damn.

"You said to stay alert in case there was trouble."

"Explain to me, would you, how coming back to the jumper to bring you guys to the exploration site is trouble, exactly?"

Sheppard winced and shifted on his stony perch. He should not...should not have had to put up with this crap today. It was just a boring, milk run, babysitting job. With Rodney and a minion in tow. Ronon had come along merely because he'd been bored and, yes, alright, there had been Hive activity in this region of Pegasus within the last few months but local intel suggested they had already moved on. There were no people to cull on this particular planet anyhow and it had just been caution and common sense to check the area out first before bringing the scientists in.

He sighed.

It had been such a nice day, too. Sunny, temperate, and while there was alot of high and dense vegetation here it was rather pretty to look at. And speaking of pretty, Dr. Winchester wasn't exactly anything to sneeze at either. He may or may not have spent the last few weeks feeling her out with subtle flirting whenever their paths had crossed.

Or maybe not so subtle. Rodney had rolled his eyes and snorted at the staff meeting this morning when he kindly offered to take "Egghead Duty" off of Lorne's hands this time around.

Lorne was grateful. He and McKay got along just fine these days but it was still usually preferable not to be around Rodney when he got into superior genius mode around new tech.

Ronon had called shotgun and it was always amusing to watch him keep herd on McKay when he was being annoying. Also, with a second lackey for McKay to order around, that freed him up to offer Dr. Winchester his assisstance. You know, if she needed it. Or something. He was flexible.

Sheppard grimaced and sighed again. The day had really started to suck now and he would very much like to just go home, get fixed up, squirt a few drops of lemon juice in Rodney's coffee, and try to drown his sorrows in video golf.

He glanced back up at Rodney. McKay had this look on his face like he knew exactly what he'd been thinking about doing to his coffee.

Good. Let him squirm.

"You shot me."

Rodney startled. Again. At least this time he didn't pull a gun out and shoot him.

"Would you stop saying that please? I said I was sorry! I really think it's kind of petty of you to keep saying that over and over when you know how bad I feel about it."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow that just screamed irony.

McKay's shoulders slumped in obvious comprehension.

"Yes, yes, I get it, lesson learned. I swear I will never bring up you shooting me ever again."

He gave a small cough and a sideways glance. "Sooo...I guess this means..."

Sheppard cut him off and snapped out, "McKay, I swear, if you say this makes us even I will pull out my sidearm and make us uneven all over again."

He couldn't believe Rodney had the nerve to look offended at that.

McKay opened his mouth to retaliate but didn't get the chance. Ronon came up behind him right then and slapped his arm against McKay's back while addressing Sheppard.

"Grace contacted Atlantis and reported in. Keller says you may not feel like it now but you should be happy it was a clean shot and went straight through so she won't have to dig anything out."

Sheppard mulled this over a second or two.

Oh sure. Ecstatic. Over the moon. Thrilled.

Something suddenly occured to him and he narrowed his eyes at Ronon.

"Grace? Did you just say Grace? On a first name basis with Dr. Winchester now are we?" Backstabber.

Ronon grinned but offered nothing on the subject.

Great, thought Sheppard. Now two of his best friends needed killing. Teyla wasn't going to be happy.

Just then Dr. Winchester joined the rest of the group, smoothing back her hair nervously.

"Well", she said, "we should probably get the Colonel back home now. Dr. Keller says he should be okay with just the bandage til we get him back."

Ronon leaned down to help Sheppard to his feet. When he got close enough to Sheppard's ear to be heard he rumbled quietly,"She offered me her first name when I told her to call me Ronon after she'd used Mr. Dex a few times."
He smiled again. "So don't get all bent in."

Sheppard shot back, just as quietly, "You mean bent out of shape and I wasn't. Now shut up and help me to the stupid jumper."

Fine, not a backstabber. Maybe he'd only kill Rodney.

McKay started for his other side to help out but was brought up short by another Sheppard glare. Right. Ok. No touching.

Suddenly he had an inspired idea. Hey, genius here.

"Doctor," he said, "why don't you get the Colonel's other side while I get the jumper ready to take off."

"Of course, Dr. McKay." She stepped towards Sheppard. "Colonel?"

Sheppard lifted his other arm and laid it around Dr. Winchester's slim shoulders. He looked over at Rodney and saw his face fall when he connected with Sheppard's eyes again, feeling a small twinge of guilt. He knew Rodney hadn't meant to hurt him and was trying to make up for it.

He'd take the gesture for what it was. This didn't mean, however, that they wouldn't be having a very long talk in the near future all about gun safety and mission protocols. And a few days dedicated to the weapons range. Maybe a week. Not that it would help anything but he knew Rodney would hate it and that was good enough.

Ronon helped him slip on his aviators, he leaned slightly more on Dr. Winchester than was really necessary, then aimed his "buddy" smirk at McKay.

McKay caught it and slowly grinned back. He knew Sheppard would make him pay for this, creatively, but he felt better.

A light airy breeze kicked up just then and the Colonel tipped his head back a little to appreciate it for a second.

"Alright, kids," Sheppard said. "Let's go home."