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Disclaimer: You really think I own this stuff? I’m just playing around, no money made, no infringement intended.
Note: This is my first attempt at an SGA fic so I hope I didn’t mess up too bad. Thanks have to go out to Kayli and Sue who listen to me go on and as I figured this thing out.
The Number One Way to Not Avoid A Physical
Chapter One:
Rodney McKay made his way to his office slowly, focusing more on the piece of ancient technology in his hand then where he was going. People were trying to give him a wide berth, some helpfully or not pushing him toward a safer route when he started veering into a wall.
Normally Rodney paid more attention to where he was going but today the small, oval, opaque object he held in his hand was beginning to drive him up the wall. He had been unable to activate it despite the gene-therapy one Dr. Carson Beckett had instilled upon him. Rodney had gone to Carson to see if he could convince the man to activate it for him but Carson one again shied away from any ancient technology, especially after the incident with the drone.
In fact Carson’s excuse was that he and the other docs had physicals to complete and if he didn’t want to be next he had better get out of the infirmary. Needless to say Rodney high-tailed it out, he may have hypochondriac tendencies but he had no desire for a physical; especially given Carson’s mood. Which was not a very good one for two reasons…1) Major John Sheppard had not shown up for his scheduled physical and 2) He’s just been asked to activate ancient technology.
Pulling himself out of his thoughts long enough to open the door to his office Rodney walked in unprepared for what happened next. Walking slowly over to his desk and chair Rodney made to sit down only to jump three feet in the air; on account that there was already somebody in his chair.
“Hey! Don’t you watch what you’re doing?”
Rodney turned around swiftly and glared at John Sheppard, “Not in my own office, which is supposed to be empty by the way! What are you doing here anyway? Carson is looking for you.”
Sheppard smirked, “I know. This is the one place I thought he’d never look for me in.”
Rodney’s eyebrows rose, “You’re hiding from Carson?” Rodney was beginning to get agitated as he looked at John.
“Aren’t you?”
“What? No! I’m trying to get some work done. Where’d it go?” Rodney began looking on the ground for the device, which he had dropped when John startled him.
“Where’d what go?” John asked, resting his booted feet on top of Rodney’s desk.
“The device I had in my hand before you so rudely interrupted me and get your feet of my desk.”
“Interrupted you? You were going to sit on me!” John exclaimed, not moving his feet.
“It’s my chair, in my office, which was supposed to be empty!” Pointing to John’s feet Rodney emphasized, “Feet off, now!”
John grumbled but plunked his feet onto the floor anyway, right on top of the device. Reaching down John picked it up and tossed it in the air a couple of times, “This what you’re looking for?”
“Yes now be careful with that, I don’t know what it does yet,” Rodney held out his hand for the device.
John shrugged and handed it over to Rodney. Just as their hands met the device went from opaque to clear and there was a bright flash, which when gone revealed John and Rodney on the floor staring at each other in a mixture of horror and confusion.
“What did you do McKay?” John yelled, though it was his voice. How could it be when he was staring at his body?
“M-me? What did I do? You’re the one who activated the stupid thing!” Rodney sputtered, pulling himself off the floor and all but falling into his chair. Putting his feet on the desk he sighed.
“You told me not too put my feet on the desk,” John said as he leaned against the wall.
Rodney glared at him, “Yeah well now they seem to be my feet and I’ll put them where I please.”
“Fine, whatever,” John shrugged Rodney’s shoulders, “What are we suppose to do now?”
“Figure this out fast is what we are going to do because I have no desire to take your place in your physical, Carson is a little pissed with you.”
“Like I really want to take your place either,” John snapped.
Grumbling Rodney picked up an ancient data pad; at least that’s what he assumed it was; and moved the thing around in his… John’s hands. Suddenly the thing lit up and began beeping. Holding it at arms length Rodney watched it warily.
“What?”
“What? What?” Rodney asked, still looking at the device.
John growled, “Why are you holding that like you expect it to explode?”
Rodney looks at the device curiously, “cause it’s never done this before. It wouldn’t work before at all.”
John, seeing that he was about loose Rodney to research and probably any chance of getting his body back before the next millennium, grabbed the device out of Rodney’s hands briefly noting it turned off again before tossing it on the desk.
“Hey! I was looking at that!”
“I know. That was the problem. How about we focus on this problem?” John pointed toward his; well Rodney’s face and glowered.
“Alright, fine!” Rodney got up and headed toward the door.
John looked at his own retreating back with furrowed brows, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Rodney turned back to look at John, not being phased the fact that it was himself he was looking at, “You want this fixed, I need the tablets that I found with the device. I left them in the lab.”
John looked at Rodney in alarm, “Oh, no we are not going out there.”
“Then how do you....” Rodney was cut off when his radio beeped, hitting the button he answered, “M…Sheppard here.”
“Where are you Major? You’re 80 minutes late for your physical!!”
Rodney cringed when the sound of Carson’s voice pounded into his ear, “I-I-I....” Rodney trailed off and looked at John helplessly. What was he suppose to say?
Carson’s voice filtered over the radio again this time slightly less angry and a little more concerned, “Are you okay, lad?”
“I’m fine.” Rodney replied tersely before shutting of the radio and pulling it out of his ear.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking the radio; I’m not really in the mood to be yelled at again by someone who thinks I’m you.” Rodney shoved the radio into John’s pocket. “Let’s go.”
John sighed and followed Rodney out of his office. There was no point in objecting again. He didn’t want to stay in Rodney’s body and more than Rodney wanted to stay in his. He only hoped no one wanted to talk to Rodney about anything. Thinking about it, John thought that maybe Rodney was on to something and he too shoved the radio into the pocket of Rodney’s pants. Now if only the halls stayed empty, no one noticed them or no one talked to them they just might make it through this blunder without anyone knowing.
John and Rodney had made it halfway to the lab when the hope of making it there quietly was brutally crushed. Kavanagh made his way over to Rodney’s body, not knowing that Rodney’s consciousness wasn’t actually residing there at the moment, and proceeded to yell.
“Why’d you go back to the west pier after I left?” Kavanagh glared down at Rodney, trying to use his height to intimidate.
John looked at him in confusion. “West pier?” After Rodney glared at him John continued, “Because you did it completely wrong. Are you trying to blow us all up?”
Kavanagh looked as miffed as when Rodney spoke to him, so John assumed that was a good sign. “It was perfectly fine! You just can’t stand to see someone else get credit for something. That’s why you always redo things, claiming they’re wrong.”
Rodney, getting fed up with Kavanagh, broke in here. Though gritted teeth he said, “Go back to your work Dr. Kavanagh.”
“You’re not the b...” Kavanagh trailed off when John’s face took on an absolutely murderous look.
John, not really wanting his body to end up in the brig or full of bruises, jumped in here, “But I am. Now get back to work and do try not to cause an irreparable damage to my city.”
Watching as Kavanagh walked away muttering extremely rude things under his breath John snickered. As soon as Kavanagh disappeared from view John turned back to look at Rodney, who was all but tapping his foot.
“What?”
“I do not sound like that Major!” Rodney hissed, wary of the others in the hall.
John snorted, “Yes you do.”
Rodney resumed walking the short distance left to his lab. “Do not.”
“Do too.”
“Do n...” Rodney trailed off as he entered his lab. “Crap.”
John muttered, “Understatement.”
The lab was full of scientists. Scientists that had power bar wrappers, papers and numerous coffee cups strewn all over every possible surface; or at least scientists that had added to the piles Rodney already had there. John could already see his face turning a shade of crimson when it suddenly got deeper than he could ever have imagined. John didn’t even know that vein in his forehead could bulge out that much.
“Rodney?” John whispered wanting to know what was so upsetting about scientists being in a lab.
Rodney never answered and John had only the briefest of seconds to contemplate on getting the switch fixed without anyone knowing...or not. It was at that moment Rodney blew.
“What are all you imbeciles doing in my lab?” Rodney yelled out causing the entire group except Zelenka to jump a foot in the air.
One of the new scientists looked over and raised an eyebrow. “This ain’t your lab Major Sheppard,” they said after reading the name tag adorning his coat.
“I. AM. NOT. MAJOR. SHEPPARD,” Rodney growled out, punctuating each word with brisk hand movements.
John felt like hitting Rodney’s head off the closest wall.
Zelenka rescued the scientist from replying and hence cementing his doom, “You find devices use, yes?”
“Ya think? Where’s the tablet that came with this piece of ancient space crap?”
Zelenka went silent and every other scientist in the room went pale.
John was getting a sinking feeling, “What happened to it?”
A brave or perhaps incredibly stupid newbie scientist blabbered out the whole thing and John was once again left wondering why he didn’t know the veins in his face could do that.
“You what? Do you idiots have any idea what you’ve done?” John grabbed a hold of Rodney’s jacket when he saw him start to advance on the group.
John heard a snort coming from behind him. Before he could turn around to see who it was Kavanagh came sauntering by. “What’s wrong Dr. McKay,” he all but sneered. “Can’t figure out one little thing like body switching without the instruction book?”
Rodney blinked. “I couldn’t give a flying monkey’s butt about the tablet. I can fix this problem in my sleep.”
“Then why’d we have to come all the way down here?” John yelled.
“The tablet would have speeded up the process of fixing this issue. Now, as I was saying, what I care about is the fact that these incompetent morons just disintegrated months of extremely important research.”
John shook his head, “You had it on the dry-erase board only?”
Rodney looked horrified, “Of course not! But I hadn’t yet had a chance to update my laptop in-between cleaning up after these people!” Rodney jabbed a finger at the group in front of him, many of whom were looking close to tears.
Zelenka opened his mouth to tell Rodney that he had backed up what was on the boards before starting the research on the disintegrator but he never got the chance.
Rodney boomed, “Get out!” and soon the only people left in the room were John, Radek and himself. The papers floating to the ground were a testament to how fast everyone had high-tailed it out of there.
Perhaps Radek should have picked a different lab to give the newbies a crash course in ancient technology in. Oh well, hindsight’s 20/20 after all and he wasn’t afraid of Rodney.....much.
Radek watched the scene in front of him with mild amusement. He had returned to the lab after showing the scientists a different lab to find John and Rodney bickering over Rodney’s laptop. Radek assumed they were working on the body-switch problem but, well, one should never assume anything.
The quiet bickering was broken when John leaned back in his chair with a groan, “Come on McKay worry about your research later. Fix this now,” he pointed toward his face, Rodney’s face.
Rodney only mumbled, “Later,” in response before focusing on the laptop screen.
John looked away from the laptop and his body, searching the room for something. He found it when his/Rodney’s eyes fell on Radek. A worrisome smile graced his lips…worrisome to Radek that is; before he spoke, “Hey, Dr. Z, maybe you can figure out hot to get us back to normal.”
Radek shook his head, “I do not think so. I can finish the research quickly though.”
John’s head shot up above the laptop screen and Rodney narrowed his eyes, “You can, can you? How?”
Radek merely shrugged and pulled out a disk, handing it to Rodney before backing up to the door. He was not stupid, far from it in fact and he knew that as soon as Rodney found out what was on the disk he would want to be as far away from the lad as possible.
Rodney held up the disk, “What’s this?”
“What was on board, I back it up before I let newbies in here.”
John blinked and backed away from Rodney, trying to ignore the fact that his face was once again taking on an interestingly bright shade of red. That couldn’t possibly be good from his body; he was starting to think Rodney would kill him before he got it back.
“You backed it up?” Rodney paused for a moment, “You backed it up!”
“Uh-huh,” Radek said, just as the door slipped open behind hi. Turning Radek ran past the figure that had opened the door and down the hall.
He heard Rodney yell, “Why the hell didn’t you say something FOUR hours ago?” before the transporter door slide shut and he was safe......for now.
John looked at the newcomer to the room and felt a sense of dread wash over him. Rodney must of felt it too because he fell quiet.
The newcomer cleared his throat and looked at the two squirming men in front of him, “Do you know why I’m here gentlemen?”
“You’re looking for company at dinner?” John asked hopefully or maybe that was wistfully.
“I don’t think so. I’m here to escort both of you to the infirmary. You’re the only people left on the list.”
Rodney sputtered, “Carson, there is no way you can do our physicals right now, incase you haven’t noticed we aren’t in our own bodies.”
Carson smiled, “Perfect, I might get ruthful answers then. Let’s go.” Rodney and John were given no choice but to follow when Carson grabbed each of them by an arm and led them down the hall.
TBC