Like he knew what she was talking about.

Like he'd been planning on it all along.

He must have sounded relatively sure, too, because when he turned back to his rather dry sandwich, Radek was looking at him, curious, one eyebrow raised.

"You have plans with Teyla tonight?" he asked. The 'and I am just hearing about this now?' went unspoken.

Rodney started to nod, to say, "Yes, I—" but now Radek's expression was shifting from one of curiosity to one of knowing exasperation. And since Radek always seemed to be able to tell when Rodney was (rarely) not being entirely truthful, Rodney broke off what he'd been planning on saying and said instead, "I— I'm sure that she just meant that she'd see me at dinner tonight. Friends do tell each other that they'll see each other later, you know. It has been known to happen."

He thought that he sounded pretty convincing, but Radek still looked skeptical. He was frowning slightly, pushing his glasses back up his nose. He opened his mouth to speak, but Rodney knew that he didn't want to hear what Radek had to say, so he cut him off.

"Look," he said. "I'm pretty sure I'd remember if I'd made plans with Teyla. That's just not something anyone would be likely to forget, right?"

Especially since she was entirely capable of kicking the ass of anyone who stood her up.

Radek just blinked at him, though, so as he chewed his sandwich, Rodney tried to look even more sure. Because that was the only explanation he could think of.

That, he thought, had to be it.

*

He managed to convince himself that nothing was going on for all of two hours, actually: time spent in the lab, lost in his experiment. Unfortunately, his duties as Chief Scientific Officer also required that he occasionally leave his lab to go check on other divisions of the science department. Such as Botany, with their labs located halfway down the West Pier.

Which was why he happened to be walking by Colonel Caldwell's office just as Sheppard was leaving, a good-sized gold rectangular box under his arm. It was made of thick cardboard, tied with a bright red ribbon, and Rodney had seen enough of those sorts of boxes to know what they contained: fine wine or, more likely, good champagne.

He stopped where he was for a moment, narrowing his eyes (because why would Sheppard be carting around champagne? And obviously, since he was picking it up from Caldwell. a special order via the Daedelus?), but when Sheppard looked at him, he didn't seem to notice anything amiss. He just smiled and said, "Hey, Rodney. How's it going?"

Rodney opened and closed his mouth once, then again, then managed not to sputter as he said, "I take it you have something special planned for this evening?"

Obviously he did, but Rodney had thought Sheppard would have mentioned said plans to him at some point in the last, oh, week. Possibly while they'd been off world for that wonderful three day stint in the ruins of M7X-625, when the only things there had been to do were talk and analyze Ancient altars.

"You know I do," Sheppard said, with an actual eyebrow wiggle. And the only thing Rodney could think of to say in return was "Oh. Well, good."

Then Sheppard nodded at him and started down the hall, moving in the direction of his quarters and Rodney just watched him go, because there wasn't really anything else he could do.

*

But still, what Sheppard did with his evenings was Sheppard's business, not Rodney's, and if he didn't feel like sharing, well, Rodney couldn't force him to. He even managed to put it out of his mind again, what with actually visiting the Botany lab, and then swinging by Zoology to see the improvements they'd made to the aquarium system, and then a stop by his rooms to grab one of his stash of power bars, because it had been a busy day thus far and he deserved it.

The world just couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone, though, because as Rodney was walking down the hall to the transporter, so that he could go back to his lab, he saw Ronon in the recreation room, doing battle with the television set. Apparently. Given the way he was pushing at it, then pulling at it, moving it slowly but surely away from the wall.

Rodney stopped in the doorway, leaned against the doorjamb and took a bite of his power bar. Chewed it.

"Going somewhere with that?" he asked.

Ronon just looked at him.

"Funny," Rodney said. "Over the last year, I haven't exactly gotten the impression that you were much of a TV type."

Over the last year, after all, they'd had a few team movie nights, and Ronon had never seemed to be very impressed. At one point, he'd even said, 'Your people take pleasure in sitting for hours on end, watching the small people on this screen act out stories that aren't real?'

This time Ronon just said, "It's for Sheppard. For tonight." He also gave Rodney a look, like he should already know that.

Which left Rodney saying, "Ah." And also, "Of course it is."

Because of course it was.

*

Which also meant that Sheppard had told Ronon about his plans for the evening, and that— Rodney, if he was honest with himself, was not okay with that.

And that was the reason why, later that afternoon, when he went by the kitchens to see if they had any leftover muffins from lunch, he stopped outside of the door when he heard Sheppard inside, talking to the cooks.

Because he was annoyed. Because if Sheppard didn't want to talk to him about plans that apparently merited champagne and co-option of the television then, well, Rodney didn't want to talk to him. That didn't mean, though, that he left. That he didn't listen to what Sheppard was telling the cooks.

Sheppard was saying: "—there were some of those cookie things that Teyla likes, the— What are they called? The seed cookies? And then some of that onion dip for Ronon, and then, let's see. Yeah, I think that's about it." A pause while the cook murmured his assent, then, "Yeah, we're having a bit of a party tonight."

Another murmur of assent from the cook, but this time, Rodney hardly noticed because his stomach was sinking. Suddenly, he understood. Champagne, TV, favorite snack foods: Sheppard was having a party with Ronon and Teyla and who knew who else, and Rodney had not been invited.

Oh, part of him wanted to think that Sheppard had just forgotten, but it wasn't like they hadn't spent plenty of time together over the last few weeks. And he'd just seen Sheppard not two hours ago. True, Teyla had obviously thought he'd been invited, which explained why she'd said that she'd see him tonight, but Rodney had not been on Sheppard's guest list.

Which was just— Just.

Okay, so he wasn't the biggest 'party person' on the base, and the last time Sheppard had hosted a movie night, Rodney might have made several veiled comments about how he really had other, more worthwhile things to be doing than watching theoretically impossible action adventure movies, but. But still.

Rodney turned on his heel, walking back in the direction he'd come from, because he could not be there when Sheppard came out of the kitchen. Not if he wanted to avoid saying something he'd regret. No, he wanted to think out exactly what he wanted to say the next time he saw Sheppard, down to the word. Because that, he was pretty sure, was the only way that he'd get through the conversation.

Besides, he wasn't hungry anymore.

*

He still wasn't hungry when dinnertime rolled around, so he waved Zelenka on without him and then, when the lab was empty, sat at his computer, staring at the screen as the light faded outside the windows. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but there was still just a hint of sunlight at the edge of the horizon when the door to the lab slid open, and when he turned around to see who was there, he found himself face to face with Sheppard.

Slowly, he turned back towards his computer and said, his voice carefully controlled, "What can I do for you, Colonel?"

He heard Sheppard moving, walking up behind him, but still, when he spoke, he sounded a lot closer. "You can tell me why you're still here," Sheppard said, and he actually sounded a little annoyed, so now Rodney had to turn back to him.

"I'm here, Colonel, because I have work to be doing. Some of us don't have the luxury of being able take off for a party whenever we want to."

Rodney meant to turn right back around again, to turn back to his computer and begin ignoring Sheppard in the hopes that he would leave that much more quickly, but he hadn't taken Sheppard's—dare he say confused?—look into account. But Sheppard, he thought, didn't have the right to look confused. He wasn't the injured party here, after all.

"And quite frankly, I've never been much of a fan of crashing parties I haven't been invited to. Bad memories from high school. I'm sure you understand."

Then he started to turn back around, but now Sheppard was looking downright pissed. And he sounded it when he said, "What the hell are you talking about, McKay? It's a one-year anniversary celebration for our team. Why would I not invite you?" He must have noticed the rather confused look on Rodney's face, though, because he continued: "We had a whole long conversation about it last week, on 625, while you were working with that altar in the ruins. You said you'd save the date. You said, 'Yes, Sheppard, I'll be there, now please shut up and let me concentrate.'"

Rodney blinked at him. Also, he tried to think back to M7X-625 and what conversation Sheppard might have been talking about, because surely he would have remembered talk of a party. But now that he thought about it, parts of what Sheppard had said were sounding familiar. He remembered talk of weapons training, of how much Rodney had improved over the last two-plus years, then Rodney had noticed some unusual energy readings coming from the altar and he'd gone to investigate and then he remembered Sheppard asking if he'd be there, and he'd said—

"I thought you were talking about weapons training," Rodney said slowly. "We were talking about weapons and training and then there were those readings from the altar and I tuned you out and when I tuned back in, you were asking if I'd be there. And since you never let me beg out of any trainings ever I was sure you'd remind me later what I had agreed to."

Suddenly, his stomach wasn't feeling quite so heavy anymore. And Sheppard was starting to look a little bit less annoyed, too.

"Two years on my team, Colonel, and you should really be able to tell when I'm not listening to what's being said around me."

He was grinning, he realized, widely, but it didn't matter, because Sheppard was starting to grin, too. To laugh a little bit. Then he rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, McKay."

Rodney stood, still smiling, still feeling lighter, because Sheppard hadn't forgotten him, because it was just a misunderstanding and Sheppard was totally to blame for not being able to tell when Rodney wasn't paying attention.

"Yes, yes," he said. "We can't let Teyla eat all of the seed cookies, after all."

Beside him, Sheppard laughed.

*

When they reached Sheppard's room, Ronon and Teyla were already there, sitting in front of the TV, small plates of food on their knees. Teyla had a seed cookie halfway to her mouth, and Ronon was licking something off of his fingers, and when they walked through the door, Ronon raised an eyebrow at them, as if to say, 'So?'

"You were right," Sheppard said. "He didn't remember."

Now Teyla and Ronon's gazes shifted to Rodney and he felt the need to explain himself. "Now wait just a minute here," he said. "It wasn't that I didn't remember, it was that I wasn't listening to you. Remember, altar? Energy readings?"

"Which is what Ronon said," Teyla said, smiling kindly at Rodney. "After your encounter this afternoon, he told Colonel Sheppard that you did not remember. He said that you had probably not been listening when the invitation was issued."

When she put it that way, it sounded like something that Rodney should be protesting, but since it was the truth, he just nodded and said, "Exactly." Then, turning to Sheppard: "Some people, at least, know me well."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow and looked, rather pointedly, at the table at the back of the room where, Rodney saw when he followed Sheppard's gaze, the food for the party was spread out. He saw Teyla's seed cookies and Ronon's onion dip, and (indeed) a bottle of champagne with four glasses, and— And—

"Is that what I think it is?"

Sheppard shrugged. "What do you think it is?"

Rodney recognized the thick brown swirls of icing, knew what sort of cake had been contained therein the last time he'd seen said icing. He took an involuntary step forward, then tried to smell the scent of the cake on the air, and he thought he could, he almost could.

"Stevenson's chocolate-mocha cake?" he asked. Hopefully.

When Sheppard didn't immediately answer, he managed to turn away from the cake long enough to see Ronon rolling his eyes, Teyla looking at him fondly, then finally, Sheppard nodding at him, smirking, the edge of a challenging look in his eye.

So Rodney sighed and said, "Okay, yes. Fine. You all know me too well. Are you happy now?"

"Yes," Sheppard said. "I am."