SGA Fic: Appearances to the Contrary (Enemy at the Gate)

[erda]

Title: Appearances to the Contrary
Author: keefaq
Word count: 4382
Pairing: John/Rodney, pre-slash.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Transformative work
Tag for 5.20: Enemy at the Gate
Summary: Weird things are always happening to Rodney.
Written for the Season Five Tagathon at sga_episodefic




The whole thing was Jennifer’s fault. She was never satisfied, always impatiently on to the next thing, wearing him out with one crazy notion after another. She wouldn’t listen to reason, and now here he was stuck way out alone in a situation he couldn’t wiggle out of. A man’s life was in his hands, and he had no choice but to confess to this idiocy. The fact that he was no stranger to public humiliation didn’t mean he relished it.

“Keller?” Sheppard (of course it was Sheppard he’d have to confess to) said curtly. “If we could get a move on?”

Rodney let his (tiny, little) shoulders drop. “I’m not Keller,” he said.

Sheppard said nothing. expression didn’t change one whit.

“It’s me, Rodney,” Rodney said. He clicked on his radio. “Jennifer,” he said. “You’d better get down to the infirmary as fast as you can. You’ve got an emergency here.”

“What?” Jennifer answered. It was strange hearing Jennifer use his voice. She was clearly injecting her personality into it, as he was sure he didn’t normally sound that short tempered.

“The jig is up, Jennifer, just get down here.” He hated the way his normally commanding tone came out of Jennifer’s voice box all whiny.

Sheppard was still just standing there, looking completely unsurprised. He shrugged at Rodney’s glare, and Rodney looked away, because this was probably the stupidest fucking thing he’d ever done and he wished Sheppard would just yell at him now and get it over with.

After Jennifer performed the surgery, John walked them down to Woolsey’s office, and it was Woolsey who yelled, long and loud, about unauthorized experiments and unprofessional behavior, and “I’m particularly disappointed in you, Dr. McKay, because I would have expected you to rein in a younger colleague,” and wow, that jibe was below the belt. He hadn’t thought Woolsey capable of such focused ire. It was worse than the dressing down Elizabeth had given him after Doranda, and this time, no one had even been hurt. Yes, the poor marine who had gotten his skull cracked open during a training exercise had to wait a few extra minutes for things to get sorted out, but he was going to be fine.

“It was all my idea,” Jennifer confessed. It was maybe not very gallant of him not to say anything in her defense, but it really was all her idea. She had bugged and bugged him when he found the other part of the body-switching machine in Janus’s lab, and once he figured out how to reverse its affect, she’d been dead set on playing around with it. He hadn’t wanted to try it out. The thing gave him the creeps, especially when Jennifer made it clear she thought it would be interesting to walk around in a man’s body for a while. He certainly did not think it would be interesting to wear a female body even for a minute, and he suspected Sheppard was looking forward to mocking him unmercifully about his time as a woman, and what the hell was Jennifer on about now?

“Very well,” Woolsey said. “You can go on with your experiment. But everything must be carefully documented, and all personnel will be kept informed as to your identity.”

Jennifer smiling at Woolsey with Rodney’s face was just disturbing. “Wait, what?” he asked.

“”Mr. Woolsey is going to let us continue to use the body-switching machine for a few days,” Jennifer said. “As long as we document the experience and make ourselves available to the psychology department for interviews.” Jennifer completely ignored his glare. “You agreed with me that being stuck on earth was boring, right? This will give us something to do while the IOA decides our future.”

“I don’t want to play around while our fate is decided,” he muttered, but it was only a token protest. He didn’t want Jennifer to be bored.

The IOA had slapped a complete lock down on Atlantis the moment the city had touched down. No one in or out of the city unless summoned to appear before the IOA. Everyone had expected leave and a chance to visit family while on earth, so a large number of the city’s inhabitants were seething with resentment. The sheer idleness after the stress of living in Pegasus was ramping up tension all over the city. So Jennifer needed something to do, and that meant Rodney would be walking around in her body for a bit longer. At least now everyone knew about it, so he wouldn’t have to worry about being expected to do Jennifer’s job again.

Rodney had thought he understood where this was going as soon as Jennifer started in about it being a unique opportunity and they should agree to give each other free rein to explore the experience, blah, blah, blah. Clearly it was all about sex. Jennifer wanted permission to play around with his body and he couldn’t think of any reason to refuse it that didn’t make him look stodgy and prudish.

“Fine, fine,” he said. “Make out with anyone you want. All claims are off until we finish the experiment.”

Jennifer laughed. “Make out? Rodney, you’re so…” She trailed off in confusion. “We don’t have to, I guess, if it’s going to be a problem.”

“What problem?” Rodney made himself ask. “There’s no problem. Feel free. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

So yeah, he’d thought he understood. Jennifer wanted to see what it was like to have sex as a man. That made perfect sense, and in order to feel right about it, she had given him permission to experience sex as a woman. Which, of course, he had no interest whatsoever in doing. He was prepared to deal with Jennifer hooking up with one of her nurses, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it would be a male nurse. What the hell? Jennifer was going to have gay sex in his body?

Fine, he was fine with it. He was going to hook up with someone, too. He let his mind roll over the possibilities, trying his best to ignore the jubilant little voice inside screaming “Sheppard, Sheppard,” because that would be too weird. Sheppard would be weird about it. He was very easily made uncomfortable, and then Rodney would feel uncomfortable by proxy and it would not be any fun at all, nothing like his dirty mind made it seem when he was all alone with his dick. So, not Sheppard. He wondered if Ronon would be cool about it. The idea made him nervous. Ronon was a big guy, and he wasn’t all that sold on the idea of sex as a woman anyway.

So, nobody. Just because Jennifer was experimenting didn’t mean he had to. He would just go about his normal routine. No one would know whether he had experimented or not. What he really wanted to do was get some work done, so that was what he would do. And if Sheppard wanted to make himself scarce the whole time he was in Jennifer’s body, well, he was probably just exceptionally busy. Not that he’d ever been too busy to stop by the lab a couple of times a day before.


Clearly, Sheppard was going to be weird about it. That shouldn’t surprise him. The man had a lot of issues. If Sheppard were body switched into a woman’s body, Rodney was pretty sure there would be no experimenting of any kind. Sheppard never appeared very
interested in sex, so it wouldn’t make any difference at all in his behavior. And if the idea of Sheppard in a woman’s body, Sheppard wearing women’s clothes, Sheppard, oh god, wearing lipstick and eye liner made Rodney feel funny, it wasn’t like he was ever going to tell anyone how he felt.

The cafeteria smelled like turkey, like open-faced turkey sandwiches with gravy, and Rodney grabbed two of them and a couple of blue Jellos. He saw Sheppard lean forward, clearly intending to get up, dump his half-full tray and run away from the scary body switcher. He tried to march angrily over to Sheppard’s table, back stiff with righteous indignation, but he had a feeling he just looked petulant in Jennifer’s body. “Sheppard, for God’s sake,” he said. “I promise the girlitude won’t rub off on you if you eat one fucking meal with me.”

Sheppard slid back down in his seat, glancing at Teyla for sympathy. “I also find this body changing somewhat confusing, Rodney,” Teyla said, because she always took Sheppard’s side in everything.

He’d worked on his scowl for years, but it was of questionable value on Jennifer’s face.
“Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this,” he said. “It’s only for a few days, anyway, and I’m still me.”

“Right,” Sheppard said. “So I’ll get back to you in a few days. He was staring at the wall to his side, completely turned away from Rodney.

“Why are you so angry about this?” Rodney asked, just as Jennifer sat down next to him, startling him by wearing his body gracefully.

Sheppard stood up, clumsy like he never was. “I’m not angry,” he said. “I just don’t see any point to this.” He turned away, leaving his tray abandoned in his haste to escape.

Jennifer’s mouth was turned down at one side in a less than attractive way. “Did he leave because of me?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Rodney said. The bread in his sandwich was thick and warm. He took a huge swallow of the unusually strong coffee to wash it down. This whole thing was stupid.

“Fine,” Jennifer said. “If you think it’s stupid, we can switch back.”

Rodney felt a rush of relief. “No, no, if you’re having fun…” It came out sounding petty, and Jennifer scowled in such a frightening way that he decided he had to have his own body back right now, no matter how she felt about it. “Yes, let’s please stop this experiment so I can get back to some serious work.” He didn’t even care if she was offended by his contempt for this little farce, it was a stupid experiment and he wanted it over.

****


Rodney had only been back in his old, male, comfortable body for a few minutes when Amelia summoned him to the gate room with some extremely unclear complaint about a malfunction in the environmental controls. He fully understood her bumbling incoherence when he got there.

It was snowing in the gateroom, and quite a crowd had gathered to watch. The snowflakes seemed to be forming out of thin air near the ceiling and falling thick and heavy into soft piles on the floor, a floor which should have been warm enough to melt the stuff instantly, but somehow wasn’t.

“Radek, what the hell?” he growled, because the man was standing with the rest of the crowd, apparently mesmerized like everyone else. They all seemed to think it was awesome, when in fact it was incomprehensible and potentially fatal.

Radek turned dazzled eyes toward him.” Rodney, it is snowing,” he said.

“Yes, I’m standing right here, Radek, and I can see that it is snowing. Care to give me a hint as to the why or the how?” But it was a waste of breath. Radek clearly had no more idea what was going on than he did.

Rodney and Radek spent several hours checking out the environmental controls without gaining any insight into the snowfall, which gradually slowed and fortunately stopped altogether on its own. They did discover that the floor wasn’t warm, in fact the temperature of both the floor and the room was set much lower than it should have been. It was a simple matter to put that back to normal, but they didn’t have any explanation as to why or how it had been lowered in the first place.

Sheppard finally showed up, after the crisis had passed, and he knelt down in the snow, which had reached almost a foot in depth. He stuck his bare hands down into the snow and pulled up a handful of it, kneading and rolling it in his bare hands. Rodney had a sudden urge to duck down behind the console before Sheppard could decide to aim at him, but he didn’t throw the little snowball he’d molded. He just knelt there holding on to it, and it had to be freezing, but he didn’t seem to notice. After a few minutes he turned his hand over and let the snowball plop back onto the floor. It made a soft wet noise as it fell, already melting in the warmer room temperature. When he stood up, Rodney could see his hands were raw and red from the cold and wet. “Clean this up,” Sheppard said to no one in particular.

So ended the city’s first snowfall.

****


Torren was making little restless noises when Rodney opened his eyes. He was pretty sure when he’d gone to bed there were no candles in his room, nor any drapey cloth things, and also, it wasn’t even his bed, it was Teyla’s. He hadn’t been drinking, and it didn’t seem to be a dream, so, apparently he’d spent the night with Teyla and he had no memory of it and no idea why. He felt like he’d had a wonderful night’s rest, too, right up until he slid his legs down onto the floor, and, oh god, those were not his legs. He ran into the bathroom to make sure, even though he was already sure what he would see, and there, staring out of the mirror at him, was Teyla’s shocked face.

It was logical to assume that since he was in Teyla’s body, she would be in his, but when he got down to the lab he discovered it wasn’t true. Radek was in his body, Woolsey was in Radek’s and it was a while before Teyla showed up in the body of some marine he didn’t even know.

Woolsey, looking almost respectable after smoothing down Radek’s hair with a comb and some sort of gel, naturally looked to Rodney for answers. “I don’t know,” he said. It came out sounding soft and reassuring rather than panicked, which was silly, because he wasn’t feeling calm at all.

“Perhaps we should compile a list of everyone in the city who is no longer in his or her original body,” Teyla said with the unknown marine’s voice, which unfairly sounded very like her own. She was apparently calm in both mind and body. Or something.

They had a briefing after the list was compiled, during which everyone seemed to listen, or at least keep their eyes focused on him, a lot better than they did when he had his own body. Only five people had been body swapped: himself, Radek, Teyla, Woolsey, and the unknown marine, whose name turned out to be Sarah Ferin, who was stuck in Woolsey’s body. There didn’t seem to be anything connecting them all, four of them were part of the command staff, but the marine broke that pattern, and Ronon and Sheppard were unaffected, so basically Rodney couldn’t come up with anything to account for it. The ancient body-switching machine didn’t appear any different, but he had Sheppard think it off just in case.

It was all very confusing. Woolsey made everyone wear name tags to help in remembering who they really were, which made Rodney feel like he was a t a convention, but he still found himself trying to discuss technical aspects of the problem with Radek’s body and administrative issues with Woolsey’s.

At least being in Teyla’s body wasn’t so bad. His back and knees didn’t hurt at all, and her smaller hands fit into spaces his own wouldn’t. He was getting more done and drinking less coffee than he had in years. The biggest downside was the way Sheppard continued to avoid him.

The IOA took the whole thing as confirmation of their decision to keep the city on lock down. At the rate things were fouling up, they would never get permission to take the city back home.

****

When Jennifer called for help, she sounded seriously freaked out, babbling something about steel beaks and wrecked equipment. Rodney, still stuck in Teyla’s body, could hear some sort of whining and tearing noises through his radio as he hot-footed it to the infirmary. The place was locked up and everyone was out in the corridor by the time he got there, but he could see the mechanical birds through the observation windows, and he was pretty sure they were replicators. They had rigid wings more like gliders than birds, he noticed after a second, but they were using wicked looking steel beaks to rip up everything in the infirmary.

According to the infirmary staff, they had emerged out of thin air near the ceiling just like the snowflakes in the gate room, and immediately started tearing the place apart. At least they hadn’t injured the staff, though one of them dove viciously at Jennifer once before veering off and burying its beak in on of the examining tables.

Suddenly, the high pitched screeching noise of their beaks tearing through the infirmary ceased and all of the creatures fell to the floor, apparently deactivated.

Rodney would have liked to investigate more, but he wasn’t in the infirmary anymore, nor Teyla’s body, and that was just plain disorienting. It took a few minutes to ascertain that, yes, he was unharmed, he was in the cafeteria, and judging by the amount of food on his plate, he was likely in Ronon’s body. Sheppard’s voice was in his ear, asking for any info on his whereabouts and demanding that he get down to the infirmary. The man clearly had never body swapped with anyone if he thought Rodney could just jump up and run around in Ronon’s gigantic body after being acclimated to Teyla’s for so long.

Nevertheless, Rodney was programmed to respond to that urgent tone of Sheppard’s, so he got up, knocking his hip into the table and spilling his soup a bit. When he picked up his tray it almost flew over his shoulder before he realized he was putting too much energy behind Ronon’s muscles. He tripped and knocked over his chair when he stepped back, then sent it flying in the opposite direction when he tried to pick it up. It took him almost the entire way to the infirmary to figure out how to walk without his enormous feet knocking into each other and sending him careening into the walls every other step.

Sheppard was standing alone in the middle of the debris. “What the hell is going on here, Rodney?” he asked. He hated not having an answer.

Woolsey, now in Teyla’s body, which worked surprisingly well, had barely finished briefing Rodney on all the tasks he wanted him to focus on while repairing the infirmary when they were called to another outbreak of the bizarre. The puddlejumpers appeared to be flying themselves all around the launch bay, but at least they weren’t wrecking anything. They were just circling around randomly.

Rodney had to call Sheppard back, and he was almost relieved when there was no answer. The man never seemed to be around when this crazy stuff was happening, leaving Rodney to deal with it all, and…- fuck, the man was never around when this stuff was happening. By the time Sheppard responded, almost an hour later, the puddlejumpers were resting quietly back in their proper places.

So Rodney watched Sheppard. All the rest of the day he watched, and he got Ronon to park Keller’s body, which he was temporarily inhabiting, outside Sheppard’s door all night. He told only Ronon and Teyla of his suspicions. He figured the three of them could keep tabs on Sheppard until they figured out what was going on and if anyone else needed to know.

Teyla, in Rodney’s body, took a turn watching Sheppard in the morning, but nothing unusual happened. Rodney, still in Ronon’s body, took over after lunch, following Sheppard out of the cafeteria. Now that he was looking closely, he realized Sheppard looked downright haggard, and the fact that he seemed unaware that he was being tailed made Rodney think he must be exhausted. Sheppard was wandering all over the place, but gradually moving away from the center of the city. Eventually they turned down the corridor toward Janus’ lab. Rodney paused inside the doorway into the lab and watched Sheppard go straight to the opposite side of the room and step through the wall.

They had checked the lab for other hidden doors shortly after discovering it, and hadn’t found anything, but clearly there was another door now. Whether Sheppard had initialized something that had been there all along, or whether the door was new, Rodney didn’t know, but he suddenly realized that coming here alone might not be wise. He stepped back out of the lab and called for Ronon and Teyla, wherever they were or whomever they might currently be inhabiting.

Tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for them, he suddenly stumbled and fell against the wall of the gate room. He bent forward as a wave of dizziness passed over him. The body switching was extremely disorienting, but when he looked down he recognized his own dear, beloved hand extending out of his familiar blue uniform. Waving off Zelenka, who was trying to prop him up, he rushed out of the room and headed back to Janus’ lab, radioing Teyla and Ronon as he went to make sure they were okay. “I am back in my own body,” Teyla reported, “and I am making my way to join you at the lab.”

“Already here,” Ronon said as Rodney joined them. “Got my body back, too.”

They hurried into the lab together, and the back wall parted for them as they stepped through it. Rodney saw the eyes of the little Asgard go wide in terror as Ronon vaulted over the counter and grabbed him by the throat, but he couldn’t be bothered with that. Sheppard was seated, slouched back in some kind of ancient device, a helmet covering the top of his head but leaving his face exposed, expression slack, eyes open but unseeing. Rodney grabbed the chair and spun it toward himself. “Sheppard!” When Sheppard did not respond, he looked to the Asgard and demanded, “Tell me what you’ve done to him.”

Ronon shook the little alien, whose head flopped around alarmingly. “Ronon,” Teyla said. “Put him down. He is no use to us without his head.”

Ronon put the Asgard back on the ground, but he didn’t let go of his throat. “I have done nothing,” the Asgard said. “His gene caused him to be attracted to the device once it was activated. I merely attuned it to him so that I could study it.”

“Turn it off,” Ronon said. The Asgard seemed quite eager to obey Ronon, and his hands flew over the console, which went dark. He removed the helmet from Sheppard, who would have fallen out of the chair if Rodney hadn’t been there to grab him.

“Sheppard,” he said, running his hands along Sheppard’s head. He didn’t appear to have any bruises or holes or anything, and he was, fortunately for the Asgard, breathing normally. “Come on, John. Wake up.” Rodney said. Sheppard coughed weakly and made a feeble grab at Rodney’s arms, but he still looked mostly unconscious. “What is this device?” Rodney asked the Asgard.

“It allows the user to control the city with their mind,” the Asgard said.

“And you hooked the Colonel up to it why?’ asked Rodney.

“I did not. When I arrived here, I turned the device on. Colonel Sheppard was attracted to it by his ancient gene.”

“Attracted? Is that another word for compelled? Are you telling me Colonel Sheppard is responsible for all the weird stuff that’s been happening around here? That he would tear up the infirmary and then act like he didn’t know anything about it? Make it snow? Change the command staff around into different bodies as some kind of prank? Fly all the puddle jumpers around the docking bay for fun?” Sheppard was slumped against Rodney. He felt so thin, almost lifeless, that Rodney clutched onto him as he slid them both down to the floor. “Okay, maybe the puddlejumpers,” he conceded, “but I don’t believe he would do all that other stuff.”

“The Colonel is not completely aware of his actions,” the Asgard said. “What you call his subconscious mind is controlling the device, and when he is not working it he does not remember most of what he has done. He has been very confused between sessions.”

“Why would you do this?” Teyla asked.

“I am studying the interface between Colonel Sheppard and the city,” the Asgard answered. His bland little voice and his lack of interest in how much trouble he’d caused made Rodney sympathize with Ronon, who growled and gave the Asgard another shake.

John was waking up, and he pressed his face into Rodney’s neck, mumbling, “Rodney,” in such an affectionate voice that Rodney lost all interest in the Asgard’s explanations.
Ronon loosened his grip when he heard Sheppard, and the Asgard ducked under his arm and, pressing several places on the console, disappeared, presumably back to wherever he’d come from.

“Rodney,” John said again. He wrapped his arms around Rodney and started nuzzling the side of his neck.

“Right here, John, I’m right here,” Rodney said breathlessly.

John’s eyes snapped open and he looked around, taking in Ronon and Teyla before turning back to Rodney. “What the hell?” he said. “What happened?”

“You’ve been wrecking the place,” Rodney said.

John sat back without letting go of Rodney’s neck. “I’ve been what?” He sounded as if he’d just woken up from a long restful sleep.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rodney said. “We can fix it.” His hand was cupping John’s face, his thumb finding its way to the side of John’s mouth, stroking it soothingly. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re going to fix everything now.”

Comments

[tzzzz.livejournal.com]

This was sweet. I liked that you didn't overplay the ending.

[keefaq.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Yeah, it just ended there.

[gaffsie.livejournal.com]

I like how you showed the difference in attitude between Rodney and Keller. Rodney might be a scientist, but the idea of switching bodies would not be appealing to him, no matter how groundbreaking the research would be. It's weirdly fitting that Keller would jump at the chance to "experiment" a little too. Meanwhile, Rodney says, "yes dear," just to be a Good Boyfriend.

[keefaq.livejournal.com]

Ha, yes. Rodney's age is showing, and he doesn't like it. One of the many ways they are not right for each other.

[neevebrody.livejournal.com]

Yay, you posted. Enjoyed this very much - very imaginative premise.

[keefaq.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for your help; I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

The Dread Perils of Bored Scientists. To be honest, at first I suspected Jennifer was the one messing around with the body-swapping, but I caught on to John's absences slightly before Rodney did. I am confused about how there's an Asgard involved. Aren't they all dead, in both galaxies?

There needs to be fanart of Radek's enchanted expression over the snow.

[keefaq.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading. Glad to hear you suspected Jennifer, cause it's hard to tell how a story is coming across when you already know the end.

Pretty sure the intent was to develop more of an arc for the Asgard before the show was canceled, so, no, I don't think they were all meant to be dead.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Lovely.

[keefaq.livejournal.com]

Thank you!