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Rodney doesn't consider himself to be an especially paranoid person (no matter what Ronon likes to say)—cautious and exacting, definitely, and possessing perfectly healthy senses of competitive spirit and self-preservation. So when Sam Hayward and Abby Harmon both eat at Sateda the same week and both order the chef's special, which just happens to feature Moosebutt Honey, Rodney pointedly hides out back rather than hazard having to talk to them.
He's an occasionally petty person, he can admit that, but he doesn't want to risk Sheppard deciding to sell his honey to someone else.
He considered wearing dark glasses to the bookstore, but after he tripped over the cat for the third time while he searched for a pair, he gave up. Besides, it's not like he doesn't know how to get out of a conversation he doesn't want to have.
Somehow, after meeting him, after cooking for him in his own kitchen and getting a glimpse at the kind of life he lives, just having access to Sheppard's honey supply isn't enough. Rodney feels compelled to understand Sheppard, to figure out what makes him tick, why he is who he is and does what he does, how all that leaning and smirking can possibly result in such amazing honey . . . and, well, research has never failed him.
Squatting so that he can read the spines on the bottom shelf, Rodney's busy scanning for titles that suggest they're about ridiculously attractive hermits who live out in the middle of nowhere with bees as their only company when he senses someone looming behind him. He stands up quickly, and oh, thank god, it's not another chef, or at least not one he recognizes. It's a striking, petite woman, and she puts a sure hand on his shoulder to steady him when the blood rushes to his head.
"You must be Rodney," she says, nodding at him. "I am Teyla Emmagan." Her name sounds familiar, but Rodney can't quite place it, and obviously they've never met before.
"How do you—"
"John mentioned meeting you," she says, glancing knowingly at the copies of A Book of Bees and Farm City Rodney's holding. He fights the irrational urge to hide them behind his back.
So maybe Sheppard isn't a total recluse after all. And hey, wait a minute—"He talked about me? I mean, he, uh, he talked about meeting me?"
"John Sheppard is my dear friend," she says, voice sincere and expression like steel. Rodney's acutely aware that her hand is still on his shoulder and that it feels a lot less friendly now than it did a minute ago. "And I am very, very invested in his well-being."
Before Rodney can figure out how on earth to respond, she continues, tone lighter, "And yes, he could not stop raving about the meal you made for him. I am afraid I am not much of a cook, and neither is he." She smiles and holds up a copy of My Life in France with a receipt sticking out of it, which explains what she's doing in a bookstore devoted to cookbooks if she can't cook. "That does not mean that I cannot look for inspiration, though." She squeezes his shoulder once more. "It was good to run into you, Rodney McKay. You made quite an impression."
And then she's gone, slipping gracefully out the door, and Rodney's left wondering just what kind of impression he made, and on whom. He can still feel the residual warmth of her hand and the weight of her gaze, like it took all of three minutes for her to divine his deepest secrets. And he suspects that maybe he's just learned something about Sheppard that no book can tell him, if he has people like that looking out for him.