### Chapter 1: One and one can make more than two ###

Sheppard's head moved back and forth between the two. It was crazy, two McKay's?

He did the only sensible thing there was and gathered them up, grabbing them both, one by each hand leading them like children.

"I think this calls for a trip to the infirmary, even if it's only to get Beckett to check my eyes out."

The McKay's were too busy studying each other over his shoulders to make any kind of comment.

Stack house followed, gun pointed suspiciously. "You're eyes are fine sir, I see both of them too."

Sheppard groaned, "I was kidding Stackhouse."

He just knew this was going to be a long day.

###

Carson had dropped the clipboard he was holding when they'd walked into the infirmary and Sheppard had been worried he would faint from shock, his face had been so pale.

"Doc?" he snapped his fingers, pushing the two silent McKays towards the man.

His first question in a thick Scottish accent of his confusion was "How?"

"You tell me."

At that Carson had shuffled the patients plural through to the examination area, still doing a double take.

Meanwhile Sheppard activated his comm, knowing this it was his job to inform a certain someone of whatever had happened. Oh joy.

"Weir, come in. We have a situation you are going to want to know about."

"What is it?" she asked, a strain evident.

"It's..." pausing, unsure whether he could really phrase it correctly, "Rodney."

"Is he hurt?"

Sheppard noticed the fear in her voice and replied quickly, easing that off.

"Nooo.... he's fine, perhaps more than fine you might say. This is hard to explain, just meet us in the infirmary."

###

By the time she'd arrived with Teyla and Ford, Beckett had almost finished, both of the McKays behind a screen away from sight. The three of them entered; Weir had her arms crossed, still evidently worried, with the other two straight behind her.

"Whats going on?" she asked, peering over his shoulder anxiously at the three silhouettes behind the screen.

He wasn't sure how to say it and twisted his mouth around, angling for the words when Beckett drew back the screen sharply exclaiming "There we go, all done."

Weir's eyebrows shot up and her mouth dropped open at the sight, with Teyla and Ford holding equally amused and confused looks on their now pale faces.

"Oh there you are. I think I can explain now." Beckett said smiling cheerfully.

"There are two of him!" came the rather blank response from a shocked Ford.

"How astute of you." relied one of the McKay's with a look of disdain.

"Yes, we hadn't noticed that ourselves yet." finished the other, who nearly sneered the sentence. Somehow he didn't think they were taking it well.

"Please do." Elizabeth said.

It was Beckett's turn to be confused once more. "What?"

She elaborated, annoyed at having to and rather abnormally showing that. "Please do explain this."

"Oh, yes, right.. of course. Both of these men" he swayed his arm toward the two figures " are Doctor Rodney McKay."

"Yeah but how?" asked Ford, exasperated that they'd made no progress other than establishing there were two of them.

Beckett placed his hands on his hips, his strained mood firing up at Fords second bad choice of what to say. "Well I don't know how do ah. Only that both of them are genetically identical, except for the lack of ATA gene in one of them, making him for lack of a better word the clone."

The one on the right seemed to bristle at the use of that particular term.

Another question came from Ford, the only one actually saying much about it all other than the McKay's. "How do we tell them apart?"

"Well you can't aside from the lack of ATA in one and the big bump on the head the other has."

Sheppard wondered if it would cease to amaze the Lieutenant anytime soon. His questions nearly as bad as his talent for naming things. And he hoped to God that Ford wouldn't get round to naming the McKay's. He could just imagine the young mans voice piping 'Dr McKay 2! Wait up'. He had to think of something better before Ford got the idea.

Weirs eyes glanced down thoughtfully, the air tense.

Sheppard thought the situation could do with a little injection of humour.

"Looks like you got your very own Kirk moment McKay." he said smirking, then stopping to ponder and adding "....'s" for the fact there were more than one.

"Ha ha, very funny Major", both McKay's saying the same thing at same time, identical expressions of sarcastic wonder and then looking oddly across to each other clearly not happy.

"What do we do about this?" A further silly question from Ford which prompted an outburst from the cloned McKay.

"What do you mean do about this? We're both me."

"Well, speak for yourself, you haven't got a bruise the size of Antarctica on your head for one." retorted the first McKay.

At that squabbling broke out between it seemed everyone but himself and Weir. He thought the situation was hopeless until she spoke up.

At her voice the McKay's both stopped stock still and Ford broke off his argument with Teyla on the implications of having two McKay's on base.

"Everyone be quiet. This is perfectly simple. Carson, what do you recommend?"

The doctor looked put on the spot for a second before coming into his element.

"Well the clone, sorry to call ya that, is fit as a fiddle but I'll need to keep the other McKay here for observation for at least a few hours due to his head injury."

She looked around beaming at them, meeting everyones eyes and forcing weak smiles back in return

"That's settled then. And I think after all this excitement I could do with lunch." She started off towards the door, the others exiting first.

McKay sat on the bed, whilst Carson began poking him, watching the other him jog up to Elizabeth

"Mind if I join you for lunch Elizabeth?"

"Of course not Rodney, it'd be a pleasure."

She smiled a gorgeous smile up at the other him and Rodney felt jealous. The other guy had all the luck to escape uninjured. A second later his ears picked up her second sentence before she left his range of hearing.

"I'm just glad you're ok." she said as she took the proffered arm of his clone.

He huffed, had she completely forgotten he wasn't all ok considering he was sitting on an infirmary bed about to be nearly tortured with Carson's overattentive administrations.

He found himself already developing a dislike for the 'other' him.

A dislike he found deepened when he finally caught up with Elizabeth later on, having been given the all clear by the good doctor.

He'd turned the corner, about to call out to her when he'd just come into the range where he could see who she was talking to. His clone.

Furthermore his clone moved in closer, much closer than necessary or appropriate, as he told her something she obviously found funny, her head tipping back as she giggled. He'd never made her giggle before, what could he have possibly said to her?

They both looked up, the moment interrupted gladfully by his proximity.

He tried to sound casual and unaffected as he called out to them.

"Elizabeth" he greeted her cheerfully, then turning stiffly and looking his clone up and down settling for saying nothing.

He turned his attention back to her as she started to address him.

"Ford suggested that it might be easier to tell which one of you is which if you wear different shirts or something, Anything we can distinguish you by."

"Sure, that's fine, whatever you want." he replied eager to please her.

She smiled warmly, at both of them he noted, before she bid them farewell.

Without paying any further time to the thought he began walking to his quarters, stopping when he picked up on the second set of footsteps that appeared to be following him.

"What do you want?" he asked, frustrated at his clone. This day had been far too stressful already and all he wanted was to get back to his room and relax.

"I'm going to my quarters,"

He blinked unsure he'd heard the man correctly.

"Your quarters?"

"Yes, my quarters. In fact they're our quarters and have our clothes. How else did you think we were both going to get different shirts to separate ourselves."

"Let me get this straight, you, expect me, to give you, some of my clothes?"

The meaning of the emphasis in the statement seemed completely lost on his clone who stubbornly said a simple "Yes."

He grumpily conceded as they approached the door. "Fine, but you get yourself your own quarters. I was here first." he said as he pressed the control crystals to open it.

It had been a mistake for him to collapse on his bed first thing upon getting inside the room.

He'd lay there face down, groaning into the covers in pain. Even though Carson had cleared the injury it didn't make it hurt less.

He'd looked up at the noise of the door opening to see the clone making off with a large bundle of clothes but quickly rushed out after him when he saw what one of the items was.

"Hey, get back here."

The clone stopped, looking back at him annoyed.

"You can't take that, it's my favourite shirt." he said as he moved to take one of the items.

"Too bad you weren't paying attention earlier then isn't it. I got there first." the clone said tugging it back harshly before sprinting off into the distance so quickly Rodney couldn't protest further.

He pouted unhappily at the empty corridor. That had been his favourite shirt as well, the one he was sure made him look his absolute best. He'd been saving it in case he needed it for a special occasion even though there weren't really any such events on Atlantis.

He returned to the room, rooting through the makeshift wardrobe, holding up piece after piece of clothing.

He whined, realising that all he'd been left with were his comfortable but lame geeky tshirt and shirts combos. The only good thing about that was at least no one could mistake them if there was one smartly dressed and one geekily dressed, only it made him look bad and the clone look good, perhaps too good he thought as he considered the earlier exchange when he'd gone to meet Elizabeth.

He tried to rationalise that he was sure he'd imagined it, after all he'd never do anything like that with Elizabeth. Only he couldn't shake off the feeling since it wasn't really him he was talking about.

### Chapter 2: The Numbers Just Don't Add Up ###

It had been a weary two weeks since the incident that had left Atlantis with two McKay's and Rodney had been working diligently ever since. Trying mainly to take his mind off the idea that 'he' was walking round the city, possibly doing any number of extremely embarrassing things that anyone might mistake him doing.

And he didn't doubt that his twin, as some affectionately called him, would be beyond such an idea.

At first Elizabeth had set them working together, which had been a disaster since both hims had had a way they wanted the things doing. He would have thought they'd have both agreed but that appeared not to happen. There had from then on been a quickly established competition going on between them.

The McKay/McKay relationship had not been a success despite everyones joking that each of their egos would soak up the mutual praise and adoration that was sure to follow.

'Quentin', as he'd told everyone to call him by his middle name - with much relief from Major Sheppard that Ford had no say in the matter, had been more than disgruntled that Beckett's introduction of the ATA gene had not stuck to him this time.

Rodney remembered the feeling he'd had at not having the gene, the sense of lacking, of envy for those who had it but Quentin seemed angry that as the original he had retained it whilst the machine of the Ancients that had created him had been able to tell it was artificial and had not replicated it as well.

Beckett had tried to console Quentin from what he heard, explaining that it was sheer luck, bad luck in his case, that it had failed. But the rejection this time meant until Beckett improved his method there would be no chance of Quentin having the gene.

And so Quentin had made up for it in other ways.

Ways that Rodney thought himself impossible at - making friends.

He'd never been patient or open enough to do so easily but Quentin had put his mind and possibly heart to the task, which was easier considering he hopped around the research teams helping the scientists and choosing which experiments he did. He also as a normal scientist rather than chief scientist found himself with enough leisure time to pander to the needs of others since he had no vast projects or progress reports to write, nor others reports to review.

It seemed like every time he made his way to the small cafeteria Quentin would be there, smiling broadly in a manner Rodney couldn't imagine himself doing so eagerly.

A week ago he had found himself surprised to hear Quentin recounting a tale from his college days, a crowd of civilians and military people alike wrapped around his little finger in anticipation of the morsels of knowledge and humour his clone gave out.

Quentin saw him come in, meeting his stare across the room, silent for a second to illustrate how everyone was hanging on to his every word. Just as suddenly he continued with a flourish telling the punchline of the story.

Rodney had been so wrapped up in the little exchange he'd walked right into Elizabeth with her tray.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, it tilting up between them and spilling her precious orange juice over her uniform.

She scrunched up her face unhappily and looked down at her top judging the damage.

"I'm sorry..." he started but sure she would forgive. He hadn't meant it after all.

Instead of her usually lovely reassuring smile she looked at him like she neither knew nor cared for him. At least he mused she didn't seem too bothered by her damp top as she carried on, vaguely pointing to where she walked to "I'll just be over there".

He looked down shyly and went to get some food, disturbed how keen she had been to get to Quentin.

He picked out his rations and loaded up his plate, intending to join her, but heading towards them he saw Quentin reaching over with a napkin and pulling up her shirt to dab at the stain very deliberately.

Elizabeth smiled up at Quentin, looking touched by the gesture.

He felt his heart sink as she said thank you. Particularly that she was the only one who still called Quentin Rodney as if she didn't know the difference.

He suddenly hadn't much appetite, retiring very quickly to his lab, pouring himself over his work.

###

Aiden Ford made his way over to his superior, who sat twiddling his food on his fork deep in thought.

"Hey, sir"

John looked up, boyish eyes swiveling to meet his friends cheerful face.

"Hi Ford. Sit" he said, the last word spoken as a friendly suggestion. So he sat, waiting for John to say something.

When he didn't he decided to broach a conversation that had been niggling him for the last week.

"Have you notice Dr. McKay been off his food lately?"

"McKay, no. I just had lunch with him, he ate it like a horse. Why?"

"No, not that Dr. McKay." pressed Aiden, pronouncing who he meant specially "Rodney."

"Oh!" was all Sheppard said in return.

"So?" he prompted.

"I don't know haven't really seen much of him, but Quentin's around a lot, practically lives in here and the common room."

Ford sighed seeing his friend was missing the point. Did no one round here think about Rodney? Maybe that was the problem.

"Don't you think Quentin is a little strange sir?"

"How'd you mean?" Sheppard asked sounding curious.

"Well he doesn't really act like McKay does, I mean like Rodney does."

"Hadn't noticed myself." Sheppard replied nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair.

"But do you ever remember the old McKay telling you college stories and making physics sound interesting?"

"No but that doesn't mean he couldn't."

Aiden could see the point but still didn't agree.

And so it was Aiden's turn to swizzle his food around on his plate, there just didn't seem to be a way to communicate the strangeness to his friend. Puzzling over it he recalled a conversation he'd had yesterday which gave him an inkling.

He began confidently, sure that it would make John realise something was wrong.

"What about the fact that Dr. Zelenka doesn't get on with Quentin and after only a couple of weeks Quentin is chummy with Kavanaugh of all people. Sheppard just shrugged it off "Good for them."

Ford sighed heavily and hoped he could find someone who wasn't as blind as the rest of the people he'd tried to discuss this with.

And he hoped he'd figure it out soon he added to himself seeing the scruffy figure that he knew was Rodney walk in, pick up an apple only, bouncing it in his hand as he glanced around, then suddenly left on his own.

Ford really couldn't imagine anything much more disturbing than McKay put off food that had no lemon in it. Although perhaps that would be the happy smiling easy going Quentin; Ford didn't trust him for some reason and he wanted to know why.

### Chapter 3: The Other Side of the Coin ###

It was 5am and he sat in his lab. He had twenty reports to review and 4 hours until the next meeting he needed to attend.

Not enough for decent sleep but just enough time to do the reports if he could concentrate on them.

Only problem was he couldn't.

She'd be there.

And worse he'd be there.

Quentin and Elizabeth.

And she'd giggle undoubtedly, because Quentin had that bizarre effect on her. Whilst these days she never got his jokes, watching him blankly like he was mad or pathetic or something else he couldn't take. It was like she thought him a stranger to what she now knew and couldn't reconcile the real Rodney with the new 'improved' version that everyone had a habit of preferring. It was always "Quentin, can you take a look at this?" everyone wanting to show the latest and greatest to him before their actual chief scientist and then it was "Hiya, Quentin" from cute blonde commandos in the hall, admiring Quentin's muscles, practically drooling despite the fact they never paid a single whip of attention to him before.

The cafeteria was now a no go zone, making food brief snacks, dinner made mobile and eaten in seclusion of his lab. Sometimes Ford would drop by, acting casual and as if he was really interested in whatever Ancient thing was the most recently discovered. Or even, as he had last time, that he wanted to know how the Stargate worked; trying to pass it off as necessary for tactical advantage even as his eyes glazed over after a sentence or less.

And why was the cafeteria so bad? Quentin lived there a quarter of the time and where ever Quentin was she was too. Joined at the hip and bosom buddies, just how Quentin enjoyed it. He couldn't blame the guy for liking spending time with Elizabeth but it was the motivation that he questioned. He didn't yet know if it was real or fake, either way Elizabeth had taken to 'Q' better than him and there was not much he could do to change that whilst she avoided him like the plague in favour of his clone.

The hours passed slowly as he went through report after report, reviewing and evaluating the work until it was time. More than time in fact he realised as he snorted awake, his body slumped painfully over on the bench, back stiff. Finding his face stacked atop the half finished reports.

"Yo, Rodney!" called out someone way too loud for his liking.

Ugh. He sat up weary and focused on the man in front of him. Ford.

"You been here all night?" Ford asked, allowing his ever chipper morning smile to fade a tad.

It wasn't right for someone to like being up this early and he could almost cherish worrying the guy but for the fact he'd been one of the only people who still put up with him lately, or put up with the difference; the fact he wasn't Quentin, best friend to all. Ford was an exception. Looking at it from a certain perspective you might even say the lieutenant had gone out of his way to befriend him, a reasonable turn around from the initial annoyance of having him on AR-1.

"The meeting is about to start, Dr. Weir sent me to remind you."

"I'm not late?"

The lieutenant shook his head at that. "Not yet anyway."

Which made Rodney wonder.

"But why did she send you if I wasn't late?"

Ford bit his tongue, like he was trying to hold back form saying something and it couldn't be anything he thought the scientist wanted to hear. Rodney could guess it probably came from Ford's upbringing, he could just imagine good old grandma teaching lil' Aiden that age old of bone of wisdom 'If you can't say something don't say anything at all'. But really, thought Rodney, what could make him feel worse than not having slept in 29 hours.

"Spit it out." he demanded.

"Well..."

Ford looked a bit sheepish, his expression showing off his youth and Rodney almost felt bad for putting him on the spot. Then he reminded himself that Ford was military, looks were deceiving because the guy was tough as old boots and a little bit of discomfort wasn't much compared to what they handled on missions. No coddling; even if he had sidled up to him the last few weeks.

"...it's just I've noticed you seem to avoiding Dr. Weir and maybe she realises it too and you know, wanted to make sure you didn't skip the meeting ."

There was barely a pause between the embarrassed admittance and his cool unconcerned reply.

"Fine. I'm ready, let's go." he said, snapping his fingers at Ford whilst he told himself sternly 'I don't care what she thinks' as if it could be true if he repeated it enough...

###

"Quentin, stop, please." was the cry he heard from outside the briefing room. Elizabeth's laugh bordering on flirtatious, hitting his ears, followed by Quentin's low chuckle of amusement. Amusement at what though; the joke, Elizabeth's response or the game he might well be playing with them all. Perhaps it was him, lack of sleep making him paranoid but it was like Quentin used everyone to get to him, people as pawns in a grand match between them. If it was so Quentin was the only one playing but it was a bad enough taunt if that was what it was designed to be.

And it was enough to make him want to turn tail and bail out of the stupid briefing but he only stopped, giving an exasperated look as if to say this-is-why to Ford who shrugged at it trying to remain neutral.

The laughter stopped suddenly as he entered, putting on his best smile for the situation. Problem was his best smile for having not slept in 2 days and being more than a little resentful wasn't very nice to see, twisted and wry and as sarcastic as any comment even if he hadn't meant it to be. Like everything he felt showed through in it, awkward and bitterly.

No one responded to his greeting, a muteness overcoming them all as they watched him take his seat. Did he looked that bad? He was a bit disheveled he knew but why were they still staring. Hadn't anyone taught them it was rude.

###

Elizabeth tried not to shift in her seat as Rodney stared at her unforgivingly.

She reminded herself there was nothing going on, with Quentin or Rodney, and besides that she hadn't been doing anything wrong by talking to Quentin. It was just Rodney's stare made her feel like she'd stabbed him in the back.

She swallowed her discomfort, avoiding the gazes of both the McKay's and started the meeting.

"Anyway onto business. I believe you wanted to raise an issue Major."

Sheppard leant forward, nodding.

"Yes I do. I think Quentin should join AR-2 for the time being."

Rodney was the only one who had anything to say to that, even though it shouldn't have affected him. But he'd picked up on the hint of Sheppard's, the underlying promise of more.

"For the time being? What do you mean by that."

"Exactly what I said. For. The. Time. Being." replied Sheppard steadily.

"And after 'the time being' what then?" asked Rodney rather accusingly.

"Maybe you could share time in AR-1." Sheppard said it warily, as if he already knew it wasn't going to go down well. He hadn't been wrong.

"What!"

Rodney stood up suddenly, looked round, presumably for answers or some show of sanity, he obviously didn't like this idea one bit. Quentin however looked pleased, quietly happy at prospect and saying nothing more on the matter.

"Why? Come on Rodney play nice. Sharing is good and Quentin's getting a little stir crazy here." posed Sheppard, trying to appeal to Rodney's soft side. Which was terminally absent when dealing with Quentin she'd noticed.

"So? He can go to the mainland or something." deflected Rodney, brushing it off as nothing important with a wave of his hand.

That had been what had broken John's patience unfortunately, now more than eager to debate in full favour of Quentin, who said there biding his time waggling his thumbs and acting only vaguely interested.

Sometimes she found it hard to tell what was going on with Quentin, unlike Rodney who she could see through two thirds of the time and otherwise usually had an clue. If Rodney was an open textbook then it would fit to say Quentin was a locked diary, opening rarely, at choice moments. The sound of John's angry voice broke her reverie. They were still arguing fervently their respective prejudices.

"Hardly fair when you get to go off-world and he doesn't. AND you get to be head poncho of the science teams whilst he's a lowly lab runner!"

Rodney was about to respond but Elizabeth cut him off, seeing it might well escalate into ruff and tumble at this rate if she did nothing. She continued when she was sure she had their attention, glad to see Rodney was still drawn to her by her command. It was one thing for him to ignore her but it would not be acceptable if he dismissed her leadership; gladly that wasn't so.

"Rodney, you should hear us out..." said Elizabeth. She felt her heart tug as she realised the mistake of using the term 'us', making it seem like a plot against him, but she carried on hoping she could reason him down form his high and mighty stand against Quentin.

Everyone deserved a chance, happiness, respect and Quentin was no different. She would have thought he'd be more cooperative considering it was himself they were talking about or at least someone so similar to himself.

They had their differences by now, because of the circumstances they'd had to endure since the accident, but each was indefinably Rodney McKay. She saw it in so many little things they did. And at the same time Quentin was his own man, someone she'd found an easy friendship with, easier even than Rodney. This was where it got confusing because technically they were both Rodney and she called Quentin the same because he had asked her to, feeling more comfortable with it after having been called it all his life just as the original Rodney had.

That was the difficulty with this, both of them trying to live the same life, the men competitive and seeing that neither could have everything as they wanted. She simply had to show them, though most resistance came from Rodney she admitted, that they would have to work together on this.

"It's hard for you I understand but you both have to adapt to this unique situation, sharing responsibilities should make it easier for you and Quentin. I'm quite willing to agree to this if Sergeant Bates is as well. I thinks its a wonderful compromise."

"You would." he spat at her.

She hesitated for a second, shocked at the hateful tone he had taken with her, before she woke up from the confusion and defended herself verbally.

"Excuse me?" she asked. Her heart beat raced as she met his steely gaze. She actually wanted him to explain, wanted to know what he had meant by that.

There had already been his glare earlier and this only led her to believe he had a problem with her, or more accurately with the friendship between her and Quentin. He might as well admit to it because otherwise nothing involving Quentin would ever get resolved.

But he never said a word, studying them one by one, focusing on Quentin last before stalking out.

She reacted instinctively, jogging after him.

"Rodney! Get back here." she yelled, ignoring the gate room personnel, as she tried to catch up with him. He was a speedy devil when he wanted to be, even though he wasn't running.

Elizabeth stopped, panting a little, noting he had turned the way to the quarters and not the labs.

She wanted an explanation but something stopped her going after him, not allowing herself to, settling for watching his retreat, as he nearly tripped up in his furious desire to get away from her.

She composed herself, straightening her jacket and made her way back to the meeting, dismissing everyone when she got there and not acknowledging their concerned looks.

Making excuses of paperwork she made her was to her office, refusing the joyous Quentin's offer of lunch.

Personally she didn't want to have deal with either of them right now since they were a handful and she didn't much care for celebrating with Quentin when it only served to antagonize Rodney.

She was finding it weird that neither cared for their counterparts welfare one bit, but then there had always been things about him, shortcomings, that she had learnt to accept.

And she'd accepted him as he was, the same with Quentin, but it wasn't like what she had Rodney, which was probably the whole point.

The reports sat in front of her but her mind kept on drawing back to the meeting, to its abrupt end.

He'd never done that, he'd never said nothing, it was unlike him to drop an argument. In fact it was a very bad sign for him to say nothing at all.

She could deal with his panic, with his anger maybe, with his flustered banter and the torrent of thoughts and questions that often streamed from his mouth.

But nothing? You couldn't do anything with that. She couldn't help him or work out what it meant.

But it was clear wasn't it, that he was jealous. Only he was very wrong and Elizabeth wished he wouldn't take it so badly because this was how it had to be.