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Rodney held out his hand. "All right, Radek, pay up. It's been a week, nobody's figured it out yet, and you're the only one who hasn't thrown in the towel and pulled out of the pool."
Zelenka merely gave Rodney a little smile, and pushed his glasses up. "No, I think we will wait it out," he said, accent making his words sound slightly musical.
"Wait it out? You've got to be kidding me. He's gone on longer dates with his right hand." McKay rolled his eyes in disgust. "Fine, fine, if you want to wait another week and lose even more, that's fine with me."
Zelenka said nothing, just waited until Rodney's back was turned to allow the smile to turn patronizing.
- = - = -
"She's the best thing that's ever happened to me, Rodney." John broke the bar of... well, it wasn't really chocolate, but it was brown and sweet and the next best thing that the Athosians could provide. Sometimes, Atlantis wasn't really all that bad. "She does things... man, you couldn't even *dream* of." He offered the broken shard to Rodney.
McKay took it, and popped it in his mouth. "So who is this mystery woman?" John'd been raving about her for a month now, and it was slowly apparent that whomever it was, they were staying well, *well* under the radar. John'd gone on maybe three dates in the last two months, each one lasting less than an hour.
Sheppard just got this grin on his face as he caressed the table lovingly, then looked out one of the huge picture windows that decorated Atlantis' architecture.
- = - = -
"What, exactly, is that?" Zelenka peered over Rodney's shoulder at the over-sized flow chart that nearly reached the floor.
Hurriedly, Rodney folded the papers out in the proper order, and looked at Radek. "Okay. Here's the list of of all the Atlantis team from Earth, here's the Athosians--and Ronon, because I didn't know where else to stick him--and the crew of the Daedalus." He flipped the pages over. "On the back, I'm drawing out charts of who's gotten together with who, and when."
Zelenka studied the confusing mass of lines and bubbles. "And you are doing this why?"
"Because now, I *have* to know who this woman is. I asked him, flat out, and he got all..." Rodney looked rather disgusted. "Moony."
Zelenka just shook his head, and patted the console he was leaning against calmly. "You are thinking about this too hard."
- = - = -
It wasn't until the middle of the weekly crisis that it hit Rodney exactly who John's mystery date was. Radek was right; he *had* been thinking about it too hard.
The defense systems were blinking in and out around them as the small flotilla of amoeba-like ships from P30-X99 flocked in through the Stargate and were trying to breach the forcefield holding them back.
Weir was working frantically at the console and shouting. "Rodney! You're the problem solver, solve the problem!"
"I can't! It's not solveable! The forcefield isn't porous at all, they shouldn't be able to permeate through it, but they are!" He looked at John, who was standing beside the Chair, running his hand over the back rest. "Well? What are you waiting for? We all know Atlantis likes you best, get in the chair and do that--" Rodney went stock-still, crisis suddenly in the back of his mind. "--thing you do."
John slid into the Chair, immediately reclining back in it as the Chair activated and the halo of blue light engulfed him. Rodney watched as, eyes closed, John's fingers skated expertly and with great precision over the touch pads at the arm rests. Never pressing too hard, he thought he could almost hear the rasp of John's skin as it slid over the slick material, and though the light was bright as it surrounded John, it was easy to see the smile on his face as he communed with Atlantis.
In the back of his mind, as the forcefield stabilized and solidified into a metallic sheen, Rodney wondered if John and Atlantis communed together when John slept, if he could feel the constant hum of the city calling out to him. He wondered, as the defense systems stopped blinking out and steadily powered up, if John even talked to Atlantis or if it--she--just read his mind and did what he wanted.
She does things... man, you couldn't even *dream* of.
Suddenly, everything made a whoooole lot of sense to Rodney McKay, which was frightening, in and of itself. Because when things made sense to him, that was usually a split-second before he had to put said realization into work to stop the Crisis of the Moment. Fortunately, though, Atlantis seemed to be taking care of that herself, and after the wormhole was shut off and the Stargate powered down, Atlantis finally released John from their communion.
The chair snapped back into the upright position, and John rose fluidly, stretching his arms and blinking. "Anyone for dinner? I'm kind of hungry and--"
"Shut up, Major," Rodney growled, glaring across the room at Zelenka.
Radek just grinned and held out his hand, wiggling his fingers as he waited for payment of the bet.
The End