{ Fanfic "Trying to fix this" (written for sga_fiction ficathon) }
Fanfic: "Trying to fix this"
Author: pegasusuroborus
Written for: missyvortexdv (assignment for the sga_fiction ficathon)
Characters: centered on Peter Grodin and Rodney McKay. Dr. Beckett, Miller and Markham have a cameo.
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG
Category: post-episode ("The Storm" "The Eye"), adventure, gen
Disclaimer: Peter, Rodney and all the other characters are not mine.
Thanks to: taelonmahal and sorgenmond for having the brass neck to beta this :) And last but not least: thanks to the stupid muse for not bitching around. *G*
The requests were: A fic where we get to see Grodin doing his duties on Atlantis or offworld if you like - sort of a Grodin adventure fic.
Three things that shouldn't appear in the fic: 1.no Chaya, 2.don't want it set during the Siege, 3.don't want too much military stuff
Trying to fix this
~*~
„Please… would you hold the flashlight a little bit higher, I can’t see what I’m doing here!“ The muffled and angry sounding voice penetrated the silence of the dark hallway and Peter Grodin’s thoughts.
He looked apologizing at McKay who was lying in an uncomfortable position on the hard floor and now had popped his head out of the opened panel he was working at to stare accusingly at him.
“I’m sorry. I was in thoughts,” Peter said.
‘No shit!’ McKay’s eyes communicated before he let hear a small exasperated snort and went back to work.
Some more minutes went by in the relative silence of jingling tools and occasional groans of efforts from out of the opening. Grodin shifted his kneeling position to provide the other man a better view on his reparation work.
After McKay had crawled out of the gap in the wall, he long windedly settled into a more comfortable position and let out a sigh.
“Well, I can’t seem to get the problem here...,” McKay said while Peter checked the analyzed data on the computer.
“According to yesterday’s data from Dr. Zelenka’s team all broken wires have been fixed,” Peter began.
“Yeah, and we’ve got energy on the one end of the line, but it doesn’t reach the other end,” McKay went on.
“So somewhere on the way there has to be another failure we haven’t detected yet,” Peter concluded.
McKay nodded. “Well yes, maybe Dr. Zelenka and his team made a wrong connection somewhere..?!”
Peter smiled a bit at this peevish comment. Typical for McKay to blame others first before considering that he might have made a mistake himself.
“We should call for Zelenka to help us here,” he said finally, and smirked when the anticipated answer came from his superior.
“I don’t think so,” McKay replied. “Look, maybe we’re just searching at the wrong spot, so let’s find the place where Zelenka’s team was supposed to fix the wires, hm?”
With these words McKay got up, collected some of the gathered tools from the floor and started to go without looking at his colleague, fully expecting the other man to follow him. Well, nothing too unexpected here, Peter thought smirking and followed McKay in pursuit of the failure in the power supply.
~*~
The flashlight beacons flitted over the walls and the water-covered ground, occasionally reflecting and enlightening the dark hallway they were walking down.
Grodin was sure he would have heard droplets of water from where it had intruded hitting the floor if McKay hadn’t begun ranting about incapable technicians and other things after only a few minutes of silence.
Grodin had decided to cut it out. While trying to find the spot Zelenka had worked at his mind was thinking back to this morning’s conversation in the mess hall.
~*~
Miller looked amused at him and sipped his coffee. “Well, I guess you should go for it then.” Markham, sitting at Peter’s right side, said. “Ask McKay for an opportunity to join one of the offworld-teams!”
Peter didn’t miss the grins on the faces of his colleagues and looked at them as exasperated as he could. He wasn’t afraid of Dr. McKay, and he wouldn’t let his friends believe that he was a coward.
“I totally agree with the sergeant”, Miller interjected. “Ask him to assign you to a team - he can’t do more than say ‘No’, can he?” Having said that, Miller hid his growing smile behind the cup of coffee again.
Peter’s uneasiness grew, yet he wouldn’t just leave it at this. “Be sure I will”, he assured the others at the table. And looking at Miller he added “Because I have more belief in my success to join a team than you have in yours with Major Sheppard!”
Miller’s expression changed from amusement to surprise before he suddenly started to laugh. “Ok... if you ask Dr. McKay, I’ll ask Major Sheppard.”
Peter smiled broadly at that and finished the rest of his coffee in one go.
~*~
Thus occupied he totally missed McKay’s last remark. Peter blinked surprised when the other man’s flashlight blinded his eyes for a few seconds.
“OK! Where have you been now?” McKay’s voice sounded royally pissed.
Peter could guess what he was thinking right now: ‘I am the chief scientific advisor of Atlantis, for God’s sake, and if I have to say something about a scientific problem at least someone should listen.’
Peter searched for the correct words as to not piss off McKay even further.
He said: “I’m sorry,” considering it to be a good start. However, before he was able to think up an excuse, McKay interrupted him.
“You’re thinking about joining a team on an away mission, aren’t you?” He said before turning around and starting to open the panel behind him. “This is the place we’re searching for, by the way.”
Peter’s eyes grew a bit wider. Some moments went by before he could articulate “You... Know of this? How?”
Having opened the panel, McKay turned to Peter again, smirking smugly.
“Oh please... Despite what some people might think, scientists can be quite talkative. I overheard Johnson talking to Miller about it.”
With a self-satisfied grin McKay settled on his knees and started to crawl into the opening. “Now please, if you’d be so kind, do your work and provide me with some light, hm?”
Good to know that McKay already was up to his chest in the gap, because this way he couldn’t see Peter rolling his eyes. There were some things McKay just didn’t need to know beforehand.
But, Peter decided, now would not be the time to talk to McKay about it. After getting down next to him, Peter checked the data and took a closer look at the relay in the opening.
“The energy readings are quite unsteady here”, he said and checked them again. McKay either hadn’t heard him or had chosen to ignore Peter’s comment. Well yes, go figure. Maybe this was the payback for not paying attention to him earlier.
“Dr. McKay, have you heard what I said?”
McKay’s voice sounded muffled when he finally answered. “Yes doctor, because I pay attention when people are talking to me!”
The snide remark was almost seizable. Peter was torn between laughing out loud and trying to be patient. Finally, he decided for the latter. No need to start an argument with the Master of Snark.
“I guess the relay has over voltage. You shouldn’t be working in there, the energy might fluctuate and you could get harmed.”
McKay’s head came out of the opening in the wall. “Yes, well, I have to be very careful then, right?” He started to crawl back in but thought again and added: “Besides, until now I have always been able to fix everything.”
Having stated his omnipotence, he went back to work to prove his words. Definitely annoyed now, Peter decided to watched the energy levels closely, yet not to warn McKay any further. The man was a self-declared genius. Maybe he was even able to command energy to do what he wanted.
Some minutes went by without McKay finding and fixing the problem. Peter tried to relax his shoulders a bit while trying to hold the flashlight in a proper angle for the working scientist and watch the readings at the same time.
“Whatever Dr. Zelenka did here yesterday, it obviously had nothing to do with fixing a problem at all. I think he just added a new one!”
McKay said somewhere in the gap. After a short pause he went on: “Maybe he’s doing it on purpose to see how long I need to find the mistake.“
Peter was not going to say something. While McKay now obviously wanted to find out in how much ways Zelenka could prove to him that he was the smarter scientist, a small flaw in the energy reading appeared on the screen of Peter’s computer.
Before he could decide whether it had been just one flaw or something more, which was definitely worth warning McKay of, the opening was lit up with a sudden flash. A shock wave hit Peter fair in the face and knocked him down.
For a moment his vision was pitch-black. He felt like he had been hit over the head with a battle mace or something worse.
He heard someone groaning. Well yes, he felt like complaining. Complaining... that wasn’t him he had heard groaning - McKay!
With a sudden jolt Peter’s head shot up and ignoring the pain he searched in the semi-dark for the flashlight he had lost. There it was! He reached out and focused the beacon on the gap in the wall.
McKay’s body was still stuck in there up to the chest. Peter secured the flashlight on the floor and began to pull McKay out of the gap. When the head of the man came into view, Peter quickly checked for visible wounds. There was a cut on the scientist’s forehead, he had probably bumped it in the density of the opening when the shock wave had hit him. Several light bruises formed on McKay’s face and neck.
Peter checked the pulse. Still there. He let out a sigh of relief and hoped that the radio was intact.
“Dr. Beckett! This is Peter Grodin. Can you hear me?” Static noise. Peter wasn’t willing to give up yet. He manually adjusted his headset and tried again.
“Dr. Beckett! We have an emergency in section 74. Do you hear me?”
After some more minutes of static noise the crackling voice of the Scottish doctor rang through the silence of the hallway.
“Aye, I hear you. Please clarify. What kind of accident?”
“Dr. McKay has been injured by an energy blast and is unconscious! But he has a pulse, and as far as I can determine he has only minor injuries...”
“Ok, Peter,” Carson answered, his voice calm and focused. “Stabilize him and stay put until help arrives. Beckett out.”
Peter took a deep breath and closed his eyes for some seconds. Then he did as the doctor had said.
When he had finished steadying the scientist’s form, Peter sat back and waited. He looked at McKay’s bruised face.
“I had hoped that you would shut up for once today... but I didn’t want you to take it this literally,” Peter told the unconscious man after some moments had passed in silence. He checked McKay’s pulse again.
“Let’s just hope that help arrives soon,” he sighed.
~*~
Slightly dazzled, McKay opened his eyes. His head felt like scrambled eggs or like having downed three bottles of Polish vodka. Darn stuff, he thought incoherently. Then again... where the hell had Polish vodka suddenly come from? He wasn’t in university, where he had had his first (and last) vodka experience, and he wasn’t in Poland either... he knew that. It was some place beginning with ‘P’ though...
McKay’s thoughts were interrupted when a familiar face came into view. Blinking, he tried to focus. Then the voice belonging to the face spoke. “Good to see you awake, Rodney. You gave us all quite a heart-attack.”
Through all the fog that clouded his head McKay still recognized the thick accent. “Carson.” His voice was husky. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What happened?”
On the other side of the bed someone with a British accent spoke. “Do you remember that we tried to fix the energy relay in section 74?”
McKay started to turn his head, but decided against it when the pain hit and forced him to close his eyes again.
“Grodin? Errr, I think I remember that... but we weren’t very successful, I guess?”
“Dr. Grodin was successful in saving your life, Rodney. You will need some days to recover. It’ll benefit you to rest more than six hours for once,” the doctor slightly admonished his patient and then left Peter and McKay alone.
Some moments they both were silent, before McKay spoke up. “What does he mean by that?”
Peter had to laugh. The tension he had felt while waiting for the medical team left his fatigued body. McKay would be fine again soon. Good to know that there were some things you always could rely on - even if occasionally they were absolutely pesky.
Shaking his head slightly Peter started to leave, but McKay called him back. “Peter?”
The scientist turned around and looked at him.
“Thank you,” McKay said finally, quite soft-spoken and hoarse, but clearly audible. Peter smiled and nodded at the man.
“You’re welcome!”
~La fin~
Comments and criticism are welcome!
Author: pegasusuroborus
Written for: missyvortexdv (assignment for the sga_fiction ficathon)
Characters: centered on Peter Grodin and Rodney McKay. Dr. Beckett, Miller and Markham have a cameo.
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG
Category: post-episode ("The Storm" "The Eye"), adventure, gen
Disclaimer: Peter, Rodney and all the other characters are not mine.
Thanks to: taelonmahal and sorgenmond for having the brass neck to beta this :) And last but not least: thanks to the stupid muse for not bitching around. *G*
The requests were: A fic where we get to see Grodin doing his duties on Atlantis or offworld if you like - sort of a Grodin adventure fic.
Three things that shouldn't appear in the fic: 1.no Chaya, 2.don't want it set during the Siege, 3.don't want too much military stuff
Trying to fix this
~*~
„Please… would you hold the flashlight a little bit higher, I can’t see what I’m doing here!“ The muffled and angry sounding voice penetrated the silence of the dark hallway and Peter Grodin’s thoughts.
He looked apologizing at McKay who was lying in an uncomfortable position on the hard floor and now had popped his head out of the opened panel he was working at to stare accusingly at him.
“I’m sorry. I was in thoughts,” Peter said.
‘No shit!’ McKay’s eyes communicated before he let hear a small exasperated snort and went back to work.
Some more minutes went by in the relative silence of jingling tools and occasional groans of efforts from out of the opening. Grodin shifted his kneeling position to provide the other man a better view on his reparation work.
After McKay had crawled out of the gap in the wall, he long windedly settled into a more comfortable position and let out a sigh.
“Well, I can’t seem to get the problem here...,” McKay said while Peter checked the analyzed data on the computer.
“According to yesterday’s data from Dr. Zelenka’s team all broken wires have been fixed,” Peter began.
“Yeah, and we’ve got energy on the one end of the line, but it doesn’t reach the other end,” McKay went on.
“So somewhere on the way there has to be another failure we haven’t detected yet,” Peter concluded.
McKay nodded. “Well yes, maybe Dr. Zelenka and his team made a wrong connection somewhere..?!”
Peter smiled a bit at this peevish comment. Typical for McKay to blame others first before considering that he might have made a mistake himself.
“We should call for Zelenka to help us here,” he said finally, and smirked when the anticipated answer came from his superior.
“I don’t think so,” McKay replied. “Look, maybe we’re just searching at the wrong spot, so let’s find the place where Zelenka’s team was supposed to fix the wires, hm?”
With these words McKay got up, collected some of the gathered tools from the floor and started to go without looking at his colleague, fully expecting the other man to follow him. Well, nothing too unexpected here, Peter thought smirking and followed McKay in pursuit of the failure in the power supply.
~*~
The flashlight beacons flitted over the walls and the water-covered ground, occasionally reflecting and enlightening the dark hallway they were walking down.
Grodin was sure he would have heard droplets of water from where it had intruded hitting the floor if McKay hadn’t begun ranting about incapable technicians and other things after only a few minutes of silence.
Grodin had decided to cut it out. While trying to find the spot Zelenka had worked at his mind was thinking back to this morning’s conversation in the mess hall.
~*~
Miller looked amused at him and sipped his coffee. “Well, I guess you should go for it then.” Markham, sitting at Peter’s right side, said. “Ask McKay for an opportunity to join one of the offworld-teams!”
Peter didn’t miss the grins on the faces of his colleagues and looked at them as exasperated as he could. He wasn’t afraid of Dr. McKay, and he wouldn’t let his friends believe that he was a coward.
“I totally agree with the sergeant”, Miller interjected. “Ask him to assign you to a team - he can’t do more than say ‘No’, can he?” Having said that, Miller hid his growing smile behind the cup of coffee again.
Peter’s uneasiness grew, yet he wouldn’t just leave it at this. “Be sure I will”, he assured the others at the table. And looking at Miller he added “Because I have more belief in my success to join a team than you have in yours with Major Sheppard!”
Miller’s expression changed from amusement to surprise before he suddenly started to laugh. “Ok... if you ask Dr. McKay, I’ll ask Major Sheppard.”
Peter smiled broadly at that and finished the rest of his coffee in one go.
~*~
Thus occupied he totally missed McKay’s last remark. Peter blinked surprised when the other man’s flashlight blinded his eyes for a few seconds.
“OK! Where have you been now?” McKay’s voice sounded royally pissed.
Peter could guess what he was thinking right now: ‘I am the chief scientific advisor of Atlantis, for God’s sake, and if I have to say something about a scientific problem at least someone should listen.’
Peter searched for the correct words as to not piss off McKay even further.
He said: “I’m sorry,” considering it to be a good start. However, before he was able to think up an excuse, McKay interrupted him.
“You’re thinking about joining a team on an away mission, aren’t you?” He said before turning around and starting to open the panel behind him. “This is the place we’re searching for, by the way.”
Peter’s eyes grew a bit wider. Some moments went by before he could articulate “You... Know of this? How?”
Having opened the panel, McKay turned to Peter again, smirking smugly.
“Oh please... Despite what some people might think, scientists can be quite talkative. I overheard Johnson talking to Miller about it.”
With a self-satisfied grin McKay settled on his knees and started to crawl into the opening. “Now please, if you’d be so kind, do your work and provide me with some light, hm?”
Good to know that McKay already was up to his chest in the gap, because this way he couldn’t see Peter rolling his eyes. There were some things McKay just didn’t need to know beforehand.
But, Peter decided, now would not be the time to talk to McKay about it. After getting down next to him, Peter checked the data and took a closer look at the relay in the opening.
“The energy readings are quite unsteady here”, he said and checked them again. McKay either hadn’t heard him or had chosen to ignore Peter’s comment. Well yes, go figure. Maybe this was the payback for not paying attention to him earlier.
“Dr. McKay, have you heard what I said?”
McKay’s voice sounded muffled when he finally answered. “Yes doctor, because I pay attention when people are talking to me!”
The snide remark was almost seizable. Peter was torn between laughing out loud and trying to be patient. Finally, he decided for the latter. No need to start an argument with the Master of Snark.
“I guess the relay has over voltage. You shouldn’t be working in there, the energy might fluctuate and you could get harmed.”
McKay’s head came out of the opening in the wall. “Yes, well, I have to be very careful then, right?” He started to crawl back in but thought again and added: “Besides, until now I have always been able to fix everything.”
Having stated his omnipotence, he went back to work to prove his words. Definitely annoyed now, Peter decided to watched the energy levels closely, yet not to warn McKay any further. The man was a self-declared genius. Maybe he was even able to command energy to do what he wanted.
Some minutes went by without McKay finding and fixing the problem. Peter tried to relax his shoulders a bit while trying to hold the flashlight in a proper angle for the working scientist and watch the readings at the same time.
“Whatever Dr. Zelenka did here yesterday, it obviously had nothing to do with fixing a problem at all. I think he just added a new one!”
McKay said somewhere in the gap. After a short pause he went on: “Maybe he’s doing it on purpose to see how long I need to find the mistake.“
Peter was not going to say something. While McKay now obviously wanted to find out in how much ways Zelenka could prove to him that he was the smarter scientist, a small flaw in the energy reading appeared on the screen of Peter’s computer.
Before he could decide whether it had been just one flaw or something more, which was definitely worth warning McKay of, the opening was lit up with a sudden flash. A shock wave hit Peter fair in the face and knocked him down.
For a moment his vision was pitch-black. He felt like he had been hit over the head with a battle mace or something worse.
He heard someone groaning. Well yes, he felt like complaining. Complaining... that wasn’t him he had heard groaning - McKay!
With a sudden jolt Peter’s head shot up and ignoring the pain he searched in the semi-dark for the flashlight he had lost. There it was! He reached out and focused the beacon on the gap in the wall.
McKay’s body was still stuck in there up to the chest. Peter secured the flashlight on the floor and began to pull McKay out of the gap. When the head of the man came into view, Peter quickly checked for visible wounds. There was a cut on the scientist’s forehead, he had probably bumped it in the density of the opening when the shock wave had hit him. Several light bruises formed on McKay’s face and neck.
Peter checked the pulse. Still there. He let out a sigh of relief and hoped that the radio was intact.
“Dr. Beckett! This is Peter Grodin. Can you hear me?” Static noise. Peter wasn’t willing to give up yet. He manually adjusted his headset and tried again.
“Dr. Beckett! We have an emergency in section 74. Do you hear me?”
After some more minutes of static noise the crackling voice of the Scottish doctor rang through the silence of the hallway.
“Aye, I hear you. Please clarify. What kind of accident?”
“Dr. McKay has been injured by an energy blast and is unconscious! But he has a pulse, and as far as I can determine he has only minor injuries...”
“Ok, Peter,” Carson answered, his voice calm and focused. “Stabilize him and stay put until help arrives. Beckett out.”
Peter took a deep breath and closed his eyes for some seconds. Then he did as the doctor had said.
When he had finished steadying the scientist’s form, Peter sat back and waited. He looked at McKay’s bruised face.
“I had hoped that you would shut up for once today... but I didn’t want you to take it this literally,” Peter told the unconscious man after some moments had passed in silence. He checked McKay’s pulse again.
“Let’s just hope that help arrives soon,” he sighed.
~*~
Slightly dazzled, McKay opened his eyes. His head felt like scrambled eggs or like having downed three bottles of Polish vodka. Darn stuff, he thought incoherently. Then again... where the hell had Polish vodka suddenly come from? He wasn’t in university, where he had had his first (and last) vodka experience, and he wasn’t in Poland either... he knew that. It was some place beginning with ‘P’ though...
McKay’s thoughts were interrupted when a familiar face came into view. Blinking, he tried to focus. Then the voice belonging to the face spoke. “Good to see you awake, Rodney. You gave us all quite a heart-attack.”
Through all the fog that clouded his head McKay still recognized the thick accent. “Carson.” His voice was husky. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What happened?”
On the other side of the bed someone with a British accent spoke. “Do you remember that we tried to fix the energy relay in section 74?”
McKay started to turn his head, but decided against it when the pain hit and forced him to close his eyes again.
“Grodin? Errr, I think I remember that... but we weren’t very successful, I guess?”
“Dr. Grodin was successful in saving your life, Rodney. You will need some days to recover. It’ll benefit you to rest more than six hours for once,” the doctor slightly admonished his patient and then left Peter and McKay alone.
Some moments they both were silent, before McKay spoke up. “What does he mean by that?”
Peter had to laugh. The tension he had felt while waiting for the medical team left his fatigued body. McKay would be fine again soon. Good to know that there were some things you always could rely on - even if occasionally they were absolutely pesky.
Shaking his head slightly Peter started to leave, but McKay called him back. “Peter?”
The scientist turned around and looked at him.
“Thank you,” McKay said finally, quite soft-spoken and hoarse, but clearly audible. Peter smiled and nodded at the man.
“You’re welcome!”
~La fin~
Comments and criticism are welcome!