Aw, shucks. I would love that myself, gotta say.

On a relatively unrelated note, anybody want to beta my Chase/Cameron het challenge story?(I know! So much shiny hair in one place, but you know...assignments.)Challenge rules say it's supposed to come in at 1000 words so you're not committing to my usual sweeping epic! People in the fandom put up stories all the time, don't beta, then spend their summaries apologizing...it's enough to turn *me* to Vicodin. Even though most of their beta-ing could be done by a monkey with a red pen and I'm published.

I'd be happy to look at it erikaj. (If by happy, I mean ooh ooh give me the stuff....)

Profile addy is good.

Okay, insent momentarily.

Backflung, whee!

...er, so not to interrupt the most excellent House/Wonderfalls goodness, but I'd appreciate input on a quick SGA fic. 'specially since I don't have canon to hand, and there may be infelicities.

FIVE KISSES

Rodney McKay was like a mystery wrapped in an enigma locked in a Chinese puzzle box and hidden in some kind of Dadaist maze protected with laser beams and velocoraptors. As she went through the motions of setting up her lab the following morning, Katie Brown reflected that she still had absolutely no idea what to make of him. But he was one hell of a kisser.

She was the only one in the lab, and it felt a little strange to be there without the usual clatter of her colleagues’ fingers on keyboards, and the quiet chatter of Merwick and Lewis arguing – or, in Katie’s opinion, flirting – over how to interpret the latest data from their project. By the time she arrived Morgenstern had usually got his iPod set up, and there was generally the smell of tea, or not-quite- coffee being borne around the lab on invisible currents of Ancient air conditioning. The elegantly angular devices and the curves and corners of the architecture were starting to feel less and less alien, and more and more like home, but this was the first time she had arrived to the lab at such an early hour, with dawn barely blushing at the windows and the corridors so quiet all around. This morning felt almost like the first time she had stepped into the room and seen it all in its strangeness. It suited her mood.

She had been unable to sleep for thinking about Doctor Rodney McKay.

It had been, without question, the most bemusing date that she’d been on in recent years. To start with, there was the whole business of Carson Beckett being present as a sort of – what WAS he there for, again? Moral support? And it was tremendously sweet, all the effort that Doctor McKay had gone to, and he smelled good, and she still liked the shape of his mouth and the way he waved his hands when he spoke, and the food and the drinks had definitely been a cut above the usual canteen fare… but it was painfully awkward having a date in front of somebody else. She switched on her computer and bit her lip. Rodney couldn’t seem to decide who he was with her. She’d heard so much about him being an arrogant asshole, and she’d seen him hurrying past on the way to one crisis or another more than once, buzzing with urgent energy as he waved his hands, yelling at some of the smartest people on the base like they were recalcitrant kindergarteners…she knew that he could be like that. To be honest, she found it rather a turn on. And she was utterly disarmed by the fact that he seemed so much less confident around her, because that was sweet, and it gave her a sense of power. Except that his shyness did shade into a total lack of social skills, and Katie had dated a number of geeks in her time, but that was still rather less charming.

She wandered over to the window while her terminal hummed and beeped behind her, and trailed her fingers over the not-quite-glass.

It really had been one HELL of a kiss. And the way he had suddenly seemed to take charge of the situation at the very moment when she was on the verge of losing patience and interest altogether, the very moment that she was asking herself what on earth she had ever seen in Doctor Rodney McKay… the way he had straightened his back with an almost military confidence, spoken so clearly and firmly and simply about how he felt, and then grabbed her like they were characters in some cheesy romantic movie and bent her back…well, it still gave her goosebumps.

But he hadn’t followed up on it. She’d hoped to hear his voice outside her bedroom, find him framed in her doorway, fresh from whatever vital thing it was that had taken him away from her and ready to make good on the promise his lips had made. But he hadn’t come. Damn it. And she didn’t want to seem easy, but a girl had needs, after all. Especially after being kissed like that. She scowled, and stared out over the ink-dark sea. Presumably the universe (continued...)

But he hadn’t followed up on it. She’d hoped to hear his voice outside her bedroom, find him framed in her doorway, fresh from whatever vital thing it was that had taken him away from her and ready to make good on the promise his lips had made. But he hadn’t come. Damn it. And she didn’t want to seem easy, but a girl had needs, after all. Especially after being kissed like that. She scowled, and stared out over the ink-dark sea. Presumably the universe had needed saving. Again.

• * *

“And then McKay planted this kiss on Beckett like you wouldn’t believe.” They both laughed. “You should’ve seen John Sheppard’s face.”

Katie stilled. It was two days since her strange date with Rodney McKay, and she was feeling increasingly puzzled and cross that he had so far made no effort to contact her. She knew that there had been something, some kind of crisis or other, but there was always some kind of crisis or another and the details tended to blur together. The accounts of this latest kerfuffle were decidedly confused, but as far as she could gather it hadn’t involved imminent attack by Wraith or Genii or man-eating plants from outer space, so it was pretty much business as normal. It was Morgenstern who told her McKay had been hospitalised, and then she felt like a total bitch for feeling cross with him; but by the time she got there, red-faced and clutching a handful of delicate alien flowers stolen from Merwick’s small greenhouse, he had already been released. She blushed a little when she saw Beckett, remembering the oddness of her date, remembering that spectacular kiss which he had witnessed, but his smile was kind and understanding, and he’d crossed the room to speak to her at once. He really was a very nice man. “You just missed him, dear,” he said, glancing down at the flowers. “But not to worry, he’s good as new and twice as troublesome. Back to his old self. Everyone’s right as rain, now.” He looked a little red in the face himself, for some reason, but she didn’t think about it at the time. It was only afterwards, as she was leaving the clinic and overheard the nurses gossiping that things started to resolve themselves into an unwelcome pattern.

Despite herself, Katie reached out and felt her fingers close around the speaker’s quivering shoulder. Red-brown curls brushed the back of her hand as the nurse turned around, still grinning. She was a little taller than Katie, with a generous mouth and the sort of lush, curvy figure Katie Brown had always wanted to have when she was a skinny little stick of a teenage science nerd. Evans, she was called, or Erikson, or something like that – Katie knew they had met at some party or other, but she couldn’t quite place the name. Katie found herself fighting an irrational impulse to slap the grin right off of her pretty face. She could almost hear the ringing sound, feel the sting of it on her skin. She took a deep breath and made herself be calm.

“Excuse me,” she heard herself say, her voice sounding strange in her ears, “but is that Doctor McKay you’re talking about? Kissing…kissing Doctor Carson Beckett?” The nurse dissolved into giggles again, her full bosom heaving, and nodded helplessly. Katie stared at her, turning over data and feeling more like an idiot by the second. “Doctor Rodney McKay?” There were, she knew, no other Doctors McKay on Atlantis, so this was a perfectly stupid question.

“You should have been there,” gasped the nurse, her freckled face pink with laughter. “It looked like one hell of a kiss.” Katie felt herself grow cold. Her hand fell away from the other girl’s shoulder and she stepped back. The flowers fell from the fingers of her other hand to lie forgotten on the floor.

“I see,” she said, and walked blindly away, bruising the buttery petals underfoot and never even noticing. Behind her, the nurse said something about Sheppard, and something else about Cadman, but Katie was no longer paying attention. Well, that explained why Carson Beckett had been with Rodney on their date, and why he had looked so embarrassed just now. She dug her fists into her pockets, feeling like the butt of a joke and resenting it enormously. But why bother with a date at all, in that case? And why – how – what on earth had prompted him to kiss her like that, if he hadn’t meant anything by it? “Bastard,” she muttered, shocking herself a little but feeling righteously angry nevertheless. She had not deserved this. “Rodney McKay, you utter bastard.”

She was supposed to be helping Lewis with testing the new grain samples. She should really get back to the lab. She was only going to look like a fool if she went and initiated some awkward, melodramatic scene with Rodney McKay, so she should definitely just head back to the lab and get on with her work.

She didn’t.

• * *

She heard McKay before she saw him, and she saw him long before he saw her.

“…oh, just spit it out, Major, I can see that you’ve been dying to say something all day. Go on, go on, get it over with.”

He was just around a bend in the corridor, and she felt her cheeks growing hot and her feet slowing despite themselves. Perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea after all. She paused, and thought about just running back to the lab and losing herself in work. She really did hate mindgames.

“You kissed Beckett.” That was John Sheppard’s voice. And there it was, straight from the horse’s mouth, or practically so. McKay had kissed Beckett. McKay was – what? Gay? Bisexual? A colossal jerk, anyway, to be kissing both of them within a day or so, and to be bringing Beckett along on dates with him. Katie wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, but she couldn’t quite drag herself away now. She craned forward, listening to their voices retreating further down the corridor. McKay was loud enough to hear four floors away, but Sheppard’s voice was pitched lower and she had to strain to catch his words.

“Oh thank you very much for reminding me. Really, I was hoping to relive that particular humiliating memory again. Thanks. Anyway, technically it was Lieutenant Cadman who kissed Beckett. Cadman. Not me. Ghastly woman. She just happened to be using my mouth at the time.”

Katie replayed the sentences in her head several times. They still made absolutely no sense. Sheppard said something, but she couldn’t quite make out the words, and after a moment of hesitation she peered around the corner, feeling unspeakably silly but unable to resist the impulse. She needn’t have worried. They were far too busy looking at one another to notice her.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

They had stopped walking, and McKay was red faced and glaring at the major.

“But you were conscious.” There was an odd intensity to Sheppard’s voice. “You could feel it.”

“I – look, she just hijacked my body while I was asleep, the opportunistic wench, and did God knows what with it while I was unable to protect myself, and then she minced off into the night to flirt with Beckett and invite him along on my date, if you can imagine that! While wearing a Rodney suit. And she sleeps naked. I was naked. She saw me naked. I was helpless, and she took advantage of me. And she did all this exercise. I still ache. It was a thoroughly hideous experience, Major, and I’m just glad it’s over now.”

“You took Beckett along on your hot date?” Major Sheppard sounded highly entertained by this. Katie felt herself scowling.

“Yes, can you imagine? It was a disaster. An unmitigated disaster. And it’s all that woman’s fault for putting me in that position, making me look like I needed somebody to hold my hand – when all the time it was because she had the hots for Beckett, incredible as that might seem. I mean – Beckett! The nerve of her. And then she – well, the less said about that the better, although I have to admit that Katie felt very – but really, Lieutenant Cadman is the most appalling back seat driver in this or any other galaxy, Major. I am perfectly capable of conducting my own – affairs – without help from some interfering parasite consciousness, thank you very much.”

Major Sheppard cocked his head and studied McKay during this little rant, and he seemed to be smiling.

“You’re avoiding the question. You weren’t asleep when you kissed Beckett, Rodney. You were wide awake and bossing us all around. And then she took over, we could see that – which, incidentally, definitely registered on the weirdometer. But you were conscious, Rodney. So – could you feel it?”

Katie chewed her lip meditatively while she waited for Rodney’s reply. She was beginning to piece this together, and she wasn’t at all sure how she felt about it. Other than acutely, acutely embarrassed, and increasingly pissed, and baffled as to why she had ever felt anything romantic towards Doctor Rodney McKay. An unmitigated disaster.

But it had been one hell of a kiss.

“What, is there some kind of betting pool? There is, isn’t there? Oh my God. I go through five kinds of hell and my colleagues just see it as another form of entertainment.”

He was pacing back and forth, his hands darting through the air as he spoke. Rodney McKay, Katie reflected with surprising detachment, could simply not stand still for more than a few seconds.

“If I win, I’ll share,” said Sheppard.

“What good is your money going to do me here, Major?” demanded Rodney, stopping mid-pace and looking at Major Sheppard like he was quite the stupidest man in the history of the universe.

“Swiss chocolate. That’s what I stand to win.” Katie could hear McKay’s indrawn breath all the way down the corridor. Sheppard smiled, and stepped a little closer, his eyes fixed on McKay’s. “So – could you feel it, Rodney?”

You didn’t kiss me, thought Katie, watching Rodney McKay lick his lips. It wasn’t you. Somehow it was Laura Cadman, kissing Beckett. Kissing me. Of course. Because this is the Pegasus Galaxy, and nothing ever goes smoothly.

“I – which way did you bet?” asked Rodney, and his voice was a little rough around the edges.

“That would be cheating.”

“Oh, and you’d never dream of cheating, Major.”

Sheppard was standing very close now, Katie couldn’t help but notice. “Just answer the question, McKay. Could you feel the kiss? Did she take you along for the ride?”

“I – well, I – not that it is any of your business, but I suppose that maybe I could.” There was a long pause. Katie could see Rodney’s chest rising and falling too quickly. He licked his lips again, looking at the Major standing so close and for a moment Katie thought that he might be about to run away. “Although I can honestly say that I’ve never had a single erotic thought about Carson Beckett in my life, and the fact that I – that we – well, I certainly wouldn’t have chosen him as the first – that is – I – well. Uh. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Okay.”

And that was when Major Sheppard kissed him. And Katie found that she wasn’t really surprised at all. There was a moment while McKay’s large hands flailed wildly in the air, windmilling madly, but Sheppard kept right on kissing him, and after a very little while Rodney’s hands closed on the Major’s shoulder and on his waist and pulled him closer, and it turned out that he could, in fact, stand still after all.

“Well, crap,” said Katie Brown, with feeling.

• * *