Summary: There is a list.

There is a list in the Atlantian labs where Doctor Rodney McKay spends much of his time working, at least when he is not out running for his life from the local inhabitans of the Pegasus Galaxy, risking life and limb, and sometimes his very important brain or when he is not trying to save Atlantis from yet another crisis or the Wraith.

This list is a very important list, it is a list that Doctor Rodney McKay is yet unaware of and it is added to every now and again or rearranged.

It was Doctor Zelenka's idea, a stress reliever of sorts that began when he first began working with Doctor McKay. Each day he would write down what Rodney had shouted most that day in the lab and rank them on how many times it had been said.

Now in Atlantis the list was made by each person in Rodney's perview and then at the end of the month they would meet and see what phrase had won for the month, until the next month, though for the first two month the phrase 'Are you an Idiot' had been the most common phrase.

Now it changed every so often.

As of this month this month the List was as follows along with the number of time Rodney had said it, it did not matter to whom it had been said as long as it had been heard by a member of the Lab:

1. You stupid idiot (923)
2. Did your degree come from a cereal box (875)
3. Coffee (866, they always bet on Coffee being number one on the list each month, shockingly it never was)
4. This is not Science (In reference to the Biology department and several plants that Doctor Parrish demanded Rodney take a look at) (812)
5. What is this even (789)
6. That is not Science (In reference to the Anthropology department and it's desire to make a study on the Athosians) (763)
7. Who are you (733)
8. What are you doing here (Asked to Ronon Dex and Teyla whenever they appeared and brought Rodney lunch on Sheppard's orders) (725)
9. Stop, Moron (706)
10. I'll do it (597)
11. Zelenka! (568)
12. Move (566)
13. Are you trying to kill us (509)
14. You're going to kill us (507) (usually preceding number 13.)
15. Out of my way (492)
16. Sheppard (456) (This one has been rising on the list each month, usually by a couple places, Zelenka bets that it will be number 1 by the end of the year or what they count as the year here on Atlantis)
17. Go away, working (445) (Usually said to Sheppard when he comes into the lab)
18. Sheppard, turn this on (423) (Sometimes said when Sheppard has already left the lab before Rodney noticed)
19. Not now, fixing it (403)
20. Working on it (367)
21. I'm awake (356)
22. A gun would kill us faster and hurt less (327)
23. This is your fault (301)
24. This could have been avoided if you had payed attention (289)
25. Kavanaugh, you enormous idiotic moron, my four year old niece is smarter than you and she can't even spell her own name yet (276) (Said a shocking amount since Kavanaugh had only spent a week on Atlantis while the Deadoulus was in orbit that month, for that reason alone Zelenka considered ranking it number 1 on the list)

But when things got really scary, when the stress built up and threatened to break them, Doctor Zelenka would bring out the list, he'd circle it around, not juts in the labs for an update but through out Atlantis to give the rest of the City a laugh.

It became a thing for them, the Military would even come around and purposefully try to make Rodney say certain things, mostly Rodney just stared at them and then pushed them out of the Labs.

Rodney rolled his eyes as Miko tried to subtly mark down what he had said, as if he didn't know about that List of Radek's. It was amusing that they thought he didn't know, as if Sheppard was anymore subtle than the rest of them, the Colonel had been snorting with Ronon over a paper and had tried to hide it when Rodney approached. Rodney had caught a glimpse of it as walked passed them and had been able to infer what it was.

But he didn't mind so much, it made his people calmer to know that something was going to be the same, that some thing wouldn't change and if Rodney having to remember certain phrases and that he should repeat them often than Rodney would do that, he'd be a constant for them in this strange new place with Aliens that sucked the life out of you and everything else.

Rodney also knew about the Sub-lists, the ones that existed for the Medical team when he came to get checked out, the bets on how long it would take him to call medicine Voodoo and how many times he would, the ones for the cooking staff on how much he would rant about not having any blue jello when he came to eat, nevermind that they almost always sent Sheppard away with two so there would be one for the scientist, (it had taken Rodney a while to realize that).

If Rodney had found out about the Lists before Atlantis he knew he'd have been angry, embarassed, and hurt about being the butt of everyone's jokes, he'd have hated it and not understood. Now Rodney understood about trust and safety nets, that knowledge that when everthing was going wrong there was something that was still the same.

For Rodney that had become Sheppard, he knew that no matter what Sheppard would do his best to keep them safe, would bring them home dead or alive if possible, he knew that Sheppard trusted him to save them when all seemed lost, it was nice. It was something Rodney had never really had, he liked it, liked Atlantis.

The people here trusted him in a way no one else had before, they trusted him to save their lives on a daily basis, to keep them from blowing up, to keep them safe, albet in a differednt manor than Sheppard, but they trusted him. They trusted him to stay the same, to be a constant, to be consistant and they made a game out of him.

Rodney had of course taled to Heightmeyer about it, sworn her to confidence, if anyone found out he knew about the Lists he knew who to punish, and she'd explained that it was good of him to let them have the Lists, that they reduced stress and sometimes even made his hurtful words less hurtful and more amusing and funny. It helped them make fewer mistakes, or at least less stupid ones.

So, Rodney let them have their Lists, sometimes he made ones of his own, made in code, he wasn't stupid, sometimes he found their Lists, hid them in Atlantis' code on a whim and discovered that she could communicate through a portion of her code.

He'd hide one of his favorite Lists there in that section and when he'd returned to his room that night there was the sounds of a thousand softly tinkling bells playing in his rooms, Atlantis' version of laugh and at the time Rodney had een too tired to realise it but he'd fallen asleep much quicker for the bells and Atlantis had made sure to play the sounds for him when he lay down, a slightly different tempo than her laugh but it was nice and Rodney made it a point to try to 'speak' to Atlantis everyday when he realized that she actually understood them, it was better too speak through her coding, less chance if her getting confused but when he didn't have time for that he'd either think out loud or if he was alone talk straight to her, her lights responding to his words and sometimes she'd play music or sounds in response.

She'd shone him an Altean music room and taught him to play the Piano-like instrument and sometimes when he was stressed, overworked but too tired to sleep, or too restless he'd go to the room, he'd play music, Atlantis sometimes joining him and sometimes Rodney would create new music for Atlantis, she always got excited on thosedays when Rodney felt the music building inside him like when he was small before he'd been told he needed to take his lessons seriously and he'd followed the notes on the paper instead of the ones in his head.

It was their secret, his and Atlantis', that the music that sometimes played in the lab was created by Rodney, most of the people thought it was all from Atlantis' Ancient Database. Rodney liked having this secret, but sometimes he wondered what it would be like if the others knew that the music that Atlantis sang all the time had come from Rodney.

There was another List that floated around, a list of songs that had played and what people's favorites were, sometimes there would be notes next to them, ones that read: For sleeping the best sleep you've ever slept, or for the best work ever, or even forget Teyla's breaking you in half music.

Rondey loved that the Atlantis Expedition loved his work, even when they didn't know it was his, but what Rodney loved the best was that the soft, slow tempoed tinkling of bells that had come from Atlantis' laugh was something she only ever played for him.

A/N: Got a little side tracked there at the end, sorry.

Personal Headcannon: Atlantis may light up for John Sheppard but she loves Rodney McKay the best.