The Fiery Hound of Lo’r Mawra [2/2]

[skoosiepants]

part one

4.

Rodney woke up to a city-wide blackout, and everything went downhill from there.

“It is taunting us,” Radek said, crouched down under a console in the control room. His big Taber feet kicked out and a rolling chair went careening into Chuck.

“Ow,” he squawked, rubbing his shin. “Watch it. Shouldn’t you be used to that body by now?”

Radek poked his head out just to glare at him, though the effect was minimized by Taber’s dimples.

Rodney was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him, hooked up and running a fairly routine diagnostic. There was no real reason for the power outage. The generators were working fine, the ZPM was installed correctly, they had enough raw power to last a long, long time. Radek was right; it felt like something was taunting them.

Before Radek could slip back under, the lights flickered on again. Radek cursed under his breath.

“What?” Chuck asked, bewildered. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“Not if we have no idea why it even happened,” Rodney snapped, struggling up. “All right, back to the lab.”

“Yes, so we can waste even more time on schemes that will ultimately be of no help in figuring this out,” Radek groused. He was starting to sound as sour as Rodney.

Rodney wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“Have you ruled out sabotage?” Chuck wheeled his chair across the room to his tech station. Rodney could only recall a handful of times he’d seen him up and actually walking around, not including mealtimes. He was possibly lazier than Sheppard.

Radek snorted. “Something this large-scale would leave tracks like muddy prints all over halls.”

“Unless we were the ones doing it,” Rodney said, giving Chuck’s console and the one next to it a few last tweaks. “Which I can assure you is not the case.”

“Dr. McKay.”

Rodney tapped his radio. “Yes,” he answered, slightly irritated. It was Teyla, though, and it was sort of impossible to be really irritated with Teyla.

“Are you still in the control room?” Her voice sounded strained, breathy.

He started down the steps, Radek bounding ahead of him with his annoyingly long-legged stride. “Just leaving,” he said, and then they trooped out into the hall and Teyla was standing there, white-faced, pupils blown, a hand clutching her bare stomach.

“What?” He rushed forward, panicked. “What’s wrong? Oh god, are you sick? Do you need the infirmary? Why in god’s name did you call me?”

“I have seen it,” she rasped cryptically.

“You have seen what?” Radek asked, stepping up to brace her as she staggered back against the wall.

She sagged into Radek briefly, then straightened again, lengthening her spine and pinning Rodney with her gaze. He’d never seen her so rattled. Not even the Wraith had put that much fear into her eyes.

“I have seen a harbinger.”

Radek kept a big hand around her forearm. Rodney could tell he was, for once, enjoying his borrowed body. “A harbinger?”

“With its,” she curled her fingers up by her mouth, her sudden lack of serenity obviously stunting her descriptive skills, “sharp teeth and flaming hair and... floppy ears.”

“Ha!” Rodney jabbed a finger at her. “You’ve seen the dog, and I’m not crazy!”

Teyla and Radek stared at him, Teyla with an air of disappointment—that Rodney brushed off easily, since disappointment was a far cry better than her uncharacteristic panic—and Radek with a bemusement born most likely of sadistic visions of Rodney actually being crazy.

Rodney bounced on the balls of his feet. “The dog. The.” He snapped his fingers. “Wait. Wait a minute, the dog.” If Teyla could see it… God, it was all so simple.

**

“Everyone, meet Gizmo.” Rodney surveyed the conference room with a big grin.

Gizmo plopped his ass down next to him and curved his body into a comma for a nice, long ear-scratch.

Sheppard arched his brows. “Gizmo?”

“He’s a semi-holographic representation of an Ancient gremlin program,” Rodney explained, grinning even wider. “And he’s been wreaking havoc ever since following us back from Lo’r Mawra.”

“You mean following you,” Radek put in, sliding his glasses up his nose, finally back in his own skin—which didn’t really have anything to do with finding Gizmo, but with a kind of Freaky Friday understanding the two scientists had come to, and Rodney really didn’t want to explore that any deeper.

Rodney also regretted confessing the powerbar incident to the little bastard.

Sheppard leaned back in his chair, eyeing the dog warily. “And by wreaking havoc, you mean...?”

“Destroying as many things as he could.” He patted Gizmo’s head, his texture not exactly real, but not fully incorporeal, either. He was still amazed at how non-holographic Gizmo actually was when he wasn’t invisible. They hadn’t come up with a precise term for his dense, unstable molecular makeup yet.

“I hope this damage isn’t irreparable,” Elizabeth said. But she smiled at Gizmo and held out her hand, and the setter wriggled over and licked the tips of her fingers.

Teyla was quietly freaking out in the corner of the room. Deeply ingrained horrific childhood fairytales were apparently hard to overcome in mere hours. Although what that said about the Wraith, Rodney wasn’t quite sure.

“I have every confidence that Radek and I will be able to pinpoint all the corruptions and flush them out of the corresponding systems,” Rodney said. “I’d even hazard a guess that the colonel’s selective memory loss has something to do with his interfacing the radio comm. links through the city monitoring controls.”

“Here’s a question.” Sheppard swiveled his seat back and forth. “How did he follow us through the ‘gate? If he’s essentially a computer program—”

“Easy. He hitched a ride on our tech. There’s no—” Rodney waved a hand—“downloading with this, Colonel. He’s a gremlin, not a virus.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said, nodding. “How about this, then: what was he even doing on that planet to begin with?”

“Exactly what you think he was doing,” Rodney answered, noting the gleam in Sheppard’s eyes. Jesus, he loved that gleam. It was his this-is-so-cool gleam, and Rodney felt it all the way to his toes whenever it was aimed right at him.

“Care to fill the rest of us in, gentlemen?” Elizabeth asked.

Rodney turned to her. “There’s something on that planet,” he explained, “that the Ancients didn’t want anyone to ever find.”

**

“Come on, Elizabeth, we’ll be extra careful,” Sheppard said. He shot Rodney a say-something-wheedling-but-not-too-wheedling stare behind her back.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Look, there’s clearly no hostile natives there, and I promise not to turn anything on that might blow up—what? What are you doing that for?” Sheppard was making a cutting motion across his throat. “Oh, like you both weren’t thinking about Doranda anyway.”

“I appreciate the assurances, Rodney,” Elizabeth said wryly, continuing down the hallway. “I just don’t think this mission is worth the risk at the moment.”

“What happened on Doranda?” Sheppard hissed at him, and apparently forgetting who he was meant forgetting that he’d blown up five-sixths of an entire solar system, and there was no way Rodney was going to get tricked into that conversation.

“Never mind, not important. Elizabeth,” Rodney stressed, “whatever is on Lo’r Mawra could be vital to our fight against the Wraith.”

She paused mid-step and sent him a skeptical frown. “So they placed it on an uninhabitable world with a holographic dog that could simultaneously destroy it and any other advanced tech he came in contact with?”

“See,” Sheppard said, “there might not be anything left to worry about.” He grinned winningly.

“Although if it was something that could be outright destroyed, I’m sure they’d have taken a more expedient approach,” Rodney added thoughtfully. “It’s extremely probable that Gizmo was programmed to protect something.”

“Protect something,” Elizabeth echoed, slightly incredulous. “And yet he left with you four, despite this.”

“Hey,” Sheppard shrugged, “ten thousand years. Maybe the guy went a little wonky.”

“Wonky?” Rodney snorted derisively. “Is that a technical term, Colonel?”

“All the cool kids are using it,” he shot back, expression bright.

Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

Rodney sent Sheppard a thumbs-up. The weary, broken sigh was always a sign in their favor.

**

5.

The planet felt different. It looked the same, but the air was still, the sand deeply settled.

“So I’m guessing the sandstorms were Gizmo’s doing,” Sheppard said.

“Hey.” Ronon kicked at the sand surrounding the ‘gate platform, then bent down. “My coat.”

“Oh excellent,” Rodney cracked. “I’m sure it’s extra stinky now that it’s been baking in the sun for four days.”

Ronon glowered at him. Then he tossed the jacket back on top of the steps.

“Did the Ancients even have dogs?” Sheppard asked, surveying their surroundings with deceptive absentness.

Rodney hmm’d. He’d already thought about that. “I think that’s my fault, what with the Fiery Hound and the picture you drew Teyla. My grandfather had an Irish Setter. It was the only dog I ever liked.”

It was still hot as hell, the three suns fierce and the shade non-existent. Rodney tugged Lydia’s boonie onto his head again, adjusting the chin strap.

Sheppard cocked his head, lips twitching. “Is that yours?” he asked, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

“No, it’s Lydia’s, and not one word.”

“What?”

One of the arguably good things about Sheppard forgetting him was his utter lack of enmity towards Dr. René, whom he’d previously thought was akin to the devil. Which actually said a lot. Rodney beamed at him. “You were jealous,” he accused brightly.

Sheppard blinked. “I was jealous?”

“Justifiably, of course,” Rodney nodded, “since Lydia is seriously hot.” Rodney didn’t bother to mention the fact that Lydia thought he and Sheppard were Made For Each Other, and had tried to get him to play the Pegasus version of Mystery Date with her and Miko and Katie the day before. They’d used Polaroids of Atlantis personnel, and giggled like ten-year-olds in the corner of his lab. Rodney’d been caught between intrigue and horror, and had bolted before his innate curiosity roped him into what would’ve most likely ended up with him and a picture of Major Lorne going on a pretend date to Make-out Point.

“I was jealous of Dr. René lending you her boonie?” Sheppard’s face was screwed up incredulously. “I don’t even like boonies.”

“You’re just being deliberately stupid and obtuse,” Rodney said, disgruntled.

Sheppard grinned and slipped on his sunglasses.

“I hate you,” Rodney growled, then dug out his datapad. “Whoa.”

Moving to look over his shoulder, Sheppard made a choked sound. “I’d say that’s more of a holy shit kind of thing.”

**

“I do not understand,” Teyla said, frown marring her forehead.

They were standing outside the saloon. If possible, the town seemed even more abandoned, the sunken shells of buildings sagging almost elastically, a trick of the layered suns.

“What’s not to understand? Gizmo was cloaking the entire planet,” Rodney stressed. His sensors were going wild. He felt like kissing everybody. He felt like stripping down to sweat and nothing and nailing Sheppard against the hitching post.

From Sheppard’s hot gaze and crazy smile, Rodney was going to assume he was thinking close to the same thing.

“Cloaking?” Ronon asked. He was staring up at the saloon. Probably wondering if he could snag some more solm without Teyla noticing.

“All right, well. Dampening,” Rodney clarified, rolling a wrist. “I mean, there’s obviously an energy source here that’s been hibernating—”

“Obviously,” Sheppard echoed, still grinning.

Rodney grinned back.

Teyla cleared her throat pointedly.

“Right,” Rodney said, and tore his eyes away from Sheppard. “Anyway, the most stable signature is still emanating from the saloon, so.” He flapped a hand.

The inside of the saloon was exactly how they’d left it, two—no, four? Ronon was sneakier than he’d thought—bottles missing from the shelves, impressions of their bodies left in the dust along the floor, the bar, the walls.

A pipe lining the bar flickered bright blue as Sheppard stepped towards it. He patted the smooth surface. “Hi, there,” he purred.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Just be careful what you turn on, Colonel,” he said, and before Sheppard could rebut with something no doubt embarrassingly coquettish, the bar top whirred and flipped and all sorts of buttons and screens and levers lit up, and Rodney just barely refrained from cooing, “Oooo, pretty.”

Then he said, “Don’t touch anything,” just as Sheppard pressed three buttons at once, and the ground started its angry rumbling again.

In the distance, a whistle sounded.

**

“I didn’t do it.” Sheppard had his hands up, eyes wide.

“That sort of defense actually works better with no witnesses,” Rodney grumbled. “And what are you? Five?”

The rumbling had stopped, though, and they stepped out of the saloon to see... a puddlejumper. Well, it looked like a puddlejumper, but it was three lengths longer and had linked wheels and was slowly rolling along the metal and wooden tracks, sliding to a stop right outside the brothel, gray-white smoke billowing out the back. Like a ghost train.

“Wow,” Sheppard breathed. He shouldered his P-90.

“What’s that?” Ronon asked.

“It’s the dream of every boy who ever wanted to be a white hat,” Rodney muttered. “Or a coal miner.” The entire rotting carcass of a town was straight out of a kid’s old west fantasy. Rodney really wondered what the Ancients had been playing with. Or taking.

“Gold rush, Rodney.” Sheppard grinned with his mouth closed and hummed Clementine with a twang—yes, Rodney could hear it—and strolled toward the train with a loose-hipped swagger. The bastard.

Up close it looked even more like a puddlejumper, the same rounded shape, the angled front end, and it was coated with a dark, shimmery dust that rubbed black between Sheppard’s fingertips.

“Good to see you’re adhering to protocol, Colonel,” Rodney said. “Let’s hope your hand doesn’t fall off.”

Sheppard arched an eyebrow at him. He rivaled Teyla in the my-face-is-talking arena. Rodney didn’t see the point, since being loud was ten times more satisfying.

But Rodney waved a hand and said, “Carry on.” He was ninety-nine percent certain nothing on the train would kill them. Unless there was a ninja miner hidden somewhere, in which case, Sheppard would no doubt warn them all with a manly scream of surprise.

Sheppard was already towards the front of the car by the time Rodney climbed aboard, and there was a large, shiny blue Y glowing on the wall to the left of the console.

“Hey, doesn’t that look like—”

“Oh god, no. No, no, no, we are not having this conversation, and no. No, this is not a time-traveling ghost train.”

Sheppard pouted.

He seemed kind of lost at the controls, too, and Rodney demanded, “Can you drive it?” He took the copilot seat, settling down next to Sheppard.

“It’s a little less complicated than a spaceship, Rodney,” he said dryly. “I think I can handle it.”

The specs that scrolled across the air in front of their faces were almost exactly like the ‘jumpers, and the thing loved Sheppard just as much as any other Ancient tech. It powered up with a whine, wheels grinding metal as it started forward.

About five minutes out of town, the ground opened up into a tunnel, steeply pitched, and Rodney squeezed his eyes closed as they went flying down.

**

“Are we dead?” Rodney cracked open an eye. His fingernails hurt from where he’d dug them into the armrest.

“I do not believe so,” Teyla said, amused.

Sheppard bounced out of his seat. “Time to explore,” he said, clapping his hands once. His eyes were dark. The pulse at the base of his neck was beating prominently. Sheppard was a definite thrill junky.

Rodney liked to think that possible eminent death did nothing for him, but there was something to be said for the thank-god-I’m-alive euphoria. If he and Sheppard had been at the licking-each-other stage of their... whatever the hell it was they might have, Rodney wouldn’t have minded placing his tongue there, right next to the notch at his throat.

Sheppard flashed him a knowing brow-waggle as he slipped past, P-90 raised as Ronon opened the door, and. They really were on a mining planet, apparently. Huh.

The shaft was dimly lit, but brightened at Sheppard’s say-so, of course, and the walls glittered with the same obsidian dust that covered the ‘jumper-shaped train.

“What do you think it is?” Sheppard asked.

“Something important enough to warrant a gremlin,” Rodney said.

Ronon snorted. “Or dangerous enough.” He reached out, fore- and middle fingers sliding over the gritty rock, and Rodney snapped, “For god’s sake, don’t taste it,” just before they entered his mouth.

“I’ve been cursed with morons in every facet of my life,” Rodney groused, scrambling for his canteen.

Sheppard squeezed his arm. “Just focus on the entertainment value.”

Rodney glowered at him.

“It’s leesil,” Ronon grunted after rinsing out his mouth.

Teyla started with surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Ronon shrugged.

Sheppard leaned forward, swiping the wall like Ronon, but giving it a tentative sniff instead of ingesting it, thank god.

“It is usually burned to release energy,” Teyla explained, eyeing the mine with awe, “but the smoke can be toxic if breathed in. I have never seen so much of it in one place.”

Sheppard’s brows furrowed. “Coal?” he asked.

And that’s when the crazy old prospector showed up.

**

Never mind the fact that Rodney was most likely going to contract black lung, since they’d been deep in the heart of a coal mine. The mentally imbalanced old man with the sawed off shotgun and tattered Genii uniform was probably going to kill him first.

Trust Sheppard to be almost giddy at the thought of being locked up in the jail, though.

“Come on,” Sheppard whispered as they were ushered through the empty town, “what’s he gonna do? He probably doesn’t have any rounds for that thing, if it even works, and he looks about seventy years old.” The crazy Genii had left their own guns down in the mine. Typical rookie sitcom villain mistake.

“And you’re going to just let him lock us up?” Rodney hissed.

Ronon looked a little confused about that, too, but since the threat wasn’t immediate, the old man was talking about himself in third person, and was—Rodney conceded the point—just about seventy years old, he seemed content to go along.

“You are all really, really stupid,” Rodney grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest, falling back to pace Teyla.

She smiled over at him. “I believe Colonel Sheppard wants the—”

“Crazy man,” Sheppard prompted over his shoulder.

Teyla nodded slightly. “To tell us what he is doing here, and perhaps he will be more inclined to share if we cooperate with his—”

“Crazy delusions.” Sheppard cocked a finger at her.

“All right, stop it with the crazy,” Rodney demanded.

And then the crazy Genii let out a garbled, “Yee-haw!” and fired his shotgun into the air. Though it was an alien shotgun, and it sounded more like a repeating laser before it coughed up a plume of black smoke and melted.

The old man dropped it with a yelp.

Rodney slapped a palm over his forehead and closed his eyes.

**

“This is kinda cool, Rodney,” Sheppard said, settling down next to him on the floorboards.

“Yes.” If you liked being locked up in a rotting jail cell that Rodney’s grandmother could’ve broken out of, waiting for an imbecilic alien to spill all his most important secrets.

Sheppard drew a knee up and tilted his head towards him. “Look,” he said, voice suspiciously low and thick, “I completely understand about you not wanting to,” he glanced across the room where Teyla and Ronon were locked in their own prison and playing oblivious—which Rodney totally wasn’t buying—“watch Dune with me yet. I really, really do.” A hand slid onto Rodney’s outstretched leg, palming just above his knee, and Rodney pointedly glanced down at it.

“Oh, yeah, you seem like you understand,” Rodney said.

“But here’s the thing.” Sheppard shifted, catching Rodney’s eyes. “What if I never remember?”

A twist of panic clenched Rodney’s stomach, but it fizzled away at the feel of Sheppard’s fingers wandering casually up his thigh. “We’re working our way through all the communication backlogs—”

“What if this is it, though? What if all we can do is go forward? Are you going to tell me that’s wrong?” he half-growled.

Rodney could tell he was a little pissed off. God, that was hot. “Um.”

“From what I’ve read, I’ve already put in an awful lot of effort with you,” he whispered, close to his ear. “Are you saying I have to start over? Because I don’t think that’ll work for me.”

“It,” Rodney’s voice did not break, “it won’t?” What were they talking about again?

“No,” Sheppard said, and opened his mouth up along Rodney’s jaw, and Rodney babbled, “Okay, wait, we’re in public, Colonel,” and jammed an elbow into Sheppard’s sternum. “Public! As in on display for two aliens easily amused by Earth culture!”

Sheppard mouthed a quiet ”ow” and rubbed at his chest. His other hand remained stubbornly on Rodney’s leg. “Are you going to call me John?”

“What? No! Let go of me, you idiot. We’re in a hostage situation,” he hissed, shackling Sheppard’s wrist and shoving him back.

Sheppard blinked at him blankly, then bounced his gaze to where the gnarled old coot had passed out in the sheriff’s chair about a half hour before. He looked kind of dead.

So, fine. Not exactly in dangerous territory. He still wasn’t giving Ronon and Teyla a show. Although Rodney was mainly blocking Sheppard from sight, and it probably just looked like they were having a heated conversation. Or playing a game. But the bigger problem, the one that actually mattered, was that Sheppard was trying to skip a whole lot of courtship.

“Keep your hands to yourself.” Rodney jabbed a finger at him, scrambling to his feet, because there was a time and place, and preferably Sheppard would get his memory back, since it was only a simple matter of pinpointing what Gizmo did and reversing it, but even if he didn’t Rodney wanted Sheppard to have more than just a paper trail. He could totally hold out.

**

6.

They’d dragged the crazy old Genii back through the ‘gate with them after learning he’d been exiled for being old and crazy, and Carson had his hands full with him in the infirmary. Elizabeth didn’t seem all that pleased with their guest, but Sheppard had stubbornly refused to leave him behind. Rodney just hoped he didn’t get loose in the city. That’s all they needed: a senile hobo camping out in the bowels of Atlantis, hoarding rubber bands and warm cans of pop.

“So.” Elizabeth gazed at them expectantly, hands clasped in front of her on the table.

“Turns out the Ancients were hippie environmentalists,” Rodney said, biting into a powerbar.

“Leesil mines, almost like coal,” Sheppard elaborated, slumping lower in his chair, legs spread as he angled towards Rodney. “Looks like they decided fossil fuels weren’t the direction to go—”

“Right, yes. Health concerns, pollution, etcetera. I’m happy I don’t owe my soul to the company store. Are we done?” Rodney wanted to get out of there before Sheppard tricked him into watching Dune, damn it. A little shameless flirting and hot eyes and Rodney would give it up without any other incentive at all. He deserved more chocolate. And coffee. And that little figurine of Darth Vader Vogel had peeking out of his lab coat pocket.

Elizabeth pursed her lips, eyes dropping to Gizmo sitting by his side, head propped on the edge of the table. “Not entirely, Rodney.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Rodney demanded, slightly indignant on his gremlin’s behalf.

“Rodney,” Sheppard said.

“The east pier almost fell into the ocean this morning,” Elizabeth said, brows arched.

“I can fix him,” Rodney insisted. Gizmo had been faithfully following him everywhere. “He’ll be an important addition to the city.”

“Rodney,” Sheppard drew out again. He tapped the table with his fingers. “He was there for a reason.”

Rodney harrumphed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Radek informed me you recorded all the information you could about him,” Elizabeth pointed out calmly, “and I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave the planet unguarded. Do you?”

Radek was a dirty traitor.

“But—”

“You can’t keep him, Rodney.” Elizabeth had a stern, final decision frown on her face, and Rodney shot Sheppard a glare. He’d been no help at all.

“Give me a week,” he said to Elizabeth, but his eyes told Sheppard that he’d better spend that entire week plying Rodney with cupcakes and spectacular feats of math if he wanted to get into his pants with all his limbs intact.

**

Ever since walking a few miles in each other’s shoes, Taber and Radek had some creepy mind-meld thing going on. It weirded Rodney out. Everyone else thought it was neat.

“Neat?” Rodney asked disdainfully.

Chuck shoved a corn muffin into his mouth and nodded. His cheeks puffed out as he chewed.

“You’re just jealous, Doc,” Lieutenant Miller said, setting his tray down between Lydia and Carson. Carson smiled at him and shifted over to make room.

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t you on the wrong side of the mess?”

He scooped up what looked like shredded carrots with his spoon. “Nah. Got my geek clearance while you were off coal mining.”

“He is circus freak,” Radek explained fondly.

Miller grinned. “I can swallow fire.”

“Jesus.” Rodney rolled his eyes. He was secretly impressed, though. Swallowing fire was pretty awesome, if incredibly stupid in the grand scheme of things. Still, they’d never specified that you had to be smart to sit at their table. Just entertaining.

“That klur stuff works really great as lighter fluid,” Miller went on, nodding.

Rodney was unsurprised by that revelation.

There was a gleam of admiration in Chuck’s eyes, and Miko giggled behind her hand. Looked like the marine already had groupies.

And he was kind of right about Rodney, too—though all the seas of hell would freeze over before he ever admitted it. Rodney might’ve been a little jealous. When they really got going, he and Radek could communicate in rapid-fire half-sentences and still know what the hell they were talking about. Seeing Taber finish Radek’s thoughts or reach for things before Radek asked for them was a little disconcerting. Thank god Taber was normally all the way across the city in the biology labs. He’d probably end up killing him, otherwise.

Radek kicked his shin under the table.

“Motherfucker, what was that for?” Rodney yelped. The entire table went, “Ooooo,” and he sent them all clench-jawed death glares.

“He’s got pointy feet, doesn’t he?” Taber jostled him good-naturedly with his elbow.

Radek stuck his tongue out at him.

Rodney buried his head in his hands. “My god, you all make my life miserable,” he groaned. “Sometimes I wish they’d just sent me out here with a bunch of helper monkeys.”

“Secret simulation is ready,” Radek sing-songed, a cheerful lilt to his voice.

Rodney perked up immediately, grin spreading across his mouth. “Excellent.”

**

Rodney set up a little catch and release program on his handheld. It would isolate Gizmo long enough to get him through the ‘gate, though once on Lo’r Mawra it’d be a matter of making the gremlin stay.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Sheppard said, stepping up next to him at the edge of the ‘gate room.

Rodney shot him a dry look. “I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah.” Sheppard rocked back on his heels. “Seen Miller’s trick?”

“Hmmmm?”

“Hey, are you ignoring me?” Sheppard poked his side.

“I’m making sure Gizmo’s with us.” Rodney glowered at him. “That is why we’re going back, isn’t it, Colonel?”

Sheppard pressed his lips together and smiled like a dork.

Teyla was conspicuously absent for the mission. Ronon was eating a sandwich.

“Are we ready?” Sheppard asked. He was mainly looking at Rodney, even though he wasn’t the one wolfing down a messy salami on rye.

Rodney waved a hand. “Yes, ready, let’s go.”

Ronon grunted, popped the last bit of bread into his mouth and swiped his fingers on his thighs. No wonder his clothes always smelled like old cheese.

Sheppard called up to Chuck, and Elizabeth gave them her patented good-luck smile, and Rodney was still a little bitter about having to give up his gremlin, so he made sure to add an extra-pissy edge to his stomp through the ‘gate.

On the other side, the day was blinding. Rodney winced, eyes blinking rapidly as he stepped down off the platform. The still air almost choked him, and he was a little wary of more exiled Genii popping up with rusty fire-power.

When nothing happened other than Ronon growling, “Get on with it, McKay,” Rodney fished out his handheld.

Entering three codes, he quickly coaxed Gizmo into materialization, and the Irish Setter barked excitedly and ran off, chasing the rails until he disappeared into the red-sand horizon. The wind kicked up.

“Well. That was easy,” Sheppard said, hands on his hips.

And then Gizmo popped out of thin air and wriggled on his back at Rodney’s feet, tummy bared for rubs. Rodney crossed his arms over his chest. “Gizmo, no,” he said sternly.

Tongue lolling, the setter twisted onto his feet with a playful hop. His tail wagged his whole butt, and he snuffled his snout into Sheppard’s palm, and Sheppard started a little, then smiled into Rodney’s eyes.

Rodney really didn’t like dogs. His throat was not tight at all. “Dial out,” he croaked.

Sheppard’s expression was heavy and concerned as Rodney leaned over his datapad. “Are you sure? You don’t want more—”

“Just do it.” Rodney made a few more adjustments, and when the ‘gate whooshed open behind him, he called up the project he and Radek had been working on practically non-stop for the past week.

A small white and brown Jack Russell Terrier appeared on the sand, dancing in circles.

Gizmo went ballistic. A clearly joyful ballistic, complete with ecstatic butt-wiggles and paw-prancing and crotch-sniffing, and little whiney growls in the back of his throat. The Jack Russell yapped and bit Gizmo’s tail and they were immediately best friends forever.

“John,” Rodney said. Just to test it out. The terrier glanced back at him once.

Sheppard bumped his shoulder. “Rodney.”

Rodney sent him a smug grin. “I named the dog John.”

“Funny, McKay,” Sheppard said.

“I thought so.” He frowned at Gizmo. The gremlin was obviously fickle with his affections.

Sheppard slid a blatantly comforting arm around his shoulders, tugging him towards the wormhole. “Come on, while he’s busy.”

“He’d have been lonely,” Rodney said, half-defensive. Sheppard had a whole I-am-greatly-amused-by-your-soft-heart thing going on.

“I know,” he said as they gained the steps, and Rodney felt the need to point out, “And this one can’t do any damage. He’s just a toy.”

Sheppard nodded. “Hey,” he insisted, “it was a good idea.”

Ronon smirked at him.

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “Radek and Taber helped,” he added petulantly, spreading the blame, and then Sheppard pushed him into the puddle.

**

That night, Rodney’s door slid open to reveal Sheppard, one hand leaning on the jamb, the other holding up a DVD. He tapped the sharp edge on Rodney’s chest.

“You know,” he said, “you still owe me two caramel bars.”

Rodney beamed at him, curled a fist into his shirt and jerked him inside. “You said you’d share.”

Sheppard palmed the door shut behind him. “I remember.”