************************************************************************* Summary: Alone amid the alien corn together. Or, something like that. Not exactly corn. Not exactly alone. No actual aliens. Mostly I just like the phrase. Alien corn. Heh. Warnings: Gross abuse of italics. Ridiculousness. Improbability. inconsistency. Lack of focus. Nothing actually happens. Unscientific objects and events. Plot holes. Implicit sex. Unanticipated drugs. No rock'n'roll. Apologies and Gratitude: I haven't written in years. The result of this attempt aren't impressive (I started this in 2006--you'd thing a story four years in the making would be better than this, wouldn't you?), but I'm posting it anyhow. Beta-reading by Lynnzo. Everything you don't like is mine. *************************************************************************   At the Mercy of Alien Corn by AnneZo "Okay, so, we've had slavers, rocks, drug-dealers, raging hippos, pissed-off villagers, mutant Wraith--" John made it clear he wasn't watching the window over McKay's shoulder. "Mutant Wraith is an oxymoron." McKay glared at him. "What are you doing?" "Listing reasons we've been stuck on planets," John explained. "Where was I? Pissed-off villagers--" "You already said that one." "It happened twice," John said. "Once because you tried to steal their sacred stone and once because you kicked the boss's dog." "I didn't steal--I never kicked--" Speechless was a good look on him. Not that John minded the constant yakking normally. It was like the sound of a jet's engine--the purr just meant everything was working smoothly. It was--soothing. You got so you didn't hear it after a while. The only time you noticed the sound was when it changed. "Yes," John said firmly, before McKay could get started again. "You did. Also, we had volcanoes. Twice." "Neither of which was my fault." McKay looked smug. "Acts of nature." Not quite as good a look on him, but at least John had slipped them past the hysterical I'm gonna die we're all gonna die this is the end phase of their latest escapade. Outside the jumper, the scene was misleadingly idyllic. Lush green and yellow grasses. Ferny green trees. Brilliant sunshine. A little colorful wildlife lounging around. "And I saved your ass both times." McKay picked up his laptop. "Don't forget that part. I saved your ass on most of those planets." "My ass wouldn't have needed saving on some of them without you," John said. "Anyhow. I'm a highly trained soldier. With a gun. I could have saved myself." "You so could not." "I could," John insisted. "Some of them. I'd have--thought of something." McKay set the laptop down and smiled. He must be pretty sure of himself. He only got obnoxious when he had doubts. "Explain to me," McKay said. "How you'd have escaped from a planet that was largely destroyed in a super-volcanic explosion that ate the Stargate, with only a non-functioning starship and a pocket full of bullets?" "I wouldn't have tried to shoot my way out of a super-volcano." McKay thought about guns too much. John had been a pilot. Shooting at things, for the most part, hadn't been a big feature of his day. Certainly not shooting at anything that didn't shoot at him first. Okay. There had been some shooting. A fair amount of shooting, if he thought about it. But it wasn't all he'd done. He'd flown. That was the important part. The military had given him planes, lots of them, and taught him to fly them. Fast. "No?" McKay folded his arms, looking patient in that way he only used when he was sure he was about to score big. Not at all a good look on him, not when it was directed at John. "So? Precisely how would you have gotten yourself and several hundred people away from an erupting super-volcano without the brilliance of the world's--galaxy's--without the help of the most brilliant mind in at least two galaxies?" Think fast, John. Without Rodney McKay.... What would they have done? "Easy." He was the one looking smug now, but that was okay. It kept McKay's attention on him and not on the colorful wildlife, especially the super-sized tiger circling the downed jumper. "I'd have had Caldwell find another habitable planet, closer than Atlantis, and ferried the population there, just to get them away from the volcano. Less transit time, more trips for the Daedalus. We could have moved everyone safely off the planet, then transferred them to Atlantis or to a Stargate, whichever was nearest, a few at a time. Safely." "You--" McKay looked surprised. "Yes. Well. What if there hadn't been another habitable planet closer than Atlantis?" "There was," John said. "And if there hadn't been, I'd have thought of something else." "Like what?" "Maybe we should spend some time thinking about solutions to this problem?" John suggested. "Oh." McKay looked around blankly, then snapped back into focus. "Yes. Right. Trapped on an alien planet. Again." "We're not trapped," John said. Hoped. "Just--temporarily delayed." "By some saber-toothed tiger cousin large enough to take down an elephant single-handedly." "They don't have saber teeth and, anyhow, they're not the problem, the jumper is." John said. "Besides, they're cats. Tiger--things. They don't have hands." "Feel free to stand there and be pedantic," McKay glared at him, clearly aware he'd been cheated out of making a scene but not sure how. "While I save your ass. Again." "My ass appreciates it." John settled into the pilot's chair and felt the jumper welcome him. He had it all, at the speed of thought. Power, lights, diagrams, weapons, gate addresses, star maps. You name it. He just couldn't fly. None of the diagnostics he could call up said they'd taken any damage. The jumper just--wouldn't go. They couldn't even dial Atlantis and ask for a back-up team. Well, they could have. The planet had a perfectly functional Stargate, but the jumper wasn't talking to it and the territory between the jumper and the DHD was sort of crowded, what with the ten or twelve super-tigers napping under the giant-sized mushroom-toadstool things and the ridiculously overgrown grass that was probably hiding other, equally freaky kinds of wildlife. Maybe even bugs. John Sheppard was not a fan of this galaxy's bugs. He had faith, though. McKay would figure it out. He always did. McKay yelped and fell out of his chair. When John looked up, one of the super-tigers had its giant paws on the jumper's front window and it was looking in at them. Not really threatening. More just curious. That didn't stop McKay, of course. He was already half-way through a whole oh god I'm going to die swallowed down the gullet of a giant alien carnivore and probably sprinkled with a dash of lime just to make sure the whole experience is as unpleasant as possible riff that, experience said, wasn't going to get more interesting or more lucid if he was allowed to go on. "Knock it off!" John didn't quite yell but he was loud enough to stop a Rodney McKay freak-out. Someone falling off a chair didn't seem to rate that highly on super-tiger's scale of entertainment. It shook itself and dropped away from the window. "Oh my god, that was so cool!" McKay scrambled to his feet. "What was that? Some kind of special military voice--command--training thing?" "I wasn't talking to the cat," John said. "I was talking to you. The cat just got bored and left." "Cat? That thing is like a cat like a--a rabid wolf is like a Pekingese." "Even if it was a rabid Pekingese, it couldn't get in the jumper," John said. "Just ignore it and get back to work." McKay picked up the laptop and started pushing buttons. "Ignore it," he muttered. "Did you see the size of the claws on that thing?" Actually, no, John hadn't, but it was always possible with McKay that he was talking to the laptop, so John left him to it. The sooner they got out of here the better. He liked a little--well, a lot of adventure on an alien planet as well as the next guy but sitting here watching ferns grow and oversized housecats take themselves for a walk didn't really register that high on his own "adventure" scale any more. Besides, he didn't want to tell McKay, because the guy didn't need another reason to wig out, but he was a little worried about the jumper's sudden refusal to fly. It was only at moments like this, when he was stuck on an unexplored planet, blocked from the nearest Stargate, with nothing to think about but the probable eating habits of alien life-forms that John realized just how much he--all of them--had started taking Ancient technology for granted. This was 10,000 year-old equipment. He should remember that more often. Also, he should never have let McKay talk him into visiting an unexplored planet on the way home from their latest mission. Hey, I found this in the Ancient database and we should go check it out never led to anything good. "Move," McKay demanded. "Why?" "Because I need to talk to the jumper." "Why can't you sit in your own chair?" John swung his feet down off the empty spot on the console reluctantly. The benches in the back weren't padded and they'd removed the extra chairs to hold the cargo they'd been dropping off. "I can." McKay looked irritated, but normal-irritated, not last-ditch-plan irritated. "But...." John moved out of his way, leaning against the wall. Open, he told the door. Nothing happened. Open up, he said more firmly. The door slid open. If a door could look reluctant, this one did. Shields were a great invention. Protection and fresh air. He waited. "Itwonttalktome," McKay said. "What?" "The jumper." McKay was gritting his teeth. "It won't talk to me as long as you're in contact with the interface." John tried not to laugh--but he didn't try very hard. "Maybe it just likes me better than it likes you?" "Atlantis likes you better," McKay complained plugging--something---into--something on the dash. "You're Mr. Super-Gene and the whole city and everything in it likes you best. It's a pain the rest of us are learning to live with. But that's not what I meant. The other jumpers all respond to anyone with the gene. But this one won't respond to anyone else as long as you're in the chair. It's--something of an anomaly, really. Strange. Interesting." He'd been flying a jumper that Dr. Rodney, Hey, kids, let's blow up a solar system, McKay found strange? John took two seconds to think about it and decided that there wasn't any satisfactory response to that. At least, not one that regs would permit a Lieutenant Colonel to use on a civilian scientist. Besides, he couldn't space McKay until the guy got the jumper flying again. "Strange," John said carefully. "Really?" "Yes, really." McKay frowned at the laptop. Not so much, Aha, there's the part that doesn't work, as What's that? John was becoming an expert on The Faces Of Rodney McKay. "I've been getting complaints," Rodney admitted. "That's why we brought this one today." Okay, in the future? John was going to picking his own jumper for missions. "And you were going to tell me about this--when?" John chose that over the less-important who had problems and didn't tell me option. For the moment. "When you needed to know," McKay said. "Which you didn't. Then." "And you decided to add some adventure to our lives by taking a jumper with an unidentified problem off-world instead of, I don't know, mentioning it to me and maybe testing it by flying it around our own planet?" "We tested it," Rodney insisted. "I mean, this is my life we're talking about, right? You can bet we tested it. Mechanically, it's perfect. No different from any of the others. The odds of the--thing--strangeness--having anything to do with our problem right now are--are almost infinitesimal." "Infinitesimal," John repeated. "Well. Small," McKay conceded. "Very--very small." "Okay, so we have a 'very, very small' probability that some kind of weird and for some reason secret defect in the jumper you tricked me into flying might have stranded us on an alien planet without the rest of our team." John nodded. "You realize this is totally going on the list of places where my ass wouldn't have needed saving if you hadn't been around, right?" "Yes, let's focus on blame, because that's always productive." McKay glared at the laptop. "Everything's fine." "When I'm flying the jumper through the Stargate back to Atlantis, then everything will be fine." "I mean the jumper," McKay snapped. "There's nothing wrong with it." "Then why aren't we moving?" "I don't know." He always said that at first. John tried not to smile. That was how Rodney worked. Build up a huge head of steam and then use the energy to jump-start the solution. "Is it the power supply?" "No." "Is it--" "Stop." Rodney closed the laptop. "Let me spare you the trouble of coming up with a list of the things I've already checked. Anything you can think of, I've already thought of. And tested. And it's fine." "Then what's wrong?" "I don't know." McKay glared at the jumper's console. Yeah, that was going to help. "Figure it out," John ordered. "How?" He was still glaring. Like the jumper could see him--or would care. "I don't know." John didn't. That was Rodney's job. Thinking of things. "Just do it." "Maybe we should just--" Rodney stopped in mid-rant, his mouth open and his eyes glazing over. It was his aha! face. Or at least his hey, that might work face. John was willing to take what he could get at this point. Rodney stood up and pointed at the pilot's chair. "Sit." Sit. Good boy. McKay had more in common with the military than he thought, including the habit of snapping unexplained orders and expecting instant obedience. From his commanding officers, John accepted this as a fact of life. From Rodney--well, sometimes there was a little tingle. Something completely different but a lot of fun. This is not the time, Sheppard. "What?" John slid back into his chair and stared at the console. "Did you fix it?" "Yes." Rodney rolled his eyes. "By the power of my superior intellect, I thought and then, just like magic, it was fixed. No, that would be you. Only, without the superior intellect. Or, without mine, anyhow." "You think you could go back three steps and try again?" "Think." "Angelina Jolie? Cotton candy? Fabric softener? James Bond? Trajectories for shoulder-held rocket launchers? Pick a topic." "At the jumper. Ask it why it won't fly." "It's not really sentient, you know." John tried to figure out how to send a request that didn’t consist of "go left" or "shoot now." "Just ask it what's wrong." Rodney looked embarrassed. "It's worth a shot." "O-kay." They were in big trouble. Ordering McKay to "think of something" usually produced a lot of swearing and frantic typing on every computer keyboard within reach. It never involved him standing by and having someone else work on the problem. Take off, John ordered. The jumper ignored him. "Maybe the interface with the ancient gene--" "Tested. Fine. Try again." Fly, John thought. Go up in the air. The jumper stayed land-bound. "Nothing," John said. "Seriously?" Rodney frowned. "What did you say?" "I told it to take off. Nothing happened." "I didn't say to give it orders," Rodney said. "I said to ask it what was wrong." "You think the jumper is having an existential crisis? Maybe its feelings are hurt?" "Fine," Rodney said. "We can sit here until Woolsey sends a rescue team, then abandon the jumper, losing one more means, no matter how small, of defending ourselves against the Wraith and not incidentally making fools of both of us when everyone in Atlantis finds out that the head of the science team and the military leader of the base couldn't muster the brains between them to fix one, small problem. Or, and here's an idea, you could stop arguing with me and ask the jumper what's wrong." "It's not a 'small' problem, my intellect isn't the one on the line here, it won't be the first time someone has had to send out a rescue team, and we can come back later and work on the jumper, it's not like we have to abandon it forever." "What is your problem?" Rodney stared at him. "Just ask it." "I'll feel stupid," John mumbled. "You--" Rodney's face was turning purple. "Okay, okay. I'll do it," John promised. "Just--don't hurt yourself. I'll give it a try." He closed his eyes. It wasn't necessary, but if he looked like he was making the effort, it would shut Rodney up. Hi, there, he thought. Yeah. Very stupid. So, we want to fly. Through the gate. You think you might want to do that? Apparently not. So, what's the problem here? Nothing. Why won't you fly? Metaphorically, the jumper was doing its nails and pretending he didn't exist. What's going on? . . . . You like it here? You want to stay? Was that the faintest suggestion of a response? What's so interesting about this planet? John could see the display light up in front of him, even though closed eyelids. "Ha!" Rodney's breath puffed in his ear as he leaned against the back of John's chair. John opened his eyes and looked at the display. On the right, about a klick from the jumper's location, there was a bright, pulsing light and some Ancient text. "Alpha two," Rodney muttered. "Of course. That makes sense now. It's not a warning--no, maybe it is, it could be, but it's also an alert. Above a certain level, a command imperative kicks in, overriding the normal protocols until it's cleared or--dealt with. In some way. Now what are you...." John waited a few seconds, but Rodney was lost in scientist-thoughtland. "McKay." Rodney had a lot in common with jumpers, as well as the military. "Rodney." "Yes?" It was his I'm done with you, why are you still talking to me? tone of voice. "Alpha two?" John asked. "Warning? Command imperative?" "It's nothing to worry about. I'll have it figured out in a second." "Well, if it's okay with you, I'll just sit here and worry until you explain what's going on." John hated being ignored. "Out loud," he added. "Fine." Rodney ticked off the points on his fingers as he went. "In addition to its irritating and completely inexplicable preference for your company, this jumper has a few extra lines of command code in its programming, something we haven't been able to figure out a reason for yet. It didn't affect the jumper's performance, so it wasn't a priority. This code consists of some kind of three-tiered--intervention--if you will. Code that controls the jumper's behavior under special circumstances. Probability suggested that the odds of us running into anything during a mission that would cause this code to activate were extremely small. We decided it couldn't be anything dangerous, or all of the jumpers would have had the same programming. Something about this planet activated the code. Now that it's functional, I can figure out what it's for and deactivate it. Something I could have been practically done with by now, if I hadn't had to stop and explain myself to you." "Secret and unidentifiable programming," John said slowly. "Something that would take control of the jumper under--who-knows-what circumstances. And strand us on an alien planet for some unknown reason." Rodney had the sense to look embarrassed. "Well. The odds were against it." "You're a scientist," John reminded him. "Murphy's Law mean anything to you?" "That's not science," Rodney blustered. "It's just a cheap cliché tossed around by ignorant people making excuses for not having properly prepared for eventualities." "Yeah." John tried to give him an I'm counting to ten now look. "I'm going to put it on a tee-shirt for you." "That's not fair." Rodney actually looked hurt. "I fix more stuff than I break. And I don't make that many mistakes." "Yeah, but you're such a drama queen," John said. "When you do make mistakes, they tend to be along the lines of destroying half a solar system." "Dram--" Rodney choked for a second. "That solar--that was an accident. Even the Ancients couldn't make that technology work!" "Yes, and knowing that, you just couldn't wait to push the button." Maybe John was being unfair, but he hated having bad news dribbled out at him. "If there's anything else you feel I should know, or even anything else a little unusual you know about this jumper, I think you should tell me. Right now." "Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what I might know because I'm not looking, am I? I'm wasting time talking to you." "Then that's everything you know that I should have known before we started this mission?" "That's--what I knew." Rodney opened up his laptop and bent over it. "When I know anything else, you'll be the first to know." "I'd better be." John left him to it for a few minutes. Rodney on the defensive wasn't as good as Rodney about to die and producing miracles but short of letting one of the super-tigers into the jumper, it was as much motivation as John could produce. They were big tiger-things and it was a pretty small jumper. Outside, the landscape was looking less ferocious all the time. The animals were sprawling out in the shade offered by the overgrown mushrooms--or toadstools. Looked nap-time. Unfortunately, they were still between the jumper and the Stargate. Blue, blue sky, dotted with a few puffy, white clouds. A perfect flying sky. John used to love flying through clouds. It was exciting. A little dangerous. There was always that instant of anticipation--as though the water vapor masked a portal and, coming out the other side, you'd find yourself in a different world. Turns out it took more than water vapor. It took a Stargate. "Okay." Rodney didn't look at him. "I have good news and bad news." "Bad news," John ordered. "The jumper isn't going anywhere soon. Not until we deal with whatever it is that light represents. I can't override the command code in less than a week." "If the good news is that you can override it in a week, I'm not going to be happy." "No, of course not. The good news is that nothing in the code and nothing in the database suggest that there's anything dangerous to worry about. We just need to go investigate the light, or whatever the light is pointing us to, and then we can leave." "Nothing dangerous." John nodded. "Okay, well, you're the one who was wetting his pants over the wildlife half an hour ago. If you've decided they're the kitty-cat versions of Bambi, who am I to argue?" "Well obviously I didn't mean them." Rodney had recovered enough to be giving John looks. "I mean the light doesn't represent anything dangerous. As far as those--those tiger-things go, you can just shoot them, can't you?" "Rodney, I can't go through life shooting everything you're afraid of." "I don't see why not." "You're afraid of lemons." "And if we should see lemons or any other citrus fruits, you have my permission to blow them away. I have a degree in mechanical engineering. I'll manufacture a medal for you." "Does this entire situation strike anyone but me as a little strange?" Now that John thought about it, the entire day had been strange. Sometimes life around Rodney was just strange. Life on Atlantis was frequently strange, but he thought he'd been getting used to it. Today seemed to be strange in a different way, though. "Not really," Rodney said. "I'm trying to work and you're interrupting me. Perfectly normal so far." Okay, maybe it was just John. Outside, the nearest super-tiger rolled over to expose its yellow tummy to the warm sunshine. "You're not working," he said. "You're standing there, waiting for me to kill the bad kitties so you can go explore the strange alien light on the strange alien planet." "I didn't ask you to kill them," Rodney objected. "I just thought you'd--" He frowned at John. "You're not Ronon." "Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Nice to meet you." "Oh, so funny. I just meant--Ronon has that stunner thing. You should get one of those." "I'd like one of those," John admitted. They had the Wraith stunners but the side-effects weren't worth it. They had tasers, but you had to let the enemy get close enough to kill you before you could use them. "Teeth," Rodney said. "Have some, thanks." "Give us a close-up of the tiger--those things," Rodney ordered. John told--asked--the jumper to give them a close-up of the animals. He tried to sound polite, just in case. Rodney studied the image and then pointed at one lazy tiger-mouth, wide open in a yawn. "Teeth," he said triumphantly. John took a second look and he was damned if Rodney wasn't right. Teeth. Possibly omnivore teeth, more probably herbivore, but not carnivore. "Not fur," Rodney said. "Skin. Protective coloring." "Have we seen anything that color on this planet?" John hoped the answer was, 'no' because he didn't want to meet whatever it was a twelve-foot tiger was afraid of. Orange-and-yellow might count as "protective" coloring on this world, but a million years of earth evolution was screaming danger, danger, John Sheppard in the back of his head. "No." Rodney frowned. "Peacocks," he said. "Mating display." "So that one guy really was just playing 'getting to know you' when he climbed on the jumper?" "That has to be it. I don't know why I didn't realize it before." Rodney looked excited and happy. Figuring things out made him excited and happy. Big things. Little things. Didn't matter. "Their behavior wasn't aggressive enough for carnivores. We were invading the pack's territory. If they were killers, they would have reacted to that. But they weren't afraid of us, so they're not accustomed to being hunted themselves." "Plus which, carnivores don't usually come that big." John felt like he should add something to the conversation. "No, of course not. So. No reason we can't go check out whatever it is the jumper wants us to see, right?" "And you don't want me to shoot the kitty cats for you before we go?" "Well, no." Rodney looked uncertain. "I mean, shoot them if they attack us. But that's not going to happen. I don't think." "Good enough." "Let's go, then." Rodney slid his laptop into his backpack. "Door's open, so we've checked the atmosphere and everything's safe. Let's get this party rolling." Door's open. John didn't feel good about that. He'd opened the door, yeah. The jumper had been stubborn about it, but he'd insisted. He couldn't remember checking the scanners first but--sure he had. He always did. Such a habit he probably hadn't noticed himself doing it this time. Doing things by habit, not paying attention to every detail, that got pilots killed. John made a mental note to turn his personal auto-pilot off. Still. Whether he'd remembered to check the scanners or not, they door had been open for half an hour and they were both still alive. They were fifty feet from the jumper, John keeping one eye on the napping not-tigers and another eye on the rest of the landscape, Rodney wading through the tall grass with only half his usual complaints in between useless speculations about what they might discover, before it occurred to John that he could have gone ahead and checked the scanners again. Just in case. Something told him it was the sort of thing he usually would have done. This was probably Rodney's fault. With him dribbling out revelations about jumper performance problems and secret command codes and talking about lemons and wigging out about giant tigers and all the rest of it, it was a miracle John was able to remember anything at all. This was actually a really good planet. Sun shining. Not-tigers napping peacefully. No unidentifiable blips on the life-signs detector. Ford had named it. The name wasn't right--it wasn't elegant--but before John had been able to think of a better name, everyone was already calling it the life-signs detector. Now, every time he used the gadget, he thought of Ford. They'd find him again, some day. Rescue him. John had promised himself that. The air smelled--good. Not sweet, and not moldy, in spite of the giant mushroom-fungus things. It smelled warm and fresh and a little different--a little alien. "Huh." Rodney stopped. John glanced at the scanner, then looked in front of them. There, right where the scanner showed the warning light, was--nothing. Nothing at all. Just a wide-open field full of corn, and a few more giant mushrooms--or toadstools--scattered around the edge of the field. Not even super-tigers. Just mushrooms and corn. Pastoral. "Huh." Rodney was already ignoring the pretty landscape in favor of staring at the scanner. John nudged him, just to be annoying. "The jumper wants us to bring it corn?" "Hmm? No, probably not." Rodney tapped a couple of buttons. "Anyhow, this isn't corn." "Looks like corn." "Because it's tall and yellow." Rodney rolled his eyes. "How did our species ever get down out of the trees?" "We had to, to reach the corn?" Rodney looked at him blankly. "What?" "We came, we saw, can we leave now?" John was getting a headache. Probably from the sunshine reflecting off the bright yellow flowers--or pods. Corn. "If by 'leave' you mean you go back to the jumper and stop interrupting me?" Rodney frowned. "No." "Why not?" "Shut up, or I will personally beat you to death with alien corn." Rodney rubbed his forehead, then bent back over the scanner, reading a stream of data. It's not corn. John closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath. Rodney was right. It didn't matter that they'd only planned a fly-over. Before they left, they needed to know why the puddle jumper had forced them to land on the planet and, it was starting to look like, investigate the field. Besides. Alien planet. Alien corn. This was why he'd travelled halfway across the universe, right? Right. The pain in his head faded. "Stupid alien chemical composition," Rodney muttered. "I'm not a botanist, but these plants have to be what the jumper was leading us to." The life-signs detector was still not detecting anything. John picked out a big toadstool-mushroom-fungus thing and sat down in its shade. From this angle, the glare off the alien corn was a lot less obnoxious. Rodney sniffed. "No, no allergens. Just flowers." "Maybe we could take the jumper a bouquet and ask it if we can leave the planet now." "I suggest you stick to flying things and shooting other things and leave the thinking to the experts." "Well, I suggest you sit down in the shade with me," John countered. "We can run through what we know and I can get a look at what the scanner is showing you." Rodney rolled his eyes, then thumped down next to John, handing him the scanner. "If you think you can do better…." He looked around. "You know, this really is a pretty nice planet." "I like the toadstools. They've got this whole magic mushroom thing going." John glanced at the scanner and there was a red blip in the display. He tapped it and a block of text appeared. "Hey, what does this mean?" Rodney snatched the scanner and looked at the new text. "I don't know. Never seen it before." He flipped open his laptop and started working. Tap-tap-tap-tap. He sounds like a woodpecker. John stretched out and looked around. Not many birds. Didn't seem to be any bugs. Maybe the alien corn discouraged them, like spraying soap on rose plants or burning a citrus candle. Not that there were any citrus candles on Atlantis or that Rodney would let anyone burn one if there was, or that there was actually a bug problem on the floating city, but if alien corn did the same thing, then that was cool and organic and stuff, right? Might be useful on Earth, too. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Rodney's lips were moving. He mumbled under his breath when he'd found something important--or at least very interesting. Rodney talked over his theories to himself as he made them--that was how he seemed to come up with brilliant ideas at the drop of a hat. He rehearsed them first. John had watched him do it a hundred times. "Ro-o-odney." "Working." Rodney switched back to the scanner. "Hey, I think I found an Ancient version of Tetris on this thing." "Really? Cool." John had had Tetris on his cell phone, back in the day. When you were getting called on the carpet, it was SOP for the brass to let you cool your heels in an empty, beige waiting room for an hour or two first, just to make sure you understood your name was mud. John had gotten really good at Tetris. In the meantime, Rodney was still tap-dancing on the scanner screen, and John was getting bored. Not that it wasn't still a really nice planet because it was, all green and warm and lush, very "glass of wine, loaf of bread, and thou" but the only "thou" around was more interested in alien Tetris than John and anyhow, off-limits. "Smells good here." Rodney sniffed, nodded, and kept tap-tap-tapping. John leaned over and glanced at the scanner screen. Rodney was playing Tetris, or something that looked a lot like it. John grabbed the scanner and tossed it aside. "You're not working. You're faking." "Hey, I have the laptop searching for a translation of the symbols I found--" "Symbols I found," John said. "You were just looking at the screen when the search program I initiated brought them up. Anyhow. I was just keeping my mind occupied while I waited on the laptop." "You travelled fifty million light years to explore a new galaxy. You should, you know, look at it occasionally. When you're waiting on your computer and stuff." Rodney crossed his arms, looked around, and sniffed again--all very ostentatiously. "Yes. Very pleasant. But the fact is, I travelled fifty million light years to explore new technology. Technology of the kind that you just threw on the ground, like a used tissue." "Don't you ever just take a break?" "I'm honestly happier when I keep my mind busy." "Why?" A little blunt, but maybe it was time to dig into the top layer of why Rodney McKay was so--so Rodney McKay. "I need to keep focused." "You don't need to. Try letting your mind wander. Smell the flowers, watch the butterflies. Explore the magic mushrooms. You never know what you might think of. You could solve that great unifying theory thing." "Grand Unified Theory," Rodney corrected. John could hear the capital letters. "Thank you, but I'm sufficiently creative for at least six normal people already. And, anyhow, I prefer to be in control of what I think about, not at the mercy of biological urges." Kind of what you might call a Freudian moment or something there. John was at the mercy of his biological urges. He always had been, although not, since his early twenties, to the point where he wasn't able to exercise self-control. No control, no flying. He'd made a choice, and it had been worth it. Those moments when the sky opened up around him and the universe itself seemed to be making space for John Sheppard to play in…. Totally worth it. It was harder sometimes, than others, of course. Like now. He hadn't expected a routine off-world trip with Rodney would strand the two of them on a remote planet with nothing to do but look at the pretty flowers or watch Rodney's mouth move as he muttered to himself over a problem. Rodney's mouth was--unmerciful. Always in movement, always expressive. Always distracting. Still. off-limits, off-limits, off-limits, so although he suddenly wanted to ask what Rodney was trying so hard not to think about at the moment, what that involved biological urges when it was just the two of them alone on a warm, sunny planet, laying in--next to--a field of flowers--or possibly corn, he asked, instead, if the toadstool-mushroom-funguses were edible. Rodney blinked a couple of times, then picked up the scanner. "Yes. You can eat one. I'm guessing, you probably won't die for two or three days." Smartass. "How about the alien corn. Edible? Without death?" Rodney turned the scanner onto the field and pushed a new button. In a few seconds, the scanner beeped, the computer beeped, and Rodney's mouth fell open. Just for a moment, John's control slipped, and he pretended it was an invitation. From Rodney's mouth to his. "That's it! Look at this." He reached out, presumably for John's hand or arm, but his hand fell squarely on John's--lap. On his lap, where the evidence of his--biological urges--was only too obvious. Rodney didn't move for a minute--eyes still on the computer screen, hand still square on John's lap. "Angelina Jolie?" "No." Rodney closed the computer and laid the equipment aside. Then he turned to John, leaned over him, and kissed him. It was as simple as that. Rodney's mouth was--merciful. Everything John never thought about wanting and dreamed about having. He wasn't ready when it stopped giving. "Before I create a situation that might end up with you lurking around a corner and shooting me in the back tomorrow, when we're back on Atlantis, tell me that this idea didn't just come to you in the last hour." "It didn't just come to me in the last hour." John invited another kiss, but Rodney was done being merciful for a few minutes. "Honestly." "That's good. Because, although certain instincts are telling me to shut up and go for it, honesty also compels me to tell you, first, that you're probably stoned." "I'm not stoned." He wasn't. John had been stoned. This was nothing like that. "You are." Rodney pointed at him. "For the last half hour, your contribution to solving our problem has consisted of random comments about butterflies, alien corn, and magic mushrooms. Don't try to deny it." John hadn't been going to deny anything. Stoned or not, John knew an opportunity when one kissed him and the only thing he was really thinking about at the moment was how to get back to that point, that kissing point. "As near as I can tell, the jumper's programming was designed to lead us to that plant--the alien corn." Rodney pointed. "The pollen from it acts as a mild hallucinogenic and an aphrodisiac." "Are you going to tell me all about how the unexplained lines of command code in the jumper's programming were put there by some Ancient pusher who wanted the jumper to help him keep an eye out for alien corn?" "Well--yes. I mean…." Rodney looked confused. "There's more to it, but that's the gist. How did you know?" "Saw it coming. Does this mean you're stoned, too?" "It does. Although I don't seem to be as strongly affected as you. It's possible that one or more of the medications I'm taking to control my allergies is offering me a certain level of immunity from the effects." "Who kissed who?" "You totally wanted it." "I hate people who use that as an excuse. They're either saying they didn't really want to themselves but did something out of charity, or they're abdicating all personal responsibility." "Maybe you're not as stoned as I thought you were. When you let me kiss you, I assumed…." "Possibly I'm a little stoned," John admitted. "I mean, I know this isn't a good idea--command structure and all, but that doesn't seem that important." "I'm glad to hear that," Rodney said. "I mean, you're fifty million light years from the planet where those rules were made. It's good to know you're open to new possibilities." The only thing John could figure was that after Rodney stopped kissing he couldn't figure out how to start again, so John showed a little mercy of his own and took care of it for both of them. Then Rodney took over again, with more assurance than John would have expected, and sky opened up above him and they were flying, with a whole planet watching them. The rules lived a long way away--here you were allowed to ask, to tell, and to fly. This was the way it should be. That was the way it was. * * * * They didn't talk about it on the walk back to the jumper. They didn't talk about it when the jumper calmly lifted off and obediently headed for the Stargate, pretending it had never dumped them out beside a field of alien corn and added an entirely new--but not uninteresting--level of complication to John's life. They didn't talk about it when they landed in Atlantis, in the five seconds that lapsed before Rodney grabbed his laptop and the scanner, told the tech to slap a "do not use" label on the jumper and disappeared toward his lab. John decided he'd been stoned. Not to the point of not being responsible, but certainly to the point of--recklessness. He knew, because as the hours passed, the list of potential problems he'd created for himself started bugging him. The debriefing with Woolsey was the next morning. It was--brief. Rodney didn't show--he sent Woolsey an email saying he was analyzing data and that he had nothing to report. John spent the day surveying his troops, which was how he thought of sneaking up on everyone he could find and checking to see if their eyes were spinning or they were growing tentacles or had contracted some other kind of other-galaxian problem he needed to know about. He ate alone. Teyla and Ronon were hand-holding three biologists who had gone on strike until Woolsey let them set up shop on the planet where Teyla had discovered her Wraith gene. Tonight's entrée was a chicken-like bird, doused with a spicy orange sauce. Orange sauce happened when Rodney pissed off the kitchen. Everyone knew he kept a secret stash of MRIs for the days when he was afraid to enter the cafeteria. John sweet-talked the kitchen into sharing some cold-cuts and bread, wrapped the sandwiches in a napkin, and asked a passing lab tech to drop them off in Rodney's lab. * * * * If your doorbell rings at midnight, you're entitled to expect a leggy blonde, a fresh pizza, or at least an interesting crisis. Stubbly scientists need not apply. "You remember when you guessed that the unexplained lines of command code in the jumper's programming were put there by some Ancient pusher who wanted the jumper to help him keep an eye out for alien corn?" "I didn't guess." John stumbled back to the bed and sat on the edge. "I deduced. I used my intelligence." "Whatever. The point is, that actually was why the jumper wouldn't take off." Rodney stepped through the door, which closed behind him. "Part of the command code involved forcibly grounding the jumper for a stated period of time, about four hours. I'm guessing that that was so, if our Ancient pusher wasn't alone on the jumper, the grounding looked like some kind of mechanical problem that would persist for long enough to let him sneak off, harvest his crop, and get back on board without being left behind or raising any questions." "That's pretty far-fetched." Rodney tended to draw conclusions from less data than most people would use to draw cartoons. Still, he was right a lot of the time. A surprising amount of the time. "Jumper won't fly, passenger gets bored, goes to take a look at the planet while pilot tries to diagnose the problem." Rodney shrugged. "Simple." "We should have guessed," John said. "That's such typical sneaky Ancient computer programmer drug pusher behavior." "No, seriously." Rodney looked impressed. "In its own way, it's brilliant." "Okay." John didn't even pretend not to yawn. "What was he doing with it?" "How should I know?" Rodney glared at him. Clearly the question hadn't actually occurred to him before. 'It's not like he kept a diary." "And I needed to know all of this at midnight because…." "Because I wanted to know if you'd let me past your door." "Oh." John thought about that. "Sneaky un-Ancient genius physicist behavior?" "You let me in." Rodney grinned. "You actually did. And you can't still be stoned because I checked my own blood work and I'm clean." "I told you it wasn't a sudden impulse." "You did. And, unless you've had second thoughts, better thoughts, or decided that I was a one-night stand, I'm assuming you'll start communicating these impulses to me in the future, without waiting for an alien corn intervention." What the hell. "Yeah, I'll see what I can do about that." Rodney folded his arms, looking patient in that way he only used when he was sure he was about to score big. John changed his mind--it was a great look on him. "Actually," John said. "I'm feeling very impulsive right now." He could see the sky opening up around him. * * * * end