SGA preslash/gen - The Expression of Genetic Potential
so, I found this to be a very interesting process and much more difficult than I imagined. it was for the Wooden Horse artword challenge. I was paired up with wychwood as the artist. basically we were both supposed to start on our projects without really getting any input from the other person. half-way through we shared a sneak peek with the other person. and then we completed our individual projects after viewing each other's sneak peek.
the fic was based on Wooden Horse (megaupload link) a song by Suzanne Vega. I am totally addicted to this song, and the story behind it is very interesting. (read about Kaspar Hauser and his wooden horse The part that really stuck with me when I was reading it was the chorus:
And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive
wychwood and I had agreed that we were going to focus on Rodney as the main character...but other than that we didn't discuss any pairings, plot, etc. so, when I first started writing the fic I had the vague notion of writing a McKay/Sheppard friendship/preslash fic. What I wanted to focus on was what made Rodney so BAD at relationships...I was thinking something along the lines of Rodney getting his heart broken and deciding that he'd be better off alone. So, this was the sneak peek I sent to wychwood
Shortly after his seventh birthday, Rodney McKay realized that love was an inefficient and unnecessary use of his energy. It was a waste of time and resources that could be spent better elsewhere. While a lovely concept, in reality love was bitter and brutal and best left for movies and the relationship between a man and his cat.
He learned this lesson from his parents and their bitter war of screams and shattering glass. He watched his father (Father, not Dad and certainly not Daddy) slowly carve away pieces of his mother (Mother, Mom is undignified) with thinly veiled insults and the occasional open-handed smack across the face.
In response his mother grew cold and quiet. Her smiles appeared less and less until Rodney had to get out the photo album to see what it looked like. He liked to trace his finger over her face in the picture from his fifth birthday party. She was holding his hand, her other arm draped protectively across her swollen belly, and she was smiling so wide that her eyes crinkled up at the corners.
Sometimes, when Jeannie cooed and gurgled and waved a tiny fist at him, Rodney thought that he could see his mother’s smile there. At night, when his parents fought, Rodney liked to sneak into the nursery and watch Jeannie sleep and think about the way she called him, “Roddy.” The really bad nights - nights when the screams and crashes were loud enough to wake her up - Rodney would stroke her pale blonde hair back from her forehead and whisper nonsense words until she fell back asleep.
Four days after his seventh birthday, Rodney’s mother didn’t pick him up from his music lesson.
He’d been waiting there -- huddled in his coat on the steps of the Music Center with a knot in his stomach -- for almost two hours when his father showed up. His father’s face was pale and drawn, deep lines etched across his forehead. Rodney knew instantly that something was terribly, horribly wrong, and the knot in his stomach tightened.
Rodney rubbed his hands up and down his arms to chase away the chills. He’d hated how his voice sounded when he spoke, the way his words broke. “I thought Mother was going to pick me up.”
His father flexed his hands against the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road as he drove them home. “Your mother is gone and she took Jeannie with her. Now, I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
That night Rodney pulled the covers over his head and cried until no more tears would come.
Sometime before dawn, Rodney crept downstairs and fumbled through the photo album with shaking hands. He found the picture - the one with his smiling mother - and ripped it up. He hid the pieces in the bottom of the kitchen garbage can.
He never went into the nursery again.
+++
this was how I described what I was planning on writing: three different scenarios that shaped Rodney's life and made him think that he would be better off on his own - not getting too close to anybody.
in return wychwood sent me
and said she was working toward: "I was going with the idea of Pegasus as the wooden horse, the time he comes out of the box, as it were." wychwood also pointed me toward the info about Kasper Hauser.
after listening to the song about a million more times and staring at the image excerpt and reading about Kasper Hauser...the direction of my story totally changed.
I decided to focus on the relationship between Rodney and Jeannie - and the idea that what was wood (Rodney's heart) became alive through this relationship and that's what brought me to the final version of this fic
Title: The Expression of Genetic Potential (part of The Evolution of Rodney McKay series)
Author: lillyjk
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing None - Rodney character piece, focus on sibling relationship
Rating: PG
Word count: @ 1700
Spoilers: Letters from Pegasus, SGA season 1 generally, McKay episodes of SG-1 generally - please note that this was written before we had any real background on Rodney's character, so I know the Jeanie stuff isn't exactly canon
Author's Notes: sort of a companion piece to Parched (basically this is more of woobie!Rodney and the fucked up childhood) Written for the artword Wooden Horse challenge. This fic takes place up to and including Season 1 - Letters from Pegasus. Special thanks to kmousie for the awesome beta job. Title taken from this article Childhood Experience and the Expression of Genetic Potential: What Childhood Neglect Tells Us About Nature and Nurture
Shortly after his seventh birthday, Rodney McKay realized that love was an inefficient and unnecessary use of his energy and intellect. It was a waste of time and resources that could be spent better elsewhere. While a lovely concept, love, in reality, was bitter and brutal and best left for movies and the relationship between a man and his cat.
He learned this lesson from his parents and their bitter war of screams and shattering glass. He watched his father (Father, not Dad, and certainly not Daddy) slowly carve away pieces of his mother (Mother, Mom is undignified) with thinly veiled insults and the occasional open-handed smack across the face.
In response, his mother grew cold and quiet. Her smile appeared less and less often, until Rodney had to get out the photo album to see what it looked like. He liked to trace his finger over her face in the picture from his fifth birthday party. She was holding his hand, her other arm draped protectively across her swollen belly, and she was smiling so wide that her eyes crinkled up at the corners.
Sometimes, when Jeannie cooed and gurgled and waved a tiny fist at him, Rodney thought he could see his mother’s smile there. At night, when his parents fought, Rodney liked to sneak into the nursery and watch Jeannie sleep and think about the way she called him, “Roddy.” The really bad nights - nights when the screams and crashes were loud enough to wake her up - Rodney would stroke her pale blonde hair back from her forehead and whisper nonsense words until she fell back asleep.
Four days after his seventh birthday, Rodney’s mother didn’t pick him up from his music lesson.
He’d been waiting there - huddled in his coat on the steps of the Music Center with a knot in his stomach - for almost two hours when his father showed up. His father’s face was pale and drawn, deep lines etched across his forehead. Rodney knew instantly that something was terribly, horribly wrong, and the knot in his stomach tightened.
Rodney rubbed his hands up and down his arms to chase away the chills. He hated how his voice sounded when he spoke, the way his words broke. “I thought Mother was going to pick me up.”
His father flexed his hands against the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road as he drove them home. “Your mother is gone and she took Jeannie with her. Now, I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
That night, Rodney pulled the covers over his head and cried until no more tears would come.
Sometime before dawn, Rodney crept downstairs and fumbled through the photo album with shaking hands. He found the picture - the one with his smiling mother - and ripped it up. He hid the pieces in the bottom of the kitchen garbage can.
He never went into the nursery again.
+++
Rodney got his first letter from Jeannie a few days after his fifteenth birthday.
It was hand-written in purple ink on wide-ruled notebook paper, all loopy swirls and I’s dotted with smiley faces. The return address was some place in Minnesota.
Dear Rodney,
My name is Jeannie. I don’t remember you, but mom says you were a good brother. She says you might not want to hear from me, but I told her she was wrong!!! She says you’re already in college because you’re so smart. I guess I got the looks in the family. (Ha ha ha!) Just kidding. (not!)
Anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Here’s a picture for you. I want a picture of you too.
Love,
Jeannie
The picture enclosed with the letter showed a skinny girl with enormous blue eyes and a mop of curly blonde hair. It looked like it had been taken mid-giggle; her mouth was curved in a crooked smile and there was a deep dimple in her right cheek.
Rodney studied the picture for a long time, looking for some clue, some reason why his sister had contacted him. For a moment, he considered writing back, but then something that felt suspiciously like tears made his eyes sting.
Before he could change his mind, he tore the letter up. She was probably just planning ahead in case she ever needed a kidney.
He tucked the picture into the bottom drawer of his desk.
+++
The letters came like clockwork after that. One a month, all written in a childish scrawl. The content varied, sometimes it was a paragraph of Boys are dumb! Bobby Franklin pushed me down at recess and then he kissed me. That’s okay though because I poured water in his backpack. Other times he got page after page of I’m never writing you again!!! Don’t you have any manners? I HATE YOU!!! Sometimes the letters weren’t letters at all, but hand-drawn pictures of unicorns, castles, something called a garbage pail kid and other things that a pre-teen girl found fascinating.
Rodney told himself that he didn’t care about Jeannie and her stupid letters. But when he left college for grad school a year and a half later, he sent his first response.
Dear Jeannie,
I am terribly busy and I probably won’t have time to read any of your letters. I’m starting graduate studies at Northwestern University next month.
I wish you the best of luck in the future.
Sincerely,
Rodney McKay
PS: Next time use Pepsi instead of water when you deface someone’s backpack. It’s more difficult to clean up.
Rodney didn’t mean to put his new address on the envelope. (Mostly.)
+++
By the time Rodney went to work for the Stargate program Jeannie’s letters took up most of one desk drawer. He had a small photo album full of pictures: Jeannie as an awkward thirteen-year-old with braces, Jeannie propped up against a beat-up Volkswagen bug on her sixteenth birthday, Jeannie wearing too much make-up and poufy hair, Jeannie in a hot pink prom dress on the arm of a sullen teenage boy (definitely not Bobby Franklin), Jeannie in her cap and gown, proudly displaying her high school diploma.
He’d written her a handful of letters in return - mostly terse missives telling her when he was moving from one address to the next. Never more than one or two personal comments except for the five-page letter he’d felt compelled to write when he found out she was majoring in English. (Waste of time.) Even that consisted mostly of statistics regarding the obvious uselessness of her liberal arts education. He’d included a picture of his cat with that one.
Jeannie’s college letters were full of details about professors she hated (Dr. Berenstein especially), classes she loved (Renaissance poetry), and questions about Rodney’s life (if you have one outside of work - ha ha ha!). There was a boy, Peter somebody, that broke her heart and then the boy who came afterward. Oh, and there was Tiffany. (but hey, this is the time in my life when I’m supposed to experiment, right?) and finally THE BOY, Paul Thompson, pre-law.
Then came the letter announcing Jeannie’s intention to quit college and get married.
Rodney had nearly shown up on her doorstep after than one. He had actually bought a plane ticket and packed an overnight bag. He’d been on his way to the airport when he got the call from the SGC, something about an alien trapped in the Stargate.
By the time he got her next letter (because even though he’d managed to give her his new address, mail wasn’t a big priority in Siberia) it was too late. She was Mrs. Jeannie Thompson, and, oh, by the way, the baby was due in a little less than four months. She was radiant in the picture, her hand caressing the beginning curve of her belly.
After Siberia came McMurdo, and the first letter Rodney got there had a picture of a scrunched up, red-faced infant, Robert Thompson, Jr.
The letters got sporadic after that, and Rodney didn’t mind (much) because he was at a genuine Ancient outpost. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d really formed any sort of meaningful relationship with his sister.
He’d been at McMurdo for nearly six months when he got the next letter. No picture this time, just a single paragraph telling him Things aren’t working out so well right now. Robbie cries a lot and Paul says he can’t study. How’s Antarctica?.
When the mission to Atlantis was announced, Rodney sent her a postcard with a picture of a polar bear. He’d be out of touch for a while (possibly forever) and he wished her the best of luck. Oh, and by the way, he’d set up a trust fund for Robbie. She’d get some paperwork from his attorney. Best wishes.
He took the pictures and letters to Atlantis.
+++
Rodney stared at the video recorder. He’d rambled on for nearly an hour and he still hadn’t gotten to the really important part.
“My sister. Ford, if you cut everything else, just, um, keep this part, OK? Jeannie? This is your brother, Rodney ... obviously! I wanna s-say, um ... I wanna say something. Uh ... family is important. I-I’ve come to realize that because the people here have become a sort of a ... kind of a surrogate family to me.”
He paused for a moment, then smiled at the camera.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking: I’ve never really been the poster child for that kind of sentiment but, uh, when ... when one’s contemplating ones own demise, one tends to see things more clearly. I really do wish you the best, you know, and I’m sorry we weren’t closer. Perhaps, um ... if by chance I make it out of this, perhaps one day we can be, and I would like that.“
He took a deep breath and lifted his chin. “Now - if there’s time, I’d like to go back to, uh, the subject of leadership.”
THE END