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Elizabeth Weir showed up in the control room at the same time every night, regardless of what revision of Atlantis's timekeeping system was currently in use. Peter Grodin didn't always supervise the night shift, but he'd no reason to believe her schedule changed on the nights he was absent.
Barring some sort of emergency, of course, in which case Dr. Weir would already be in the control room, overseeing the situation.
But during the quiet times, she would appear thirty Earth minutes before designated midnight, partway through the third duty shift, moving quietly through the room. "Peter," she'd murmur, with a half-smile and a nod.
"Dr. Weir," he'd respond in kind, and on particularly quiet nights, he'd watch her make her rounds. She spoke to some of the technicians, and merely nodded at others, with a smile here and there, or a touch on the shoulder. Peter hadn't been able to discern a pattern among her conversations, if there was one, but Dr. Weir talked with all of them in turn, at some point or other.
Hers was the official visit, but she never seemed to begrudge the time, or take her people for granted.
Major Sheppard's arrival times were less consistent, and he wasn't there every night--offworld missions, not to mention the recovery from same, often kept him away. Where Dr. Weir had an air of calm deliberation, the major tended to show up with his hands in his pockets, as if he'd merely been taking a late-night stroll.
"Dr. Grodin," he'd say, with a combination of self-deprecating humor and that almost-courtly military courtesy.
"Major," Peter would respond, with the same genial respect. At first, the major had seemed self-conscious, almost uncomfortable. After the first few times he'd stopped in, though, Sheppard was more relaxed, and Peter thought that perhaps Sheppard appreciated that his presence in the control room had never been called into question.
"Anything going on?" Sheppard would ask, or some variant thereof. Peter would apprise him of the current status of the city and any offworld missions, and even the more promising discoveries made by the science teams, though by the look in the major's eye, most of it wasn't actually news to him, casual attitude or no. Afterward, Sheppard would smile and thank him and, likely as not, drift away to seat himself at an unmanned terminal, out of the way.
In the course of his work, Peter had occasionally caught glimpses of what Sheppard was paging through. Mission reports, briefing and debriefing notes, those he'd expected, but Sheppard often looked over reports from the science teams as well, or scrolled through the diagnostic displays of the city. Once or twice, he'd seemed to be studying the Ancient language translation texts.
Peter thought Sheppard had noticed his scrutiny, but the major hadn't reacted, just carried on with what he was doing.
After a while, Sheppard would power the console down to standby mode, send Peter a wry smirk, and amble out of the control room. By a sort of organic unspoken agreement, no one ever mentioned the major's late-night visits, though a few of the techs smiled at the major's back as he left.
Before long, one station near the back of the room was always carefully left unattended.
Rodney McKay's erratic appearances had so few common elements that it had taken Peter a while to recognize them for what they were. They primarily tended to skew towards "late" and "abrupt."
"Peter," he'd say as he passed, less a greeting than a statement of fact.
"Rodney," Peter might say, depending on Rodney's demeanor and rate of movement. It never seemed to matter whether Peter acknowledged him aloud or not, which made his doing so much more dependent on Peter's frame of mind. After he'd figured out what Rodney was about, Peter was amused, more often than not.
Fluctuations in the power system, problems accessing the database remotely, or "the mind-boggling idiocy of certain people who probably only tie their shoes successfully through sheer random chance" were the most likely reasons for Rodney to descend upon the control room, though by no means the only ones. And Rodney didn't always need an excuse, because they certainly had problems enough to go around.
Regardless of his explanation for being there, at some point before departing, Rodney would check the displays of each and every system, indiscriminately harassing the operators in the process.
There would be grumbling and exasperation in his wake, but the control room was always more animated after Rodney left, and the grumbling had an air of camaraderie, of unity against a common foe. It never got out of hand, so Peter had seen no reason to put a stop to it.
There was a comforting regularity about it all, but as with any unstable system, the variables occasionally led to unexpected conjunctions.
Peter was investigating a data retrieval lag that had cropped up between the Atlantis intranet and the Ancient database late one evening when Rodney bounded up the stairs. "Peter."
"Rodney," Peter said, without looking up from his screen.
"Have you noticed a problem with the environmental controls? There's a power drain that I can't account for."
"I haven't noticed, but then again, I haven't been looking."
"Thank you, very helpful." Peter heard Rodney sigh dramatically. "I'll be over here, doing the laughably insignificant work involved in, oh, keeping the city running... Major?"
Peter looked over upon hearing that, almost entirely without shame--he had little enough entertainment on the night watch, and this was an unprecedented intersection. The lag problem wasn't critical, after all, just bothersome.
Sheppard looked up from his terminal without expression, laconic and pointedly matter-of-fact. "McKay."
Rodney paused for a moment, then shook his head and resumed his course toward the environmental control console, shooing DeMarco out of the seat as he approached, and Peter tuned him out again. Rodney would no doubt bellow his name if he needed Peter, and in the meantime, Peter went back to work.
When Peter was fairly certain he'd tracked down the problem--he needed to do a hard reboot of one of the servers when he went off duty, but there was nothing more to be done from here--he started listening in on the conversations behind him again. Rodney had apparently found an actual problem, but he seemed to be wrapping it up.
Peter glanced back to see him approaching Sheppard again, and Sheppard looked up, almost wary. Peter faced his own screen again as Rodney asked, "Major? Is there some reason you're in my control room in the middle of the night?"
"Your control room?"
"As good as," Rodney said, and Peter rolled his eyes at his keyboard.
"Just doing a little homework, McKay," Sheppard drawled.
Rodney dropped his voice enough that Peter had to concentrate to make out the words. "Is there anything I can help you with...?"
"No, I'm good." Sheppard spoke quietly, too. "Just checking up on things."
Peter reached out for his coffee mug off to the side, and ducked his head to watch them out of the corner of his eye. It occurred to him that he might want to consider asking for an assignment that didn't erode his moral code quite so seriously.
He could only see Rodney's back as he nodded at the major. "Yeah, okay." Rodney took a step back, then spoke in a normal tone of voice. "Just--don't break anything, Major. I have enough to do around here."
Sheppard gave Rodney a sarcastic little salute, and Rodney turned away. Peter straightened up slowly, to cover the fact of his eavesdropping, and looked up innocently as Rodney got closer. "Everything all right now?"
"For the moment. I'm sure it'll come crashing down in no time." Peter chuckled, and Rodney pointed a thumb down the steps. "Going to sleep now. Call me if anything goes wrong."
"Yes, mother," Peter murmured, almost under his breath. Rodney shot him a suspicious look, then dismissed him with a shake of his head and left without demanding clarification.
A few minutes later, Sheppard stopped by Peter's station. "He do that a lot?"
"McKay?" Peter asked, though it wasn't really necessary. "Often enough."
Sheppard looked down at Peter for a moment, then smiled suddenly. "Cool." He stuck his hands in his pockets and ducked his head at Peter. "Night, Dr. Grodin."
"Goodnight, Major." Peter smiled as Sheppard descended the steps and walked across the gateroom, head bowed thoughtfully.
Then Peter felt his eyes widen in surprise as Dr. Weir entered the gateroom from the opposite hallway. He'd no idea how long she'd been there. She looked up to meet Peter's eyes, and even from this distance, he could tell she was smiling. It was something about the way she moved, as she climbed the stairs.
"I left something in my office," she said, and her voice was rich with humor. She folded her arms over her chest. "Was all of that anything I should know about?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary," Peter said.
She nodded. "I see," she said, and Peter very much suspected that she did. "I'll just get that report--I'm sorry to bother you, Peter."
"It's no bother, Dr. Weir." He couldn't help casting a look at the hallway into which Sheppard and Rodney had disappeared. When he saw that she'd followed his look, he smiled back at her, nodding gently but assuredly. "Not in the least."