Visiting Hours by Hestia Lacey (Family Challenge)
Title: Visiting Hours
Author: hestia_lacey
Rating: G
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard and maybe Ronon/Teyla, but only with the right reading glasses on.
Disclaimer: I lay claim only to the mistakes and nothing else.
Spoilers: For season four, particularly the second part of the season.
1.
The dawn light slides silent, pink-gold and amber, through the parted curtains at Teyla’s window, pooling bright copper on the floor and reaching soft fingers of light across her bed, wrapping warm and gentle around her limbs. The sunrise embraces her as she sleeps, curled on her side, hair bronze-gilt where the rising sun catches the strands.
Her whole body is turned towards the cradle where her son lies sleeping; his tiny fist grips her index finger where her hand lies alongside his newborn body, her arm outstretched and resting on the lintel between the bars. Ronon can see from the doorway the way Teyla’s fingers move, up and down, as her son breathes, and smiles at the picture they make.
Soundless, in practiced silence, Ronon crosses the room and kneels down between the bed and the cradle, between resting mother and slumbering son. This close, he can look down at the sleeping child and take time to marvel at the perfect rosebud of his mouth, stroke a careful finger across the downy black hair at his brow and measure his hands, the cushiony pads just about big enough to hold his fingertip, should he press it there.
Ronon can hear him breathe, a steady, miraculous sound. Before, before everything, Ronon would visit his mother at the hospital where she worked and spend hours with her and her patients, glowing mothers with beautiful new children. That so small and delicate a thing, so vulnerable and soft could exist, could be here at all, and grow and be strong in such adversity, was hope to him, a miracle. Looking down into the sleeping face of Teyla’s son, Ronon thinks he can feel that hope again, a foreign sensation hot behind his eyes and burning in his throat.
Next to him, the wind stirs the glimmering strands of Teyla’s hair. Through the open window, he hears the shush of the ocean against the tower base far below. He turns, pulls the blanket up around her bare shoulders, and presses a soft kiss to her temple, moves the stray strands back.
As he leaves, the door hushes shut and Ronon sinks down to the ground in front of it, leans his head back, breathes deeply, and begins his watch.
2.
The first truly significant lesson Rodney McKay ever learned was one that didn't mean all that much to him until right now: here, with Teyla, radiant and blissful in exhaustion, gently cradling her son, as perfectly formed and beautiful as his mother, all warm, sweet-soft and soft-breathing.
When Rodney was born, his mother cried. Only not from joy, like Teyla did, happy tears streaking silver down her flushed cheeks, but in despair. They were bitter tears, full of regret and grief for a life lost to a careless mistake.
By the time he was four years old, Rodney knew his worth: none at all. An unwanted hindrance, a troublesomely bright, problematically clever child who incurred more cost than his value: her youth, her marriage, her work, her money, all expenditures that outweighed any profit she could possibly ever gain from him. Unwanted, waste.
On his seventh birthday when all he received was a back-hand from his mother when he asked about her slight baby-swell, Rodney learned that family has very little to do with blood; that parents don’t always love their children, that love isn’t always there, isn’t guaranteed.
Family has very little to do with blood, Rodney knows this and understands it. John, Ronon, Teyla, they’re family. Elizabeth, he thinks with a pang, Carson, Ford. Yes, he knows family now. But cradling Teyla’s impossibly small son in his suddenly over-large arms, somehow, brings it all together in a way he hasn’t thought about before. The unknowably precious weight of his soft skull in the palm of Rodney’s hand, the unexpectedly strong heartbeat he can feel pulsing strong against his own… it’s a revelation. Rodney McKay doesn’t do sentiment like this, honestly, but this baby boy, he’s a gift, of trust and love, and, and, family, and Rodney knows, like it’s a physical law, that love will always be there for this little child.
Rodney thinks of Jeannie and Madison, of Caleb and thinks, maybe, he understands it all now.
3.
John watches from the doorway as Teyla passes her son to Rodney, slowly and carefully shifting him from her arms into his. Rodney listens to her murmured words, observes her, conscientiously copies her hold; he supports the baby’s frighteningly fragile head with a strong palm, cradles the startlingly small body close to his own broad chest. A few moments then Rodney smiles, soft and awed, then bright and clear, just like he does when he truly understands, when he has the solution. Teyla looks on, beaming and proud, laughing softly with Rodney, and John would like to take this moment and lock it away inside himself, something to hang on to when he needs to stop it all falling away.
Teyla is home, is safe with her beautiful son and Rodney looks so happy, alight with it like John hasn’t seen for a long time. The delight in his eyes is a shade of blue that makes John ache.
“You goin’ in?” Ronon’s voice, a deep, unexpected whisper behind him makes John jump. Teyla and Rodney look up from the baby, surprised.
“John!” Teyla exclaims, and reaches up to him from her bed. John hurries over to her, not wanting her to over-exert herself.
“How long were you standing there?” Rodney asks, purposefully quiet, but John doesn’t answer, instead pulling Teyla into his chest and stroking a hand through her sleep-sticky hair.
“Hey.” He says, grinning, breathing in the spice-incense scent of her he hadn’t realised was missing and missed.
“Hello,” she grins back, hand resting on his arm, squeezing. I’m here.
Ronon has moved around to peer over Rodney’s shoulder, down at the little body snuggled there. He dangles a dreadlock down into a grasping palm; Rodney bats it away irritably and glares at Ronon, eyes communicating the tirade about hair and hygiene and choking incidence in infancy he can’t spit like he wants to while he’s holding the baby. John bites down on a smile, and turns to Teyla, only to find her eyes, dark and knowing, already on him.
“Would you like to hold him, John?” she asks.
John doesn’t think he reacts, but obviously something gives him away because Rodney’s already rolling his eyes and walking around the bed to sit next to John beside Teyla before he can even begin to stutter that he couldn’t possibly -
“Of course you can. I’ve certainly managed okay and I, as you well know, don’t traditionally do well with kids.” Ronon snorts at this, and Teyla begins to rearrange John where he sits, speaking softly in his ear, but all he can focus on is the baby, somehow more alarmingly small up close than he was from the doorway.
“But what if I - ” he begins, shifting hesitantly.
“You won’t,” says Rodney, “Now stop fidgeting.”
“You don’t even know what I - ”
“Was going to say?”
“Rodney,” John tries, panicking now and really not caring about hiding it.
“John.” And it’s his name that does it, soft-spoken in the silver-white afternoon sunshine, and the blue of Rodney’s eyes as he lays a barely-there weight into the crook of John’s arm. “I - I r-really don’t, ah…” John trails off as Rodney’s hand cups his elbow, cool and reassuringly there, holding his arms (which absolutely are not shaking) steady.
John can feel Teyla’s thigh resting against his own, her hand light on his shoulder as she strokes her son’s silky eyebrows. Behind him, Ronon is a solid presence. John can feels the baby’s heartbeat, his breathing, strong for something, someone, so… so very, very small and, and utterly helpless.
Helpless.
Rodney’s chest is pressed up against the length of his back, supporting him. The weight of one arm, stretched out for balance across John’s shoulder is grounding, soothing. John observes tiny, tiny fingernails, clenched fists and curled toes, then looks back up into dark, dark eyes just as they open. He can’t help the hitch in his breath as he looks down at this baby, Teyla’s son, into his eyes for the first time.
“Hey, buddy…” he whispers, and feels his lips lift up at the corners.
“See,” Rodney whispers back, “S’not so bad.”
John lifts his eyes, catches Rodney's and says, “No. No, it isn’t,” a full, bright smile forming in the purpling twilight.