20. Risk Assessment

Teyla circled around him, waiting for an opening. “Elizabeth does not seem to share your expectations for this man.”

“She knows he’s got potential, but he fu—er, made a big mistake.”

Mer’s verbal flub matched his physical one and he crashed to the floor under Teyla’s onslaught. She stepped away, twirling her bantos rods.

“You have not been practicing.”

Mer groaned as he got back on his feet.

“Rodney, I do not understand why you have invested your time and energies into this man. He is, according to Major Lorne, unreliable and untrustworthy.” She frowned at him. “Untrustworthy” was the Athosian version of “scum of the earth” so Mer could only guess at what Lorne had been telling her about Sheppard.

“He’s the strongest ATA-active gene carrier after O’Neill. That alone makes him valuable.”

“But is that is all that makes him valuable?”

“No. But you, like everyone else in this city on a daily basis, are just going to have to trust me.”

“I do, with my life. But I would be remiss as your friend and ally if I did not point out the flaws in your argument.”

“I’m perfectly aware of the flaws in my argument, thank you.”

Teyla pulled back to a neutral position. “Lorne claims that you are trying to replace Hedy.”

Mer stood up straight. “No one, ever, anywhere from any fucking dimension can replace him. Do you understand me?” His anger boiled over, his voice hissing like steam. He knew what they were saying; it did not mean he could forgive them for it.

Teyla tilted her head. “You are not the only one who misses him.”

Mer threw the bantos rods to the floor. “We’re done here. You can help me straighten out the mess known as John Sheppard, or go back to your diplomatic tour. Let me know what you decide.”

Teyla caught him by the elbow before he made it out. “Do not run from me, Rodney McKay.”

“I don’t need your sympathy. Hedy’s dead; believe me, I know that better than anyone else.”

“I will not help you if this is your way of avoiding your grief.”

“It’s been four years. I’ve done plenty of grieving.”

Teyla stared at him. “Have you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Look, Teyla, Sheppard is important. You can believe me, or not.”

“I do believe you. What I am questioning is why.” She sighed. “Rodney, even if he is a shadow of the man you met from the other dimension, he is still simply that: a shadow. Whatever made the other man great is missing from this John Sheppard. Everyone says so. Even Elizabeth claims that this is folly, that your ego and your grief are blinding you. He is a dangerous man.”

“To himself, yes.” Mer rubbed his face. Teyla had sat with him in the week following Hedy’s suicide-by-bomb, when Mer refused to even acknowledge anyone else on the expedition. He still thought of her as the Emmagen, but she was also one of the few people he could call friend. He looked over at her, which always felt like looking up at her even though she was nearly six inches shorter.

“I could be wrong. So far, all he’s done is stick his tongue out at me. He sat in the command chair to try and get leverage over me, not the expedition. Maybe that’s the best we’ll get out of him. But if we can…I don’t know, reach him somehow, then he’ll do everything he can to save Atlantis. And ‘everything he can’, well, that’s actually a pretty impressive list.”

“You see something in him no one else does, Rodney. To them it is a pointless risk.”

“Well, not surprisingly, they are as usual wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.” He walked over and picked up his bantos rods. “I’m asking for help with something—someone who could prove invaluable to us, to you, and to everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy.”

What he didn’t tell her, because it would have been a cheap shot and he might need the ammunition for later, was that it was the other dimension’s Teyla (who was simply an Emmagen, not the Emmagen, and could not understand why everyone kept trying to bow to her) who had told him to find Sheppard. He had ignored the advice until Sheppard fell out of Vegas into the SGC's lap, and only then did it began to make sense. Everyone could think of Mer's motives what they wanted, but this whole thing was in no way shape or form his idea to begin with.

Teyla walked over to him, twirling both rods in one hand in a complicated move that did not seem to obey the laws of physics. “Except, I hope, to the Wraith?” She smiled.

“Except the Wraith,” he agreed, and went on the defense.

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