Insight
Rating: G
Pairing: Rodney/Teyla (McKeyla? if not then it so should be)
Notes: Whilst writing another, longer piece in the same pairing this appeared like a hairball. Posting in the hope of calling others to rally round the McKeyla flag.
Seriously, rare!het is like the slash of this fandom - few, far between and oddly, oddly right in ways you never expected
And maybe this is how this starts...
- - -
Rodney leaves the party because:
(a) he’s never liked birthday parties since fifth grade and the whole Jell-O fiasco
(b) a cretin, marine-cretin-person has found Ford’s old camera and is using it and the last thing that party needs is to see him *shove it in the man’s face*
(c) since when does Teyla have the right to be 30 anyway? Why is anyone younger than him? Why isn’t he the bright young genius anymore and where did it go?
He goes to the balcony down the corridor and there is Teyla herself. Noticeably not at the party.
Noticeably crying. Like, not crying ‘oh I’m so touched’ or ‘oh I’m so drunk’ but open-faced, full frontal weeping at the sky.
Which is weird and wrong and like walking in on her naked only with no good sides at all.
She’s heard him and it’s too late to walk away.
She doesn’t look embarrassed or scared.
“It is just” she says, evenly enough, “I never thought I’d live this long. I don’t know what comes next.”
He blushes and turns away, mutters something and leaves. Half a step away he clenches his fist and turns back again.
This time she doesn’t acknowledge him. It occurs to him that maybe she’s scared. Which is just, like, like pi turning out to be a whole number. The universe just doesn’t *work* like that.
Rodney sits on the ground, prepared to wait because he has no idea what to do.
He wants to do something, not least because:
(a) his whole entire *reality* just shifted
(b) he’s on the other side of the wall, seeing her more clearly and he knows, in his gut, he’s the only one who’s got here
(c) he’s only just realised that she’s lonely, maybe even more than he is
The sun starts to set. When the light is almost gone, maybe one am, he wakes and finds she’s leaning against him.