sga_flashfic | If it's not in writing... by Luthien (documentation challenge)

Title: If it's not in writing...
Author: Luthien
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Summary:If it's not in writing...
Spoilers: Just general season 2
Notes: For the documentation challenge. Many thanks to

bethbethbeth for the usual thorough beta, and to the Usual Suspects for the encouraging noises.

"No further business?" said Dr Weir. "Okay, that's it, then."

Nobody actually sighed, and yet Teyla could not help but be aware of – and share in - the collective sigh of relief that hung heavy in the air as the weekly senior staff meeting came to a close. It had been one of those weeks, as Colonel Sheppard liked to put it.

"Oh, and John?" said Dr Weir.

Colonel Sheppard paused, already halfway out the door. "Yes, Elizabeth?" he asked, sounding ever so slightly wary.

"The report from P5X-939? I'll need it for inclusion in the weekly datastream."

"I'll get on it," he said with a curt nod, and turned to go.

"Wait. You haven't written it yet?"

"Oh, I've written it. It's just that one of the members of my team hasn't signed off on it." He stared pointedly at Dr McKay, who was making his way to the door with remarkable speed for a man carrying a laptop under each arm.

"Rodney?"

Dr McKay didn't manage to make it out of the door in time, either. "Can it wait, Elizabeth? In case you somehow haven't heard, I've got a thousand and one critical things-"

"Sign off on the report, Rodney."

"I'd be happy to," said Dr McKay. "But I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I won't put my name to something that isn't accurate."

"There's something in it that isn't correct?" Dr Weir's eyebrows rose.

"Omitted."

Dr Weir turned back to Colonel Sheppard.

"It's as detailed as all my other reports!" Colonel Sheppard protested.

"Exactly!" said Dr McKay. He looked like he wanted to snap his fingers, or possibly slap a fist into one hand, to emphasise the point. However, he was still holding the two laptops, so instead he did a weird sort of twisting motion, clutched the laptops tighter, and sent a fulminating glare at Colonel Sheppard.

"I didn't hear you objecting about the report I wrote after the mission to P7R-826," said the colonel, eyes narrowing.

"That was completely different!"

"Why?"

"You know why."

"No, I don't. Why don't you tell me?" the colonel invited with quiet menace.

"What's that favourite line of yours? The one you usually mention when you're talking about writing up the report for a mission that might have involved a few elements that could have been seen as unfortunate for members of the team on a personal level but which were deemed non-crucial in terms of the successful outcome of the mission?"

"Rodney, that's every mission."

"It doesn't change the fact that-"

"Gentlemen!" Dr Weir cut in firmly. "That's enough." She folded her arms and looked sternly from one to the other. "Rodney, you will sign off on the report," she held up one hand as Dr McKay opened his mouth to object, "after you work together on any necessary changes and agree on the full content."

"Elizabeth-"
"Elizabeth-"

They started talking at the same time, but Dr Weir cut them both off: "Just do it, please. I'll expect the fully signed-off report first thing tomorrow morning."

As she followed the three of them out of the conference room, Teyla found herself thinking, not for the first time, that Dr Weir was a most optimistic leader.

***

Teyla next saw Dr McKay early that afternoon, when she and Colonel Sheppard had just finished their work-out. It was the first time they had had the opportunity for a sparring match in over a week and neither of them was at the top of their form.

"Ah, so this is where you're hiding," Dr McKay said from the doorway.

Colonel Sheppard whipped around at the sound of Dr McKay's voice, then winced, his hand going to his left shoulder, where Teyla had gotten in what the colonel insisted was a lucky shot. "I am not hiding," he said, and walked over to his bag where it lay against the wall.

"Off-radio and unable to be found when I need your cooperation with a task that we have to have done by tomorrow. I call that hiding," said Dr McKay.

"You found me, didn't you?" The colonel pulled a towel out of his bag and started wiping the sweat off his bare arms.

"I found you eventually." Dr McKay leaned against the doorframe, frowning. "And wasted a lot of my valuable time in the process, I might add."

"If you'd just sign off on the damned report you wouldn't have to waste any of your valuable time, or my valuable time, or Elizabeth's valuable time, for that matter." Colonel Sheppard was running the towel through his hair now, and his words came out slightly muffled.

"There's nothing I'd like better, but I'm not the one creating the problem here," said Dr McKay.

"Sure looks like it from where I'm sitting," said Colonel Sheppard, throwing the towel around his neck and looking Dr McKay straight in the eye for the first time.

"I thought we were supposed to be working on it together."

"I'm ready any time you are."

"You're really willing to make the changes I want?" Dr McKay took a couple of steps forward, finally leaving the doorway and coming properly into the room.

"I never said that," Colonel Sheppard said slowly.

"No, you never do, do you?" said Dr McKay, and Teyla was surprised to hear real bitterness in his voice.

"And just what's that supposed to mean?" demanded Colonel Sheppard.

"'If it's not in writing, it never happened.' I've heard that from you so many times that I've lost count. And that's perfectly fine – if you're the one deciding what happened and what didn't."

"It's my job to write the mission reports, Rodney," Colonel Sheppard pointed out.

"Yes. But this time I get a say, too."

"And, as I said, any time you're ready," Colonel Sheppard grated. He grabbed the towel from around his neck and dropped it into the bag at his feet.

"Fine. How about this afternoon at 1630 hours, then?"

"Fine. Where?"

"Your office?" Dr McKay suggested.

"Fine."

"Fine. I'll see you then." Dr McKay turned and left without another word.

Colonel Sheppard frowned after him for a moment, then picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He was already striding out of the room when he seemed to remember Teyla's presence, and stopped rather awkwardly to bid her a belated farewell. After he left the room, Teyla stood by the door for a moment, watching in some concern as he disappeared down the corridor, before returning to the task of packing up her own gear.

Like Dr McKay, Teyla had good reason to be familiar with Colonel Sheppard's favourite maxim "if it's not in writing, it never happened." The rather odd figure of speech had confused her the first time she had heard him say it. At that time, she was not yet so used as she was now to the sorts of idioms favoured by people from Earth in general, and by Colonel Sheppard in particular. She had almost wondered if there was some sort of power, some sort of superior technology, that could make Colonel Sheppard's words somehow literally true, but she had soon realised that he was referring only to the ordinary power held by words and exercised in their application – which was power enough by itself.

In the time Teyla had been living on Atlantis, she had observed the power of the lack of words in Colonel Sheppard's reports in covering up a multitude of embarrassments and accidents, not to mention any number of other unfortunate incidents that defied easy categorisation. Those included everything from Dr McKay's unhappy involvement in the Cheese Incident on MX-8245 to Lieutenant Ford's near induction into the order of warrior monks on P7X-249 to Ronon's contest with a particularly jealous cutler on the Planet of the Blades. And of course never forgetting Colonel Sheppard's encounter with the grazzt beast on MX-753J, to which Dr McKay insisted on referring as the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

Nothing unfortunate had occurred on P5X-939, though. True, there were the wild animals marauding around their tents in the early morning, and the hostile villagers who tried to fill them full of arrows for 'desecrating' their sacred burial ground by making camp for the night nearby, and the stone wall that collapsed and very nearly buried Ronon alive when they were trying to escape back to the Stargate, but there was nothing that any of them would have seriously objected to being put down in writing.

Or so Teyla had thought. However, it was clear now that that was very far from the truth. So what was it, exactly, that Colonel Sheppard did not wish to include in the report, and why was Dr McKay objecting so strenuously? That was the question that she was puzzling over as she left the gym, and which her thoughts returned to again and again throughout the rest of the afternoon, but however many times she turned the question over in her mind, she came no closer to any sort of satisfactory answer.

***

Teyla had never intended to eavesdrop on the conversation. She hadn't even intended to be anywhere near Colonel Sheppard's office at 1630 hours. However, in the late afternoon she'd ended up down in the infirmary arranging with Dr Beckett for a shipment of extra medical supplies to the Athosian settlement on the mainland, and, as she'd departed, he'd asked her to remind the colonel of the check-up he'd been due for earlier in the week. "Just give him a gentle push," Dr Beckett had said. Dr Beckett was as familiar with Teyla's gentle pushes as he was with Colonel Sheppard's convenient forgetfulness when it came to follow-up medical examinations, so he smiled the smile of a victor as he made the request.

The quickest way back to the control room from the infirmary took Teyla right past Colonel Sheppard's office. It made no logical sense to go out of her way to avoid the colonel's office, particularly when she needed to pass on Dr Beckett's message, and so a little after 1630 hours that day she found herself outside the door and trying to decide whether or not to raise her hand and knock. Dr McKay had already arrived and, from the raised voices she had been able to hear from some way down the corridor, it appeared that he and the colonel had wasted no time in resuming their conversation from earlier in the day.

"Rodney, I'm not trying to deny anything."

"You're not?"

"No!"

"Then why won't you put it in the report?"

"Because it doesn't belong in the report. It had absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the mission!" Teyla heard a thump, probably caused by someone slamming a fist down on a desk.

"Are you sure?" This was punctuated by a loud creak – the sound of someone leaning forward in one of those chairs that were used in the conference rooms and the offices of the senior staff. "I mean the fact that we were in a tent on that particular side of the burial ground-"

"Doesn't matter. It didn't make a blind bit of difference."

"So the fact that you refused to even include the location of our tent in the report-"

"Had nothing to do with how I might have personally felt about… anything, and everything to do with keeping the report as short and uninteresting as possible." Colonel Sheppard lowered his voice a touch.

"Why?" Dr McKay demanded.

"Why what?" The colonel's voice was already rising again.

"Why try to make the report as uninteresting as possible?"

There was a pause. "You've been working for the military how many years now? And you still haven't worked out that discretion is always the better part of valour?" The disbelief was plain in the colonel's voice.

"And you'd know all about it, of course, because I've really noticed you putting that one into practice every time a hive ship heaves into view!" Dr McKay said scornfully. There was another thumping sound, this time probably that of a chair being pushed back against a wall or cupboard as someone got quickly to their feet.

"I don't mean in the field. I'm talking about writing reports! Rule number one of report writing: make everything sound as boring as possible." Another thump. Probably another chair colliding with something.

"You know, I'm beginning to think that I'll never really understand the military mindset – thank God! Isn't the whole point to make the report sound interesting and so draw attention to how important your work is? You have to shout out loud in academia if you want to get noticed."

The colonel sighed. "You really don't get it, do you? If you make things sound interesting, the people who read the report will want further action on it."

"And isn't that sort of the point?" Dr McKay said, sounding incredulous now. "I really hadn't pegged you as the lazy type, Colonel. Reckless to the point of suicide has always seemed more your style, but live and learn, I guess."

"I don't have any problem making something sound interesting if it really is important. But all that minor stuff? Make that sound interesting and you're just creating useless work for yourself when you could be off dealing with something that actually matters."

There was a short pause. "Huh. I never thought of it that way before," Dr McKay said in dawning comprehension. "I guess that must be true when you're not in the position of being so brilliant and indispensable that every single thing you work on is of the utmost importance."

Teyla had no problem imagining the look on the colonel's face at that particular moment.

"So, this report…" Dr McKay continued.

"Sometimes a report is just a report, Rodney."

There was another pause. "You were gone the next morning," Dr McKay said in a considerably quieter voice, and Teyla heard the rattle of casters as a chair was moved, and then the soft rush of air from the seat padding as someone sat down.

"There were wild animals prowling around and howling outside the tent at dawn. They weren't being driven away by your snores so I kind of thought it might be a good idea to get rid of them with a few quick rounds." There was a soft clink of some small item knocking against another; Teyla imagined the colonel sitting on the edge of his desk.

"You didn't come back after that, either."

"Jesus, Rodney! The locals started shooting at me after that."

"You still could have- Oh, all right. Maybe you really didn't have the opportunity to come back. And that was about when I came outside, anyway, and as soon as I did-."

"- there was Ronon and the wall, yeah."

They both sighed.

"Not one of our more successful missions, really," Dr McKay said.

"No."

More silence followed.

"You still could have put some sort of relevant detail in the report. I mean, it's not like anyone else would know what it meant."

"Rodney."

"You're the one who keeps saying 'if it's not in writing, it never happened'. After the way you've been avoiding me for the past week, what else was I supposed to think when I read that report?"

"That I haven't been avoiding you. That I've spent every day for the last week on a different planet trying to avert disaster. That it's just been one of those weeks," said Colonel Sheppard.

"I still don't see why you couldn't have included some little-"

"Oh for-" said the colonel. There came the sound of another thump, followed almost immediately by a crash. After a short silence, Teyla heard something – a pen? – drop onto a hard surface.

"There," said the colonel. "Happy now?"

"No, I am not happy now. Is that really the best you can do?"

"What do you want? An essay?"

"I was expecting at least a few bullet points, and perhaps-"

"Rodney!"

"What? I think I deserve-"

"McKay! Don't you get it? You've won."

"Of course I've won. There was never any doubt that-"

"Yeah, yeah," said the colonel. "You really can't think of anything better to do right now than bitch about my literary style?" And the doors to the office slid open to reveal Colonel Sheppard standing a little way inside the doorway, looking back towards Dr McKay, who was standing by the desk.

"Or extreme lack thereof! I have a thousand better things to do and-" Dr McKay cut himself off this time. "Right now?" His eyes grew large and wondering; a familiar expression from many life and death situations.

The colonel shrugged, but he was smiling. "Well, I've got a spare couple-"

Colonel Sheppard never got the chance to finish his sentence; Dr McKay had him by the shirtfront and was dragging him out the door and toward the nearest transporter. The colonel didn't struggle. He didn't protest. In fact, by the time they reached the transporter, he was the one doing the dragging. He spotted Teyla just as the transporter doors slid open, and he stopped, clearly torn between the call of duty and… something that wasn't duty.

"It can wait," she told him quickly, and watched the look of relief pass over his face.

"I owe you one," he called out to her as Dr McKay shoved him into the transporter.

Teyla shook her head as the doors closed behind them. She was about to turn and leave when a small square of yellow caught her eye. It was a post-it note lying on the floor just outside the office door; Colonel Sheppard or Dr McKay must have dropped it on their way out. Teyla hesitated, then bent down and picked it up.

The shapes of the Earth letters still seemed strange to her, even after more than a year of using them, and she was by far more familiar with the neat type that the computers produced than with handwritten script. However, the note was even more succinct than Colonel Sheppard's usual report-writing style and it did not take her long to decipher the scrawling letters.

The note read:

Rodney,

It happened.

-JS

Teyla smiled. Then she folded the note carefully into her pocket, to keep it safe until she could return it to Dr McKay.

***

It was still quite early and the mess had not yet completely filled with the breakfast crowd when Teyla saw the colonel the next morning, seated alone at a table by the window. He greeted her with his usual smile as she joined him, but he appeared more than a little distracted, looking first to the door, and then over Teyla's shoulder to the food line. Teyla wasn't at all surprised when Dr McKay arrived at their table a few minutes later, carrying a tray piled high with what appeared to be every foodstuff on offer. He took the seat opposite Colonel Sheppard and proceeded to attack the contents of his tray with gusto. The colonel looked on, bemused, and appeared about to make some comment, when a voice said, "I can expect to find that report waiting in my inbox, then?"

Dr Weir slipped into the chair beside Colonel Sheppard and looked at him expectantly.

The colonel wasn't quite quick enough to disguise the surprised look that crossed his face. It was clear that the events of the previous evening – whatever those might have entailed – had driven all thought of the report from his mind.

"Um, actually, Elizabeth," he began.

"What Colonel Sheppard is trying to say," interrupted Dr McKay, "is that we managed to come to agreement about what should be included in the report but I foolishly forgot to sign off on it last night. I'll do so as soon as I finish here and get down to the lab." He shovelled reconstituted scrambled eggs onto a slice of toast and then took a huge bite.

"So you're happy with the report?" said Dr Weir.

They all watched as Dr McKay swallowed down the enormous mouthful of food. Despite her extensive experience of Dr McKay and his relationship with food, Teyla was still amazed that he didn't choke on it, while Colonel Sheppard just seemed utterly fascinated by the sight. At least, he didn't take his eyes off Dr McKay's throat the whole time.

"Let's just say that everything that needed to be put in writing has been put in writing," Dr McKay said at last. The smile that he bestowed on Colonel Sheppard then was an extremely self-satisfied one. It was the sort of smile that usually would have driven Colonel Sheppard to make some biting comment designed to get an indignant reaction out of Dr McKay, but for once Colonel Sheppard didn't seem to care. He was too busy smiling his own self-satisfied smile right back at Dr McKay.

Dr Weir looked from one to the other. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Nothing!" Dr McKay spluttered, somehow managing to choke on nothing at all, while Colonel Sheppard assumed the innocent expression that Teyla knew well and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Dr Weir looked from one to the other again. "Fine. I really don't want to know. Just so long as it's nothing that's going to- No, upon reflection, I really don't want to know." She got up. "I'll see you all at the meeting at 0900. Don't be late. There's a dozen items on the agenda," she said, and inclined her head in farewell.

"Looks like it's going to be one of those days again," said Dr McKay, draining his coffee mug and sighing.

"Oh, I don't know," said Colonel Sheppard. "I was thinking that yesterday morning, but it turned out I was wrong."

Teyla looked down at her plate and smiled.

fin

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flambeau.livejournal.com

Oh, sweet! I really like this, especially with the thoughtful, observant Teyla-POV throughout.

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