Evan entered John's office and found him leaned over his laptop with an expression of intense thought on his face. He waited a few seconds to be acknowledged, but as John continued to type madly without so much as glancing up it quickly became apparent that even a 'hello' was unlikely to be forthcoming. Evan walked over and sat down on the desk, glancing at the screen to see complex equations taking form on it.

"I see the Mystery Mathematician is hard at work again," Evan commented. He had been present the last time McKay and Zelenka had gotten a well-anonymized email containing complex math equations, in that case related to wormhole physics. Their reactions had varied between near-orgasmic joy at the apparently-awesome physics and thunderous ire over the hidden nature of the source. Evan suspected that, protests about wasted potential aside, they were secretly afraid the source was some botanist or jarhead. "You know, one of these days they're going to figure out it's you, and there's going to be hell to pay."

"Eh," John said. "That's what SERE training is for. That, and a battalion of marines for bodyguards."

"What are you working on this time?"

"I'm just finishing up a little something that I've been working on for a couple years. I've finally figured out the last few touches it needs."

"That's great," Evan said. "And it also doesn't answer my question."

"This," John said, making a few final keystrokes with considerable flourish, "is the fundamental set of equations that describe how to create a pocket universe and then extract zero-point energy from it. Which just happens to be what you need to know in order to make a ZPM."

Evan blinked several times in astonishment. "Really."

"Really."

"You just figured out the physics behind ZPMs."

"Yep. Although to be fair, I had to get a little advice from Sam on one part, but I'd say it's ninety-five percent my work."

"Wow." Evan was so stunned that for a few moments he couldn't figure out what to say. Something quickly came to mind. "McKay is going to string you up by your own entrails."

"Eh. He'll still have to figure out how to use the equations to make one. Engineering's not my thing. Besides, he'll never find out who wrote it."

"Oh, no," Evan said firmly. "You are not sending this to them anonymously this time, not with something this important. I can't believe you put so much effort into hiding this in the first place."

"It's not a big deal, just a hobby," John said with an uncomfortable shrug. "I don't want to end up spending all my time in a lab."

"Yeah, just like Carter does. Wait - she commands a starship. If you don't say something, I will."

John gave him a disgruntled look. "How about we go somewhere and celebrate my breakthrough?"

"If you're trying to distract me with sex, it's not going to work."

"I can be very distracting."

Evan grinned. "We'll see."

Thanks!

Yeah, it really doesn't take much imagination to figure out how he'd react.

He's a little shit sometimes.

Yeah, I always wish that they hadn't more or less forgotten about that part of John's personality. I agree about the ATA gene thing, too, which is why I'm playing around with it more in Strange Aeon. (Or will be, at any rate.)