Archive of Our Own

The Llazuuns weren’t aware of the ATA gene when John and has team walked through the gate. They’d heard rumours of how only certain people could activate Ancient technology, but they kept themselves relatively isolated and were a self-sufficient society. John had judged their level of development to be pretty good for the Pegasus Galaxy, but they didn’t have a great deal of their own technology.

What they did have was a large stash of Ancient technology.

Their main town building had been constructed around an old Ancient outpost. Naturally, Rodney was interested, so was John for that matter. You could spend years in another galaxy and alien technology never ceased to be cool. Except to explain why they were interested in something that had been totally inert for centuries, they needed to explain about the ATA gene. To Rodney’s credit, he’d let Teyla do the talking; it was a standard procedure ever since they’d been chased away from M56 7E8, being accused of impersonating the Ancestors.

John had been so sure it had gone well. So damn sure.

The talks had disintegrated pretty quickly when the Llazuuns decided they didn’t want the technology activated badly enough to give the Lanteans some of their food. John had been convinced by the act, after all, technology was well known to attract the wraith. He’d even thought they’d left on good terms, with a possibility of trying the trade again at some time.

Sitting in a Llazuun holding cell, John was fairly certain he’d been wrong about that.

His team had been ambushed on their next mission. John had to assume the Llazuuns had put out a reward for anyone who met the team, if they reported it back immediately.

John was mostly sure Rodney and Teyla had got cleanly away, and certain Ronon had escaped before they got him through the gate. If they had got Teyla or Rodney, they hadn’t said anything to John, so John was going to assume they got away. Surely Rodney had at least, because otherwise John thought he’d be with him, stuck somewhere between worried and curious at all the technology. No. Rodney had to have escaped and probably Ronon and Teyla as well.

John really hoped they’d get with the program and break him out because the various Ancient machines being thrown at him were beginning to freak him out.

Or maybe he was past being freaked out.

Way past. Or that could just be the drugs.

He’d been drugged as soon as they worked out that John wasn’t a cooperative prisoner, namely after he’d punched the first guy in the head. John had to admit his concentration was low, but he still sure as hell wasn’t going to help them out. Unfortunately, the Ancient machines had other ideas.

Some of the Ancient devices had turned on when the Llazuuns had just brought them near him, despite John’s best effort at thinking off, off, off at them. The first one that had lit up like a Christmas tree then overloaded in an impressive, but mostly harmless, display of flying sparks. The second one had done nothing else other than activate. John refused to actually use the thing and as far as he knew the Llazuuns couldn’t figure it out.

Number five had been a much bigger problem. The spiral of light that had curled around John, despite his best attempts at a strategic retreat, reminded him of the Ascension machine that had nearly killed Rodney. The Llazuun’s lead scientist had been fascinated, really, but had been less happy when John had refused to tell them anything.

Not that he knew anything really. He didn’t know whether it was the same as the similar looking one on Atlantis, although he was really hoping it was. That would make the whole shitty experience almost worthwhile.

John figured he could wait until he had the telekinesis and the whole mind reading thing, use the telekinesis to break out while stopping them from attacking him and then just read their minds to find the way out. Carson and Rodney could reverse it once he got back to Atlantis. Perfect. He’d always wanted to try out the Ascension machine.

Except it didn’t happen that way. The device was similar to the one on Atlantis, John decided, but only in that it messed around with his DNA.

It hadn’t hurt. Ached slightly, sure, but it hadn’t been painful.

The end result was that John had wings.

Feathered and glossy black, they spread out from his shoulder blades. John couldn’t help it, he was fascinated. Sure, he hadn’t chosen to have them and it had definitely been disturbing as they grew, but it was leagues better then turning into a bug.

John stretched one out, watching it extend gradually from where it had been tucked against his back the light from his one small window playing over the individual feathers. Yeah, leagues, better than the whole bug thing. Yet still strange, still foreign, and heavy. John wondered if he’d be more bothered without the drugs. Probably.

Tucking the wing back behind his back, John stood up warily, and unsteadily, as the scientist guy (John was sure he’d been given his name, but it had slid over his drugged brain) approached holding some hand held device that resembled a lifesigns detector.

The guy hadn’t been even blinked at John’s wings and that was more than a little worrying. He must have known what the thing was going to do before John touched it, which meant he knew more about the Ancient devices than he was letting on.

‘You will activate this one,’ Scientist Guy said, entering John’s cell flanked by two guards. ‘And you will tell us what it does. If you don’t start giving us information, we might have to try… other methods.’

Other methods. Fantastic.

The thing in his hand that looked like a lifesigns detector turned out to be a lifesigns detector.

‘If it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck,’ John muttered. God had he said that out loud? Damn he hated being drugged.

Scientist Guy just frowned slightly then decided to dismiss it. ‘I will ask again. What does this device do?’

‘I don’t know what it does,’ John lied, thinking it was probably the only thing in the whole outpost that he did know about.

Strange that the guy knew about the not-Ascension machine and not a lifesigns detector. Maybe they’d found some kind of half-finished instruction manual. John knew Rodney would kill for one of those. It was a shame they probably wouldn’t have time to find and steal it when they finally came to rescue him.

One of the guards slapped John across the face.

‘Ow!’ John ducked away, instinctively shielding himself with his wings. He must have zoned out what the guy was saying again, he didn’t know why it surprised them. It was them who’d drugged him.

The guard stepped forward again and John straightened his wings, trying hard to keep his balance. He wasn’t sure whether it was the drugs or the wings, but balancing had become significantly more difficult.

‘Activate it.’ Scientist Guy held out the detector. If John didn’t take it, he’d be held still and the thing shoved into his hand, so John took it. He knew lifesigns detectors and they didn’t activate if you thought off at them.

‘It’s dead,’ John informed them, just as the loud boom of an explosion rang out from the corridor.

The scientist made a grab for the lifesigns detector, but John jerked it out of his reach because, drugged or not, there was no mistaking the sound of P90 fire and Ronon’s gun. The movement caused John to flail and he ended up on his ass, which sucked, but he still had the lifesigns detector so John decided to call it a win.

John turned the thing on and it showed a small group of people arriving outside the door to the holding cells.

‘Get that back,’ Scientist Guy yelled to a guard, pointing at John’s lifesigns detector and then ran away.

‘Good riddance,’ John muttered, trying, and failing, to get up. The guard was pretty close so John kicked him in the shin and scrambled backwards.

It wasn’t the best fighting move he’d ever pulled off and it didn’t do a lot more than piss off the guy, so John lobbed the lifesigns detector at his head, just as the door blew open and Ronon, Rodney, Teyla and a team of marines pilled in.

John didn’t think he’d done much more than blink, but suddenly both guards were down and Rodney was in front of him. John was damn glad to see him.

‘Are you okay? What did they do to you?’

‘Not much,’ John told him, then realised that, hey, they had actually done something. ‘Except for the wings.’

‘What?’ Rodney peered at him and John reflected that his eyes were a really nice shade of blue. ‘Oh no. Have you seen the size of your pupils right now? Teyla! They’ve drugged him.’

John saw Teyla nod sharply and leave with a marine, probably to get a sample of whatever they’d drugged him with. Not that that was important, the drugs would wear off, the wings were more of a lasting problem. Although he was feeling a bit dizzy, yeah, really dizzy.

‘Yeah,’ John agreed. ‘And they’ve got loads of Ancient technology, hence the wings.’

‘Yes, yes, ok,’ said Rodney distractedly. ‘Ronon, I don’t think he can stand.’

‘I got it.’

Ronon appeared from behind Rodney and slung an arm around John waist. John figured he was about to be slung over Ronon’s shoulder and took the opportunity to pass out.

_________________________

John woke up, on his back, in the infirmary.

The drugs seemed to have left his system and John was left wondering how the hell he was going to explain the wings to everyone. He wasn’t even sure what he thought of them anymore, now that the drugs had gone. It could be, by some fluke, the best thing that had happened to him. It could also be a total disaster, depending on possible side effects, his team’s reaction, the SGC and IOA’s reaction and then, and John had to admit this was the top of the list, could he use them? Could he fly?

John twisted with the intention of studied the wings and froze.

He was on his back, but the wings weren’t making it a problem.

They should be, John reflected, they really should be. But they weren’t, because they were going right through the bed.

Swallowing hard, John moved one experimentally. It moved straight through as if the bed wasn’t there. Only the bed was there, the bed was definitely there because John was lying on it. That left one really disturbing possibility.

‘Oh, you’re awake.’ Rodney strode into the room, with a MRE balanced on his laptop. ‘Drug all gone, or are you still a bit.’ Rodney fluttered his fingers by the side of his head.

‘Pretty sure it’s gone,’ said John, even though he was not sure of any such thing. He’d just wait and see if Rodney said anything, surely Rodney would say something.

Rodney sat down, looking relieved. ‘Excellent, you were pretty out of it when we got there. Do you even remember it?’

‘Not really,’ John lied. He was not going to panic, this was just the result of one of the Ancient machines, and it would be fixed. ‘I did activate some of the Ancient stuff, though. Got one of those weird light beams go around me, so Carson should probably check that out.’

‘What?’ Rodney stared at him. ‘Do you mean like the Ascension machine? What did you do that for? They kidnapped you and you activated their stuff for them, how drugged were you?’

John rolled his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to, Rodney. Some of it just… lit up.’

‘Oh of course, you just can’t keep your supergene to yourself.’ Rodney tapped his radio. ‘Carson, he’s awake and needs every possible voodoo test you have.’

That sounded pretty good to John. Maybe a brain scan would sort it and Carson would find, say, abnormal activity that would normalise itself. Maybe. Or maybe that was about as likely as when John had thought it was another Ascension machine.

‘No, Carson, don’t be stupid,’ Rodney was saying into his radio. ‘Would I have been casual about it if I thought he was about to drop dead? He looks fine, he sounds fine, but he’s been activating Ancient devices for the last two days so there could be any number of unimaginable things wrong with him.’

‘Gee thanks, Rodney,’ John said. He didn’t add that Rodney was wrong; what was wrong with him obviously was imaginable. John had proof of that. ‘Was it really two days?’

It hadn’t felt that long, John guessed that must have been the drugs. The possibly psychotic drugs.

‘Are you kidding me? Yes it was that long! Two days of trying to track down who had taken you, not knowing what they wanted it was barely more than good luck that Teyla found the idiot who’d handed us in, and you’re surprised.’

John studied him, propping himself up on his pillows and jesus he wanted to move so that the wings weren’t going through anything. Rodney was looking more than a little wide eyed, he was definitely pale and there were dark circles under his eyes.

‘When did you last sleep?’ John asked, trying to subtly examine at his right wing. It looked so real. It felt real, which was more worrying, because John was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to be able to feel the weight of something that didn’t exist.

‘Did that drug make you stupid?’ Rodney glowered at him. ‘When do you think I last slept? Two days ago!’

John was saved from replying when Carson bustled in.

‘The good news is the drugs are completely out of your system,’ said Carson.

Great. John had almost been hoping they weren’t, after all, hallucinating was understandable when you were drugged.

‘What’s the bad news?’ John asked.

‘The bad news is that you’ve got god knows what effects from unknown Ancient technology,’ snapped Rodney.

‘Aye,’ said Carson, with a slight smile. ‘More or less. You’re going to spend the rest of the day here, Colonel, until I can be certain you haven’t suffered any ill effects.’

‘Sounds fun,’ muttered John. He wouldn’t say anything yet, maybe Carson would find something, but if he didn’t John didn’t want to be shipped off to Earth with the label ‘bat shit crazy’.

_________________________

Carson’s initial scans found nothing and he released John telling him he was officially off duty until the last few test results came through.

The wings hadn’t gone anywhere.

John was seriously concerned. In his experience, hallucinations were rarely consistent, but there was no change, no change at all, after nearly a day. He could still see a pair of black feathered wings sticking out from his shoulder blades, could still feel their weight and was actually off balance trying to compensate for it. He could feel the muscles in his back stretch when he moved the wings. It was a medical discharge waiting to happen.

By the time he got back to his quarters, John at least didn’t feel like he was going to topple over.

Standing in the middle of the room, John stretched his wings out fully, twisting to look at them. Cautiously, he reached a hand up for the top feathers and his hand made contact. John paused, and slowly ran his hand over the top of the wing, it felt exactly like a bird’s wing. The feathers were soft to the touch, almost silky.

It should have been cool, strange, obviously, but it still should have been cool; John was a pilot and if there was one thing he could appreciate it was the desire to have actual wings. It wasn’t cool. It really wasn’t. John wondered how fucked in the head you had to be before you started believing you had wings.

They weren’t real, so there was no way he should be able touch them.

‘God damn it,’ John said to himself, letting his hand drop to his side. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

It could just be a lasting side effect from the drug, it could go away at any moment.

‘Any moment now,’ John muttered, tucking the wings flat against his back.

They didn’t seem to be fading, though, they felt just as real as they had in the Llazuun’s holding cell. Which was not good seeing as John had been drugged out of his mind, so drugged he hadn’t even questioned that he could suddenly gain wings with no damage to the shirt he’d been wearing.

John sighed. ‘First things first.’

If he was going to deal with this until Carson found something or it went away, he was going to have to sort out the balance issue.

John carefully lifted his left leg and immediately wobbled backwards. Cursing, John tried again, if he extended his left wing slightly at the same time he didn’t overbalance, which was annoying because it had to be entirely mental. Planting both feet on the ground, John leaned over to one side, again having to stretch out a wing, except he found himself doing it almost instinctively.

It made sense in some really twisted way. It was the imagined presence of the wings that was unbalancing him and therefore the imagined movement of the wing was helping.

John sat down on his chair and banged his head lightly against the desk. ‘I am so fucked.’

At least he could walk now without feeling like he was falling over, mostly anyway. And he could do some basic stretches without falling flat on his face and on that basis John called in an improvement.

An improvement, but not enough of an improvement, because Teyla turned up wanting to spar with him. On the condition that he felt he was ready of course and she would go easy on him.

He should have refused. John knew he should have refused, but he’d been sitting down all day and the ‘sure’ was out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

‘Perhaps,’ said Teyla, watching John with a critical expression as he circled her, ‘this is not such a good idea. We could wait until you are feeling better.’

John’s pride took the opportunity to pitch in. ‘I’m fine, Teyla. All Carson’s scans have been clean.’

Teyla’s expression was nothing but doubtful. John took the opportunity to dodge in, swinging a mid height blow while she was still distracted. Teyla gracefully slid out of the way, deflecting the blow easily and somehow ending up behind him. Damn it.

John turned sharply, he’d long since given up trying to match her grace, and was just in time to block a downward swing. God, Teyla was fast, and she was following with a move that was going to rap his knuckles unless he did something about it. John shifted, allowing the blow to land on his upper arm (ow, that was going to leave a bruise) and tried his own counter attack in the same movement, but Teyla was long gone.

He staggered and threw out his wings to keep his balance, except Teyla had moved to his left side and her own turn was taking her straight for John’s wing. Snapping it out of the way, John stumbled forward… and a burst of pain opened up on his left temple.

Somehow, John found himself on his hands and knees, wings draped either side of him.

‘John?’ Teyla had put down her bantos rods and was crouched beside him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Ow,’ John complained, a headache already spreading out from his temple. If he’d just stayed still, the bantos rod would have sailed harmless past… and he should have stayed still because the wing wasn’t even there. ‘Sorry, guess my concentration slipped.’

Teyla held out a hand to help him up. ‘I believe you should return to the infirmary, you may have a concussion.’

‘No,’ John said, taking her hand. It hurt, but it didn’t feel like a concussion. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘It is worth a check,’ said Teyla, firmly. ‘And you may want to speak to Carson anyway, I have never seen you so off balance.’

John pulled a face at her. ‘I wasn’t that bad.’

Teyla’s expression said otherwise, which probably meant that John was going to have to do something about his little problem. John didn’t feel crazy and he was pretty sure hallucinations couldn’t stay for as long as this one had without being inconsistent. Even the hallucination caused by the mist creatures had been flawed and the Sekari AI had said it couldn’t keep up a single sustained image over time. John didn’t have a lot of experience with actually being crazy (the occasional flashback surely didn’t count), so he couldn’t be entirely certain, but it seemed worth seeking out a second opinion.

He would go and see Rodney, maybe the Ancient device had done something to him that Rodney would be able to detect. John turned to head for the labs, and felt Teyla’s restraining hand on his arm.

‘Right,’ said John, having to move awkwardly to avoid her walking through his wing. ‘Infirmary.’

‘Yes,’ said Teyla, watching him with a curious expression.

Unless the wings had disappeared by the time he’d finish in the infirmary, John realised he was definitely going to have to take some kind of action. He really didn’t want to be cornered by Teyla when she inevitably asked what was bothering him.

_________________________

Rodney was examining data from one of Atlantis’s malfunctioning desalination machines when John strolled into his lab. ‘Hey, Rodney. You busy?’

‘No more than normal, which is to say very, very busy. Why? What do you want and why are you bothering to ask?’ Rodney didn’t look up from his computer screen. If it had been important, John would have radioed him, he was grounded so Rodney decided he must be bored. A bored John Sheppard hanging around when he wanted to do work; Rodney started mentally preparing for a long day.

‘Oh I was just wondering if you could scan me,’ said John casually, like that was a totally normal thing to say. ‘Y’know, scan for Ancient tech or something.’

John had been acting strangely since they’d got him back, but nothing Rodney had been particularly worried about, but this… this was something new. And probably very, very bad.

‘What?’ asked Rodney, suspiciously. ‘Why? Carson’s already checked you out, run every medical scan and test humanly possible while all the time you insisted you were fine. If you’re so ‘fine’ why do I need to run a test?’

John picked a pen off Rodney’s lab bench and studied it intently. ‘Yeah, well, I might have exaggerated, just a little.’

Looking up from the computer Rodney frowned at the colonel. ‘Okay, what’s wrong? And at least try to stop the oh-so-manly stoic routine because it’s not helpful.’

‘My balance is off,’ John told him, as if every word was an effort. ‘Among other things.’

‘Your balance is off?’ Rodney stared incredulously at him. ‘Um, not that I won’t help or anything, but don’t you think this is more Carson’s area? I admit that’s it’s mostly voodoo, but it can occasionally be useful.’

‘He’s already done every test possible, remember? He’s still waiting for some results, but I figured I could get a second opinion from you, seeing as I was in contact with all that Ancient tech.’ John sat down and propped his legs up on the desk.

‘Unless you’re emitting deadly radiation, which I’m fairly certain Carson would have noticed, or actually still have an Ancient device hidden on you, which I think you might have noticed, I don’t see what I can do.’ Rodney folded his arms. ‘I need something to scan for.’

Honesty, though, Rodney got it. Without good balance, in theory, John could be permanently grounded. In practice, the puddle jumpers had enough sensors to compensate but John wouldn’t be released back to duty with an ongoing, largely unknown, medical problem. And that wasn’t even including the ‘other things’ John had vaguely mentioned.

It was really a problem for Carson, but John had asked and that was a rare enough occasion that Rodney didn’t feel he could refuse. Not to mention that John was giving him the puppy dog eyes, Rodney never could resist the puppy dog eyes.

‘Fine.’ Rodney stood up gathered a couple of scanners, wheeling a particularly large one across the room. ‘I have a few general scanners that can look for any radiation, any kind of emitted signal, that kind of thing. But unless you’re actually emitting something I don’t know how much I can do.

‘Thanks. Do I need to do anything?’ John hopped up from the chair and began to walk around the large scanner.

‘Yes,’ said Rodney, setting up the first scan. ‘You need to stand still. And there.’ Rodney pointed to a spot about a meter in front of his scanner.

‘Sure.’ John stopped at the spot and Rodney activated the scan.

‘This will take a few minutes,’ said Rodney. ‘So if you just stand there and don’t move, I’ll be over there getting some work done.’

‘Got it,’ said John. ‘Stand here, stand still. Does talking count as moving?’

‘No,’ Rodney said, then reconsidered. ‘Actually make that a yes, maybe then I actually will be able to work. Unless, of course, you wanted to elaborate on those ‘other things’ that are wrong with you, in which case, talk away.’

‘Not particularly,’ said John and then stayed suspiciously silent.

Rodney was worried. Flattered that John had come to him, but worried and, really, John was more important than the desalination machine. Sitting back from his work again, Rodney stared at John. ‘Seriously, what’s the problem? I need something to work with here. Are you hearing voices? Do you see dead people?’

‘Funny.’ John twisted around to glare at him.

‘I said keep still,’ Rodney said. You’d think someone who could have joined MENSA would be able to follow basic instructions, but no, apparently not. ‘You have to be still for the scanner to work properly. Although it’s debatable whether I’m even using the right scanner, since you won’t tell me what to scan for. Is this why Carson says you’re his worst patient? Do you show up with a broken arm and tell him about a cut on your leg?’

Rodney brought up the scan profile on his laptop, unsurprisingly, it had yet to find anything. Maybe Carson had been wrong and John was still mildly drugged.

‘If you’re just off balance, why don’t you ask Carson to run another blood test? That drug could still be affecting you because it was obviously pretty strong, you were acting very loopy when we got there.’ Rodney wondering how much of that John did remember. The few things John had said had been nonsensical. Rodney could take the moral high ground and not mention it, but then, if their roles were reversed John would certainly say something.

Also, it might embarrass John and Rodney had to admit that John was endearing when he was embarrassed. Not that he wasn’t smoking hot usually.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said John. ‘Loopy. Got it. How’s the scan going?’

‘Yes,’ said Rodney, nodding. ‘Loopy. Did you know you were talking about wings? It was pretty funny, I think Ronon missed it though, a shame because I think you actually thought you had wings.’

‘Hilarious,’ John ground out.

Rodney suspected he had his jaw clenched shut. Well too bad if he was pissed. He’d been gone two whole days and when Rodney turned up he’d been pretty totally high and pretty much unharmed. Not that Rodney would have preferred it any other way, but it was definitely good teasing material.

‘It was actually,’ Rodney told him and it totally had been. Once he’d realised that John wasn’t dying or anything. ‘I mean we burst in, guns blazing, and there you are, chatting about how you have wings. If we hadn’t been on the clock, I think it would have been great to have a nice long conversation with you. Seriously, I could have asked-’

‘Rodney,’ John interrupted. ‘Is that damn scan finished yet?’

Rodney jumped slightly at the venom in his voice. Maybe it was time to drop the subject, actually it was probably past time to drop the subject because John didn’t usually get angry at him. Not just for teasing.

‘Right. Uh… yes.’ Rodney reviewed the information and got up to check the data on the machine. It was always possible it hadn’t sent the information properly. It had. ‘Look, uh, don’t bite my head off or anything, but there’s nothing here.’

‘Damn.’ John slumped and Rodney felt bad, but there wasn’t anything more he could do, maybe not even if John managed to be more specific.

Rodney started packing up the scanning equipment. ‘Sorry, obviously you were hoping for something. I might not have been scanning for the right thing, or maybe there is a slight side effect left over from the drug. You could go and see Carson or Jennifer, if you wanted a second opinion. She’ll be on duty soon.’

Rodney had memorised the on call times now that Carson and Jennifer were splitting it. His break up with Jennifer had been mutual but Rodney still found it awkward.

John just looked at him. ‘I trust Carson.’

That had so not been what Rodney meant. ‘Yes, of course, I didn’t mean… Carson’s as good a doctor as is possible with all the voodoo. But since you’d already come here I thought, y’know, a second opinion might be good.’

‘Colonel Sheppard report to the infirmary.’ The nurse’s voice rang loud and clear over the radio.

‘Guess I’m headed there anyway.’ John had actually perked up. He seriously wanted Carson to have found something and that was downright scary.

Rodney got up and followed as John left the lab.

‘Where are you going?’ asked John, shooting Rodney a confused glance.

‘With you,’ Rodney told him. ‘And don’t even think about telling me you’re fine after you turned up here asking for a scan.’

‘Wasn’t going to,’ John told him, practically power walking into a transporter.

Rodney jumped in quickly. ‘Are you actually going to tell me what’s going on, or are you going to keep up the stoic thing?’

There was a flash of light and they both stepped out of the transporter again, John striding ahead.

‘I got zapped by an Ancient machine, Rodney,’ said John, turning slightly to raise an eyebrow at him. ‘It has to have done something and I want to find out what that is sooner rather than later.’

‘You realise that argument would have been more convincing before you came asking for my help?’ said Rodney as they rounded the corner into the infirmary. ‘Besides, you said you were having trouble balancing.’

‘You’re still having trouble with your balance, lad?’ Carson asked as he approached with Woolsey close behind.

Rodney reflected that it was never good news if they had to get Woolsey involved, he tried to catch John’s eye but John was looking hopefully at Carson.

‘It’s nothing,’ said John, before Rodney could reply. ‘Did you find something?’

‘Aye,’ said Carson, ‘and I don’t think you’re going to like it, I’m afraid.’

‘Okay, shoot,’ John said, looking remarkably unconcerned.

‘Right, well, one of the scans I analyses the composition of bone. It’s a brilliant scanner, really, normally I would have to take a sample for this kind of detail.’ Carson took a second to look pleased with himself before going very serious and continuing. ‘What it found in your scan is that your bones seem to have altered in both structure and chemical make up in a way that I’ve never seen before.’

‘What?’ John’s relaxed posture had completely disappeared.

Rodney also stared at Carson. ‘It changed his bones?’

‘Yes, Rodney,’ said Carson and turned back to John. ‘The good news is the new structure doesn’t seem any weaker, but it is significantly lighter so you’ll probably fine you’ve lost weight.’

John just stared at him. ‘Great. Is this going to be a problem?’

Carson shrugged slightly and looked apologetic. ‘I can’t find any evidence that it would be, but I also don’t understand why the Ancients would want to do such a thing.’

Rodney was starting to catch on to the underlying message here. ‘You need to have a look at the machine.’

Woolsey stepped in. ‘Dr Beckett has indicated to me that it would be better if we can understand why this has happened and if there any other, yet undetected, effects. This best way to do that is for you, Dr McKay, to take a look at the Ancient device.’

‘I don’t think the Llazuuns are going to go for that,’ said John, sitting down on the nearest bed.

‘Yes, but that’s not all,’ Carson said. ‘Your muscular structure has also been altered.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ John was beginning to look pissed off.

‘How had you not noticed this?’ Rodney asked him, outraged. If someone had altered his bones and muscles he was pretty sure he’d have noticed.

‘Well, I was a bit achy,’ said John. ‘Y’know after the thing activated.’

‘Hmm.’ Carson looked at John thoughtfully. ‘It may have been a good thing you were drugged otherwise it could have been a wee bit painful.’

‘But of course he doesn’t even notice.’ Rodney threw his hands up in the air. Only John Sheppard.

John just held out his hands and gave a helpless shrug before turning back to Carson. ‘Changed in what way?’

‘Well.’ Carson brought up a picture on a nearby screen. ‘I can see more muscle around your upper back and shoulder blades, but can’t understand what it’s for.’

‘Oh,’ said John and his expression had gone unreadable.

Rodney shot him a look. He was going to have corner John because he clearly knew more than he was saying and Rodney was going to find out what it was.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Woolsey studying the screen.

‘Again, I can’t be sure because it has no obvious function, but I’m afraid this is not a structure that exists in human physiology,’ Carson broke the news gently as possible. ‘It’s altered your DNA. I really need to know what the Ancient machine was designed to do, so I can understand the extent of the changes. I’m comparing your current DNA to the sequence on file at the moment, but since this is hardly something I’ve seen before the machine really is necessary.’

‘Okay.’ John was nodding. ‘It’s pretty deep inside the facility and it’s a fixed structure, like the Ascension machine.’

Rodney glanced over at him. ‘That’s going to be difficult if we want to take it back here, which has got to be plan A since we can hardly spend days there.’

‘Yeah, but we’ll still need to spend a fair amount of time there, so stealth is out.’ John rubbed a hand over his stubble. ‘I’m thinking three jumpers, one can land and be the one we load up, the other two can hover above, uncloaked, as a deterrent. We know the Llazuuns don’t have any air craft and that should make it effective even if we need to fire warning shots. We’d still need a significant ground presence to take the facility, of course, but our weapons are superior to theirs.’

‘Slow down, Colonel,’ said Woolsey, stepping forward. ‘That sounds reasonable enough, but I think you’re forgetting that you haven’t been cleared for active duty.’

‘Sure,’ said John, waving a hand dismissively. ‘But I know what the thing looks like so I think we can make an exception for this.’

‘No,’ Woolsey said firmly. ‘I don’t think so. Dr Beckett has just told us that you DNA has been altered to mostly unknown effect. It would be reckless to clear you to go offworld.’

Rodney rolled his eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear him? Sheppard’s the only one of us who’d actually seen the Ancient device, we need him; if only to identify the right one.’

Woolsey wasn’t giving an inch. ‘Colonel Sheppard, if you could give Dr McKay an accurate description of the device then I am sure that would help the pick-up team. I do need you to stay here and check in to the infirmary every few hours.’

‘I think I should go with them.’ John met Woolsey’s gaze with a challenging stare.

‘You’ve made that very clear, Colonel, yes,’ Woolsey said. ‘However I have been talking to Dr Beckett and it turns out that on top of the changing DNA you have been experiencing problems with balance and have already picked up a head injury today.’

‘A what? Rodney swung round to face John. ‘When did that happen?’

‘I was sparring,’ John told him. ‘But that really is nothing, not even a concussion, right Carson?’

‘Yes, although I don’t doubt you’ve got a headache,’ confirmed Carson, John made a there you go gesture at Woolsey, but Carson continued, ‘However I’ve got to agree with Richard here, I honestly cannot recommend you go offworld today. And I know how you feel about that but as your doctor I have to insist you stay here.’

John opened his mouth to protest and then threw a hand up in the air. ‘Fine, but I’m coming to the mission briefing.’

Rodney isn’t surprised when Woolsey agrees to this; you don’t have to spend much time working with John Sheppard before you realise there’s a point at which he’ll just ignore an order and with his ATA gene its more or less impossible to lock him out of the conference room.

However, Rodney is surprised that John practically leaps forward when Woolsey walks behind him on the way out. Weird.

_________________________

The mission went more or less to plan. Rodney managed to identify the right Ancient machine, despite John’s vague description. It took longer than they’d estimated because the thing was bolted firmly to the floor and wired into the main system, but Rodney managed it eventually.

First thing Rodney had to do when he reassembled it, carefully, in his lab, was run the devices data through a translation. After six years of living in Atlantis Rodney could identify the odd Ancient word but he was a long, long way from fluent. The translation would take an hour or so and Rodney decided that it was past time he found out exactly what John was hiding.

Rodney hammered on John’s door. ‘Open up. I know you’re in there.’ Which he didn’t because he hadn’t checked the city’s internal lifesigns, but John didn’t know that and if he wasn’t in there then there was no one around to witness Rodney being wrong. A win-win situation.

The doors slid open to reveal a pissed off looking John Sheppard in BDU pants and combat boots but no shirt.

‘Oh.’ Rodney averted his eyes, which was pointless really because John was a guy and it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen him topless before. Rodney felt he was justified anyway seeing as John was very fit and attractive and Rodney had adopted a policy of keeping his embarrassing crushes to himself. ‘You could have taken the time to put a shirt on.’

‘I could have.’ John folded his arms. It was hardly an invitation to enter but Rodney pushed past anyway and the doors slid shut behind him. ‘What is it?’

‘What is what?’ asked Rodney.

‘I assume there’s a reason you were trying to bang down my door?’ John made the statement into a question and raised an eyebrow at Rodney. His expression was still thoroughly pissed off, but that had never put Rodney off before.

‘Yes.’ Rodney gestured at him. ‘But I was expecting to find you fully dressed.’

John shrugged. ‘Deal with it.’

‘Fine, if you like wandering around half naked then you do that.’ Rodney looked him in the eye. ‘I came here to find out what’s wrong with you. When a doctor tells you your DNA has been changed the usual response is not ‘oh’, granted you were surprised about the bone thing but given your past experiences with altered DNA I expected something, I don’t know… more extreme.’

John glared at him. ‘My reaction wasn’t extreme enough for you? Well when you’ve figured out the appropriate reaction you can let me know.’

Rodney realised he was staring at John’s chest and focused just past his friend’s shoulder. ‘Okay, whatever, maybe there isn’t a proper reaction. Seriously, can’t you put a shirt on?’

‘No.’

‘I swear you are getting worse then Ronon. I am not playing twenty questions to find out what you’re hiding, okay? If you don’t tell me something I’ll…’ Rodney sighed. ‘I’ll, uh, have to talk to Carson. You know what the experimental Ancient stuff is like, it could kill you.’

‘I know,’ said John and his tone had softened. He scrubbed a hand over his face. ‘I know that, Rodney. It’s just… okay. This is going to sound crazy, so I swear to god if you call Dr Harrington…’

Harrington, frankly Rodney had liked Kate Heightmeyer but once she had been replaced by Harrington Rodney hadn’t been impressed with the guy. He wondered what was wrong with John so that he’d think Rodney would refer him to a psych.

‘Um... no Harrington, okay,’ said Rodney. ‘But I’m not leaving Carson out of this if I think you’re about to keel over or something.’

John pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Fine.’ Then he averted his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Right. Uh, you remember how when you guys came to rescue me and I was kinda drugged, acting a bit weird.’

Rodney made a huge effort not to roll his eyes and it took all his willpower not to make a sarcastic comment. ‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘Yeah. Right. Okay.’ John was avoiding looking at him and Rodney had the urge to get hold of him and try and shake out the words. ‘And I made a couple of comments to you that you dismissed because I was, y’know, drugged.’

John stopped again, running a hand through his hair.

Rodney stared. He couldn’t be talking about… No. Except… Carson had said lighter bones and a different muscle structure around John’s shoulder blades. No. Rodney couldn’t even believe he was considering it.

‘You said you had wings,’ Rodney blurted.

John winced. ‘Which were obviously a hallucination, yeah. Only… when the drugs wore off, the hallucination didn’t go away. Still hasn’t.’

‘So, uh.’ Rodney made a vague gesture towards John’s back. He was curious exactly what John was seeing, he wondered how real it would have had to be for John, on drugs of course, to have taken it to be real. ‘You can see…?’

‘Yeah,’ John said. He reached over his shoulder and rested a hand on thin air. ‘Not just see actually. It’s weird as hell, it’s like they’re completely real, except…’ John’s face screwed up as he tried to describe it. ‘Except… they can’t touch anything and you guys can’t see them. I thought… well I thought it would just go away. A side effect of the drugs. But then Carson said what his scans have found, so the Ancient machine has to be involved… somehow.’

‘Okay,’ said Rodney. ‘Okay. You asked me to scan you, because you were hallucinating, and you fed me some crap about being off balance, why? To throw me off the scent?’

‘No, Rodney,’ said John, rolling his eyes. ‘It’s like I have two weights on my back, I am off balance.’

That made no sense.

‘Hang on,’ said Rodney. ‘How can you feel the weight of them? They’re not there.’

John sat down heavily on the bed and Rodney immediately regrated his words. ‘I don’t know. Look I already told you; I thought they were real. I didn’t catch on until they were going straight through the damn infirmary bed!’

‘Ah, yes. Sorry.’ Rodney needed something to say. Something nice and comforting and helpful. ‘I’ll figure something out, the data with the device should be translated by now and I find out what’s going on in no time. Just try to remember they’re not real and, and, don’t jump of a building or anything, okay?’

John let his head drop into his hands. ‘Rodney.’

Rodney looked at him anxiously. ‘Sorry, sorry. Don’t you think we should tell Carson?’

John leaped up from the bed like he’d been catapulted. ‘No. Can’t we just… leave it for the moment?’

‘Hmm. I suppose we need to get more information,’ said Rodney, slowly. ‘No point in only telling half the story.’

Some of the tension slid away from John’s body. ‘Right. No point.’

‘So,’ said Rodney, wondering if he was pushing it. ‘The whole no shirt thing…?’

‘The wings,’ said John, grimacing as if every word was an effort, ‘go right through. It’s weird.’

‘Hmm. Makes sense.’ said Rodney and he’d really should get back to the Ancient device, but he had just a few more burning questions. ‘Um. So. Well. The… y’know.’ Rodney gestured at John’s back again. ‘Bat wings?’

‘Feathered,’ John mumbled, looking at his boots. ‘Black.’

‘Huh,’ Rodney said, thoughtfully. Feathered black wings. John with feathered black wings. The thought was fascinating, Rodney was sure John would look amazing with wings.

_________________________

John gave it a few hours before reluctantly pulling on a shirt and heading down to Rodney’s lab.

Rodney had told him that the machine had come with its own, albeit small, data core, much like the Ascension machine. He’d been running it through a translation program and seemed pretty certain it would tell him enough to understand what the machine had done to John.

About damn time too. At least Rodney had taken the news fairly well, but then Carson had already told him about the visible DNA changes. John wasn’t sure if he’d have said anything if Carson’s test results had come back normal.

‘How’s it coming?’ asked John strolling into Rodney’s lab. He tried not to react as he saw Radek in the corner.

‘We’re getting somewhere, definitely,’ said Rodney, nodding way too much.

John was pretty sure that was Rodney language for; ‘we found something but you’re not going to like it.’

‘We think we know what the device is for,’ added Radek. ‘It is an unusual concept, so we have been double checking.’

John wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. ‘Okay, hit me. What is it?’

‘It’s supposed to change the user in some way,’ said Radek. ‘Except there seems to be some kind of test period, during which it suggests the user can experience the change.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Rodney. ‘But without actually getting it, during that time.’

Rodney was looking very pleased with himself and John thought he was beginning to catch on.

‘What kind of change are we talking about?’ John asked.

‘Ah, it is, as I said, personal,’ said Radek, with a shrug.

‘Personal, but hardly conventional,’ argued Rodney. ‘We already knew it had changed your DNA, so we started digging in that direction and we think that’s the reason it wasn’t approved.’

‘We think it was meant to alter them physically,’ said Radek. 'It’s unclear what the extent of that would be.’

‘Exactly,’ said Rodney. ‘If they wanted a different physical trait, change of eye colour, or something, the machine would give it to them.’

‘This is the Ancient equivalent of plastic surgery?’ asked John, mildly horrified.

‘But we still don’t understand the time period.’ Radek sat back from the machine with a sigh. ‘It does not seem to have one programmed, I think it must be manually stopped. I was hoping that you might be able to help us here, Colonel, seeing as you are currently in the test period.’

‘Uh…’ said John, flexing a wing and shooting a sideways glance at Rodney.

‘Of course, it is always possible it is not working properly.’ Radek peered at John. ‘It has many warnings about use on humans.’

‘For Ancients only,’ Rodney added, nodding. ‘It’s full of examples about deformities, instant death, failed safety parameters…’ he trailed off.

John stared at him. ‘Oh, well. Nothing to worry about then.’

To his credit, Rodney looked apologetic. ‘Right, well, actually… I had to mention it because it looks like the safety parameters failed when you used it.’

‘Oh, great.’ John scowled. ‘And you didn’t think that should be the headline when I came in here?’

‘Rodney,’ said Radek urgently, jabbing a finger at the screen in front of him and saving Rodney from answering. ‘I think I have found it.’

Rodney was at Radek’s side in less than a second. ‘Move. That… you have got to be kidding me.’

‘What?’ asked John.

‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed Rodney, turning to point at John. ‘You’re not crazy!’

Under the circumstances John decided to let that slide. ‘Good, that’s good. What does it say?’

John made an effort not to look at his wings again and ignored the confused glance Radek gave him.

Rodney was staring at John like he’d never seen him before. ‘Holy shit. I don’t think you’re imagining it. This says, this is talking about making the reward out of phase.’

‘Imagining what?’ asked Radek. ‘Colonel, have you noticed a change in your appearance that no one else has commented on?’

‘Yes,’ Rodney said dismissively. ‘Of course he has. No wonder the machine’s showing a failure of safety protocols! It’s not supposed to do anything that drastic.’

‘Out of phase,’ John repeated, his heart beating faster. ‘Like that SG-1 report?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Rodney, pointing at him`. ‘Exactly like that!’

‘Does that mean,’ started John, a little breathlessly. ‘That they’re…?’

‘Oh my God, they’re real.’ Rodney stared at John. John stared right back because he’d dismissed the possibility, he’d dismissed it the moment he woke up in Atlantis.

‘What is real?’ asked Radek, looking between the two of them. ‘What did it do?’

‘This, uh…’ Rodney was already moving on. ‘This might not go down well with Woolsey.’

John shrugged, feeling his wings lift with the movement. ‘Woolsey can’t see anything.’

‘You don’t get it do you?’ asked Rodney a bit wonderingly. ‘I think I can change that. That’s what the machine does when someone specifies the end of the bail period, it brings it back into this dimension!’

‘It…’ John felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes!’ said Rodney, then he looked at John suspiciously. ‘Honesty? You didn’t want to change anything more normal? Maybe get your hair under control?’

John rolled his eyes. ‘I like my hair.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Radek, sounding concerned.

‘I think,’ said Rodney, slowly, like he was plotting something. ‘We should get Woolsey in here, and Carson. Definitely Carson.’

_________________________

Apparently, Woolsey considered the Ancient device to be a two doctor problem because he brought both Carson and Keller with him. John leaned casually on an Ancient console and wondered what Rodney was planning to say.

‘Right. We know what the Ancient device has done to Sheppard,’ Rodney announced.

Radek muttered something no doubt unflattering in Czech and John thought that maybe they should have filled him in.

‘Aye,’ said Carson. ‘It’s altered his DNA.’

‘Yes, but I know why,’ said Rodney, not at all put out by the interruption. ‘The machine seems to be the Ancient equivalent of plastic surgery, it actually changes the appearance of the person according to what the user wants.’

‘Carson showed me the changes we’ve found,’ said Keller. ‘But there’s nothing outwardly obvious, so maybe it’s not just for plastic surgery type operations.’

‘That’s the catch,’ said Rodney. ‘It should be just for plastic surgery type operations, but it’s been notoriously dodgy on human subjects. We know from the data logs that the safety protocols did fail when Sheppard activated the machine.’

‘Dodgy,’ muttered John. ‘Excellent.’

Rodney brushed off the comment. ‘Yes, but we know what it’s done to you and it didn’t kill you.’

‘Dr McKay,’ said Woolsey, a touch impatiently. ‘What has it done?’

‘Ah, see, the colonel here has apparently never thought about plastic surgery, so, the machine scanned his mind for whatever change he was turning it on for. Obviously he didn’t have anything specific in mind so the machine went right ahead and tailored something specially for him.’ Rodney yanked a lever on the device and pressed a few buttons.

Radek made a small noise of protest. ‘Rodney.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ said Rodney and John really, really hoped he did.

‘Careful, Rodney,’ said Carson. ‘We don’t need your DNA being changed as well.’

‘What part of ‘I know what I’m doing’ didn’t you understand,’ huffed Rodney. ‘It’s similar enough to the Ascension machine that I know how the basics.’ He pointed at John. ‘Stand there.’

Seeing as ‘there’ was pretty much where John had been standing when the thing had activated, John was having second thoughts. ‘Why?'

Rodney scowled. ‘Just do it.’ The he studied John critically. ‘And you can probably take off your shirt.’

Warily, John stepped where he indicated and with a shrug at Carson also pulled off his shirt. If Rodney was about to explain then it didn’t matter and John felt more comfortable without the shirt on. Rodney immediately started pressing buttons, then glancing back around at John. It wasn’t particularly comforting, but John assumed Rodney actually did know what he was doing.

Rodney typed something on his laptop and then studied John. ‘Huh. Nothing. Did you feel anything then?’

‘No,’ said John, trying to peer over Rodney’s shoulder. It sounded like Rodney was trying to… no. He’d have warned John first.

‘I don’t think I can authorise using that machine,’ said Woolsey. ‘Particularly not until you explain what you’re doing.’

‘I only need a second,’ snapped Rodney. ‘I’m not actually doing anything to him. Technically.’

‘Rodney,’ said Keller, sharing a look with Carson.

‘Don’t worry it’s fine. Ah, this should do it,’ said Rodney and lay his hand on part of the console.

It felt like the machine had forced two red hot pokers behind John’s shoulder blades and caused him to yelp and stagger forward. Jesus. John would have expected a warning for that kind of thing.

‘You want to make sure that thing doesn’t zap me before you do that again?’ asked John, looking accusingly at Rodney.

Rodney didn’t reply, his eyes had gone huge and he was staring just past John’s shoulder. He wasn’t the only one; Woolsey, Carson and Keller were doing pretty much the same.

‘Good lord,’ said Carson.

‘What?’ John looked over his shoulder, struggling to see past the wings. ‘I don’t see anything.’

Woolsey turned to Carson. ‘How can he not be aware of that?’

Rodney took a careful step forward and walked around so he was just off to John’s left. John moved around to face him.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Keep still,’ said Rodney absentmindedly and John did, but he kept watching him suspiciously.

Rodney reached out a hand in a movement that was more tentative than John had thought Rodney capable of. Then, slowly, Rodney ran a hand over the top of John’s left wing. Purely out of reflex, John yanked it away.

‘What the…?’ That had felt… bizarre. Weirder still because John knew he shouldn’t have felt anything at all. He stared at Rodney. What the hell had Rodney done? ‘You can see…?’

Rodney stared back. ‘Yes. Wow. That’s…’

‘But…’ said Carson.

‘Colonel,’ said Woolsey, a touch of impatience in his voice. He’d recovered pretty quickly, John thought, maybe he was finally getting used to Pegasus. In as much as you could get used to Pegasus. ‘If you can in fact see the same thing we can, do you want to explain your complete lack of surprise?’

John exchanged a look with Rodney.

‘Well, uh.’ John stopped. There had to be a good way of explaining this. ‘I might have thought it was a side effect from that drug the Llazuuns gave me.’

‘I don’t think I’m following,’ said Woolsey, his eyes darting between John and his wings. John self-consciously tucked them closer to his back.

‘He’s been able to see them for a while,’ Rodney announced, completely messing up John’s plan of breaking the news nice and slowly. ‘They’ve actually been there since we rescued him, but they’ve been in this state we call being ‘out of phase’, the SGC first encountered it when Daniel Jackson came into contact with a crystal skull artefact.’ Rodney paused, as if to see if they were all following and John decided to just let him do the talking.

‘I read that case file,’ Woolsey replied, cautiously, as if approaching the conversational equivalent of a minefield.

‘Yes. This is difference in that the device actually altered John’s DNA to create the wings, while at the same time putting them out of phase. It’s a particularly strange process because out of phase is similar to being in another dimension, but not quite. Now, because Sheppard was, pretty literally, connected to both dimensions he could interact with them while also interacting with us. I was able to input the right parameters into the device to get it to bring them out of phase and hence now we can all see them.’ Rodney stopped like he was expecting applause but, by the look on Woolsey’s face, John really didn’t think he was going to get it.

‘Colonel Sheppard,’ said Woolsey. ‘You have been able to see these… wings since returning from MB5 676?’

‘That’s what Rodney said,’ confirmed John, nice and casual, like he was just backing up Rodney’s science.

‘You didn’t think,’ said Woolsey and John gave him credit for having not totally flipped out. Yet. ‘You didn’t think that, as military commander of Atlantis, you having hallucinations was nothing either I, or your doctors, should know about?’

John figured he was in deep shit here, but not as bad as if the wings hadn’t been real. So all things considered John was feeling pretty good.

‘Yeah,’ said Keller, who seemed to have recovered from the shock of her patient suddenly sprouting wings. ‘We wouldn’t want senior personnel describing full blown hallucinations as a buzzing sound.’

John was about to shoot her a pleading look because he really needed both doctors on his side, but Woolsey was blushing furiously.

‘Yes, ah, might I suggest we continue this in the conference room?’ Woolsey was shaking his head. ‘This may be a long afternoon.’

‘I want to do a full scan first,’ said Keller hurriedly.

‘Definitely,’ Carson agreed, eyeing John.

Woolsey paused. ‘Absolutely, but I want you to notify me the minute you’re done and then we need a conference.’

_________________________

Ronon and Teyla were both at the conference room when Rodney got there and he had a feeling they’d both already spoken to John, who was slumped in his chair like a sulky teenager. Teyla was no doubt the cause for that; her face was very stern and Rodney remembered John had tried to spar with her. Ronon though… Ronon had a little smile curving at the sides of his mouth and he kept looking over at John like it was the funniest thing he’d seen all year.

‘They don’t seem to be doing him any harm,’ said Carson, reluctantly, like he wasn’t quite sure he could claim that yet.

‘Wouldn’t we know by now?’ asked Rodney. ‘They’ve been there for about three days and, granted, they were out of phase for most of that time, but they were still part of Sheppard.’

Rodney couldn’t help looking over at John, who was sitting next to him, wings going over the back of the chair with the tips brushing lightly on the floor. John looked magnificent with wings, of course, Rodney had found him attractive before, but the long black feathers really suited John.

‘Right,’ said Woolsey, who inexplicably had a pile of paper in front of him. ‘So we have time to discuss this. Now, what are the chances of reversing it using the machine.’

‘None,’ announced Radek firmly at the same time that Rodney said; ‘Slim.’

‘None?’ scoffed Rodney to Radek, under his breath. ‘There’s always a chance.’

‘No, unless you are willing to give the machine another go at killing him,’ replied Radek.

‘It didn’t kill him the first time!’ Rodney pointed out.

‘It malfunctioned,’ Radek returned. ‘There is no way of predicting the outcome. The best thing we can do with device is put the wings back out of phase. That would be relatively simple.’

‘Fine, okay,’ Rodney turned to Woolsey. ‘We can put the wings back out of phase but that’s the most we can do.’

‘I heard,’ said Woolsey dryly.

‘I suppose we could operate,’ said Keller. ‘I’ve looked at the scans we’ve taken and Carson and I think it can be done. His DNA would still have been changed, but it wouldn’t be outwardly visible.’

Rodney realised that this wasn’t the line he’d expected the conversation to go on. He knew it wasn’t his preference but he hadn’t actually spoken to John, although… it had read John’s mind. Also John was looking faintly disturbed.

‘Back up,’ said John, on cue. ‘You guys could put them back out of phase? Without killing me?’

‘Obviously without killing you, yes,’ said Rodney, because seriously, for a smart guy John could be an idiot.

‘That would work,’ John said, glancing at Woolsey.

‘Ah,’ said Carson knowingly and Rodney saw John give him a small smile.

‘That would mean the, uh, wings, would still be there,’ Woolsey said. ‘An operation would get rid of them completely.’

‘Yeah,’ John said. ‘I know, but we can’t actually change back my DNA right?’

‘It seems that way,’ confirmed Woolsey.

‘Exactly. And I’m not all that big on operations, so,’ John lifted a hand as he spoke and Rodney watched, fascinated, as his wing rose with it. ‘I think putting them out of phase when I go off world would be a good idea.’

Ronon actually snorted and Rodney had to admit John’s way of talking around Woolsey was pretty funny.

‘I believe,’ said Teyla, ‘John would like to keep the wings.’

‘Well, yeah,’ said John, dropping his eyes to the table.

Woolsey looked at them all. ‘I can’t make that decision, I’ll have to consult with the IOA and the SGC.’

‘It should be Colonel Sheppard’s decision,’ said Keller. ‘I don’t see it affecting the way he does his job.’

‘Of course it should be John’s decision,’ said Teyla, in that way she had that was clearly criticising Earth bureaucracy.

‘No, I get it,’ said John. ‘It’s all got to be referred upstairs.’

Rodney snorted. ‘There’s hardly anything they can do about it. They can’t make you have an operation.’

‘That’s the plan,’ said John, smirking.

‘Well…’ Woolsey looked doubtful. ‘What if they do want you to have an operation?’

‘We’ll say no,’ said Ronon succinctly.

John held out his hands in a placating gesture and his wings extended behind him. ‘How about we cross that bridge when, if, we come to it.’

No one answered, Rodney suspected they were all, like him, looking at John’s wings. John pulled them back in.

‘Okay.’ Woolsey seemed to recovered and addressed John. ‘You’re preference is to keep the wings.’

‘Yes it is,’ said John.

‘I’ll relay that on to the SGC when I tell them about this latest incidence.’ Woolsey shuffled his papers and stood up from the desk. ‘In the meantime all we can do is wait and Colonel, you may need to get someone to design a new shirt for you.’

_________________________

Once he’d heard the news, Rodney rushed straight to John’ quarters, where John was sitting on the bed reading War and Peace, one wing flung out behind him while the other curled around so that the tip rested by his feet.

‘They’re letting you keep them!’ Rodney said excitedly lumping the IOA and SGC into one category.

John grinned back at him. ‘Yeah, Woolsey told me. It was a close run thing, there’s still some arguments among the IOA.’

‘Oh please,’ said Rodney letting himself stare at John’s wings. ‘They’ll always be bickering about it.’

‘Probably,’ agreed John, setting down War and Peace.

Rodney sat down next to him and ran a hand over John’s left wing.

‘Hey.’ John shifted it away.

‘Sorry.’ Rodney mentally berated himself for forgetting John’s general no touching rule.

John sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s just… still kind of weird, y’know?’

‘I suppose, yes, it would be weird,’ agreed Rodney, but he didn’t find them that weird and he really, really, wanted to touch them. He liked to think of it as scientific curiosity.

‘Teyla’s spoken to some of her people,’ John said. ‘She thinks they’ll be able to make me a shirt that fits around the wings.’

‘Oh that’s good,’ Rodney lied. John with wings and no shirt on was far and away the hottest thing Rodney had ever seen. Something in his tone must have given him away, because John sent him a strange look.

‘So, uh,’ John looked down at his boots. ‘Carson says that with the, um, lighter bones I might even be able to try them out.’

‘What, fly?’ asked Rodney before he could stop himself. It had occurred to him, of course, but he’d never actually thought it would be possible.

‘Yeah,’ said John, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. ‘I was putting it off, but I went and asked Carson about it when I heard the IOA’s decision.’ John looked up at Rodney, almost hesitantly. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you’d better not just jump off the control tower,’ said Rodney and then winced as he remembered he’d already said that, when he’d thought John was hallucinating. Well, it had been good advice then and Rodney thought it was still good advice.

It clearly wasn’t the reply John was looking for, though, because he rolled his eyes. ‘About the wings, Rodney.’

Rodney started to reach out again and then stopped. ‘Um, may I?’

John hesitated, then nodded, so Rodney carefully ran a hand down the back of his wing, the feathers were surprisingly soft. God John looked beautiful with wings.

‘I think they suit you,’ Rodney said, sliding his fingers through the feathers. John shivered so Rodney stopped. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, it’s okay. Feels kinda nice actually,’ John admitted and Rodney could see that the tips of his ears had gone red.

‘Oh.’ Rodney took that as an invitation and kept his right hand resting lightly on the back of the wing as he ran his left along the top. The top feathers were smaller and definitely softer than those at the bottom of the wings.

Rodney moved closer and watched the light from John’s window play over the wings, accenting individual feathers. Rodney had always liked the way light reflected off John’s features and he found he loved the way it interacted with his wings too. The colour was perfect too, considering John’s hair colour and choice of shirt, but then Rodney supposed it had technically also been John’s choice.

John shifted slightly and Rodney was momentarily distracted from the wings to watch the muscles ripple on his back. That was when he realised he was sitting ridiculously close and practically caressing John’s wings.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rodney, flailing back. ‘I was just curious.’

John’s expression was somewhat alarmed and Rodney noticed he was blushing. ‘Uh. Right.’

His wings pulled closer, like a shield and Rodney wondered if he’d just crossed a line.

‘No, really. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I got carried away. That is to say…’ Rodney had no idea what he was saying. ‘You could have said something!’

Rodney was about to bolt for the exit because he was really, really, making things worse, when he noticed John redden further. John hadn’t told him to back off. Why hadn’t John told him to back off? Rodney stared at his friend because he looked embarrassed.

‘John?’ asked Rodney, with extreme caution.

‘Rodney,’ replied John, in a very neutral tone.

‘Oh that is not helpful,’ Rodney complained and he really hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Of course, there was a very simple method of testing the hypothesis that was slowly forming in his brain. A very simple method indeed and Rodney thought; what did he have to lose?

Your best friend! Rodney’s brain screamed in reply, but by that time Rodney had already committed and moved forward and kissed John full on the lips. There was an extremely awkward moment where John didn’t react at all and they were just sort of sitting there, lips pressed together, and then John leaned forward and deepened the kiss.

Oh thank god, thought Rodney, a beat too soon, because suddenly John was shoving him off.

‘Oh shit,’ said Rodney, panicking. ‘Please don’t have a heterosexual freak out, or hit me. Please don’t hit me.’

John stared at him, then dissolved into his full blown donkey bray laugh.

That was so not fair, not when Rodney wasn’t in on the joke. And particularly not when Rodney had just kissed him. ‘What?’

‘Rodney…’ John tried to get his breath back. ‘Rodney, you sat on my wing.’

‘I…?’ Rodney felt his face heat up. ‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘Ow,’ said John massaging his wing.

‘So,’ said Rodney, perched awkwardly on the edge of John’s bed. ‘No heterosexual freak out then?’

John offered him a small smile. ‘I’m gay Rodney, so no, no heterosexual freak outs here.’

‘Right, right, well that figures,’ said Rodney, because John had kissed him back after all. ‘Bi.’

‘What?’ John frowned at him. ‘Bye? You’re just gonna kiss me and then leave?’

‘No,’ Rodney said, irritated. ‘No, you idiot. I’m bi, as in bisexual.’

‘Oh,’ said John raising his eyebrows, then he shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d been faking the whole busty blonde obsession.’

Rodney decided that was fair enough because he did like busty blondes, a lot. After all, Sam Carter was… not a productive line of thought when he was trying to convince John to go out with him. Although the process had stalled and Rodney wasn’t sure what angle to take next, but he wasn’t going to just let John brush it off. Someone else maybe, but not John.

‘So,’ said Rodney again and has brain had clearly short circuited because he couldn’t follow it up with anything. ‘Um… So. You’re gay.’

‘That’s what I said.’ John let go of his wing and Rodney watched as it settled into a more natural position, feathers brushing over the ground.

‘And you’re, well, hot, particularly with the whole wings thing, and I’m… asking you out,’ Rodney finished and it wasn’t the most romantic thing he’d ever said but at least he’d said it.

‘You’re asking me out because you think I look hot with wings?’ John looked disappointed and Rodney hurriedly tried to figure out what he’d done wrong. John scratched the top of his head. ‘I wasn’t really looking for something… casual.’

The thing was; neither was Rodney. He’d been looking for a long term partner and he’d been looking in the wrong places, and he was absolutely blaming Jeannie for that, but clearly John didn’t realise. John was perfect in his irritating flyboy self-sacrificing way and Rodney could argue about which batman movie was the best and complain about bad scifi movies and honestly why would he want anything less than a relationship. Rodney really thought he should have made a move years ago.

‘Are you kidding?’ said Rodney and he was going to regret this if John was trying to say he didn’t want a relationship at all but nearly seven years ago Rodney had agreed to a probably one way trip to another galaxy and as a leap of faith that one had worked out okay. ‘I don’t want casual. Yes, you are definitely hot and yes more so with the wings going for you, but you are also an idiot and I love you.’

John froze. ‘You know I’m terrible at relationships, right?’

‘Please,’ Rodney said. ‘Like I’m any better.’

‘Okay,’ said John.

‘Was that a yes?’ asked Rodney. It had really, really sounded like a yes, but Rodney knew from long experience that he was very good at misreading these situations.

‘Yes, Rodney, that was a yes,’ said John and grinned.

‘Excellent,’ said Rodney, grinning back. ‘Because I have the perfect idea for a first date, wait here.’

Rodney was a genius. Oh he was such a genius and he was going out with Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard and it really would be the best date ever. Now all he had to do was get Carson to okay it.

_________________________

Rodney called John down to the east peer after running out of John’s quarters with an ear splitting grin on his face.

John, if he was honest with himself, was feeling a bit shell shocked. The wings were still strange,foreign and although damn cool he thought it was going to take a long time to get used to them. You live forty odd years without wings, and then the Pegasus Galaxy throws you yet another curve ball. There are days when John tells himself he’s too old for this shit.

And now he was on a date with Rodney McKay.

In hindsight, he’s found Rodney attractive for a few years now, maybe even been flirting with the guy, but John had given up on a serious relationship when he’d joined the air force. Yet, DADT was gone and it wasn’t like John broadcast his personal life anyway and it was Rodney and hell yeah John wanted to risk it.

Damn was he nervous. Which was ridiculous, because he knew Rodney would be worse, so John decided to blame it on everyone else, who had all stared at him. Well John had walked through the city shirtless and with wings so he couldn’t exactly blame them.

Rodney was standing on the peer with a 6 pack of beer, a crash mat and a helmet. John surveyed the equipment sceptically. And, yeah, Rodney’s plan was fairly obviously, but…

‘I am not wearing a helmet,’ said John, fighting back a grin.

Rodney turned around and saw him approaching. ‘Yes, you are. What do you think?’

‘I think Carson’s going to kill us, but what the hell.’ John figured the crash mat was pointless, he could try and glide over the ocean instead.

‘No,’ said Rodney looking unbearably smug, John found it kind of endearing. ‘I got Carson to say yes.’

‘Really?’ John was surprised, to put it mildly.

Rodney gestured at the crash mat. ‘Carson thinks you should try hovering at first, which I think is ridiculous, because it will be easier if you try and glide, but I had to compromise since he could hardly third wheel in on our date.’

John laughed and planted a quick kiss on Rodney before going to stand on the crash mat. ‘We couldn’t have that.’

He stretched his wings out and Rodney was definitely staring a little. Experimentally, John waited until he could feel the wind underneath them and brought them down in one powerful stroke. He got some lift, but not enough, so he repeated the movement until, finally, he lifted slightly, no more than a few inches.

It was hard work and John found himself collapsing back on to the mat.

‘Wow.’ John was panting but damn was that cool. ‘That was amazing.’

‘It worked!’ Rodney said, practically bouncing on his toes. ‘I can’t believe it worked!’

‘Y’know,’ said John thoughtfully, still getting his breath back. ‘You might be right about the gliding.’

John had been up in a glider before and you needed a fair amount of speed and a drop, but he figured he could get a good flight off the side of the peer, with way less effort.

‘Oh, no,’ said Rodney. ‘Carson said crash mat only without him supervising. I should also really be making you wear the helmet.’

‘Yeah,’ John agreed, as he stepped off the mat towards the edge of the peer. That did sound like something Carson would have said. ‘But water’s a pretty good crash mat if you’re not going too fast.’

Rodney gave the water a wistful look. ‘God, that would be cool. Okay, fine, but if he finds out it was all your fault.’

‘Deal.’

John had flown plenty of air craft before and the Jumpers were amazing, but flying under his own steam… This, John decided as he spread his wings, really was the best date ever.