[Backdated; for Carter]

[scientificsnark]

Rodney missed distractions. Granted, the kind of distractions he'd had to deal with on Atlantis had been of the mortal danger variety, and he didn't much enjoy those. But...he could have done with just one impossible problem to solve, just one deadly situation to get out of, because the alternative was thinking about his current circumstance and he

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[gate_expert]

"Hey there, McKay," Sam said as she walked by. "What are you doing sneaking around like that?" Not that Rodney really needed a reason; it was his hut and he could do whatever, but Sam liked to give him a hard time now and then, since she wasn't his boss anymore and she totally could.

[scientificsnark]

"Gah!" He whirled around, expecting to see Jill, but Jill didn't call him McKay anymore. It was only Samantha, and she hadn't started off by yelling at him, so maybe he was safe. He sagged. "Don't - don't do that! You could have given me a heart attack."

[gate_expert]

"Whoa, somebody's jumpy." She took a little step back and eyed him. "I just said 'hey', I didn't jump out from behind a bush dressed like a Wraith or a clown or something. Calm down."

[scientificsnark]

"You might as well have," Rodney grumbled. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

[gate_expert]

"Looking for you, actually," she replied. "Haven't seen you much lately." She'd been working on the call box project too, but in a different area, and when she'd looked for him to ask some questions about her other work he'd been kind of scarce. She'd been both annoyed and worried. "What's up with the slinking around, McKay?"

[scientificsnark]

So Jill hadn't told her. Rodney wasn't sure whether to be glad about that or not.

"Nothing," he said hurriedly. "That is - I mean - nothing, nothing's going on, everything's fine." He wasn't even convincing himself at this point.

[gate_expert]

Sam frowned. She'd known him long enough to know when he was being shifty, when he was being uncomfortable, or both. "Rodney, you really suck at lying," she said, a little less teasing and a little more concerned. "Something going on with you?"

[scientificsnark]

Rodney frowned. She was going to get it out of him, he just knew it, and then the midden was going to hit the windmill, as the saying went.

"No," he said. Compulsion forced him to add: "Not with me, exactly."

[gate_expert]

Now that was a surprise. She had expected that he would either deny anything was going on or refuse to talk about it; if he was admitting something was up, then it must be something big that he couldn't hide.

"You want to talk about it?" she asked, not teasing anymore. Despite the fact that she usually gave McKay a lot of hell, she actually had grown to like him a lot. If something was up with him, she was worried.

[scientificsnark]

"Nooot really," Rodney admitted. "I mean, I don't see how talking about it is going to help." He sat down heavily on the step by his back door, rubbing a palm across his face.

[gate_expert]

Well, crap. That couldn't be good. Sam sat down beside him, nudging him with her elbow. "Maybe it won't help whatever it is, but it might help you feel a little better about things, or help you decide what to do about it," she suggested.

[scientificsnark]

"There's nothing I can do," he said whinily. "That's the problem." He ran his restless hand through his hair and rubbed at the back of his neck. He was trying not to get annoyed, really he was, but it was Samantha's fault for bringing it up. Well. Trying to bring it up. Not that she knew what it was, but still. She shouldn't have asked him.

Yeah. It was her fault. Totally her fault.

[gate_expert]

"Oh, come on, McKay," Sam said. "When have you ever had a problem you couldn't do anything about?" Besides getting off this island, of course. True, she hadn't thought much of him when they'd first met, but he'd mellowed a little bit (a little) and despite his kind of strange personality she'd come to appreciate him; he was one of the smartest people she knew. If there was a problem, he'd be able to sort it out.

[scientificsnark]

She wasn't making him feel any better, either. Rodney groaned.

It was amazing how quickly he could go from terse and uncommunicative to openly whiny. Just one of his many talents.

"This is the first," he admitted after a long silence, and when he finally looked at Samantha, it was with a grave expression.

[gate_expert]

Rodney looked so serious and defeated that Sam got a terrible, depressing feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Oh, my God, McKay," she said. "Are you dying or something? No, wait, you said it wasn't you--oh God, is it Jill? What's wrong with her?" She hadn't disappeared, Jack was just talking about her the day he'd stolen her laundry, so it couldn't be that, but she couldn't think of anything that would bug Rodney more (other than some tragedy happening to him) than something serious going on with Jill.

[scientificsnark]

Sighing, Rodney did the palm-to-face thing again. Then he said, quite simply:

"She's pregnant."

And then he winced, as if waiting for the blow to fall.