Blinded by Science

(Author's note: Just my interpretation on why Sheppard and McKay seem just 'not quite right' compared to season one… This was written after viewing "Trinity," but before seeing "Instinct," so hey, the following episodes could blow this all out of the water. Dialogue from part 4 of story is from the last scene of the episode) [Thanks to talbert6@earthlink.net for her beta-ing assistance!]

PART 1

Two minutes.

It was the longest two minutes in his entire life, getting back through the gate. Worse than when he'd flown the puddle jumper in a suicidal mission to destroy a Wraith hive ship. Worse than when the rotor on his chopper he'd been piloting in Afghanistan had been shot down by enemy forces and the craft had plummeted like a rock to the ground, crashing and throwing himself and his crew about like a child's toys.

Rodney's panicked side-seat driving in the fleeing jumper had escalated beyond mere distraction to the point that Sheppard had yelled at the man to just shut up. Worse, Sheppard had thought they could outrun the catastrophic overload that the Ancient weapon would create and double-back to the gate, but then Rodney screamed that three-quarters of the entire damn solar system was going to be obliterated in a matter of seconds. If the Daedalus hadn't shown up, they'd probably have been nailed by one of those weapon blasts trying to get through the gate.

The transition from the doomed planet's orbital junkyard to Atlantis' safe gateroom had been jarring. The gate was shut down immediately so there was no chance of any residual 'blowback' from the destruction of such a massive chunk of space. Just what was in that solar system? How many other planets, and god, were any of them inhabited?

The silence inside the jumper was deafening, because Rodney had lapsed into a state of perhaps guilty silence over what he'd done, or maybe because Sheppard was clenching his jaw so tight he was amazed he hadn't cracked any teeth yet. His mind felt trapped between terror of having just literally escaped dying and seething anger because he'd had to physically grab Rodney to shake common sense into the man.

Weir's uneasy voice crackled over the radio. “Are you two all right?”

“Yes,” came Sheppard's terse reply.

“What happened?”

Sheppard didn't even deign to look at the subject of his roiling emotions. “Rodney blew up the damned planet, that's what happened.”

---

It had been hours since the curt but tense debriefing with Weir, and what, really, was there for them to say? Sorry, made a mistake, hope nobody had any real estate in that part of the galaxy? Both men had been summoned to Weir's office immediately after debarking the jumper. Sheppard had just forced himself into a neutral mode, said as little as possible, and without any regret, left McKay there. In fact, it wasn't like he had much of a choice. Weir had had her say as to his participation in the fiasco – mostly in the form of a tongue-lashing in the disappointment category – and dismissed him. He knew that McKay was in for a helluva lot worse but didn't feel like sticking around to witness the fireworks. And he knew it would be worse because McKay still didn't seem to realize the implications of his actions.

Elizabeth had nixed the second mission in the beginning with very good reason. It was hard to rid his mind of the vision of Dr. Collins, his cooked body just steaming away on the floor of the command access tube. His skin was as red as a well-done lobster, and the smell…dreadful, but not as horrifically memorable as someone whose charred corpse was pulled from a burnt helicopter. And having to put in motion the proper channels so that Collins next of kin could be informed of his demise, but sorry, we can't say how or where he died and by the way, no, you can't have his body back… he pushed that bleak scenario from his thoughts.

But he knew that his words alone would probably not persuade Elizabeth to change her mind. When he spied Colonel Caldwell in a corridor talking with several of his people, he approached the man. It wasn't groveling, but presenting a different view on the experiment. He knew that Earth-bound interests were pushing for some bang for their buck. That was far from his own priority, which was the here and now and stopping the Wraith from devastating Pegasus and moving onto Earth.

Colonel Caldwell put his two cents worth into the case to continue experiments with the Ancient technology. He'd had a vested interest in a new weapon that could fight back or even eradicate the Wraith. Even Sheppard couldn't deny that any weapon to stop the Wraith from eating up the rest of the Galaxy was worth looking into. No matter, he still felt like he'd placed Elizabeth between a rock and a hard place when he'd said he protect Rodney by accompanying the scientist to the planet. But protect from whom? It was undeniable that Weir wanted Rodney protected from his own arrogance. Sheppard placed himself in that role and he'd grudgingly agreed to the mission. She knew, as Sheppard realized, that eventually the SGC would order experiments to continue once word got back to Earth on the incredible power source.

He'd trusted McKay to do his best, but not to plow ahead heedless of escalating power surges that were going to get them killed. Rodney had asked for his trust – had pleaded for it – and even with the incredible risks, Sheppard had reluctantly given it. Yet after Zelenka had expressed serious reservations on continuing the experiment after presenting his calculations, Rodney had angrily dismissed him, but guaranteed Sheppard that he knew what he was doing. But he hadn't.

PART 2

The scuttlebutt about Weir's earsplitting dressing-down of Rodney McKay in her office had spread throughout Atlantis like the shockwave of a nuclear bomb. The analogy was perversely appropriate: after all, the disaster had been even beyond the magnitude of destruction that kind of weapon could create.

Yet Sheppard had found it easy not to deal with it. When Rodney's voice filtered over his earpiece, Sheppard chose to ignore it. He wasn't in the mood to say something he might later regret and he knew that in the state of mind he was currently in, there was a very strong chance that words of that sort would be said.

Instead, he'd explained the disaster to Caldwell, promising the man a finished report later. It was not something that he was looking forward to writing. He knew that Caldwell's superiors on Earth would be even less pleased to know that a potential weapon against the Wraith was now gone forever, but in reality, would it have ever worked?

Sheppard paused in the corridor he'd been aimlessly walking along, then rubbed fingers deeply at the bridge of his nose. A headache was working its way in, promising him a sleepless night.

After a moment, he realized that he wasn't far from the workout room where he frequently sparred with Teyla. Although he hadn't brought his equipment, it was also a place he could simply just sit and be alone, or maybe kick the walls with wild abandon. He wasn't sure which he wanted to do more in order to sort out his conflicted feelings.

He entered the room, surprised to find Teyla already there. He hadn't realized she'd returned from the trading mission to Belkan. Damn, he felt out of the loop. Teyla was in her workout gear, facing the opposite wall, oblivious to his presence. She aggressively moved into a pose, sticks at the ready. Abruptly, she pulled back into a standing position, screamed in frustration, then turned and threw the sticks.

“Dammit!” swore Sheppard angrily. He rubbed at a spot where a stick had struck his shoulder. “What the hell is your problem?”

Teyla was startled. “Colonel, I—“ She moved forward, then halted as though unsure how to proceed. “Did I hurt you?”

“Just my pride,” he grumbled. He picked up the sticks that had landed next to him, handing them back to her. “Should have dodged those flying objects. Good thing it wasn't a Wraith stunner blast.”

“I am sorry,” she apologized.

“Well, at least I'm here to get hit by sticks.” Sheppard suddenly didn't feel like sorting out his emotions by kicking walls. He sat down on the padded bench by the window, drawing up one leg as he leaned against the wall.

“I understand that not all went well on your mission to Duranda.” Teyla gathered a towel from her kit, wiping the sweat from her face.

“Well, that's the biggest understatement of the galaxy.” Sheppard rubbed a palm against his forehead, wishing he'd never answered Rodney's knock on his door earlier that day. “And how was your trip?”

He heard a 'hmmph' noise back in response. He opened his eyes slowly, watching curiously as Teyla dumped her exercise kit in between them on the bench and sat down. “What? Flax bean shortage? Price gouging?”

“Let me just say that negotiations the next time will not be as amenable.” Teyla forcibly jammed a stick into the bag, making Sheppard wonder whom she really wanted to do that to.

“What happened?” he asked. God, he'd actually welcome news of a simple ordinary ran-into-a-Wraith took-care-of-it tale.

“Ronon participated in the negotiations.”

Sheppard frowned, puzzled. He'd known that Teyla had taken the Satedan weapons specialist with her on the mission, but Ronon was not a negotiator, at least not when it came to mincing words. His idea of negotiation – if their experience on Olesia was any indication - was done with weapons, usually a gun, pointed at someone's head. “What did he do?”

Teyla didn't meet his eyes for a moment, staring into the depths of her bag as though maybe the answer lay there. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what was bothering her so much. “He drew a knife. He did not make an overt threat, but the intent was there,” she replied. “I managed to smooth things over, but the next set of negotiations will be… uncomfortable.”

Well, crap, that wasn't good, but at least Dex hadn't blown up a whole damned world. “Anything else I should know?” The man hadn't been on Atlantis very long. He was a good soldier, but in some respects, he was still an unknown quality, and right now, Sheppard's trust in those close to him had taken a nasty hit.

Teyla hesitated a moment. He detected a dark flicker across her eyes, but again he wasn't sure what she was thinking about, probably because he was still thinking too much about Rodney's nearly obsessive cry of 'Just one second!' after Sheppard had ordered him to stop. “Ronon is not the only survivor from his world,” she replied at last. “Apparently over 300 of his people managed to survive the Wraith attack, and have scattered across various worlds.”

Sheppard arched an eyebrow, the implications of that statement running a flurry of scenarios through his mind. “Will he be joining them?” A logical question, considering how morose Dex had appeared upon viewing his desolated home world.

“I do not think so.”

Sheppard waited for more, but Teyla remained incredibly silent. Okay, so something hadn't gone down well on that mission. It could be the knife incident, or the ruination of a good trade relationship, but he sensed it was something more than that, yet didn't feel like pressing, at least not yet.

Teyla looked up from the bag. “Did the explosion truly destroy part of a solar system?”

Sheppard stood abruptly, pacing over to the other side of the room. He ran both hands hard through his hair as he tried to get his thoughts in order. “Not just one planet, but a couple others as well,” he replied tersely.

Teyla drew in a startled breath. “They were not inhabited…”

“No.” He'd found Zelenka after the debriefing. Had him double-check the Ancient database. Fortunately the two planets within the projected radius of destruction were uninhabitable and even 10,000 years of planetary evolution wouldn't have changed that fact. It was one thing to kill over 50 men by putting up the gate's shield to defend Atlantis, but Sheppard didn't know how he could deal with genocide on a planetary scale, even if it was unintentional.

“That is good.” Teyla sounded relieved.

But then what had Rodney talked about on the way to Elizabeth's office? How the experiment should have worked – he was still convinced, on some unfathomable realm – that Project Arcturus was not a failure, and that if nothing else, at least they were okay.

And it had been that last, almost casually tossed-off statement – as if making light of their near death would somehow lessen the horror – that had locked Sheppard into a stonewall of silence. If McKay had been one of his men, a soldier, he would have reamed him out worse than Weir had done. Hell, he might have even decked him down on that planet. He had an explosive temper, he knew, but it took a LOT to drag it out of him.

But McKay wasn't a soldier.

Sheppard paced to the next wall. He spied a ball that someone had left there and aggressively kicked it. The ball ricocheted off a couple walls, narrowly missing Teyla in its path. He realized his mistake too late, but in response, the Athosian simply arched an eyebrow in a reproachful manner, indicating her ire at his recklessness, but also her understanding.

He directed a short but apologetic smile her way, then paced again. He felt trapped within himself.

“I'd be dead. McKay would be dead. If I hadn't dragged him out of there,” he continued. “Just one more minute, just one more second.” He almost spat out those phrases, remembering how McKay kept frantically uttering them as the installation was literally falling down around their heads. Sheppard focused his angry gaze at the ball once more. “The damned idiot was just obsessed with making that weapon work no matter what the cost.”

“He has always been preoccupied with his work,” observed Teyla.

“But not obsessed,” countered Sheppard hotly. “Not to the point…”Where if McKay hadn't finally obeyed, Sheppard might have hit the man to knock some much-needed sense into him. He couldn't help but remember some of General O'Neill's remarks in Rodney's file folder – he'd seen it after taking him onto the team – in which O'Neill made some less than flattering remarks about the scientist's obsession with getting a broken Stargate working – even at the risk of 'erasing' the SG-1 team member, Teal'c, who was trapped in the gate's 'buffer.' Rodney had changed in the time he'd known him on Atlantis, but was he back to that attitude now? Science over life? Or had he always been like that and Sheppard just hadn't seen it?

The ball rolled in a tantalizing pattern near his feet. He focused his frustration on the thing, kicking it again, but at a trajectory he knew wouldn't go near Teyla.

“We could be dead. Hell, all of Atlantis could have been obliterated if that planet had blown with the gate open.”

Sheppard watched the ball come to a stop in the far corner, as if leery of getting near him again. Teyla stood, gathering her bag. “I am going for a walk.”

Sheppard stared in puzzlement. “Where?”

“Some place quiet.”

Sheppard let the hint of a tired smile touch his lips, hoping that the unspoken invitation he'd detected was there. “I know just the place.” He strode over and grabbed the red ball. “C'mon, Wilson.”

PART 3

The corridor which led down to the south pier was extremely long, and best of all, devoid of any human activity. That was good, as 'Wilson' sailed far into the distance and rebounded off a wall near a turn in the corridor.

Sheppard had explained to her that Wilson was the name given to a volley ball by a character in a movie called “Castaway.” A man had been stranded on an island, alone, for years. He'd turned the inanimate object into a 'friend' in whom he could confide his fears and work out problems.

However, this Wilson was definitely not being treated as a friend. Sheppard had kicked the ball with all his might. Teyla felt that he was focusing all his frustrations and anger on the hapless item, which, if the abusive treatment did not let up, would not last long.

Teyla wondered if the ball was a substitute for Dr. McKay.

It was obvious that Sheppard was angry at McKay for what had transpired down on the planet, but less obvious was the fact that Sheppard had been hurt as well. Not physically, but emotionally. The Colonel was a private man who let only a small number of people past his self-imposed barriers, and McKay was one of those few. Otherwise, he projected an exterior of casual indifference that belied the deep care he had for those around him. Time and again, he demonstrated that concern by taking chances when others wouldn't.

But betrayal of that confidence could be costly.

Teyla watched Sheppard as he walked down the corridor to retrieve the ball. He hadn't answered her last question, and actually seemed to be ignoring her. “Colonel.”

He kept going. He snatched the ball off the floor.

“John.”

Sheppard looked up. Wary.

“Do you still have trust in Dr. McKay?”

Sheppard simply stared at her. A hard, unflinching gaze locked on her, one that only served to empathize his troubled feelings.

“No. Yes. I don't know.” Sheppard slammed the ball into a nearby wall, catching it on the rapid rebound.

Teyla felt her own mood falter at that admission. Sheppard's confusion matched her own. She had put trust in Ronon, only to have it violated in a manner that she would not have thought possible. Perhaps on his home world, it was acceptable to use an unwitting friend to lure another to his death, but it was not that way on Athos. Although she understood his motive for the revenge killing, she could not condone the manner in which it was carried out. She also knew that if Sheppard were told of the incident, Ronon would be off the team, or worse. But for the moment, this was her burden to handle alone, and her trust for Ronon to regain.

“What?”

Teyla broke from her introspection, now aware of Sheppard's dark glare. In response, he hit the ball again. It bounced off a wall, ricocheting near her. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. She realized it was rubber, a substance derived from an Earth plant. While it didn't appear durable, it was flexible and capable of great punishment, unless it was put under too much pressure. She cast a cautious gaze at Sheppard, wondering how much resilience the human soul had before it was too damaged to mend.

She walked past Sheppard with the ball, ignoring his outstretched hand as he expected her to give it back to him. Stopping, she placed the orb in one hand, tossed it up in the air, and struck it with a firm underhand. The ball sailed down the corridor in a very satisfying arc before it struck the floor and rolled toward the outside wall.

“Damn, we need to start a volleyball team,” grinned Sheppard.

Teyla offered a brief smile in response, but followed the ball as it came to a halt at the door that led out to the pier. It was often the colonel's response to deflect deep emotion with humor, or to change the topic altogether. It was a trait he shared, whether he cared to admit it or not, with Dr. McKay. The emotional occlusion of Sheppard's people had at first been a shock, but she had reluctantly become accustomed to it, yet knew it contributed to problems such as what she was now witnessing.

Sheppard walked ahead of her and waved his hand at the panel by the side of the door. A strong breeze wafted in as the door opened. He grabbed the ball off the floor and went out on to the pier. Teyla followed, wishing that such a wind could blow away all her problems. The pier was incredibly expansive and open to the elements. She drew in a deep breath, savoring the saltiness of the mist that sprayed over them with another strong gust.

Sheppard dropped the ball and steadied it with one foot. Then, with one strong kick, propelled it over the edge into the ocean. The tiny orb bobbed up and down on the heavy waves below that lapped up against Atlantis.

“Is that what you wish to do with Dr. McKay?” she asked, knowing that bluntness was necessary to pierce Sheppard's self-imposed shell.

He turned immediately. “No!” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and opened them to stare out over the deep blue water beyond. “I still have faith in Rodney,” he replied, a tiredness seeping into his voice. “I just don't have that faith in my trust in him.”

His words mirrored her situation with Ronon. “And Dr. Weir?”

Sheppard's gaze followed the tiny ball as the large waves began to carry it away, out into the open ocean, just like in the movie. “Rodney asked me to trust him. In turn, I asked Elizabeth to trust me.” A cheerless smile crossed his face and vanished as though taken away by the wind. “The fat's gonna hit the fire when this all gets back to Earth. We blow up potentially the biggest weapon we've ever come across, but then, that's not really the issue, is it?”

Teyla said nothing.

“Hell, Rodney's saved my life, more than once,” admitted Sheppard in an almost regretful tone. “But on Duranda… he was blinded by the Ancient technology down there. It wasn't that he didn't care if we died but that he was so consumed with solving the damned problem that he nearly killed us. That he didn't have the solution but would have killed us if I hadn't stopped him. I've seen pilots who have done the same thing. They're dead.”

Sheppard turned to face her, raw emotion lining his face as a strong wind tousled his unruly hair. “How can I know that he won't do it again?” he asked, waving a hand toward the ocean. “It's not just his life at stake, or mine, but the team's lives. Or even all of Atlantis.”

Teyla knew he hadn't expected a reply from her. It was an answer he had to reach within inside himself to find, or solve with McKay, for no one could order him to trust another on that deep a level.

“Will he remain on the team?”

A lengthy, almost painful pause, before he forced himself to reply. “Yes.”

“But?” she prodded. His answer was welcome, yet she knew there was more to come.

“I don't know,” he replied honestly. “He's on the team because of who and what he is. The most brilliant mind on Atlantis and...”

Teyla did not feel she had to guess in order to continue his sentence. “A friend.” Sheppard's nod was a gesture filled with sadness, for the trust between the two men had been splintered, and the pain of that division hurt all the more so because of that friendship.

She'd noticed the widening chasm between the two men since they'd successfully fought back the Wraith from claiming Atlantis. It was not glaring, but there, just simmering beneath the surface, noticeable to those who worked closely with the two men. Ford, were he still with them, would no doubt have detected the subtleties as well.

“I have to look out for all of the team, not just McKay,” said Sheppard.

“He has been through much in recent months.”

“Haven't we all?” Sheppard replied bleakly. He went back to studying the waves.

Teyla walked over and planted herself right in front of his field of vision. “Yes, as have you.”

“Meaning?” he questioned, looking down at her.

“That it must have been difficult to reconcile yourself to death, yet still live.”

Sheppard blinked, not prepared for that particular statement. Teyla pressed on. “Yet we did survive the Wraith's siege.”

Sheppard shifted uncomfortably, but didn't change his gaze. “Yes, we did,” he added.

What he didn't say was how many had died. Too many. While many survived, the mourning was short. His people had held a brief memorial for those lost, while she had gone to the mainland, spending several days with her people remembering the lost ones. When she came back to the city, Weir and her key command people returned to Earth. She hoped that in that time, they could find solace on their home world, but that did not seem to be the case. The colonel, propelled by his own private demons, held fast to his desire to find Ford and return him to Atlantis. Dr. McKay seemed even more frenetic than before, perhaps due to the near disaster that had occurred onboard the Daedalus right before their arrival on Atlantis.

“I too, miss the Lieutenant.”

Sheppard closed his eyes at the mention of Ford, perhaps lost in a memory of a better time. “I'll find him.”

Teyla simply turned, letting a gust of wind blow the hair over her face. She pushed it aside, sighing. Before he would have said 'we,' not 'I.' It had been on that inhospitable world, where a deranged Ford had held McKay captive for many hours, that others had witnessed the schism widen between the two men. Major Lorne had wondered what was up with Sheppard and McKay, as he'd heard stories about them being friends, but he hadn't seen much of that on that world. When Sheppard had returned to the jumper, sans Ford but with McKay and Ronon in tow, he'd said barely a thing, except to acknowledge Ford's unknown fate aboard a Wraith dart.

After that, the two men had gone back to a comfortable yet empty tableau of light banter and, when stress came, arguing, such as she had witnessed on Olesia when Torrell's men had held them captive.

It pained her to see their friendship strained, and that fracture was bleeding over into their relationships with others as well. It was almost as if surviving the Wraith had pushed them apart. She knew from what others had told her that both had 'witnessed' each other's death – from the jumper impact on the hive ship, to the dart impacts on the city – only to realize seconds later that each had survived. It was almost as if by isolating their emotions they felt they could spare themselves any further grief from the pain of loss.

She had witnessed that sort of behavior in some who had lost loved ones to the horror of the Wraith, and in time, it had just left those individuals lost and hollow inside. No resolution. A life lived but only as a shell of their former selves.

“I think for Rodney, dying in vain would be the worst death,” spoke up Sheppard. “I know that Collins' death hit him hard, but…” Sheppard shook his head as if to deny any maudlin emotion. “We're at war, and people are going to die. People die on Earth, in our wars, in the stupidest ways. Auto accidents delivering supplies, friendly fire.” Sheppard glanced at her for a fleeting moment, but then back to the more soothing, perhaps less judgmental, waves that lapped up against Atlantis. “Rodney went too far.”

“You know that his actions were not done with malice,” reminded Teyla.

Sheppard frowned before looking even further away. “Yeah, well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. An old earth saying that holds a lot of merit.”

“Yet you will try.” Teyla stared at him and he met her gaze, puzzled.

“Try what?”

“To let him regain your trust.”

She cocked her head at his abruptly dark expression.

“That's up to him,” said Sheppard, almost too quietly.

“However, you must give him the opening.” Teyla locked her gaze with his eyes, trying to find an indication within those hazel depths that he would do just that, but instead he looked away.

“Should probably go back inside,” he said after a long minute. He turned back toward the entranceway, but then paused for a moment, scanning the darkening waves. “Sorry about your ball.” With those words, he ended the conversation, she knew.

“It was not mine.”

Sheppard arched an eyebrow. “Oh. Crap, hope it wasn't Dex's. He'd probably shoot me.”

Teyla shook her head, too startled for words as he walked past her. His offhand remark had brought the memory of how Ronon had killed his former taskmaster perilously close to the surface, and she wondered if she could follow the advice she had just given Sheppard.

PART 4

It was night, time to hit the sack. Sheppard headed down the corridor that would eventually lead him to his quarters. The talk with Teyla had helped, at least to a degree. The anger he'd felt at the whole situation had run its course, but he still felt drained inside, like someone had torn away something vital from him and he didn't know if he could ever get it back.

Shit.

Sheppard instantly turned on his heels, walking anywhere but straight ahead as McKay was headed right at him. He didn't want to deal with McKay right now, but the scientist kept after him like a damned terrier. “I've been looking for you.”

“I heard.” Sheppard stopped in his tracks, schooling his face into as neutral an expression as he could attain. He turned and crossed his arms against his chest, a non-verbal hint that he was busy and just didn't want to talk. As usual, Rodney ignored the hint, but at least he understood the motive behind the action.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he remarked with a quick smile. He apologized in his own odd way, and passed it off as a joke - just as he had joked about Sheppard being there on Duranda to fetch coffee. Sheppard hadn't been insulted, just put out of sorts by McKay's lack of tact and the nagging worry that doom had been lurking around the corner. He'd hated being proven right.

Yet now, the confidence the scientist had exuded before that world had blown to hell was gone, replaced by an uncharacteristic nervousness. He was barely even making eye contact as he rambled on, but Sheppard didn't want to talk. He simply said “Good one” to McKay's “that's a joke,” then turned to leave, grateful for the transporter right in front of him. He had no idea where he was going, but as long as it was without Rodney in tow, it would be fine.

Rodney's voice caught, his words about apologizing to Elizabeth and Zelenka echoing in Sheppard's ears. There was something about Colonel Caldwell and an e-mail, but despite his attentive pose, that went through him. Sheppard stood in front of the transporter, watching, feeling a bit of himself flinch inside as he kept the pain off his face while he watched Rodney crumble.

“I would hate to think that recent events might have permanently - ” Rodney paused, his voice almost quavering “ - dimmed your faith in my abilities… or your trust.”

Sheppard looked away as McKay continued, all pretense of normality gone. “At the very least, I hope I can … I can earn that back.”

Sheppard hated himself for the words that left his lips, but he couldn't lie… couldn't pretend that everything was status quo after all that had transpired. “That may take a while.”

McKay was crestfallen as he looked down at the floor. “I see.”

And in that painful display of emotion, Sheppard saw a glimmer of hope. He let a smile cross his face as he backed into the transporter. “But… I'm sure you can do it…” He reached behind, tapping on a destination on the transporter grid as McKay looked at him. “If you really want to try.” Sheppard crossed his arms. As the transporter doors closed, he witnessed a weak smile touch Rodney's troubled features.

Sheppard stepped out of the transporter in another part of Atlantis, blinking as he realized he was far from his desired destination, that of a hopefully dreamless sleep.

He'd hated leaving Rodney like that, hated himself for believing what he'd done was necessary, but what Rodney had spoken were mere words, and sadly, he had learned that words did not always carry truth. It would take actions to convince Sheppard that he could give his trust back to Rodney.

He truly hoped that Rodney could restore his trust, otherwise he didn't want to think of what would happen – to either him or to Rodney – if that didn't occur.

THE END

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