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Kavanagh is the first to get sick. Rodney is positively glowing as he relates the glorious news of Kavanagh's absence from the labs to John when he shows up with a midmorning cup of coffee for Rodney.
Over the course of the next day, Parrish, Simpson, and Barrett fall ill. Carson expresses concern about the possibility of an epidemic and makes the four scientists stay in the infirmary. Zelenka appears in the infirmary the next morning.
A few hours later, John is on his way to the gym for a sparring session with Teyla when he spots Rodney and calls a greeting. Rodney glares, points at his throat, and gestures vaguely in the direction of the infirmary. John falls into step beside him because Rodney without words is rather disconcerting.
Carson sighs as they enter the medical ward. Rodney scowls and points at his throat again. Carson pulls out a tongue depressor and peers into Rodney's mouth, then directs him to sit on an empty bed and takes his temperature. He shakes his head.
"Still haven't figured out what's going on, doc?" John asks.
"No," Carson replies wearily. "There are no symptoms. Aside from the loss of their voices. No fever, no swelling, nothing."
Rodney stands up. "Oh, no," Carson says, pushing him back down on the bed. "You're not going anywhere. If there's an epidemic, I need you to stay right here."
Rodney's hands spin around in a series of complicated gestures and John can practically hear him saying, This is obviously not a medical disease. I need to be in the labs figuring this out. What if it's nanites again? You have to let me go now. Your stupid voodoo isn't working.
Carson stares at him blankly.
John, amused by the stabbing motions Rodney makes to convey "voodoo", smirks and says innocently, "I think McKay wants you to try acupuncture."
Rodney glares at John for several seconds before his hands begin telling John just how much of an idiot he is, exactly, and if he can't be helpful can he just go away?
"All right, buddy," John says and turns away before Rodney's hands can pull him back.
But Carson catches his arm. "Just where do you think you're going?"
"To the labs," John replies.
"Oh, no you don't," Carson says. "You've been exposed."
"It's not that kind of disease," John protests. "You said yourself that no one has any symptoms. Their voices are just gone. Besides, I'm in and out of the labs all the time and I haven't lost my voice yet. And Atlantis doesn't feel the need to quarantine us."
"The city's malfunctioned before," Carson points out, but John just shrugs off his hand and bolts out the door.
On the way to the labs, he radios Teyla to explain why he's missing their sparring session and ask about Pegasus diseases that take away a person's voice. Teyla replies that she does not know of any sicknesses that affect the ability to speak but have no other symptoms.
In the labs, work goes on as usual, although it's much quieter without Rodney and Zelenka bickering at each other or Rodney's periodic outbursts concerning the woeful IQ levels of the lab techs. John heads straight for Rodney's workspace and picks up the datapad. He quickly retraces his steps to the infirmary, datapad tucked under one arm, and when Rodney sees him, his whole face lights up with that rare smile that means John's done something right. John's breath always catches at the particular shade of blue of Rodney's eyes when he smiles like that.
John grins back as he hands over the datapad. Rodney starts tapping away, smile dissolving too quickly into a frown of concentration. John stands beside him and watches Rodney's fingers fly over the screen. He's always liked watching the movement of Rodney's hands, the way they sketch words and concepts in the air, but he misses the voice that always accompanies the gestures. Right now, Rodney should be muttering to himself as he types. The empty space where Rodney's words should be seeps into John, unsettling him.
Rodney pokes him in the thigh.
"Yeah?" John asks, bringing himself back into focus.
Rodney's hands say, I need you to run some diagnostics from the labs. I've emailed the instructions to you, so all you have to do is copy them in. If you touch anything else, there will be hell to pay. And you could also check in on what the idiotic lab techs have got themselves into while they're unsupervised. Make sure they're not about to blow us all up or sink us to the bottom of the ocean or anything.
John doesn't think much about how easily he can read the words Rodney's hands convey until Zelenka tries to tell him something as he's heading out of the infirmary. His best guess is that it involves a squid and an explosion and a bunch of incomprehensible gestures. John stares at him blankly. Zelenka sighs and reaches for the notepad and pen with which Carson has now supplied all the voiceless scientists.
Has Rodney found anything? Zelenka writes.
John shakes his head. "He's doing a city-wide scan for nanites. And I'm going to the labs to run a diagnostic on the city's quarantine system to check for glitches. Do you have any ideas?"
Zelenka shakes his head and taps his temple—possibly to indicate that he's still thinking about it.
John nods and leaves the infirmary, thinking about the way Rodney's hands speak words so clearly to him and wondering how soon it will be before he can hear Rodney's voice again. Back in the labs, everything is the same as it was a short while before. No one else has lost their voice yet. He walks over to Rodney's workstation and copies the instructions from his email to the diagnostics program.
When he goes back to the infirmary again, he passes by Rodney (who is bent over his datapad and doesn't notice) and stops in front of Kavanagh's bed at the other end of the room.
"Hi," John says. Kavanagh looks at him suspiciously. John points to the notepad and pen on the bedside table and adds, "I need to ask you a few questions." Kavanagh begins scribbling furiously before John can even get a question out.
Did McKay tell you this was my fault? he writes. Because I had nothing to do with it.
"Okay," John says slowly, trying to keep his voice neutral because he does need Kavanagh's help. "But you were the first to get sick. Since it doesn't seem to be a natural sickness, we need to track it down. Can you tell me where you were and what projects you were working on before you got sick?"
McKay had me on menial tasks because I pointed out several errors in his calculations, Kavanagh scrawls irritably. I was taking inventory in Lab 2144 on Monday and reported back to McKay on Tuesday. And then I lost my voice.
"So you weren't in or near any of the unexplored areas of the city?"
Kavanagh scowls and shakes his head.
John makes his way back to Rodney's bed. "What's in Lab 2144?"
Rodney blinks at him.
"That's where Kavanagh was before he got sick," John prompts.
Rodney rolls his eyes and begins gesturing wildly. Much as I would love to blame the whole thing on Kavanagh, there is nothing remotely suspicious in that lab. It's just odd bits of inventory—computer cables, beakers, white board markers, etc. Stuff to keep Kavanagh out of my way so I, and the slightly less incompetent science staff, can get some actual work done without him butting in with all his "corrections."
John frowns and tries to think of something else to investigate.
Rodney pokes him and says, Will you stop playing Hardy Boys and go check the diagnostics in the lab? No, wait. He grabs John's sleeve as he turns to go. I'll do it myself. I don't care what Carson says, I'm not staying here. It's stupid. His hands pause. Just, um, don't let him attack me with needles, okay?
John smiles. "Sure, buddy. I'll keep the needles away."
They make their escape (after John promises to drag Rodney back if he develops any more symptoms or shows signs of fatigue) and head back to the labs.
"Dr. McKay!" exclaims a startled lab tech by the door and everyone turns to look at him.
Rodney ignores them all and makes a beeline for his work area.
"Still can't talk," John explains. The science staff look over at Rodney warily and John wonders briefly if it's because they're worried they'll catch the voice sickness, too, or if it's just because it's Rodney and they always look wary around him.
John hovers next to Rodney's computer, alternating between watching Rodney's hands and watching the other scientists. A short while later, there is a flurry of voices around one of the lab techs, who bursts into silent tears. Everyone looks from her to Rodney and back again. Rodney keeps tapping away at his keyboard.
John approaches the newly-muted lab tech and says, "Hey. It's okay. We're working on this and we'll get it sorted out in a bit. Meantime, let's get you down to the infirmary."
She nods forlornly and John assigns someone to escort her to the infirmary.
"She wasn't doing anything," her colleagues say when John asks. "She just lost her voice without warning like all the others." They look around shiftily.
"What was she working on?" John persists.
"She was entering data sets on oceanography," someone answers.
John sighs. There has to be a connection between all these cases. But the scientists have all been working on different projects with nothing in common. Except the lab. This lab.
John looks around just as one of Beckett's nurses walks into the room. "Excuse me," the nurse says, but nobody listens to him. The scientists and lab techs are either ensconced in their work or talking worriedly amongst themselves about the voice sickness.
"Hey," he tries again, louder. "Can everyone be quiet for a minute? I have an announcement from Dr. Beckett."
And suddenly the only noise in the lab is the hum of machinery and the steady tap of keystrokes from scientists too deep in their work to notice the silence.
The science staff gape at each other in mute horror, but John laughs—without a sound—because he gets it.
The nurse, meanwhile, stares wide-eyed at the room full of silent scientists. "I didn't mean to—" he stammers. "I... What happened? Oh, crap." He looks on the verge of panicking.
John crosses the room and gestures at his radio.
The nurse taps his radio on and says, "Dr. Beckett? Everyone is voiceless now. I'm sorry, I don't know what I— In the main lab. Right." To the room full of eerily silent scientists, he adds, "The medical team is on the way. Please stay here."
John turns to look for Rodney only to find that he is currently in the midst of a horde of anxious scientists who watch his every keystroke with bated breath. So John finds an empty space on a white board and writes a note for Carson. As soon as Carson arrives with the medical team, John nudges him over toward the note.
"Right." Carson nods. "Come on, people, we're moving across the hall. Keep calm, we'll have you right as rain soon enough."
John would have liked Rodney's help, but Rodney, still in the middle of the horde, is swept away to the lab across the hall. So John searches the lab alone. He makes his way to the back of the lab where the scientists keep all the potentially interesting Ancient gadgets. He sighs when he sees the jumble of artifacts. He picks up each one in turn, thinks off at it, and then tries to say something out loud. On the twelfth try, he manages to say "The Ancients were stupid" aloud.
He grins and looks at the rectangular purple Ancient device. It seems to mute a voice when someone is told to be quiet, apparently not distinguishing between "be quiet for a minute" and "shut up". Of course it hadn't occurred to the scientists to link telling someone to "shut up" with the person's subsequent loss of voice since they were always telling each other to shut up, with varying degrees of politeness and rudeness. And of course Kavanagh would have been the first to be muted.
A few minutes later he can hear excited chattering from across the hall. Case closed.
Carson comes in after a while and says, "Good work, lad. But I'll want you to come to the infirmary, just to make certain everything's okay."
"Sure, doc," John replies and follows him back to the infirmary. He's rather pleased with himself for solving the mystery of the missing voices and wonders wistfully if there will be another mystery soon.
"There you are," Rodney says briskly, barely looking up from the computer screen in front of him as John pauses in the doorway.
Everything is back to normal. Carson checked everyone over and found no permanent damage. When he's allowed to leave the infirmary at last, John goes in search of Rodney. Everyone else had been given the rest of the day off, but Rodney had gone straight back to the lab. John slouches against the doorframe and basks in the glow of Rodney's voice.
Rodney points to the computer screen. "Look. I found it in the Ancient database. But it's not a complete record so we don't know why they'd want to turn people's voices off. Though I can completely understand if they had anyone like Kavanagh around. That was a nice few days," he says wistfully. Then he glances at John. "What? Why are you looking at me like that? Wait, you did get your voice back, didn't you? Oh god, we have to get you back to the infirmary. If those Ancients messed you up permanently with their idiotic mute button, I swear—"
For all that he's fascinated by Rodney's words, John's never been good at them himself. So, as Rodney crosses the room to drag John to the infirmary, John steps forward to meet him, pressing his lips against Rodney's. Rodney, startled, keeps talking for several seconds until John's tongue slides against his lower lip. His breath stutters against John's mouth and then he kisses back.
"Yeah, Rodney," John drawls when they break apart, "I got my voice back."
Rodney stares at him with his wide blue eyes and there's that particular smile curling the corners of his mouth.
But Rodney doesn't say anything, so John adds, "I missed yours."
And then Rodney says, "You idiot," and leans in to kiss John again.
And Rodney's hands trace words across John's back.