Stargate:Atlantis A/U Fic: The Education of Little Bear (11/12, part 2)
Title: The Education of Little Bear
Author: Negolith2
Rating: PG-13
Category: Alternate Universe
Word Count/This Chapter: 7,800
Warnings: None, really, just some cussing, can't help it.
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, not for profit, blah blah blah copywrite cakes.
Summary: The sequel to 'Untamed'. Really. Since I've been sticking close to canon, this is the simple story of how Dr. M. Rodney McKay, Ph.D., Ph.D., gets the Pretender gene.
Author's Note: See, I'm not dead! I just, um, smell that way.... =^.^=
XI: part 2
They sat on the floor and took their time with their snack - Rodney wasn’t nearly as famished this time as he was last, mainly because he was able to keep dinner down before changing. No, Changing, capital “C”. That was already set in his mind, but he swore a silent oath to Einstein that he would never, ever use air quotes when saying the word. He brushed crumbs from his shirt as he stood, which his shoulders surprisingly filled out nicely with just a little extra room to spare, and noticed the hem rode higher than before. “Oh, hey - didn’t notice my torso got longer before."
“Yeah, that’s what makes your legs looks shorter than they really are.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Don’t mention it.” John brushed crumbs off his own shirt as he hopped to his feet. “So, ready for a little hide and seek, vargyr style?”
Rodney narrowed his eyes and grimaced, and had no idea how mean it made him look. “’Vargyr style’?”
“Yup.” John tapped his nose. “You use this more than your eyes.” He practically bounced to the exit. “So, c’mon. Everyone’s waiting.”
Rodney shuffled along, completely self conscious of his new gait. “Jesus, I really do walk like a lame penguin,” he grumbled to himself. “And who is ‘everyone’?”
“Oh, the whole crew - Carson, Teyla, Keller, Ronon, Lorne, Zelenka, Elizabeth, Caldwell…. They’re in the greenhouse, waiting for us.”
“Caldwell is playing along?”
John nodded. “I think he called it ‘morbid curiosity’.”
Rodney snorted. “I think he’s doing it because Elizabeth is going to be there. Have you noticed….”
“Yeah. Personally, I think that’s why she’s been smiling again.”
Rodney nodded. “So, we’re basically going to waste the night with me playing McGruff the Crime Dog.”
“Well, when you put it that way….”
“How am I going to tell who’s who? Huh? I don’t have a freakin’ clue, and I certainly haven’t gone around and, well, sniffed any of them.” He paused. “I’m pretty sure I can find Zelenka, no problem. He’s been eating kimchi like it’s going to be banned.”
“I know,” John muttered. “It’s … scary. But don’t worry - you may consciously think you don’t know your friend’s scents, but you’ve been around them since you recovered from your initial bite. I wouldn’t be surprised if your inner Yogi already knows their scents like you know their faces.”
“So, how do you, um, recognize people?”
For a few steps the only sound in the hall was the clicking of their respective claws. Then John stopped and glowered at Rodney. “I really wish you’d quit asking me these things and making me think about them.”
“Well, I’m sorry! But I’m brand new to this crap, and a scientist.” He snapped his fingers. “I need data!”
John held up his hands. “Sorry. I’ve just taken this stuff for granted for so long, it’s, well, weird trying to put things into words.” He settled one hand on his hip and scratched at his chin with the other as he thought. “Okay, how to put it - scents to me invoke both images and, well, feelings. Everybody has a base scent, the one thing that identifies them as, ah, them. It’s a combinations of a lot of things - their sweat, skin oils, um, diet, hormones, pheromones….”
Rodney raised his eyebrows. “Pheremones? I’m not going to, say, catch a whiff of somebody’s perfume and start humping their leg, am I?”
John let out a short bark of laughter that sounded an awful lot like a cough. “Oh, God, the image….” He shook his head. “No. You’re not, but you are going to notice a very big difference between natural ones and artificial ones - the fake ones have a definite chemical tang. Now, where was I? Oh, images. All those things combine for me and I associate things I know with the scent and kind of link it all together with the person. For example, ah, Dr. Espinoza. Her normal scent always reminds me of sunflowers and warmth and, ah, well, lazy afternoons lying in the sun.”
Rodney’s eyebrows went up again. “All that, huh?” When John glowered at him, he snorted. “Don’t forget the mint.”
“See, your brain is already processing this stuff. And that’s soap, by the way - she’s told me that much.” John rubbed his neck and shrugged.
“Okay, I see what you’re getting at. It’s pretty much just simple … association learned by rote.”
John nodded. “Yeah, that sums it up.”
“Huh.” He started walking again, his head down as he thought. “Yesterday when I was waiting for you and Teyla to come back with dinner, I sort of made an analogy regarding your, ah, scent.”
“And?”
“It made me think of clean cotton sheets that have been hanging on a clothes line to dry in the summer sun. With a hint of tom cat.” John let out that hoarse laugh again, and Rodney grinned crookedly. “You’re not coughing up a hairball, are you?”
John flipped him off.
Rodney snorted. “So, what do I smell like to you?”
“Well, right now - sawdust and Fritos.”
Now it was Rodney’s turn to stop dead in the middle of the hallway. “Hey, I was nice to you!”
“That’s your bear scent, Rodney. Your normal scent … you always make me think of brand new electronics. It’s this, this charged smell, like ozone and….” John’s hands came up as he fished for words. “…You’re like a walking battery. You just, well, crackle.” Now his hands flopped down in frustration. “That the easiest way I can describe it.” The corner of his mouth rose impishly. “You’re indescribable, buddy.”
“But in a good way, I take it.”
“Scent wise, yeah. Personality wise, that’s up to interpretation.”
Now it was Rodney’s turn to flip off John.
They were both snickering as they rounded the last corner, and when the door opened they were still grinning. A second later Rodney’s face screwed up and he stopped just a few feet into the entryway. He let out an impressive sneeze. “What is that God awful smell?”
“Fertilizer,” John supplied.
“Rodney?”
Both men whirled at the voice and saw Dr. Katie Brown standing in the door to her office, her hands up to her mouth. Her normally sad looking blue eyes were wide in pure surprise. Rodney did his little head shake/waggle. “Um, hi, Katie.”
“Oh my God! It really is you!”
Rodney grimaced, his nose going a little pink. “Yeah. The outside changed, but I’m still the same up here.” He tapped his temple, then instantly flinched and went ow - he forgot about the claws. Katie let out a surprised little giggle as he rubbed his head, and he grimaced sheepishly.
She shook her head. “You look, look ….” That was all she could get out.
“Thanks,” he mumbled. The buzz of wings filled the air, and a second later he was flinching away from twin trails of sparkling dust as the greenhouse’s resident pixies circled him. Personally, he didn’t understand why everybody ooh’d and aah’d over them - as far as he was concerned, they were nothing more than glorified bugs that could talk. And that dust? It should come with a biohazard warning. He remembered what Ronon looked like after he got hit in the eyes with the stuff.
One of the buzzing vermin suddenly stopped and hovered about three feet from him. It was the female, Ira, and she held her hands up to her mouth just like Katie did a moment ago. “Dr. McKay?” she said. Then she clapped and let out a joyful squeal that surely broke glass somewhere. It certainly made Rodney flinch. “You look magnificent!”
Okay, maybe they weren’t so bad after all.
She made another quick circle. “What are you?”
He slumped a tad. “I’m a werebear.”
“You don’t look like any werebear I’ve ever seen, and I know Vin Diesel personally.”
Rodney turned to look at Ira’s mate, Ifan. He was standing on Sheppard’s shoulder, his arms on his hips, and with his dandelion puff of short black hair, he resembled a mini-Sheppard, with pointier ears. He’d never really noticed that before. He was going to snap something sarcastic back, but all that came out was, “You know Vin Diesel?”
“Trust me, Shorty, he’s a werebear,” John said.
“Really? What clan - Ursus Fuglicanus?”
“Why you little….” Rodney lunged forward, but even with his new inhumanly fast reflexes, his hands closed on empty air as Ifan shot straight upwards, laughing.
“Rodney!”
“Ifan!”
Both of them whirled and stared at the two women - one stood with her arms crossed, the other floated in midair, hands on hips and dust practically pouring off of her in a sparkly cascade.
John was trying really hard not to laugh.
“No hurting my staff,” Katie said.
“And you behave,” Ira said.
Ifan bowed his head. “Yes, luv.”
“Your staff?” Rodney blurted.
“Yes, my staff. They perform very important duties here, help keep things healthy, so yes, they are part of my staff.” She looked at John. “And I’m trusting you and the rest to respect this place tonight.”
“We will,” John choked out. “Thank you for letting us do this here.”
Katie nodded, then pointed at him. “No climbing trees. I mean it. Your claws are rough on the bark.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right, then.” Katie’s grin came back as she looked at Rodney. “The only other staff here tonight are working in the labs, so you have the place to yourselves. Have fun!” She ducked back into her office to retrieve her laptop and left them.
John glanced up at the pixies. “You want to join us?”
“Thank you, but no, my prince,” Ira replied. “But we will be on call for the lights when you’re done.”
“Yeah, we’re just going to hang and heckle,” Ifan added. Then said ow as Ira smacked him.
“Okay. That’s cool.”
Rodney didn’t hide his sigh of relief, and it came out with a bit of a low, grumbling sub-vocalization. Then he did a double take. “Whoa, lights?”
“Oh, did I forget to tell you? This whole exercise is going to be in the dark.”
“No, you neglected that little piece.”
“Oh. Sorry.” John waved at the pixies. “Okay, kill ‘em.”
Ifan snapped to attention and gave John a salute. “Yes, sir!” Then he and Ira were gone in a clatter of dragonfly wings and gold glitter.
John looked at Rodney. “Everyone is spread out on the ground floor here, and I’m going to give you bonus points if you can find Teyla since she smells like this place.”
Rodney sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “Like wet manure?”
John caught something sailing through the air a second before it bounced off the top of Rodney’s head. Rodney yelled ow and both hands went up just as his non-existent neck shrank down even more. “He didn’t mean it, Teyla!” John yelled in the direction the - he glanced down - unripe plum had come from.
“I didn’t!” Rodney yelled, too. “She does smell like a garden, now that I think about it,” he added quietly.
The lights went out.
The greenhouse didn’t plunge into total darkness like Rodney expected - the lights were set at a level equivalent to light from a full moon. Night mode, apparently. And he was amazed that he could still see things clearly. “Oh, wow - you didn’t tell me I was going to be able to see in ….” He glanced around and found he was completely alone. “…The dark. Hey!”
“Start sniffing,” came John’s voice from the heavy plant growth to his left.
Rodney growled, picked up the plum, and threw it roughly in that direction.
“Missed!” Then came some rustling followed by silence.
Rodney glanced around. It was eerily quiet in the greenhouse - there should be crickets or frogs or something. He did hear the pixies buzz overhead and caught a glimpse of their glittering dust trails as they headed up to a skybox seat on one of the catwalks. “Hide and seek,” Rodney grumbled under his breath. “What are we, five-year-olds?” Since Sheppard had been the last person he was around he decided to try to follow his scent first. Should be a piece of cake. He, and he really couldn’t believe he was doing it, lifted his head a touch and started sniffing the air. Manure was still the main thing he could smell, but after a moment he did catch whiff of … cat. Actually, what seemed to run through his head was a jumble of Sheppardcatfriendfoehiderunfight. Rodney shook his head. It happened so fast, and he knew, somehow, that his inner Yogi was pretty much responsible for the whole thing. And scared spitless of the guy. “Whoa,” he whispered. “That’s weird.” He shrugged. “Not half as weird as this, however.”
He followed Sheppard’s trail down the left hand path before it veered into the neatly tended foliage. He stood there and debated a moment if he should follow, so he leaned forward and got his face in amongst the plants and sniffed. Then he saw the flagstones. “Okay, so Katie won’t kill me after all,” he said and carefully pushed plants aside as he stepped up onto the raised bed. He was amazed at the numbers of little pathways the deeper he got, and how easy it was to follow the trace Sheppard left behind on the undergrowth. But then, probably fifteen minutes later, he realized he was being led in circles. “Asshole!” he called out, and somewhere in the distance he heard that weird coughing laugh.
He was working his way back out to the main stone pathway, grumbling under his breath about smart-asses, when something new caught his nose. He froze and sniffed, his head turning this way and that. He was filtering out the manure smell now, and what he was picking up reminded him of, of Old Spice, Juicy Fruit gum, and…. Sniff. Cabbage? No, no … brussels sprouts. Over cooked brussels sprouts, just like what his mother made him and Jeannie eat. All. The. Time. Gyah, he still couldn’t even stand the sight of the despicable things. He followed the new scent, faint nausea riding at the back of his throat, and not even thirty seconds later came across Caldwell sitting behind a giant fern looking thing. Both men yelled in surprise - well, Caldwell yelled, Rodney let out an odd, practically dog-like yelp - and held hands to their chests.
“Jesus!” Caldwell said as he pulled his hand away. A second later a mini maglight flashed on and blinded Rodney. “Oh, it’s you.”
Rodney had a hand up to shield his eyes. “Yeah, happy to see you, to, Colonel.”
“Everything all right down there?”
Caldwell shone the light upwards and they saw John in the branches above them. Well, they saw his eyes, anyways.
“Hey, you’re supposed to stay out of the trees!” Rodney snapped back.
John just chuffed and disappeared. They heard a faint thump a second later.
“Good, looks like I’m out,” Caldwell said as he stood up and brushed the seat of his pants off. “Enjoy yourself, Yogi.” With flashlight in hand, Caldwell started following flagstones back to the main path.
“Yeah, I will, Col. Cabbage,” Rodney replied under his breath.
And, quite honestly, with his first victory achieved so quickly, he was starting to have a little fun. Of course he wasn’t about to admit it.
He decided to stay on the path that wove through the center of the beds for the moment, and every once in awhile he’d straighten up and sniff the moving air above the plants. He was two thirds of the way down the side of the huge place, and starting to get frustrated - especially since Sheppard was making things hell and apparently just running all over the damn place - when he finally caught something new.
And it smelled really, really good, like, like … a bakery and twelve-year-old whiskey. Gotta be Carson, he thought and followed the scent. He wove around and through two different beds, even crossing the main path once and coming across another of John’s trails and somebody else’s, and somewhere near the wall found…. “Jennifer?”
She snapped a penlight on, but was kind enough not to shine it directly in his face. “Hey, Rodney! Damn, you did good! I thought for sure I zigged and zagged enough to throw you off.”
Rodney grinned smugly. “Nope.” Something bounced off his head.
“Don’t get cocky,” filtered down from above.
Rodney looked but couldn’t see anything, even with the faint light from Keller’s penlight. “I’m telling Katie you’re climbing the trees.”
A very wet raspberry came from somewhere above.
Keller was giggling as she got up. “He told you.”
“Har har.”
“See you up front when it’s all done. We brought treats.” She started down a path, stopped, shone the light around, then backtracked. “I came in this way,” she said sheepishly. “I remember that weird flower.”
Rodney waited a moment before following her. Her new wave of scent almost overpowered the faint one he caught before - it was swampy, musky, and made his inner bear raise its hackles - and this time he knew for a certain who it was. He followed it to a tree, and for a second almost panicked because it was an orange tree, and looked up. “Hi, Shrek. Figured you wouldn’t be far from Jennifer.”
Ronon grunted and dropped down. He was wearing night vision goggles, and underneath those his shit-eating grin practically glowed in Rodney’s own were-enhanced night vision. Ronon thumped Rodney on the back, hard, and for once Rodney actually stayed upright. “See you later. I brought beer.” He pointed a finger at him. “Nice shirt.” Then he was trotting off through the undergrowth.
“What kind of beer?” Rodney called after him.
“Good beer.”
Rodney snorted and decided to head out back onto the main path again. He was nearing the last curve that passed the back wall when he got his next hit, and of all the scents he’d picked up so far, this was the first one that didn’t bring up any images of any kind. Instead it was simply a feeling, a sense of all encompassing comfort and warmth. He blinked as, for a brief moment, he felt a lump in the back of his throat and his eyes get warm. Even the bear in him seemed taken and, well, peaceful. He veered off the path, and not even ten feet in found Carson.
“Bloidy hell!” Carson yelled when he suddenly found himself in a hairy, warm, and literal bear hug. He cautiously patted Rodney’s now very broad back. “Um, Rodney? I’m having trouble breathing….”
Rodney let go and sniffed. It sounded a little wet. “Um, sorry. I just, ah, was, um, glad to find you.” He could see Carson squinting at him oddly. “Well, um, four down, four to go.” He shuffled off on his stubby legs. “See you up front.” He heard Carson’s somewhat befuddled okay drift back to him.
He was in such a hurry he about gave himself whiplash when he caught a wave of, well, a thunderstorm on a hot summer night. He wandered into the beds in the center of the greenhouse, and when he heard a soft startled intake of breath he gently called out, “It’s just me, Elizabeth.” Cool, he thought. I think I’m getting the hang of this.
There was a soft, somewhat embarrassed giggle. “Sorry, Rodney - I’m still a little jumpy.”
Rodney rounded a bend in the narrow path and found her sitting on a flagstone. “Understandable.” He saw she was wearing a ball cap with an REI logo and a little headlamp attached to it, her hair in a pony tail sticking out of the back. After she turned it on he held out a paw. “Can I walk you back to the path?”
She accepted it with a smile. “Why, thank you. I’d appreciate it.”
He ignored the really soft snort from somewhere off to his right, and that made him decide to escort her all the way up to the front entrance and the labs.
On the way back he just stopped in the middle of the path and put his paws on his hips. “All right, Radek, you just might as well come out - I caught your reek earlier, and let me tell you, a leper could sniff you out. Good God, man - how much kimchi have you eaten? It’s, like, pouring off of you, leaking out of your pores and forming a, a miasmic cloud of … nasty!”
“A … lot?” Zelenka said as he came out of hiding. “And I did shower before I came here. You are just too sensitive. Always too sensitive,” he muttered as he wandered off, a small maglight helping him find his way.
Rodney still wasn’t sure what Zelenka’s normal scent was.
He wandered for twenty minutes, his frustration growing by the minute, before his bear actually caught the next one. One moment he was wandering through plants, his stance low and at times even walking along on all fours in some spots, and the next he was standing bolt upright, the hair along his neck, shoulders, and spine standing straight up, or trying to under the t-shirt, and he was growling. DANGER his inner bear screamed, and Rodney bared his teeth as his head swiveled from side to side. His rational brain registered the scent and linked it with hot copper, but his animal brain was getting ready to attack.
Something dropped down behind him and he whirled.
John was standing there, slightly hunched, legs looking like he was ready to launch himself right at Rodney, and claws extended. “McKay….” he growled out. “Get a grip.”
Rodney could feel the bear in him flinch, but not back down. He was so shocked at its defiance it took enough control to make him take a step forward and roar.
John took a step forward and answered with a roar of his own.
The sound seemed to vibrate its way through Rodney, and like in the infirmary just that morning, he found himself cowering and offering his throat. “Got it! Grip! Have it now!” he blurted out the second the bear retreated.
“Whoa! Hey - what the hell?” Lorne suddenly popped up from a spot deeper in the plants. He had a pair of night vision goggles, too, and his head was tracking back and forth between Rodney and Sheppard like they were playing tennis and not just standing there. He caught John waving him to stay put, and he did.
The sound of running footsteps on stone came from the direction of the main path, shortly followed by Caldwell’s sharp voice. “Everything all right back there?” Lights flickered between plants like mutant megawatt fireflies, but they didn’t advance.
John stepped closer to Rodney. He cocked his head and his teeth were showing when he sniffed the air a few times. “Yeah, it is,” he called back, his eyes never leaving Rodney. Then, in a much quieter tone, “Teyla, is it?”
“Yes, the spirit has retreated.”
Rodney spun back around and jumped when he saw Teyla within an arm’s reach of him. His heart was hammering so hard he was starting to get a headache, but she smiled reassuringly at him and he let out an explosive sigh of relief. He jumped when John suddenly let out a short, sharp whistle, which was answered from above by two sharp chirps.
“Lights will be on in a minute,” John said, his voice not sounding nearly as, well, feral as it did just moments before. “What happened, Rodney?”
“Umm….” Rodney had to sit down - for short stubby legs, they felt pretty damn wobbly and unstable right then. “I picked up Lorne’s scent, and, and … Yogi just went ballistic.” He caught what he could only describe as an indignant twinge in the back of his head. “I don’t know why.”
Lorne cautiously came out of the foliage at John’s beckon. “What’s it doing now?”
“Sulking.”
“Huh.”
Rodney looked up at Lorne, who was now only a few feet away. He was in camouflage, and when Rodney leaned forward a fraction and sniffed, the guy actually flinched. He was still picking up the hot copper smell, but it was just secondary to an almost, well, snow scent - cold, crisp, clean, refreshing snow, his mind translated, pure and simple.
The lights came up, and everyone present flinched and covered eyes. Lorne pulled the goggled down around his neck and blinked a few times. “On that note,” he said, his voice completely calm, “I think it’s time for beer.”
“Good idea,” Rodney muttered, and a second later felt the bear in the back of his head perk up. Oh, you know what beer is, do you? Well, after that little display, I don’t think I should let you have any. The whiney twinge he felt was truly pitiful.
They all adjourned to the small conference room next to Katie’s office where a couple cold packs and some chips and popcorn waited. Everyone was a bit cautious at first, but after the first round things quit being so stiff, and when Rodney decided to lighten the mood by seeing if he could catch popcorn on his long, floppy tongue, things perked up considerably. By the second round John was tossing popcorn at him, Rodney was snapping it up like a freakishly hairy chameleon, and Keller coined them Jake and Elwood. After his third beer he felt the bear in his head grumble contentedly and curl up, and a second later he realized just how damn tired he was as well.
He slept in his own quarters that night, a watch-cat and a watch-elf sacked out in the living room just in case….
Next chapter.
End Note: I promise not to go six weeks before posting the final chapter. My blood sugar levels are normal again, my detaching retina has been laser dammed back in place, and things are FINALLY going good again. Yay!