RATING: PG
SEASON: Season 4
MAJOR CHARACTERS: McKay and Sheppard
DISCLAIMERS: The characters, Atlantis, etc, all belong to Sony, MGM, Gecko, Showtime, the Sci-Fi Channel. 
SUMMARY: McKay and Sheppard find a database that might tell them exactly how to defeat the Wraith and John must determine the value of this information when McKay falls ill.
FEEDBACK: Yes please! comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
NOTE:  This continues the series of short stories, each featuring McKay and one of the other characters.  If you want to check out the other stories, please see Stupid Stuff, Weird Kid, Strange Doings, Odd Hours and Peculiar Things
NOTE:  This story was in response to the SGA Ficathon: prompts Friendship and Paperwork/Documents and was originally titled "Repository of Knowledge".
DATE: February 28, 2008

Dumb Books
By NotTasha

Sheppard bowed his head, ducking into his collar.  The wind was sharp.  The cold, like tiny daggers, slashed across his cheeks and he closed his eyes against the onslaught.  Everything around him was winter white – an endless featureless plain that was so bright it hurt to keep his eyes open.

He put a shoulder into the wind, and turned his head.  The gust seemed to cut through him and his inadequate clothing.  He kicked through the three-or-so inches of snow -- not a substantial amount unless you’re traveling through it, without winter boots, without winter clothes.

Beside him, Rodney coughed and slowed.

“Come on,” John ordered.  He had to raise his face out of his collar to be heard.  “Keep going.  We’re almost there.”

Another cough, and a hoarse voice shouted, “You… you said that an hour ago.”

“We’re closer now,” Sheppard added. “Move it.”

“You don’t… you don’t know where we are,” McKay challenged as he continued to cough.  “I… I just….” He came to halt, resting arms on his knees as he hacked.

Sheppard sighed, watching McKay for a moment, then glanced about them, hoping to catch sight of something familiar, the shape of the Gate maybe.  Instead, he saw only endless white nothingness.

Rodney was right.  He didn’t know where they were.

What was he thinking?  God, what a mistake.  What a huge freakin’ mistake.  He pulled at his jacket, wishing for his winter gear, wanting a scarf, gloves, a damn hat, wanting the Gate.

The coughing lessened, leaving Rodney clutching his jacket with one hand; the other rested on his knee.  His face was red.  He spat, and then kicked at the snow, disgusted.

Damn, Sheppard thought, he’s getting worse.  “You okay?” he asked.

McKay gave him a glare.  “I’ve got a stupid cold and we’re lost.  I’m freezing my ass off and we’re probably still miles from the Gate!  I’m fine.  Peachy.  Couldn’t be better. ”

“We have to keep moving,” Sheppard reminded.  “Sooner we get home, the sooner we can get warmed up.”

“Fabulous thought,” McKay snapped as he straightened, he fiddled with his jacket.  “Why didn’t I think of that?  Because this weather is downright balmy.  I don’t know why anyone would want to get out of it.”

“I’m as sick of this as you are,” Sheppard grumbled.

“Not as sick as me,” Rodney groused. Red-rimmed eyes looked at John from a wind-beaten face.

True, Sheppard thought, and then said, “So, let’s keep moving.”

“I really wish a jumper would just show up,” Rodney whined.  “You said they’d send one.  I’m tired.  I just want to sit down.”

“It depends on if Ronon and Teyla made it back yet.  Until then, we walk.”  Sheppard waited for Rodney to take the first step.  “Could be they’re having trouble, too.  They may need us to send a jumper out after them.”

“Right,” Rodney said with a nod.  He sniffled.  “Okay.”  He did his best to square his shoulders.  “There better be coffee waiting for me when we reach home,” he declared as he moved forward, his voice a low rumble.  “I’m going to drink a whole pot and I don’t want to hear ANYONE complaining about me getting more than my fair share.”  He kept walking.  “I’m just sayin’.  Coffee.  I get it all.”

“Not if I get there first,” Sheppard told him.

Rodney sneered and increased his speed, and for a while they made good time, but soon enough Rodney’s attempt flagged.

They had to move.  Sheppard put an arm under Rodney’s and gave a tug.  The scientist looked at the gesture.  His haughty expression dropped to one of exasperation and mortification, but he allowed Sheppard to help him and they kept making their way through the blasted landscape.  Rodney’s shoulders would shake with his attempts to hold back another bout of coughing, and Sheppard kept him moving forward.

“It’s too damn cold!” Rodney grumbled.

“Yeah,” Sheppard responded, having nothing else worth saying.

“Watch, just watch,” McKay muttered.  “I’m going to freeze to death out here.”

“The snow stopped,” Sheppard told him.  “It’ll start warming up.”

“And you get that impression because the sun will be going down soon?” McKay griped.

“We should be home by then,” Sheppard tried.

“Right.”  McKay didn’t sound convinced and he sniffled again.  He glanced to Sheppard and stated, “I don’t think I’ll ever warm up.”

Not that long ago, they were both warm and content, taking their fill of the local delicacies in the halls of the Carspa governing council.  Outside, the weather had been brisk, but pleasant, reminding Sheppard of ‘sweatshirt weather’ back home.  Inside, there was nothing but comfort.

They’d landed the Jumper just within the city walls in an open courtyard.  They’d been greeted with graciousness, and had been assured that there’d be no trouble.  The Carspas were a ‘simple’ people.

When would he ever learn?

The Governor’s mansion was a cozy place, filled with inviting rooms and pleasant fireplaces.  Everything had been bathed in a warm glow as they were served trays of preserved fruits by women wearing dresses of gauzy material.

McKay had, at first, been suspicious of both the women and the fruit, afraid to ‘try’ any of them.   He eventually gave in to the fruit.  The women proved harder to ‘sample’.  He’d given Sheppard an annoyed look after the final rebuff, explaining, “I have a cold.  It wouldn’t be… prudent.”

“Yeah… prude,” Sheppard had responded with a laugh, as one of the serving wenches paid him extra attention.

The Ancient database had divulged a little secret about the planet, Carspa.  An Ancient by the name Akel Rees had lived near the present-day city, and had conducted experiments on Wraith prisoners.  It was all very unseemly, and his laboratory was destroyed when news of his work had been released to the others. Rees was gone by that time, either ascended or run off, or dead -- and in spite of a very thorough demolition of the lab, his notes were not located.

The Ancients might have frowned upon unpleasant experimentation, but it didn’t mean they’d pass up the opportunity to profit from the knowledge gained.  The notes remained gallingly lost.  Whatever Rees learned, was lost.  If his notes could be recovered, new means of stopping the Wraith could be had.

So, when it was discovered that the notes might still be in existence, Sheppard’s team paid the planet a visit, and enjoyed the comforts of the governing class.

The Carspa people were known for their fertile farmlands and abundant orchards.  Less acknowledged were the inequality among the classes, the volatile political situation and unpredictable weather conditions.  A coup had caught their hosts by surprise, and by the time the team from Atlantis was aware of the situation, Sheppard and McKay were cut off from the others and their jumper.

Teyla and Ronon had discovered the danger first.  On the far side of the spread-out city, they’d been able to radio a warning to their teammates, but it was too late.  The ‘terror’ had begun and the ruling class of Carspa would be routed out before the day was done.

Sheppard might have stood and fought, except he wasn’t sure which side deserved such protection.  The governors were rather arrogant, and the working class did appear repressed.  So, in the end, he’d managed to muscle McKay from the governor’s quarters and into the streets.  All the while, the physicist had cried about his pack and how he needed to grab it before the left.  But there was no time – when faced with a mob of stirred-up citizens armed with machetes, sometimes one simply had to flee.

They’d been ambushed at one point, thrown to the ground and roughly searched for weapons, technology, anything of use.  They’d managed to break away, and escaped the city with their lives -- and counted themselves lucky.

Their attempt to double back and reach the jumper had been thwarted by a fire blazing through the street, so they walked, determined to cover the five-miles-or-so to the Gate. They’d meet up with Teyla and Ronon along the way, and return with force to reclaim their property.  Their radios gone, they had to hope that their path would cross with their teammates’.

It was then that the weather took a turn for the worse, and a snowstorm swept over them.

Certainly someone in the Carspa city would see the unexpected storm as a ‘sign’, a signal that their cause was just, or doomed.  Someone would use the gusting wind and dumping snow to their advantage, or maybe both sides would use the blizzard as an excuse to give up.

It snowed hard, and then it simply stopped.

Sheppard had used the thick weather as cover to rush McKay further from the city, to return to the Gate without taking a direct path – in case they were followed.

He hadn’t accounted for the cold, the disorientation, the lack of communication, and Rodney’s worsening cold.  And he cursed himself for getting them into this fix.

They were lost.  There was no doubt about it.  Their only hope was to find the Gate – or double back and hope that tempers had calmed in the city.  Doggedly, Sheppard continued, hoping that he was correct about their path, but the clouds had swallowed up the sun and he had no means of exactly judging their direction.

It was too damn cold.

Rodney halted again, coughing, sounding as if he was trying to hack his lungs out.  Sheppard, unable to do anything else, slapped him on the back.

After a minute, rummy-eyed, McKay lifted his head and croaked, “We’re lost.”  He huffed, still trying to catch his breath, and shivered, clutching his arms to himself.

“Look,” Sheppard insisted, “the Gate is just over that ridge.  We’re almost there.  If you’d just get your ass moving instead of stopping all the time, we’d be there by now.  Coffee’s probably waiting for us, unless, of course, your staff has finished it off already.”

“Fine, fine,” Rodney muttered, kicking through the layer of snow.  He shuffled, putting one foot in front of the other as he moved through the frigid weather.

Sheppard sighed and turned, gazing in the direction of the city they’d abandoned.  He couldn’t see the smoke that had risen from the palaces.  There was still no sign of Ronon or Teyla.

He hoped that they’d had better luck with returning to Atlantis.

It would be dark soon.

We should go back, Sheppard thought glumly.  In the Carspa city, there is shelter.  In the city, it is warm.  Hopefully the victors would be accommodating and allow them entrance.

Ahead of him, McKay stumbled along, the wind blowing his hair around.

If they didn’t find shelter soon, they were going to be in big trouble.

Rodney started coughing again, still stuttering forward through the blanket of snow.

Sheppard looked over his shoulder again.  He could retrace their steps, at least to the point when the snow hid their tracks.  From there, they could probably find the city.

“Rodney,” Sheppard called softly.  “We have to go back.”  The words were quiet, and eaten up by the wind.  He watched Rodney’s determined plodding, still heading in the direction that Sheppard had indicated, unaware that no one walked beside him.

His headway was slow, but constant.  Rodney wasn’t going to give up.

Sheppard sighed, hating this.  What else could they do?  There was nothing here – nothing, nothing and more nothing -- nothing but snow and wind and cold.

Rodney coughed again.

“Rodney,” Sheppard said again, his voice sharper.  There was no sense in continuing this march to nowhere.  He scanned the landscape ahead of them – featureless except for a hill that popped up from the snowy sameness. 

McKay kept going.  Perhaps he didn’t hear the voice calling.  Perhaps he was too focused on the simple act of moving to be aware of anything else.

The hill was strange, Sheppard thought, out of place with the rest of this land.  He narrowed his eyes at it and strode forward, quickening his pace.

“There you are,” McKay wheezed as John passed him.  “Was wonderin’ where you’d… hey!”

Sheppard broke into a trot, his boots plowing through the snow as the wind whisked by him.

From behind him, McKay said, “Hey,” again and tried to catch up, but another coughing fit stalled him.

Grimacing, Sheppard kept moving.  He was damn cold and his face felt nearly numb.  His hands ached and his feet were like lead.  Yet, he ran, galumphing through the snow toward the strange shape.  And he smiled tightly as he drew closer, realizing that this thing was not a natural formation.

A building –some sort of structure!  Snow was piled against the nearside in a thick drift. He circled it, feeling his heart leap with excitement as he found that the lea of the building was mostly clear.  A building – simple, but obviously of Ancient design.  Symbols ran above the door. He squinted at them, wondering what was being said.

Stymied, he turned about and looked around the corner for Rodney, and was hit again with a face-full of wind.   Great.

Rodney was still heading toward him, doing his best to catch up.  He lifted his head at the colonel’s reappearance.

“It’s a shelter!” John shouted, waving an arm and pointing to the building for emphasis.

Rodney seemed to increase his rolling gait, looking as if he was fighting to just keep moving.  Sheppard moved back to the protected side of the building, glad to be out of the wind.  He glanced at the symbols, and then started his search, hoping, praying that he could find the way inside.  There had to be some sort of door – he just hoped it wasn’t buried.

Numb fingers ran along the cold wall, and after a moment found a groove.  Grinning, he continued his hunt, locating a panel that was flush to the surface. YES!  The opening mechanism must be inside!  Fingers clawed and scraped, but too cold, they refused to work properly.

God, why didn’t he have gloves?  Damn it, damn it!  He struggled, willing himself to pop open the protective cover.  They couldn’t be THIS close and fail to get in!  Damn it!

He could hear Rodney gasping and the uneven thump-thump as he clomped through the snow toward him.

“What?” Rodney asked.  “What did you… oh…”

“Yeah… ‘oh’,” Sheppard responded.

“The Repository of Knowledge,” Rodney read, looking up at the symbols, then, in an awed voice, said, “Do you know what you’ve found?”

“Shelter,” Sheppard decided, grimacing has his fingers refused to do anything for him.

“It’s what we came here for,” Rodney told him.  “Who would’ve thought that we’d find it…”

“Son of a bitch!” Sheppard growled.

“Now, is that necessary?” McKay snapped back at him.

“I can’t get this damn thing open!” Sheppard snarled in return, bashing a closed fist into the panel.  “Come on, already!” and he smacked it again.

“Oh yeah, like that’s going to work,” Rodney mumbled, and struggled to get a hand into his pocket.

“We have to get in there, Rodney,” Sheppard told him.  “It’s our chance to…”  He stopped speaking when he noted what Rodney had retrieved -- a screwdriver. 

McKay's movements were clumsy and he almost dropped it, but managed to hold it out for the colonel.  “They didn’t find this,” he explained.  “Had it hidden against the zipper.”

“Good thinking,” Sheppard told him.

“Always,” McKay answered dryly.  “Which is better than I can say for…”

His discourse was cut off as the protective cover was popped, and Sheppard immediately triggered the door.  It slid open with a groan and he felt a strange rush of air as the door parted, as if the room had been vacuum sealed.

Sheppard grasped Rodney and dragged him along as he stepped into the little room.  Light came in through a skylight, revealing a space that was stale smelling and cold.  Two podiums stood at the center of the room and the walls were mostly featureless.

Good enough, Sheppard thought and waved a hand over the interior control.  The door shut behind them.

“Oh, thank God,” Rodney muttered.  “Thank God.”  He flapped his arms and squeezed his hands and moaned uncomfortably.  “Thought I’d freeze to death out there.  Oh God, I’m cold.”  He sneezed, violently, three times, and went back to flapping his arms, as if he could beat some feeling into them.

They were out of the weather, but the room was like an icebox.

“How do we turn the heat on in this place?” Sheppard asked as he moved slowly through the mostly empty room.  “Where are the controls, McKay?”

“Give me a minute,” Rodney answered crankily.  He coughed, trying to stifle it against his chest.  “A minute, okay?” His voice little more than a squeak and he hugged his arms to his chest.

Rodney was pale except for the bright spots at his cheeks – but that could easily be explained by windburn.  He breathed roughly, panting, as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath, and his whole body heaved with the effort.  He pulled a cloth from one pocket and coughed into it.

“Take your time,” Sheppard muttered.  “I’ll see what I can find.  Must be a control panel here somewhere to turn the heat on, right?”

Sheppard blew out curls of air as his breath condensed in the cold room.  He looked for anything that would help them. The tall stands were featureless, each topped with some sort of book.  There were no controls to be seen.  He ran a hand through his hair, feeling little bits of snow fall loose as he searched through the room.

There were no panels or consoles, no buttons or knobs or switches.  It was just a room, as far as John could tell.  Just a room wasn’t going to save them, he decided.  He had to figure out a way to get the heat started, and he paused when he reached one of the narrower walls – Finally!

There was some sort of faceless box or console against the wall.  He touched it, feeling the cold even with his numb hands, and he pulled back the hand to blow on his fingers.

Behind him, Rodney suddenly exclaimed, “Yes, this is it!”

Sheppard spun about.  “You found the controls!”

“No… no… but this is definitely the database we were looking for.”  McKay looked up at him, his eyes bright with excitement. “A library!”

Sheppard grimaced.  “Two books hardly make a library,” he scoffed.

“It’s a written history of all the experiments performed by Akel Rees,” McKay stated, awe in his voice.  “I wasn’t expecting it to be written.  An electronic database would be so much easier to parse, but he was a bit different, I guess.  I wonder if that’s why the other Ancients never found this place.”  He glanced around the room.  “No Ancient technology present except for the door mechanism.  Hmm.  The Ancients who were looking for his notes never would have considered ‘written’ information so they shouldn’t have become curious enough to come looking for this place.  The natives probably couldn’t get through the door, so it never really bothered them.  To think the information we sought has been locked up here, in the open, for all this time.”

“I don’t know, McKay,” Sheppard responded tiredly.  “You sure this is it?”

Rodney pointed to the symbols of the book, “Do you see what this says?”

To Sheppard, the symbols looked like the drawings of children.  “No,” he responded.

“’My Findings, by Akel Rees,’” McKay translated.  “Volume 1.”  And he gave Sheppard a smug look.

“Great,” Sheppard sighed.

"That one is Volume 2," McKay indicated.

"Figured as much," Sheppard responded and then he thought of something.  “These are ten thousand year old books?  I didn’t think paper could last that long.  Shouldn’t it be dust by now?”

“Well, Ancients would know how to make a material that would last.  The room was probably sealed and undisturbed all that time.  And, I doubt that this is paper as we know it.  Probably something much more resilient.”  He grinned stupidly as he stared at the first page.  “Rees was experimenting with ways to stop the Wraith.  Imagine what he discovered!”  His pale face seemed to light up a little at the idea, but the pleased expression soon fell as he turned away to cough again, he shuddered with the effort and seemed to sink into himself.

“Come on,” Sheppard said, with a jerk of his head. “Help me get this device working.  It should have controls to heat up the room, right?  It’s freakin’ freezing in here.  After that, we can look at books.”

McKay straightened, his eyes darting from one book to the other.  “We really need to check them out, decipher and …”

“After we turn on the heat.  Sound like a plan?” Sheppard pressed.

“Huh?  Heat?  Oh yeah, that’d be a good place to start.  I’m frozen.” McKay moved stiffly where Sheppard led.  “Huh,” he said softly when he reached their goal.

“Some sort of control box?” Sheppard stated.

“Yeah, maybe,” McKay replied, frowning.    “Doesn’t look like any I’ve come across.  This cover is all one piece.  Probably lifts forward.”

“Help me with it,” Sheppard stated, and together they worked at manhandling the cover forward and away.  It scraped loudly against the floor, and the simple effort left Rodney breathless, and leaning against the wall.

Gruffly, Sheppard pressed the cover further, getting it out of the way to see what lay beneath, and was nonplussed at what was revealed.  “What the hell?” he exclaimed.

Rodney checked what they’d found and frowned a little.  “It’s a stove.”

“I can see it’s a stove,” Sheppard responded, leaning over it.  “It just seems pretty low tech for our Ancient friends.”

Rodney nodded, wrapping his arms around his chest.  “It was probably designed to be low tech so that it could be easily used on this planet, and Akel Rees might not have had access to a ZPM.”

“Too bad,” Sheppard stated as he tinkered with the stove and discovered how to open the front hatch. The grate creaked open to reveal a space layered with ash from a long ago fire.

Behind him, Rodney shuffled about.  “Can you just get it started?  I’m freezing here!  And what isn’t frozen, hurts,” he declared and promptly ran into something.  He cursed, muttering, “My chest hurts, my head hurts, my eyes hurt, my bones ache, and I’ve been coughing up all sorts of crap, and it would really, really help if I wasn’t freezing to death on top of that.”  With a moan, he yanked out his cloth and coughed.

Sheppard paused at the comments, not liking any of what Rodney revealed.

“I hate being sick,” Rodney groaned.  “God, I hate being sick.”

“You’re not the only one,” Sheppard responded with a sigh.

“What?  Is my coughing annoying you?  Because it…”  And he stopped mid-sentence to hack into his handkerchief.  “This sucks,” he proclaimed when the bout finished.

Sheppard had lifted his gaze from the stove to watch McKay, wishing he could do something, wishing that they had some supplies.  “We’ll get this thing going and you’ll feel a lot better,” Sheppard promised.

“It’s just my rotten luck,” McKay went on.  “You, when you get a cold, you manage to save all of Atlantis because of it.  Me?  I get to deal with it as I freeze during a death-march through a blizzard.  I slow us down and get us stuck in a hovel in the middle of nowhere.”  He sniffled.  “Not only that, we had to run for our lives from people wielding machetes!  What the hell?”

Sheppard continued his exploration of the device.  “This seems fairly straightforward,” he spoke.  “Just a simple woodstove.”

“If it’s that easy, why isn’t it working yet?” McKay asked bluntly.

“I need to figure out how to open the flue, and we’re going to need something to burn.”

Shivering, Rodney added, “And matches.”

“Got it covered,” Sheppard responded. “You managed to hide a screwdriver in your jacket.  I have this.”  And he pulled something from his pocket and held it for Rodney to see – a lighter.

“Great… great… so…” McKay paused, looking about.  “I don’t see any firewood, and I don’t remember any trees nearby.”  He glanced to the door, looking distraught.  “We might be able to find something if we went… out again.”

Night was falling, Sheppard thought.  Already the light was dimming from overhead.  Snow covered the ground.  “Don’t think it’d do much good.  I didn’t see anything,” he stated, and then added a “Ha!” as he found a lever.  There was a metallic sound as something opened.  Bits of debris dribbled into the stove, and then they could hear the wind as it wailed outside.  “Got the chimney open,” Sheppard declared victoriously.  “Now, for something to burn.”

Rodney was standing over one of the books, leaning most of his weight on the podium, as he laboriously scrutinized the first page.

“Rodney,” Sheppard called.  “What about these tables?  Burnable?”

“Not a chance,” McKay answered unhappily.  “They’re made out of the same metal alloy that makes up half of Atlantis.  Won’t burn.  Won’t hardly melt.”

Sheppard approached the other book.

“Hey!” McKay called, stumbling toward him.  “Not the books!”  Protectively, he threw an arm over Volume 2.

With him so near, Sheppard could easily feel the heat coming from the scientist, the flush of cheeks wasn’t windburn.  His skin looked clammy, too pale, and each breath rattled in his chest.  Crap.

John lifted a hand to place it against Rodney’s forehead.

Startled by the movement, Rodney batted the hand away and stumbled backward.  “Knock it off!” he snapped, and the exclamation was enough to put him into another coughing fit.  He braced himself against the wall and brought the cloth to his face again.

Damn it.  Was this pneumonia – or whatever was the equivalent in the Pegasus galaxy?  John cursed himself for getting Rodney stuck in this mess.

“I’m burning the book,” Sheppard declared, moving to get his hands around it.

“No!” McKay jammed his handkerchief back into a pocket and came at him.  “This is the information we came for.  They’ve been lost for eons.  They have…”  His voice went away with a squeak.  He cleared his throat and tried again, “They have the information we need to… defeat the Wraith…”

“Rodney, we need to burn something.”

“These books are like… the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Rosetta Stone, the Mayan Codices, the… the…”  and he grimaced, obviously wanting to say more, but was unable to come up with the information.

“We’re freezing,” Sheppard told him.

“Maybe we could burn our clothes first,” Rodney tried, plucking at his jacket.

Sheppard shook his head in disbelief.  “What part of ‘we’re freezing’ do you not understand?”

“I’m not that cold,” Rodney tried as he shivered.  “And our body heat is already warming up the room, right?  We’re out of the cold.  We’re out of the snow and the wind.  We’ll be fine.”  And he smiled, trying to look convincing.

He ruined it when he turned away and started coughing again, grasping tightly to the podium to keep from falling over.   Each breath was labored as he fought to draw it in.  Sheppard reached out and, this time, was able to place a hand on his forehead.  Rodney didn’t seem to notice.

He was hot as hell.

“That’s it,” Sheppard declared, grabbing the nearer book.

“No… no…” Rodney wheezed out, and then… “…what about…the Wraith?”

Sheppard paused.  “You think this Rees guy was onto something?”

“The others certainly thought so.  Apparently… apparently… they found evidence of his… success.” Rodney nodded tucking one arm around his middle.  “The secret to stopping the Wraith must be here, lost for all this time.  We’d be heroes if we came back with the information.  Think of… how many people we could save.”  He tried not to cough again, pulling his lips tight for a moment as Sheppard contemplated.  McKay went on, “Just… give me a few minutes with them.”

When Sheppard didn’t deny him, Rodney grinned slightly and leaned over the book John had tried to remove.  He swayed as he stood, blinking and shivering.

With a groan, Sheppard grabbed Rodney by the elbow and pulled him away.

“Hey,” McKay protested.  “But you…”

With his other arm, Sheppard picked up the book, and then kicked the podium to the floor.  It landed with a clatter.  With a shove of his foot, he’d pressed it near the stove and then he angled McKay toward it.  “Sit down,” he demanded, pointing to the toppled piece of furniture.

Tentatively, McKay tried it, and found that the new orientation of the podium created a serviceable bench.

Once Rodney was seated, Sheppard dropped the book to his lap.  “Start reading,” he demanded.  “Figure out if there is ANYTHING worthwhile in it.  If it doesn’t help us, it goes in the fire.”

“Right,” McKay responded.  He opened the cover, turned the page, and drew his hands into his sleeves.

“How long?” Sheppard demanded as he walked about the room in a circle.  “How long before you figure out if this book is any good?”

“It may take a while,” Rodney responded glumly.  He sniffled again and rubbed his nose on his sleeve.  “A long while,” he amended as he extended fingers from the cuff of his jacket, and flipped through the first pages.  He hunched over the book, trying not to cough.

Sheppard stared at the other book, and touched its cover.

“Uh-uh-uh,” McKay chided.  “No touchee until I’ve had my chance.”

“What is the cover made from?”  Sheppard asked.

“The same material as the ‘paper’.  It’s just a much heavier grade,” McKay responded, sounding sure of himself.

“It will burn?”  Sheppard questioned.

“Yes, but we’re not going to burn it until I’ve looked through it.”

“I’m just talking about the covers.”

McKay’s head shot up and he made a pathetic attempt to snap his fingers, shaking his hands loose of his sleeves.  “Yes, yes, the covers.  Why didn’t I think of that?”  He smiled, looking relieved.  “We could burn just them!  I mean, it would seriously affect the resale price, and make these museum pieces rather tattered looking.”  Rodney looked unhappy at this thought.

That was enough for Sheppard.  He grasped hold of the cover and leaned his weight on the pages.  He yanked, and then growled as his attempt failed.  Stupid muscle-man ads made this look easy.  Ronon could probably do this in no time.  He yanked again, feeling his muscles strain until, eventually, something started to tear and then the cover came loose.  Once one was freed, the other was fairly easy to remove.

He jammed the stripped book under his arm, and strode back to the stove. Rodney gazed at him with red, hooded eyes, looking at the broken covers as if was viewing a pelt from some freshly skinned fuzzy creature.

The covers were quickly shoved into the maw of the stove.  Sheppard held the lighter to one of them.  It took a moment to catch, but soon created a winking flame.

He joined McKay on their makeshift bench, and settled the coverless book on his lap.  Rodney had raised his head to see the fire start, and with a sigh, held out his hands to the growing warmth.

“This is good,” McKay said softly.  “See, we have our fire and we still have the books.  You can take the cover from this one when that burns down a bit, right?  And by then, we should be rescued, because Ronon and Teyla should have made it back by now.” He stopped talking, and asked quietly.  “Think they’re okay?”

“I’m sure of it,” Sheppard stated firmly.  “This planet has no moon, and with that cloud cover, it’s pretty dark out there.  Probably slowed them down a bit.”

Rodney nodded, and then his shoulders shook with another stifled cough.  One hand rubbed at his forehead.

“Head hurt?”  Sheppard asked.

“Like ‘Coro di zingari’ is playing in my head,” McKay grumbled.

“Say what?”

“You know, from Giuseppe Verdi's ‘Il trovatore’.”

“I’m still lost.”

“‘Le fosche notturne’?  ‘The Anvil Chorus’? ” Rodney grimaced in irritation when Sheppard still shrugged, and he tried to hum a bit of the familiar tune, but ended up coughing.

“Oh, gotcha,” Sheppard responded.  “From Bugs Bunny.”

“Yeah,” Rodney said nodding.

“Should have said so in the first place.  Why do you know stuff like that?” Sheppard queried.

Rodney shrugged.  "I have a good memory."

"Yeah?"

"Brain as big as a planet," Rodney added with a slight smile.

“You’re freakish,” Sheppard told him.

“I know,” McKay responded as he stared down at the book, seeming to hardly focus on it.

Light faded from above them from the skylight, replaced with the glow from the fire.  The covers burned slowly and warmly but, too soon, they’d be gone.  Sheppard glanced to McKay, listening to his unhealthy breathing as the Canadian worked his way slowly through the book, scanning each page before turning it.

Sheppard looked at his book, scrutinizing the dance of symbols, wondering how the hell Rodney understood it.  To him the books were silent, dumb.  And yet, to Rodney, they were filled with ideas, information and perhaps a means of stopping their enemy.  To think, such answers existed here -- undisturbed -- for thousands of years.  Two silent books, dumb, locked in a room to be rediscovered only now.

John rather envied Rodney for a moment.

Then McKay coughed again, a wracking, wrenching cough that went on for too long.  Finally, it seemed to pass, and Rodney sniffled and grimaced.  All the while, Sheppard kept one arm around Rodney’s shoulders, keeping him from toppling over.

“I hate this,” Rodney grumbled.  “It’s so dumb to be sick.”

“Yeah, only dumb people get sick,” Sheppard jibed.

Rodney paused over a page and muttered, “I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

“Trade?” Sheppard asked, holding up his stripped book.  “I can get the cover off of that one.”

“Oh, okay,” McKay nodded and lifted his hands from the book.  Sheppard switched out one book for the other, then set to work ripping off the cover.

“You really think we need to do that now?”  McKay asked.  “Can’t we spread the desecration out a little bit?”

“We need to get heated up.  I don’t know about you, but I’m still half-frozen from that walk,” Sheppard declared.  “You probably need more light to see anyway and the only way to get that is to increase the size of the fire.”

Rodney tilted his head back, noting the blackness that crossed the skylights.  When he brought his head down, he winced and reached for his forehead.

Sheppard ripped one cover free and tossed it into the stove.  “We’re going to need more.”

“Yeah,” McKay agreed as he studied the denuded book before him.  He fingered the cover page and turned it, flipping quickly through the first few pages.

Sheppard threw the back cover after the other one, and then examined the first pages of his book.  “These are mostly blank,” he stated.

“Cover sheet, authors notes, a sort of a… prefix,” McKay explained.

“So, not needed?” Sheppard asked as the thumbed through the early pages.  He grabbed hold of them and tore them loose. 

“Hey! That might have been…”

“Burnable,” Sheppard stated and wadded the pages before throwing them in.  John marveled that the pages burned longer that he would have expected from ‘paper’.  Even so, the flames didn’t last long.  They’d be back to the smoldering covers in a few minutes.

“Now yours,” Sheppard said, holding out a hand.

With a sick look, Rodney did the same to his book, ripping out the first pages, and handing them to Sheppard.  “Back pages could probably go,” he said glumly, flipping to the end.  “End notes, citations, stuff like that.”

Sheppard turned over his book and checked the end pages.  Silent Ancient symbols dotted them.  He paged back until the pages seemed to be ‘filled’ with symbols, and then ripped out everything that came after.  Rodney did the same.

Quickly, Sheppard twisted the pages into three narrow ‘logs’, and inserted one into the fire.  It burned better than the last attempt, so he twisted the remaining logs into tighter twigs, and watched the first one burn.

An unpleasant thought crossed him.  “We didn’t just burn the table of contents, did we?” John asked.

“No,” McKay said with a sigh.  “Sadly, there’s nothing here labeled ‘this is how to kill off the Wraith’.  No index, no table of contents, just series of reports regarding his experiments as he performed them.  It reads more like paperwork than literature.”  He coughed again.

“Dull?” Sheppard asked.

“What’s more boring than paperwork?” McKay responded.  “It’s like he’s doing his best to ensure that every formality is included.  He takes forever to get to the meat of any issue and it is taking me a long time to get through this.  So, if you leave me alone, I can keep going and hopefully find something worthwhile.”

“Fine,” Sheppard replied and waited as Rodney read.  Sheppard was silent.  Rodney continued to cough.

Five minutes passed before Sheppard asked, “Anything good?”

Rodney shook his head, and paged forward.

“Because,” Sheppard stated, “You could tell me… if you found something we could use.”

Rodney glared.  

John gave the next ‘log’ another twist before adding it to the flame.  The fire was doing its job.  He flexed his hands, glad that the numbness was gone.  They might just make it out of this situation okay.

He waited as several minutes passed, as Rodney flipped pages and quietly read.  When the fire started to die down, he added the last piece of twisted paper, letting one end catch before he pushed it all the way into the stove.

Rodney made a face, looking thoroughly disgusted.

“What?” Sheppard asked.

“Some of this stuff is kinda sick,” Rodney explained, his voice taking on a haunted quality.  “No wonder the Ancients destroyed his lab.”

“Still,” Sheppard pressed.  “Is there anything that we can actually use?”

“Not yet.  Jeez, this guy was a nutcase.  Most of his experiments would have killed off any humans in the area, too.”  His voice became tighter and he coughed again.

“So we can’t use it?”  Sheppard held out his hand.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Rodney asked, his voice little more than a squeak.  He looked at Sheppard’s hand, perplexed.

“If there’s nothing good in those pages, we burn them.”

“Oh,” Rodney responded, and reluctantly tore at them.  “Seems there might be something worthwhile if I just had the time to really read what he’s recorded.  I don’t know if I’m really understanding all of it right now.”

Since he was moving too slowly, Sheppard leaned in and ripped the pages out himself.

Rodney flinched. “You have no idea how important this information might be!” he sniped.  “This information should be scanned into our database.  Burning them is ….”  And he coughed again, his whole body convulsed with the effort and his face fell into a tight knot of pain.

Sheppard gave him a clout on the back, hoping it helped, saying softly, “You okay?”

Having caught his breath, Rodney gasped, “No!  No I am not!  It’s wrong…”  His skin was an unhealthy color, looking too damn pale and clammy.

Once McKay caught his breath, Sheppard twisted the new pages into a tight form like the others, and poked it into the stove.  “There are worse things,” he declared.

Minutes passed and the little room warmed on the scorched documents.  Rodney made little tsking sounds and he thumbed forward in the book.  With a sigh he hunched further, his eyes closed, a hand pressed to his head.

“Anything?” Sheppard asked.

“Not much here we can use,” Rodney croaked, and then swallowed painfully.  “Either that or I just can’t think straight.”  He lifted his gaze to stare at Sheppard. “Too bad you can’t read.”

“I can read,” Sheppard shot back.  “Just not Ancient.”  He paged through his book a bit.  Honestly, how did Rodney pick up so many languages? 

“If you could read…” Rodney stated.  “You could… at least… be able to pick out a few words… to help.”

“Yeah, well, I haven't had time to learn it.  I keep pretty busy,” Sheppard told him.  “With soldier stuff… and stuff.”

Rodney snorted a small laugh, adding, “And golf.”

Sheppard couldn’t deny that.

Then McKay said, “The other book…”  He gestured to the mangled manuscript in John’s possession.  “It showed more promise…”

“Well then, switch,” Sheppard held it out, and watched as Rodney offered up his book, his arm trembling with the effort of lifting it.

Rodney noticed Sheppard’s concerned look as they switched books.  “It sucks being sick,” he muttered.  “You have no idea how much this sucks.  I can’t even lift a dumb book.  My head feels like it’s going to explode.  My chest… God, my chest.”  And he pressed his lips together to keep himself from coughing as he bowed his back.  When the spasm passed, he gasped out, “I feel horrible.”

“Rodney, maybe you should lie down or something.”

The Canadian seemed to be contemplating it a moment, but responded, “I’m fine.  I’m sick, deathly ill mind you, but anyone can sit up for a while and read a book.  I’m not that pathetic.”  He coughed again, but there seemed little power behind it.  His voice was getting swallowed up.  He trembled.

He was getting sicker, Sheppard realized, and the room was cooling.  The cold of the room wasn’t doing McKay any favors.

With a quick movement, Sheppard threw his entire book into the fire.

Rodney cried out and tried to lunge after it, but Sheppard pressed him back.  A quick explosion of breath had caught McKay in another coughing fit.

“You bastard!” Rodney finally got out as he continued to cough horribly.  “Do you have any idea…?”

“You said there was nothing worthwhile in that one.”

“I didn’t!  I just… I just… didn’t…have the time to… Do you know… It could have…bastard…”  Rodney gasped, trying to breathe and cough and talk all at the same time, failing at all of them.  “Son of a…”

The fire caught at the book, turning the edges yellow and orange as the flames consumed it.  It burned warmly, like a presto firelog, giving off ample heat.

“Bastard!  You… do you know what you’ve…”  He coughed, painfully.

Sheppard pounded Rodney’s back, hoping that the coughing and the pointless yammering ended soon.  Rodney stopped trying to speak when his voice dropped to nothing but a squawk, and he gazed into the stove.

He just breathed harshly for a minute, as Sheppard stopped pounding, but kept a hand on him.  Finally, McKay was able to rasp out, “You have no idea what you’ve destroyed.”  And then he blinked as the warmth caught his face, and the distressed lines seemed to fade a bit from his expression, as he uttered a soft “Oh.”

McKay stared into the fire, transfixed by it, and then uncurled his hands for their protective grasp of the remaining book. He held his hands out to the fire.  Sheppard released him and settled back in his seat.

They said nothing for several long moments, just soaking in the heat that was generated – finally, some real warmth.  Rodney’s shuddering subsided, but the unpleasant sound in his lungs remained – they rattled.

“It was priceless,” Rodney rumbled.  “A document of incalculable worth… and you just threw it away.”  He sniffled miserably.  “So much potential… gone.”

Sheppard said nothing for a moment, watching Rodney as he held out his hands to the heat, seeming to soak it in.  “Well,” he drawled, “What we don’t know won’t hurt us.”

Rodney furrowed his brow.  “That’s a ridiculous comment!” he exclaimed, which made him cough again. “The information you burned might’ve saved us… might’ve given us everything we needed to face down the Wraith.”

“No sense crying over spilt milk,” John said philosophically.  "Besides, you still have Volume 2.  Doesn't it make sense that it should have better information?  It's his later experiments, so... I'm just sayin'."

McKay nodded, seeing the wisdom in the statement, and then he let out a low sigh before stating, “There’s something immoral about burning it.”

“And freezing to death isn't?” Sheppard countered.

With a frown, Rodney rejoined, “We weren’t going to freeze to death.  We had a good system going – burning only the pages I had been able to… examine.”  He coughed again.  “Because, if nothing else, I’d be able to store the information… here.”  And he tapped the side of his head.

“Fine,” Sheppard said.  “Keep peeling off the pages as you go through them.  You’ve committed them to your brain as big as a planet, so the papers can go into the fire.”

McKay’s voice was little more than a throaty whisper as he said, “Now that you’ve destroyed one of the most important documents ever discovered… we can hold off for a while, thank you very much.  Let’s wait for that paradigm shifting manuscript …to die down a bit before we destroy the other, okay?” He ended with a squeak and a cough and went back to reading.

Sheppard watched the fire and watched over Rodney.   With any luck, Ronon and Teyla were now safely home in Atlantis.  Help would come soon.  The jumper could spot the heat of the fire.  It would be a matter of moments before they arrived.

Rodney kept at his work, with one hand over the turned pages as if to protect them from John.  The first book burned warmly, offering enough light to read, curling precious pages, turning important words to dust.

Rodney’s head continued to dip, his breathing became rougher, and the coughing continued, but it had become quieter, restrained, as if he couldn’t quite build up the strength any longer.  His lungs rattled, and John wondered if his lips weren’t taking on a bluish tinge as he gasped at every breath.

Still, Rodney read, his eyes flashing over the funny looking characters –  the strange silent notations that just might save them all.  He looked disgusted at times, disturbed, but suddenly brightened.  There was an excitement in his expression as he turned another page.

“Something important?” Sheppard inquired hopefully.

“Hmmm,” Rodney returned, running a finger down the page.

“Rodney?”

“Quiet!  This is good stuff,” Rodney wheezed, “It’s concerning an experiment that… oh… oh my… that could work…” And he coughed again, his whole body shaking.  “We could do this.”  He pointed to some of the strange letters.  “See… here he says that…he…he…” but Rodney’s voice had dried up, squeaking in his throat, which brought on another cough.

Sheppard waved a hand, “Don’t talk, okay?  Just read.”

Rodney chest jerked as he tried to cough without much luck.  “S’imporant,” he tried to gasp out.  “You should… know… I…” His red eyes watered, as the coughing started again. “In case…”

“Shut up, Rodney,” Sheppard ordered.  “Tell me later!  Stop talking!”

Rodney gasped, tears running down his face.  He scrubbed at them in irritation as his body jerked with coughs that amounted to little more than panting, that wouldn’t allow him to take a breath.

“Rodney!  Just breathe!  Come on, buddy,” Sheppard called, frightened, because -- for the love of God -- Rodney looked as if his face was turning blue.  He wrapped one arm around Rodney’s chest, keeping him upright as he slapped his back.  Rodney kept trying to gasp in some air.  Son of a bitch!  “Come on!” he shouted.  “Snap out of it,” which was a stupid thing to say, but he didn’t know what else to do.  So he pounded on Rodney’s back again.

Perhaps he managed to knock something loose, because suddenly Rodney drew in a gasp.

“You okay?” Sheppard repeated. He quickly pointed a finger into Rodney’s face. “Don’t talk!”

Looking embarrassed by the rebuke, Rodney breathed, open mouthed.

“Better?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney offered a tight nod.

“Okay… okay…” Sheppard went on, not knowing what else to say. “Good.  Just… stop doing that!”

Rodney rolled his eyes at him, but even that seemed exhausting, so he returned to the book.  And all John could do was wait, and watch.

After a few minutes, Rodney pointed to some characters and glanced up at Sheppard.  He opened his mouth to speak, but Sheppard snapped, “You speak one word and I’ll smack you so hard you’ll see stars.”

The mouth slammed shut, and Sheppard received a look that should have cut him like a dagger.

“Stars, Rodney,” Sheppard threatened.

Rodney, thankfully, said nothing.  He just sighed and returned to the book, sagging further, and breathing raggedly.

They should be coming soon, Sheppard promised as he glanced to the door.  Any minute now, Ronon and Teyla would be here with the troops.

But Rodney’s head continued to dip.  He blinked at the page for far too long, and ran a trembling hand over his forehead.  He was pale as the paper he studied.  An unpleasant sheen covered his face, and his eyes continued to water as he tried not to cough, as he continued to breathe shallowly.

Sheppard kept near, always keeping an arm on him, determined to keep him from falling over.

The book burned as another time passed.  The sacrificed pages were black with scattered spots of red.

Finally, Rodney wobbled.  His eyes closed and his chin touched his chest.  Arms dropped to his sides and he slumped.  Without a word, Sheppard carefully grasped his shoulders and maneuvered him until Rodney was laying across the makeshift bench.  There was little room, and Sheppard’s lap ended up being a pillow.  The book fell to the ground.

“What?” McKay rasped a minute later, blinking in surprise to find himself prone. “What… happened…” and he coughed that horrible pointless cough that didn’t do anything.

“Just rest for a minute,” Sheppard said as McKay wheezed. “And I told you not to talk anymore.”

Rodney’s hands moved weakly, searching, and then brushed across the book where it lay on the floor.  He sighed, looking satisfied, and then his gaze leapt up to meet John’s.  “Don’t…” he gasped, his voice a gravelly rattle.  His hand wouldn’t lift.  His eyes were focused blearily on Sheppard’s.  “Swear…” he tried.

Sheppard sighed.  “Just rest, Rodney.  They’ll be here any moment.”

“Swear you … you won’t… I haven’t…finished.” He swallowed and winced, and looked terribly sick.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Could work… I just need… I need to read…” and he reached for the book, and he coughed again, futilely, as he struggled to sit up.

“Stop talking,” Sheppard said again. “I meant what I said, Rodney – stars!”

“Please…” Rodney said, his voice so mangled it was barely heard.  His eyelids fluttered, until they slid closed and the hands stopped trying to grasp the book, and he settled against Sheppard’s lap.

Sheppard sighed, placing a hand against Rodney’s head, feeling the tackiness of his skin, the heat.  He listened to the labored, insubstantial breathing.

This was so not good.

What could he do?

John reached for the book, and drew it towards him, moving quietly so that Rodney didn’t wake.

He glanced to the stove, and waited, watching as that first book burned.  It burned slowly, but the end was inevitable -- soon enough only crisp black pages were left.  He held the second book, ready to heft it after the first, but waited.

The book might save them all.  It held answers.  It could tell them how to protect themselves against the Wraith.  Rodney had found something.  Certainly, there was more.

McKay had read through the first part of the book and he had a brain as big as a planet. 

Careful to not disturb him, John rested the broken book against one leg, and tore out the pages that Rodney had already read.  He twisted them together and threw them into the cinders, keeping the other pages safe.

He waited until the pages burned down.  He waited until they went black and only a few cinders remained.

The book was important.  The book should be saved.  It might save everyone in Atlantis – in the Pegasus Galaxy and beyond.  There was information contained in those pages – hard wrought data that would help their cause.  He stared at the book, focusing on the symbols that said nothing to him.  Silent.

Rodney huffed, his breath coming in rattling gasps.  He shuddered, shivering and muttering in a voice too ruined to be comprehended, Sheppard waited.  Rodney tried to curl up against Sheppard, fighting to stay warm, to keep breathing, to keep living.

Brain as big as a planet.

John waited until the room grew dark, until he felt the cold at his back.  He waited for help to arrive as Rodney’s fever raged, as he trembled without stop, as his lungs rattled with the illness that was surely consuming him.  His lips turned pale blue.

And so Sheppard tossed the rest of the book into the stove and watched it burn.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Rodney woke with a start, feeling worn out, but warm.  His chest hurt, his throat was sore and his joints ached, but he could breathe again.  That alone felt blessedly good. There was that strange disconnected sensation that came with ‘good drugs’. He opened his eyes and looked out.  The infirmary.  Atlantis.  He was home.  He smiled, and turned his aching head slowly.

“Hey,” he heard Sheppard speak.  Everything was blurred, so he blinked, clearing his vision until he could make out the colonel on the next bed, puttering about on a laptop.  “You’re awake.” Sheppard smiled as if he was unusually pleased about something.

Rodney was going to comment about the obvious statement, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a gargling hoarse sound that tore at his throat and made his chest ache all the more.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.  “Keller said it’s going to be like that for awhile.  Don’t talk.  Just keep still and don’t get yourself excited.  You are a very sick man.”

Really, McKay wanted to say.  Wow, what a surprise.  I’m sick!  Who would have thought that?  Of course, I know that I’m sick. I am the one LIVING this experience.

He felt so weak, as if he could barely move, and the colonel’s strange cheerfulness confused him.

“I think you rattled the doc pretty good,” Sheppard went on.  “She put you on that breathing machine.  Said something about you being too tired to do it on your own anymore, and said that your throat is going to be sore when you eventually woke up.” 

Sheppard went on, “She told me to tell you that you shouldn’t try to talk.  Not that it’ll do any good, because you didn’t listen to me when I said exactly that, two days ago.”

Two days? Rodney thought, creasing his brow.

Sheppard paused, seeing the expression, and asked, “You remember what happened?”

Of course, Rodney thought.  How could he possibly forget nearly freezing to death on that foresaken planet?  How could he forget the mother of all colds?  It was hell.  It was pure hell!  His chest hurt.  Where was Keller with a fresh round of good drugs?

God, he was pathetic.  There was nobody who succumbed to illness quite as easily as he did.  Sheppard must have been pretty fed up about the whole thing.

He strained, trying to remember what had happened.  Something important.  It was extremely important.  One of the most significant finds they’d come across since arriving in Atlantis.  But… what was it?

The books!  He turned to Sheppard, with wide eyes.

“What?” Sheppard asked.

McKay struggled, wanting to speak.  Where?  Where was it?

Alarmed, Sheppard sat up.  “You okay?  Want me to get Keller?”  He was on his feet, turned toward the doctor’s office.

McKay dry swallowed.  He struggled, he tried… and finally managed to gasp out, “Book?”

“Oh… yeah,” Sheppard responded, dropping back into his seat.  His face went blank as if he were trying to hide something.  “Don’t worry about it.”

Rodney watched him critically, wondering about the response.  “Where?” he ground out.

“About that.”  Sheppard looked away.  “There were complications, you know.  Ah, sometimes, in order to ensure the safety of one’s team, one must do certain things that might appear to be  …”

Rodney’s eyes widened as he realized what Sheppard was getting at.  No! No!  He couldn’t have burned it!  NO!  He wasn’t that dumb, was he? How could he even considering sacrificing something that valuable?  What was he thinking?

He struggled, wanting to get up, wanting to smack Sheppard so hard he’d see… Why was it so damn hard to sit up?  Oh God, it was getting hard to breathe again.

“Rodney?” Concern tinged Sheppard’s voice.  “I’m getting Keller.”

“No!” Rodney cried.  He wanted to suck in some air, but ended up coughing again.  God, would the coughing EVER end?  But this time, it felt more productive, as if he was actually doing something, and after a moment the sensation passed.

He was aware that Sheppard was beside him, holding a cup and helping him sit up.  Sheppard was saying something about ‘scaring him to death’ and how everything was going to be ‘okay’, but how could everything be okay?  The book!

Wait… wait.  Maybe he’d misunderstood what Sheppard had been saying.  His mind was a bit muddled, and any scientist knows that they should test understanding when there is any chance of confusion.

“You didn’t?” Rodney squeaked out.  “Didn’t burn?”

“I did,” Sheppard admitted.

Rodney’s expression fell.  Couldn’t he have been wrong just this once?  Damn… damn it all.  “Swore,” he accused.

“Never actually committed to that ‘swear’ of yours,” Sheppard reminded.  “Listen, Rodney, it was a pretty long night.  Ronon and Teyla had some trouble with the locals, and that’s why it took them so long to return.”

Oh no, Rodney thought, giving Sheppard an anxious look.  They’re okay?  They have to be okay!

Sheppard held out his hands, understanding Rodney’s thoughts.  “They spent the night in the jumper with half the town surrounding them.  Ronon wanted to blast his way out, but Teyla reasoned with him that they were better off staying put.  They thought that we would either join up with them, or send help when we made it to the Gate.  When Carter dialed the address before dawn, they were able to communicate what had happened.”

Rodney nodded, accepting this information, but his thoughts were drawn back to the books – burned, forever destroyed.  Didn’t Sheppard understand the importance of the information?  Didn’t he see value?  Good God, the information contained in them could have given them the foot-up they needed in their fight.   The knowledge could have saved so many people.

Sheppard, in his infinite wisdom, had destroyed the most valuable documents that Rodney had ever laid hands upon.  Gone.  They’re gone.

Rodney sighed defeated, and sank back into his pillows.   Obviously, he hadn’t tried hard enough to protect the important tomes.  Obviously, he’d failed to learn everything he could.

“You were sick as hell, Rodney,” Sheppard told him.  “And the only reason Keller didn’t serve my head to me on a platter for letting that happen was because I’d been able to keep you warm and alive.”

Rodney watched him with accusing eyes.

Sheppard sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.  “If you want me to apologize, you’re going to have to live with disappointment.  I’m fine with my actions.  Damn it, Rodney, you were shaking and hardly breathing.  You might have died.  If burning a couple of books would stop that from happening, I’d do it any day.”

Rodney closed his eyes, feeling the destruction of the books, regretting everything that was lost.  Imagine what they could have discovered!  There was so much potential lost.

Sheppard let out a long exhale and asked, “So, you remember any of the ‘good’ stuff that you’d read?  Anything we can use?”

McKay opened his eyes to stare up at Sheppard.  Yes!  Yes, he’d read something – something that was very helpful and cool and very possible.  Yes, yes… now if he could only…

He searched his mind, trying for all he was worth to remember.  His eyes darted as he searched the files of his mind, but it wouldn’t come back to him.  It was all shadows and smudges.  No… no… come on!  Nothing.  Nothing.  He could find nothing!  He wouldn’t meet Sheppard’s gaze, realizing his defeat, so he shook his head and looked away.

“Well,” said Sheppard.  “It’ll come to you, right?”

McKay felt hopeless at his inability to recall.  It was gone. Damn… damn.  He hated himself for being unable to retain the information.  How could he have forgotten everything?  He closed his eyes in frustration and embarrassment.

Sheppard went on, his voice light.  “No matter.  I mean, we’re right in the same spot where we started.  No loss, right?”

Rodney sighed.  Yes, there was the wisdom of John’s word.  No use crying over spilt milk, right? No use battling for a lost cause.   He was tired, and his eyes didn’t want to open. He sighed and rested into his pillows.

“We won’t miss them,” Sheppard stated, then quietly added, “You saw potential in those books.  I see it someplace else.”

Rodney snorted softly, not entirely understanding.  But he was tired, and sleep was calling.

Rodney could hear that Sheppard had settled back on the next bed, and then begin poking at laptop keys.  He slit open an eye and watched.  Sheppard frowned at a screen in concentration.

Finally, curious, Rodney croaked out, “What’re you doing?”

With a chagrinned expression, Sheppard turned the laptop to show him what was displayed.  Rodney recognized it as the program he’d helped Elizabeth set up – a program to teach basic Ancient to the new scientists.

“Figure it wouldn’t hurt,” Sheppard told him and made a face as he examined the screen.  “Well, wouldn't hurt much.  I’ve been here four years.  I guess it’s high time I learned some of this.”

Rodney chuckled softly, which made his chest hurt, which made him cough.  And he found himself sitting up again, with a cup pressed to his lips.  It took a moment for his coughing to quiet down.  Then, he was lying down again.  Sheppard told him to go to sleep.

It sounded like a good idea, so he did.

THE END

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